Neil T. AndersonFreedom in Christ Ministries · Pastor

If people really knew me, they wouldn't like me

15 Feb 2026 · 2 min

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2:02

In this monologue, the speaker recounts growing up in the shadow of an older brother who received a very high IQ score. When the speaker’s own IQ results arrived, the mother downplayed them, fostering a belief that the speaker was not as smart. Teachers reinforced this by comparing the speaker to the brother, prompting the speaker to seek validation elsewhere. The speaker turned to sports—soccer, wrestling, track—earning records and accolades, yet even those achievements were often misattributed to a different student, deepening feelings of invisibility. Throughout junior high, high school, and college, the speaker internalized the lie that if people truly knew them, they would reject them, leading to a performance‑based identity. The narrative concludes with a reference to “freedom in Christ,” suggesting that the speaker is now confronting these lies through a spiritual lens.

Chapters

In sixth grade, my brother, three years ahead of me, as I mentioned, he got his IQ test results home, and mom opened those, and there was much rejoicing because he got a very high IQ score. And so I remembered that for three years later, when my envelope came home and mom opened my envelope and read my score, I was excited for there to be much rejoicing, only the reaction was a little bit different, right? She closed it back up and put it away and said, let's not talk about your score now. I know mom was just trying to spare me hurt feelings of not scoring as high as Robbie, but this is where, too, I mean, part of what I learned through freedom in Christ is the enemy loves to take things like that and twist them and cause us to believe a lot, right? And so what was the lie? Not so smart. I'm not so smart, and I can't measure up. So then when I went to junior high and all my teachers were like, oh, you're Robby's little brother. I'm. Yeah, but don't expect me to get the grades he got. And so I thought, well, I need to make a name for myself somehow else. So I was in soccer and wrestled and ran track and made a name for myself that way. Although when I set records or made athlete of the week, the principal, who didn't know me quite as well as the vice principal, who was the disciplinarian, apparently that trend continued beyond elementary school. He said that this guy named Don Stud got all of my accolades. So, Don, wherever you are today, congratulations. So, you know, even in my accomplishments, I didn't get credit for it. But I thought, right, I bought that lie of the world that if I perform, if I look a certain way, if I'm friendly enough, people will like me. Because my. My inner struggle was if people really knew me, they wouldn't like me. They would reject me. And that was. That was all through junior high and high school and on into college.