The scene: kindergarten. You’ve just gotten up from your nap. You had your snack. Now it’s time to play with scissors and cut out shapes that are supposed to resemble a dog. You go to cut into the flimsy construction paper, and find the scissors don’t work right — because they're not made for you. Frustration isn’t the only thing lefties deal with; on this International Left-Handers Day, we pause to consider the physical and psychological struggles lefties face in a right-handers world.

The spaghetti ladle has the tines on the wrong wide for you to properly scoop, yes, but if you can’t eat spaghetti, does that mean you’re healthier? Who knows! In any case, handedness actually starts in your head. The brain is divided into two halves, the left and right side. About 30 percent of lefties prefer the right hemisphere or have no dominant hemisphere, which is an issue because it’s much more efficient to have one hemisphere dominate (someone needs to be in charge), reported Everyday Health. That means lefties are at increased risk for learning impairments and brain disorders, the site reported.

Southpaws fare worse according to development measures, too. “We… find robust evidence that left-handed (and mixed-handed) children perform significantly worse in nearly all measures of development than right-handed children, with the relative disadvantage being larger for boys than girls.” reported a 2009 Australian study.

It gets worse; lefties have a greater chance of being delusional. Yale researchers found that among people with mental illnesses, those with psychotic disorders like schizophrenia are more likely to be left-handed. “In general, people with psychosis are those who have lost touch with reality in some way, through hallucinations, delusions, or false beliefs, and it is notable that this symptom constellation seems to correlate with being left-handed,” said Jadon Webb, of Yale, in a statement.

Brilliant creatives have a reputation for being left-handed, so perhaps only the delusional and those carrying false beliefs are audacious enough to try and make a living doing art: lefty Leonardo da Vinci, for example. Lefties do have a documented advantage, however, in one area related to creativity, Everyday Health reported. They’re better at divergent thinking, a method used to generate creative ideas by exploring many possible solutions; in other words, out-of-the-box thinking. If presented with a yellow or blue pill, lefties might ask for a green pill. “I’ve just got this feeling…”

Left-handers are more affected by fear, and not just because they came out of the womb disadvantaged, face a risk of developmental delays, and may become psychotics. In one study, when participants were asked to recall moments from a clip taken from “Silence of the Lambs,” left-handed volunteers gave more fragmented accounts filled with more repetition than right-handers, an effect common in PTSD sufferers, the Telegraph reported.

Who may they blame/give credit to for their various issues? Mom. She gets blamed for everything, so why not add left-handed to the list. Fetuses are more likely to show left-handed movements in the womb when their mothers are stressed, according to researchers at Durham and Lancaster universities. And the more the mothers reported being stressed, the more fetuses touched their faces with their left hands, though this didn’t necessarily mean the babies would permanently become lefties.

One website, lefthandersday.com, encourages all lefties to be proud, and raise awareness of the everyday issues lefties face living in a righty’s world. It even sells a “left handers day product set” that features a scissors. A good lefty scissors won’t make you brave, smart, or give you great career success, but it may help protect your sanity, even beyond kindergarten.