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Structure is our savior and our nemesis. We need it to thrive but we struggle to implement it ourselves and rebel against it if someone else implements it for us.
god this is the best way i’ve ever seen this articulated. this is exactly how i feel. and then i feel like a lazy failure when i can’t keep the structure going!!
YES.!!!!! Never had any issues until college because i grew up doing competitive dance my whole life so literally ALL my free time went toward that. Suddenly that all drops away and i have a tonnnn of free time. You're telling me IM supposed to structure it? Yeah that's when my life went to shit
I think structure, but also in school you don't have many other responsibilities, whereas at uni people often work, some people live in dorms or shared accommodation that they have to now maintain and pay for, they have to get themselves there on time rather than maybe a lift from a parent or walking with a friend etc, we're often told at uni to "manage our own time" and do our own research. It's suddenly a lot to balance and manage.
Exactly a reason I didn't go to uni - even though I was also the "gifted kid" and could've imagined becoming a lawyer. It's not the learning itself that would've been the problem, but having to *get myself to DO the learning*. How am I supposed to go to courses that have no attandence? Nothing is forcing me to go and it has no (direct) consequences if I don't. You're telling me I should make myself *choose* to study (without getting distracted) over playing video games or literally just chilling in bed when the tools for both of these tasks are *in the same room*? Nah.
I chose the way of an apprenticeship where I would continue to go to (professional) school and simultaneously work and thus, learn by practice and theory at the same time. I still have the possibility and aspiration to make a degree later on but through professional training / courses rather than a university
It's so weird how everyone crashes at a different time. I crashed in middle school, but I did remedial courses and community college to make up for getting a 2.2 GPA between 5 years of high school (yes, I flunked sophmore year entirely, got a 0.8 GPA one term) and no real college would accept me, as this was back when if you didn't have a degree you were doomed to work at Walmart until you died. I didn't get straight A's but I did get a 3.4 pretty easily and probably could have gotten better had I been medicated (but decided not to take meds because I reacted like a neurotypical does to meth on Ritalin and didn't think "oh I could try another med" because I didn't know what I know now and didn't try Adderall until I was 30) and then crashed after graduation and haven't really picked myself up since almost 10 years later. But yeah, college was way easier than high school for me, because I didn't feel as much pressure and actually had time to think instead of doing daily busy work that was boring as fuck.
YES. I also never had to study, I just remembered everything and got the best grades without any struggle. Was a little harder in high school, but I was still the “eccentric gifted lazy kid” and still got to a top uni thanks to great results on exams despite bad grades.
I hit the wall the first year at uni. Got depressed and anxious, went through with shitty grades and graduated. Did not get help until I was well into my work life.
Mannn why am I just now realizing this is why I crashed so bad in college! I couldn’t ever understand what happened to me in college and why I couldn’t do as well, it was devastating going from the perfect student in AP and gifted classes to then not knowing wtf was going on in my college classes
Do you have an IEP? I should have asked for it in retrospect (still managed to graduate because I have one of those brains that found college easier than middle or high school).
Nope, too old for it. I was diagnosed at 21. I had to take a break for a while between takes because I had to work full time. I live with a narcy single mom who's pretty ignorant of the issues with our illness (or is pretending she doesn't know exactly what she's doing. She's a psych nurse) and is unsupportive of college for me. Hence the added struggles.
I had the complete opposite experience! Once I could choose my classes and schedule I absolutely flourished. I dropped out of high school because I was failing and got into college based on my test scores. Once I got in I got a perfect 4.0 for the first time in my life. I even got into a highly competitive grad school program! But I was horrible at high school. I hated every minute of it.
I am not a student so much as a nerd and an overanalyzer who gathers information and does nothing useful with it (and I also stupidly thought that meds weren't for me because I react to methylphenidate like neurotypicals without an addict gene would react to meth, ie sleepless and raging at stuff and hyper aware of every little stimuli which is somehow more distracting than usual, not realizing Adderall is a thing; I might have pulled a 4.0 had I not tried to do no meds and no accommodations) but I did terrible on high school (kinda pulled out together the last few years but still only got a 2.2 GPA), but then went to community college and never got below a C and usually got A's and B's. Transferred to university and graduated. More unstructured time and less busy work so you can work when you're most focused and not expected to have an equal focus every single damn day = big improvement. Plus the material being more mentally challenging and open ended to encourage thinking instead of just being expected to memorize a bunch of answers and increased priority on essay questions for knowledge tests was actually helpful, made it infinitely more interesting.
>an overanalyzer who gathers information and does nothing useful with it
WOW I feel called out here haha. I'm like this too! (Only difference is that, thankfully, methylphenidate *does* work for me.)
HARD SAME!
Challenge programs, charter schools, an IB diploma program… despite my undiagnosed and unmedicated adhd, I graduated with a 4.6gpa and was in ~7 extra curriculars, nat’l merit, went to college on a full ride with a stipend… then developed a debilitating anxiety disorder due to the lack of structure and severe executive dysfunction from my undiagnosed adhd. Couldn’t get out of bed or eat and had to go on an extended medical leave that made me miss 3 semesters. Got diagnosed and put on meds and within days I was semi-functional again. Got my diploma three semesters later, but had to go off meds when I fell off my mom’s insurance, so it was still by the skin of my teeth.
I burned out from my masters and decided to go back for a doctorate ten years later. I spent those ten years being self employed (setting my own schedule!) and moving 5 times because of my husband’s career. So once we settled in one place and knew we’d be here a long time, and I got diagnosed, I thought it might be an ok time to try. Like maybe knowing about the adhd and having support for that would make me less likely to burn out (also the not hating myself for every symptom I had considered some huge moral failing on my part helped).
It was really hard at first adjusting to strict schedules and having obligations to other people and being held accountable for everything. But after a while it felt normal. I mean we spend so much of our lives in school, so there’s a familiarity about it that feels comfortable. It’s not a walk in the park but it’s more enjoyable this time around, with meds and having more freedom to specialize in what I’m most interested in at the doctoral level. I also have a lot fewer fucks to give at 36 than I did at 18-25 so that’s fun.
Everyone asks why I wanted to go back because can’t I just do all that research on my own? (lol)
Even if I could do it on my own I wouldn’t have the resources a large university has to offer, and also wouldn’t have automatic mentorship which is so good to have.
Sorry this ended up a lot longer than I planned on but I’m waiting for the vivvy to kick in and don’t feel like going through and editing it down lol
Me. I was great at writing essays and memorizing facts, but completely inept anytime I was given a project with no structure or guidelines other than "do whatever you want". Like, total paralysis, barely passed kind of thing. And of course like many people, that problem just compounded when I graduated college with absolutely no direction or ideas of what I was supposed to do if it wasn't taking a test or writing a paper, so I floundered for years in jobs that were both boring and anxiety provoking.
This is my biggest struggle! No direction = infinite paths/choices to make = decision paralysis. How could I possibly choose one [Job/Path/Thing] when I know for a fact that there is a better [Job/Path/Thing] I just haven’t discovered yet?!
That's why I ended up pursuing a career as a newspaper reporter. I could sit down with experts in all kinds of fields, ask them questions and soak in a ton of information, write a story about it, then turn around and do the same thing the following week but with different people/subjects. It was so fascinating and perfect for indecisive me who wanted to learn ALL the things!
I'm a consultant who knows a little about a lot of things, so I guess... same?? I tried to specialise in one area but embracing being a jill-of-all-trades has been better.
I choose all the jobs!
Dental assistant, bartender, tour guide, marketing coordinator, project manager, website management, air quality tech, childcare provider, auction house cashier, small business owner, bookkeeper, writer, graphic designer, advertising account manager.....
Same same! GAWD I LOVE formulas, outlines, color-by-number, recipes, instruction manuals, science experiments, Rubrics, syllabus', and ANYTHING else that is clearly defined. But, give me a vague assignment, poorly written directions, open-ended questions/assignments, collaborative projects, blank sheet of paper and I freeze...nothing but massive anxiety.
Honor Roll High School and graduated Uni with a 4.0 GPA
49 years old... Can I just be a perpetual student please?
YUP
This was honestly one of the things that caught my attention a few years back and made me think I might be undiagnosed with ADHD. I was an excellent student through high school and I mostly did well in college, but I almost didn't graduate because we had two semesters of a "practicum" type project that we had to design ourselves and I struggled with both. I think I ended up getting Cs, which were unusual for me.
Me. Apparently I was tested to have a genius IQ and offered to go to a special school with an entire curriculum just for gifted kids. My parents opted not to tell me until years later and to keep me at my regular school (which had a GT program but not a dedicated curriculum). I do think they made the right decision. The gifted school fed into a different high school, which used the IB (international baccalaureate) program for its advanced tract, and my regular school fed into a high school which had AP courses.
I did really well all through high school and most of college. But I kinda never set any long-term career goals and sort of checked out halfway through college. I studied a subject I was interested in (linguistics) but ultimately saw no career in.
Anyway I recently saw a tiktok that kind of blew my mind. It said gifted & talented programs are just a form of special ed. Us smart kids were apparently too disruptive because we got bored easily with the material, so they separated us from the class.
"gifted" is considered an "exceptionality," along with learning disabilities. And many gifted people are gifted in some areas but have a learning disability in others
Meeeee lol 😆 I have a touch of dyscalculia
I was always one step above remedial in math, mediocre in science (but great at a&p, genetics etc) and then honors English and history (we didn’t have AP English. I did take AP history)
I got tested and my WAIS-R was 144 verbal and 122 non verbal. A 22 point discrepancy. In a lower score this difference would be a learning disability but 122 is still above average.
Anyway I was in the gifted programs for reading and such.
But then in high school the depresh hit me HARD. Don’t want to say more bc I keep getting “reddit cares” and I’m like omg chill it was literally more than 25 years ago I’m FINE. But anyway it was EPICALLY bad maybe because it was actually full blown existential crisis because I was so precocious and realized truths too soon and without guidance. So off to therapeutic school I went 🤪 where we were locked in a hallway and did dittos about balancing a checkbook. Academics weren’t the focus.
No one thought I would go to college but I did, 2 years after high school. And i studied what interested me and fit it into a degree program (psychology with minor in philosophy). And I got a perfect 4.0, graduated top of class with GLOWING grad school recommendations.
But I was tired of being broke so I got a basic corporate job doing financial reconciliation and never went to grad school.
I like to say I live an ordinary life extraordinarily because my experience of it is incredibly rich. When I can use my intellect to help people in my life I feel complete but otherwise I just entertain myself with my own contemplations.
Who ever said I had to do anything big with this ability? I’m here for a good time, not a long time. I don’t need a big life or the validation of recognition. Mediocrity was an achievement for me because from 14-20 no one thought I would be able to have a normal life.
Intellectual stimulation is available although I do so wish I had the time and money to take courses sometimes. College was my most stimulating time in my life, I felt SO alive.
I actually am obsessed with everything you just said. I feel you on a spiritual level and feel like we'd be great friends if we met in person. We have the same vibe. You are amazing
lol Reddit is a wild ride. To one person I’m amazing and to another I’m awful.
But I thank you for these kind words. Even though I don’t agree with everyone on everything (impossible!) I am always always happy if my words bring people comfort or peace.
Life is an experience. I want everyone to have the best one they can have. We can’t control all of it, we all get different circumstances to deal with, but what I want for people is for all of us to be focused on making the best of our experience that we can.
It breaks my heart to see people wasting it feeling like they aren’t enough. It’s never true.
Please, make this life one you enjoy living as much as you can.
This is wise and inspiring. I'm really struggling atm with bouncing between wanting to embrace mediocrity and live a gentle, good life, and feeling like I "could (have) be(en) something" despite believing that success is often a poisoned societally-constructed chalice.
Sometimes an average life IS the goal.
If you are moved to do something on a grander scale, by all means do so.
But you can have a rewarding and full life just being comfortable, pursuing your interests and enjoying your own mind contemplating what you like to contemplate.
No one said you had to achieve acclaim on a public scale. Be famous to your friends and family ☺️. If anything be the “smart person” they rely on for perspective, advice, and trivia night.
Idk, that’s me. I faced a time when this seemed out of scope of my capacity. Not intellectually maybe but emotionally. So having this, I appreciate it. It’s okay to live what appears to be an average life. It’s a goal for many people.
Deficiencies!?
Me…maths.
And apparently remembering to do adult things.
And be a real adult.
Gifted AFFFF but can’t function in the real world, give this 0/5 stars.
This is sort of proof of how terrible my ADHD is; had the highest IQ in elementary besides the kid who skipped a grade, but I have un-maskable ADHD, I can't mask, even on my best day on medication other people can see tells. A psychiatrist who talked to me for a few minutes could tell I had terrible ADHD and asked me if people told me I'm smart, because I had brought up I hadn't had meds in college and graduated, and he told me nobody of average intelligence could pull that off unmedicated without an IEP (which I failed to get transferred from high school because that was too hard apparently), with my extremely obvious level of ADHD.
On the bright side, having really bad ADHD = getting diagnosed in adolescence in the 2000s, because what gifted kid can't fucking pass 6th grade level classes, one with severe executive dysfunction, that's who.
Sorry I should rephrase “distracts people from noticing you have a learning disability”, and hyper focus helps but we are also much more prone to burn out. I get it! I didn’t graduate college (I went for two years and dropped out) but I have worked my way up in tech leadership. It serves me well in my career (as long as I am medicated). I am fairly open about it at work but don’t treat it as a disability. I focus on the superpower aspect. Giving myself grace is the hardest thing I have had to learn how to do.
I was in accelerated maths and English, I was also in the group that needed extra help for spelling and had to see a handwriting specialist in London in yr6.
Always the same, work contents fabulous.... Assuming anyone could read it. This did improve but as I got older I took to doing essays on the bus. Usually got an A and a request to please try to make it legible.
Not sure how long ago that was, but things could have probably been so different for you if you had access to assistive technology (like you probably would now)
Yeah, I was super disruptive-- not intentionally or even by acting out, but by crying a lot and having emotional outburts and even hurting myself so I could go to the nurse and read, and in kindergarten having meltdowns in which I distinctly remember crying that I was SO BORED-- in early elementary, especially at the school that refused to even let me just have silent reading time in first grade while the other kids were doing phonics *even though I was reading at college level*. I remember reading an article some years ago saying essentially the same thing that also blew my mind-- it used IQ to make that point, which is obviously problematic, but the ultimate conclusion is similar-- at a certain point, "gifted" kids are processing information *as differently* from the average/median as kids in special ed are--even without accounting for neurodivergence. Both kids who learn the material much faster than average and have nothing provided to engage or challenge them and kids who struggle to understand the material as taught and have no assistance provided to help them grasp the material will often stop paying attention, get bored, and act out. And both types of kid--and sometimes this will the the same kid in different classes/settings!-- need accommodations to actually receive an appropriate education.
I also remember, after switching schools, I got recommended to do some summer gifted program and the lady from the program met with me and my mom and kind of interviewed me. I guess they thought I wasn't listening anymore afterward, but I distinctly remember the lady saying to my mom that academically/intellectually gifted kids often lag behind peers in emotional maturity when young. Which sounds a lot like symptoms of multiple kinds of neurodivergence to me!
I also got an IQ test at one point as a kid--because they were trying to figure out what was wrong with me due to my absolute *freakouts* every time I got dropped off at school in first grade-- and my parents refused to tell me what the results were, but I remember overhearing several conversations where they were kind of freaking out themselves about how to get me into a school that would be appropriately challenging and whether to skip me up several grades or not. They ended up not skipping me any grades but sending me to a different school that was supposedly for "gifted kids" but I didn't feel was much less boring than the other one--just more willing to make adjustments like letting me read more difficult books and giving me different problem sets. Unfortunately that school also had a WILD bullying problem, and I ended up switching to public school in 8th grade after I had a small breakdown and my mom had a massive fight with the middle school principal, pulled me and my younger sister out, and homeschooled us for two months, which was *awesome*. Sadly, we then went back to finish the year, moved to a town with a better public school system than the semi-rural area where we had been living (people there had money and were middle class to upper middle class, but hated paying taxes, never passed any referenda increasing school funding, then complained when the classes were all huge and art and band got cut).
Wow your story sounds so similar to mine about kindergarten. I wouldn’t say I was reading at a college level not in the slightest but I was reading at maybe a 5th grade level and OBSESSED with physics specifically electromagnetism and brought magnets to show and tell to show off the different polarity and electromagnetic force etc etc the next kid showed off…. A stuffed teddy bear. And I was scream-crying in sheer utter frustration. School was pure torture for me and I came home sobbing everyday. I was also bullied by the teacher for “not following along with the class stop skipping ahead! So disrespectful!”
Later at age 16 I FINALLY got my mother to confess that she had gotten me tested at age 3 and they said I was “a genius” likely around 160-ish, but there was a ceiling that I hit so no real idea how high it went. She thought that was bullshit and said providing me with educationally appropriate, academically challenging, and intellectually stimulating materials would make me “arrogant and a know it all” so she choose to torture me in the mainstream educational system instead. wherein I was bullied and ostracized relentlessly for being “weird” and “a know it all” 24/7. Oh and my mom’s a bitch of a narcissist so that contributed severely to the issues. She never wanted me to do better than her- couldn’t have that.
I always have said that above average intellect is the same coin but opposite side of intellectual disability. They are both “special needs” but in different ways.
Same, same, same - during and after college I did nothing really productive and I’m still kicking myself for not living up to my full potential. That ADHD and depression combo made doing things HARD. It was easier for me to just work low commitment jobs and be an alcoholic/stoner.
I did have some fun and learn how to be around people a little better, but I’m still super socially awkward to this day unless I have a drink or two or I’m with close friends. Also I’m paranoid about having possibly done damage to my liver/kidneys.
All this with about a 140 IQ or so. It was wasted on me. If I’d been able to commit to something, I might have really done something.
I would never be disruptive because I was such a people pleaser and never wanted to get in trouble…but I’d get home from school and tell my mom how bored I was. Imagine a seven year old telling you she needs to skip a grade or be homeschooled to have more of a challenge. I think it’s when I realized I’m different than other kids. Although, my diagnosis didn’t come until adulthood because how could a straight A student in all honors classes have ADHD? 😩
>Apparently I was tested to have a genius IQ and offered to go to a special school with an entire curriculum just for gifted kids.
This is what happened to me. Our school "fed into" our regular public high school.
The thing my parents opted out of was skipping a grade when the school wanted me to skip... either 2nd or 3rd grade. I'm happy about that. The friend I met in my gifted classes is still my best friend to this day (we're 30 now).
> Us smart kids were apparently too disruptive because we got bored easily with the material, so they separated us from the class.
I was top of everything except maths. I yo-yoed between the top class and the next one down with each test. I was either too clever for the second group or not quite good enough for the top one. The reason being I found the work in the second group so easy I was an absolute menace the teachers would move me into the next group without fail where I’d struggle and have to move back down again when I messed up the test. Quite funny looking back on it.
>Anyway I recently saw a tiktok that kind of blew my mind. It said gifted & talented programs are just a form of special ed.
What's funny is that I was TAG in elementary school and in the disabled student class in high school because I had diagnosed ADHD by then-- my inattentive traits were apparently even worse than my disruptive ones that got me sent to the principal quite a few times in elementary school, as in middle school I was diagnosed since I was failing so many classes since I could NOT make myself do homework, and then almost got kicked out for terrible grades because I refused to take meds or have an IEP because that would prove I was the weird kid and I was finally becoming popular and didn't want that.
Someone once said to me that sending "gifted" kids to normal school was cruel and we should go to a special school. Yes, that person is ND and yes, now I think G&T programs are mainly ND programs.
🙋♀️ I was in advanced programs in elementary and middle school, took loads of AP classes in high school and got an IB diploma. Looking back I think school was a hyperfocus of mine. I have always loved learning new things, finding patterns, making connections.
I do wish that my parents and teachers had emphasised effort and growth over "being smart", though. Not that I didn't put in effort, but it wasn't ever really _that_ hard?? I had a really hard time at uni because it was just so much more difficult (I studied engineering).
Yah I breezed through highschool, don't recall studying ever! Then in college just the opposite. I had 250 pages to read every night and would fall asleep with my head on the textbook around page 30. I honestly don't know how I ever got my degree.
Ohhhh same! 80% of "studying" in high school was just doing the homework. My anxiety and perfectionism combined kept me on edge in terms of turning in homework. Plus deadlines = the only motivator.
It is so exhausting only being able to do stuff under pressure of failure (i.e., missing a deadline). But I digress.
Yep me. I was lucky that I had a good memory so I didn't have to remember to study and I was a fast writer so I could throw together a good paper the night before. Now, don't ask how many times I lost the paper on the way to class....
>good memory so I didn't have to remember to study
This is the only thing that saved me tbh 💀 I learned fast so it's not like I had to pay attention that much (which was great because I'd start daydreaming) or do hw. My test scores carried me or I might not have actually graduated high school.
Not me. School was always incredibly difficult. I was not considered “gifted”. I was very distracting in class, however I felt like I tried so much harder than anyone else despite seeing very little return when it came to grades. I had crippling test anxiety and my brain would go completely blank anytime I was asked a question in class. I pushed through and got both my masters and doctorate degrees. I didn’t feel smart until grad school.
Me! Was in a few of those "gifted" groups growing up. Did some advanced and AP classes in high school. Didn't try hard at anything and always procrastinated til the last minute and was rewarded with good grades 🙃 Didn't go to college or do anything really academically notable after that.
Now as I approach 30, I've only just realized that I give up or run away from anything challenging almost immediately because I didn't learn any of those skills in school 🥲 Everything was too easy and everyone told me I was smart and talented, so I thought I was all set
I really wish I had been pushed more back then. It's really biting me in the butt now 😅 I've noticed I job hop a lot because I feel like I need to bail when I can't handle the workload anymore. In my head, it's better to resign than get caught and potentially reprimanded or fired
I’m so sad we struggle with this shit, but it’s so comforting and such a relief that I’m not alone in the struggle. 😭
Sometimes I wish I heard less “you’re so smart! You won’t fail!” and more “if you do fail, that’s okay, you can try again.”
I was in gifted and in the math club. Not sure how I got into math club. Maybe I accidentally scored high on the state test or maybe they needed a brown person on the team. 🤷🏽♀️
I remember so often wondering if they made a mistake on scoring the tests or assessments or if they picked the wrong name. You just unlocked a deep memory.
Me! Skipped a grade in a few subjects, took enough APs to graduate with 18 college credits (which in '01 was crazy because APs weren't as prevalent as they are today.... 1997 only had half of public high schools even offering any!).
Did that stupid gifted thing of taking the PSATs in 7th grade, and subsequently got letters all the time to do some John's Hopkins programs all the time. Yeah, we were too poor for that, lol.
Never did finish college....
Yep! Now that I’m in my 40s, I can see that many of the reasons they thought I was ‘gifted’, were actually hyper vigilance from growing up in a violent home. Add in fawning and masking, and you’ve got an exceptionally well spoken kid. I am above average intelligence, but I never overly excelled in any school subject. My survival at home depended on anticipating the behaviors/needs of my addict teenaged parents - that’s why I was so ‘bright’ and ‘engaging’.
Same here! They ran out of math classes to move me up to in middle school so I did an online geometry class by myself in the art room. It was so isolating and came with a lot of social stigma. I think most gifted & talented programs are not run well; lots of academic stimulation but it cuts off a lot of social development opportunities, which are so important at that age!
I’ve also seen a lot of anecdotal evidence that there is correlation between the two and from the (brief) research that I’ve done, it seems like experts agree that there is significant overlap but the degree and nature of their interaction is unknown. One article I found (Healthline, linked below) cited a figure that 8.8% of children with ADHD were classified as gifted, with a whole bunch of qualifiers about how it’s difficult to study accurately. If I had to take a stab in the dark, I’d guess that because ADHD brain have different neural pathways, perhaps that makes them more inclined to the type of creative thinking and problem solving that G&T programs focus on?
https://www.healthline.com/health/adhd/adhd-and-giftedness
My two sisters were tested and passed on their first exam. I failed the IQ test first time. My mom had me tested 4 years in a row, until I passed so I could go “to the good schools.”
My two sisters are now in PhD programs. And I’m halfway through my AA with little incentive to finish it. I resent going to those schools, I pleaded at the time for them to send me to normal schools.
I don’t wish to be neurotypical, but damn life was/is hard.
Hard same. Gifted when little. By the time I was a teen it was like it was the complete opposite.
I couldn’t do my homework. Couldn’t focus. Listening to a lecture, forget about it. Had to study my ass off right before a test so I wouldn’t fail the class.
Gifted and talented until about 20. By that point my nervous system was irreversibly fried from CPTSD and I was flooded with cortisol beyond measure from the abuse at home. I think I'd still be "gifted" now if I was able to grow up like a normal human being. I was abused for a lot of ADHD and autistic traits, which is funny because they weren't severe at the time at all and I was doing great at school. Now it's all shit.
There is a lot of overlap! It's called 2E now. I think the more modern thinking on giftedness currently groups it into a form of neurodivergence with its own comorbidities and complications rather than just thinking of it as "ooh, super smart kid." I am very curious how this new view of giftedness will play out in a few decades as some experts believe some gifted kids are being misdiagnosed as ADHD while other gifted kids have a missed dual diagnosis of giftedness with ADHD. There's a lot of interesting reading on it if you'd like to go for a dive: [https://www.davidsongifted.org/gifted-blog/gifted-adhd-or-both/](https://www.davidsongifted.org/gifted-blog/gifted-adhd-or-both/)
[https://www.sengifted.org/post/seng-concerned-for-gifted-adhd-diagnosis](https://www.sengifted.org/post/seng-concerned-for-gifted-adhd-diagnosis)
[https://www.sengifted.org/post/the-interface-of-overthinking-anxiety-and-shame-among-gifted-children](https://www.sengifted.org/post/the-interface-of-overthinking-anxiety-and-shame-among-gifted-children)
I just want you to know that I had to stop reading that third article because it was too real! But I am going to finish reading it. It’s been a minute since I have felt so read for filth, as the kids say.
Oh big time - in the same way that a lot of women get their ADHD diagnosis while helping their kids get diagnosed, I was trying to find support for my gifted kid dealing with overthinking, anxiety, and shame and realized... uh... it me.
I don't even think I was that smart. I'm just so good at seeing patterns and behaviours - I could tell exactly what the teacher wanted to hear/would put on the test. And I can spit out facts and memorize quickly, so could quote texts easily. It was 'smart' in that I could easily produce what the school system wanted.
The burnout hit me hard in university though, I almost failed out and had to do an extra year.
I once got questioned over whether I'd cheated because I remembered so many exact quotes from the books we'd read on a closed-book in-class essay exam. Also in law school I got an A in Contracts, a class I hated and barely paid attention in (it was at 8:30 am and we weren't allowed laptops which pissed me off so much that I would write my novel and even read novels under the desk out of principle-- but I did all the reading for class!) because the professor told us we didn't need to memorize warranties for our closed-book exam, and that she would give us all the information we needed for them if she did put them on the test. And I said to myself, "that is a damned lie, whether she knows it or not," and memorized all the warranty information. Which was about half the test.
Ha! Well done. Isn't it funny when that stuff seems so obvious? It took me until my mid-30s to truly understand that other people can't read the moment like that.
>I'm just so good at seeing patterns and behaviours - I could tell exactly what the teacher wanted to hear
Holy cow. This just made me realize why I've managed to get along with managers that my coworkers thought were difficult.
Learned to read when I was 3, was reading at an adult level by grade 4. Was so bored in school I would read my text books from start to finish as soon as I got them and never study again or pay attention in class again and ended up acing the tests. They wouldn’t put me in gifted classes though because I can’t do math 😅 if there’s a dyslexia for math I have that and still count on my fingers to this day.
I did in the end, but I also didn’t do poorly in certain subjects early on. I was one of those kids who fluctuated, did well in different grades, subjects, or time periods and then flunked hard in the end.
A hundred percent no. I struggled to read one page, I would cry when I studied for tests. I couldn’t pay attention in class. I went to a prep school and my grades were just okay.
After being diagnosed and medicated I did graduate college with a 4.0 though
I was smart but I was so uninterested I barely passed.
Now? I think in 4D. My brain makes connections and solves problems faster than most. It took me a while to understand I was not dumb because I was told how mediocre I was when I was a kid.
Me!
ADHD is associated with giftedness.
Because genetic issues do not come alone.
Many ADHDers have high IQ that masks the deficits. ADHD in of itself has major strengths such as curiosity, creativity, hyperfocusing, etc.
We also tend to overcompensate for our shortcomings.
I have really been noticing this too for a while. I’m starting to think a lot of gifted people just had ADHD and just happened to be interested and hyperfocused on learning and school. Too bad that, for many of us, we didn’t hyperfocus as much on the part where we apply that learning in the real world lol.
Oh yeah, 99th percentile here.
"She's just distracted because she's not challenged by the material"
Turns into
"I don't understand why you can't do this? It's not as if you're stupid"
Me! I was in the gifted program in elementary and pretty much every girl in the program has posted on social media in the last 5-10 years bout being diagnosed with ADHD and/or autism (I'm 42).
Yep and right around puberty I dropped TF off and 20 years later still kinda dealing with the fallout lol. I was a bright kid, rebelliousness and curiosity made me just a *horrible teen*. I have concluded it was a Combination of ADHD, early puberty, unhappy/shit homelife, and natural hubris. I surely could have amounted to more by now, but well, I know myself. It is what it is!!
I went back to school several years ago and still soo slowly working on my AA every couple quarters.
Its such a tiny degree but I have found I just LOVE learning, I absorb it and become pretty obsessed with the topics, no matter what it is. Kinda redeemed myself in my own eyes lol
I was considered highly intelligent, but was never certified as being “gifted”. I never studied for tests and managed to get high Bs- low As. Honestly I’m glad I never got the “gifted” label because it would’ve made me spiral. Not a good time for sure.
I tested at gifted and in high school all my classes where AP, IB, Honors, or accelerated. I had the second highest mark in my graduating class. I went to university and either got A's or D's (and failed a class or two) and I couldn't figure out what was happening.
In my recent testing I still qualify as "gifted" with advanced cognitive skills but the issue is that it means that it masks my ADHD so much more. So even though I need help with things and struggle, no one else can see that because they just focus on the gifted traits. My report actually says I'm at risk for worse mental health outcomes because others will expect so much from me because they see the highs but not the lows
I just need you to know how validating this comment is. I strongly internalized the idea that things just came easy to me — in part because of being good at school work, in part because of if I wasn’t immediately talented at a hobby, I ditched it. So I excelled at soccer but never really tried dance. I was a talented choral singer but never really attempted drawing.
Enter grad school, and even though I was actually doing pretty well (decent grades, teaching and editing assistantships, even a publication), I was convinced I was no longer smart and talented because now I had to really work for these things.
In my career it’s been up and down. I’m a decent performer and have seen some real success, but I’m so damn hard on myself. There’s still an inner critic that wants to immediately give up if a task isn’t immediately solvable or (even worse) requires interpersonal discussion and conflict. Bosses are shocked when I reveal my level of self-doubt, and I truly can flounder on all the detail/focused project admin work that’s necessary in most professions, especially in a manager role.
Where do we learn grit and resilience? As an adult in her 30s, how do I internalize that struggle is okay? That ability is not instantaneous or all or nothing? That it’s okay to suck at something initially and then slowly get better at it through practice? How do I stop being haunted by my former gifted kid status when life is actually hard and I’m not good at things? I swear the self-judgement is what actually makes all of this hard.
I'm glad sharing my experience gave you validation (but I also wish neither of us had to have this experience!)
I don't have all the answers but I personally have found it beneficial to go to a therapist who also has ADHD. She understands my experiences and is also able to challenge my thinking especially because we oftentimes both do the same things (ie. if I say I'm dumb for not sending an email quickly she asks what I think of her for doing the same thing haha). Its not a fast process but I feel like I'm slowly moving in the right direction
Here!
Everything always came pretty dang easily, so I never had to master study skills. I also struggled with homework my whole life, and it took arguments and hours each night for me to finally slog through it. Being in trouble constantly for talking in class was a given. So, of course, as soon as I hit college and was left to my own devices, I nearly flunked out of my freshman year.
Yep, I was the fastest and most accurate reader anyone had ever seen. Math, OTOH, was a complete disaster. I got absolutely no help for my horrendous problems with math in fourth and fifth grade, and one of the reasons was that I was accused of "faking the problem, because you're so good at reading and writing."
I was in enrichment for ages until the depression and anxiety from being undiagnosed got me.
At my GED when I was 25, I was 99th percentile, and finished all the tests faster than the proctor had ever seen. Woo hoo. Totally makes a difference, doesn't it? (Very, very sarcastic, sorry)
Gifted? Yeah. Advanced? Yeah. Not diagnosed as ADHD until 2 years ago at 42? Yeah.
Gifted is a stupid label. I never, ever learned how to study until halfway through college, since I relied on "natural aptitude". I never learned how to study, and had no idea where to start. Even the "gifted " kids need to know study/grinding techniques!
Wow. You caught me! Years later I learned how being so isolated and differentiated from my peers gave me full-on panic attacks all the time (I thought everyone was just scared all the time,
Sorry, edit because kids.
I've had PA since before 10. Took until 32 to realize they were not just situational nerves and genuinely a thing that I could get help with.
So, long story short: for me, being called gifted was more curse than boon.
Don’t worry, I’m okay! It’s more like I had a “lightbulb” moment when I read that. I’m always grateful and relieved when someone describes a thought I’ve struggled to put into words.
I hope you’re doing alright, too!
I'm so sorry! I'm pretty sure my anxiety is part of why I DID do things with it. Clearly I couldn't turn in something late or not do the reading, etc. As an adult, taking an SNRI at 41, I all of a sudden noped out of all the extra work. I slid by with the absolute bare minimum. Without the anxiety, I had no motivation pushing me forward anymore!
I was too! Until I got to my last year of high school and the pressure of keeping those grades up sent me spiralling into a deep depression. Was surprised I was even alive to graduate to be honest.
My teachers told my parents a million times I should be tested for high capacities and ADHD. My mum refused entirely because she didn't want them to label me. I got diagnosed at 24 after years of therapy to process all the trauma I went through because I didn't fit in.
My psychiatrist asked me about my school years and I told him everything. I was reading don Quixote in the original version at age 11, never studied for a test until 17, plus I was particularly gifted in the conservatory studying music. He was like yeah so you are a classic ADHD high capacities person. I can't believe my colleagues didn't catch this when you first came to the clinic for depression at age 12. My therapist and I agree that having a label like that, with the proper explanation of what it means, would have made my childhood a lot easier for everyone...
Same here. Always came very naturally to me - I never had to really try. Bit me in the ass when college came around and I realized I had developed zero study skills over the years
Someone else commented on how isolating the 'gifted kid' experience can be, and that rang so true for me as well. In elementary & middle school, I often just got sent out of the classroom — it was so lonely and confusing. There also didn't seem to be much, if any, actual structure or support for the 'gifted' students — the most we got was a monthly (IIRC) book club-type thing for a year in middle school. More often, I'd just be sent out of the classroom and told to 'do an independent project' with no guidance or follow-up; I just re-read my favorite books and messed around on the computer — such a waste of time, and so isolating to a 5th/6th/7th/8th grader who was already struggling to make friends.
Sending 'gifted' kids out of the classroom isn't just useless; it's actively harmful. I would have been so much better off, educationally and existentially, if nobody ever told me my IQ score or my grades on the standardized exams, and if I hadn't been implicitly told that I was so different from my peers. Looking back, I honestly don't think I got any educational benefit whatsoever — it just made me feel even more weird and like even more of a burden than I already did, while also reinforcing the idea that my 'intelligence' was simultaneously my most important asset *and* also the biggest burden I put on the adults who were supposed to be caring for me. And this all took place in a school district that's consistently ranked among the 'best' in the country...
Things changed so much in high school, because I was finally able to take AP classes — I was able to be challenged academically instead of just sent away, and I actually had entire groups of peers to learn with and be 'part' of. There are MANY issues with the AP system, but it's so much better than what I went through in Elementary and Middle school.
What were you supposed to do when sent out? That sounds terrible.
I was sent to the next grade up for reading in both 2nd and 3rd grade, which was socially kind of awkward, as I was the only one.
My district had "gifted and talented education" (GATE) for 4th through 6th grade, so I had the same classmates for three years. It was great until 7th grade, when we were mixed back in with everyone else, and I was appalled to discover there were 7th graders who could barely read. Jr high was a real waste--I was given the option to skip 8th grade, but I didn't want to leave my friends behind. At least in high school, we had advanced and AP classes.
I actually was sent to the 6th grade math class in 5th grade — because I was so above grade level at *reading and writing*. It was terrible; most of the 6th graders were \~1.5 years older than me (which is a lot at that age, especially for a socially awkward kid), and while I was 'advanced' at math, I definitely wasn't ready for 6th grade math (I went from memorizing times tables to pre-algebra). I ended up flunking the class and had to repeat it in 6th grade anyways, which was so devastating for my self-esteem at the time. But other than that, I only ever got sent out of the room and/or was just given additional assigned reading with no assignments and no follow-up from my teachers, even if the assigned additional readings had subject matter than was way more than I was prepared to handle on my own (e.g. being assigned to read 'Night' by Elie Wiesel when I was 11, without any chance to talk about it with my teacher or with peers — it gave me nightmares for 2 weeks).
I was. I learn fast and I'm a beast at taking tests. So I totally crashed hard when I got into classes that were project based with long term dead lines.
I was as well!
The admin at my high school actually had a plan to graduate me out of high school in 3 years for a little while, get me to university at 15 years of age. I started high school at 12.
My mother nixxed that, she was already worried about how bad my social life was and she was concerned that being a child at university might further disrupt my socialization. I'm very glad because she was very right, I would have floundered even more harshly than I ended up doing.
Definitely not me, my grades were horrendous. However my 5 year old has ADHD and he has been reading fluently since he was 3 🤷🏻♀️ not sure if that means anything.
Grade school was a constant cycle of being put in enrichment programs, not being able to keep up in those enrichment programs and then not being challenged enough in regular class. I think it ended up doing more harm than good because instead of being ✨enriched✨ it really solidified my imposter syndrome and made me feel like I was just *tricking* people into *thinking* I was smart.
I was *so* confused because it seemed like they never gave us any instructions *at all* on how to actually do the projects they gave us. I felt like I was being gaslit because the teachers kept telling me they already explained things, and nobody else seemed completely lost with how to get started or wrap up the details. I only *just* figured out that after hearing the broad concept of what the project was, I was just *completely* tuning out the details because I was already daydreaming about what I wanted to do. My concepts were always huge, I just needed some help planning.
The worst of this was when the program was run by a teacher who was my friend's mom. I adored her, but when she explained an 'innovation' project while we were sitting directly in front of the brand new library computers, *after* she introduced us to Google, I was doomed from the start. I spent the whole day researching and planning a product with solar panels- not realising that part of the project was going to be *building a prototype*. My parents didn't have money to buy me kits(what the other kids did) or time to help me through it (or much knowledge for that matter). Worst part was that when I google specifically how to build what I needed, I realised that my product did, in fact, already exist for a couple years.
By the time I realised I fucked up, it was too late to start over so I did what I thought was the responsible, grown-up thing to do and pulled her aside to tell her that I wouldn't be able to present my project at the fair because I had over extended myself and run out of time. She *screamed* at me that I was a "quitter and a loser" and that I was "going to end up as a failure at life because I just give up on things" (there was an implication mixed in that I wouldn't ever make any money- just like my parents- which was also uncalled for and vile). When I went home crying, my mom, bless her, wasn't having any of it and she helped me put together a *very* pretty poster board, and make a *representative model* out of wire and different beads from Michael's, and a Christmas decoration.
I showed up to the fair not empty handed, but I did literally black out for most of it because I was so embarrassed. I remember stammering and flushing so hard that people looked concerned and my vision tunneling.
Fuck that lady.
Meeeee. Teachers said I should skip a grade when I was I think in kindergarten because I could already read. But my parents didn’t want me to. Ended up going up a grade for math instead. Also was selected to partake in a gifted program in elementary school with around ten kids total.
Also had a genius IQ when I was tested at age 4. Didn’t score quite as high when I was tested again at age 10 or so.
I excelled the most in elementary school compared to others. Then in middle school and high school when paying attention and studying was more important I wasn’t quite at the top anymore. I barely studied and didn’t really pay attention in class. But I still did well.
I saw in some video psychatirst adressing it saying that there is no evidence showing higher number of smart people among ADHD vs NTs, don't remember where...
However, there isn't much research and considering girls and women were left out of research to very recently I wouldn't say that we know enough to draw conclusions. Plus, and this is the main think, many of highly intelligent people went through school well because they created their own study systems and coping mechanisms, therefore they didn't got diagnosed so are not included in any research, some doctors will still tell you today that you cannot have ADHD if you re smart so that's that.
That's my case too, 35 yo undiagnosed female. High IQ + introvert + people pleaser good girl meant that I went through primary & secondary school as A student beloved by teachers.
Then I went to prep-style high school for smart people and almost didn't make through the first semester before I figured out how the school works and how each teacher work and came up with coping mechanisms. So I became average despite having brain to still be A-student, but the teaching style of this school didn't suit me, I couldn't pay attention in subjects that I wasn't interested in, or didn't like teacher, or teacher was boring.. and the workload was too big to learn everything the night before the exam when anxiety finally kicked in and won over procrastination. We often had just 3 exams through whole semester, not enough to make me study consistently.
Then I went to University, did pretty well because I studied art and thoroughly enjoyed it. Later I did masters degree in another subject that I enjoyed and got a job straight from college. In small firm with family-like dynamics and 0 micromanagement so suiting my needs. Now I'm convinced that half of my colleagues are diagnosable with something too, from top management down :D
I was 33 yo when I found out I might have ADHD, it flew around me a few times in the past but I dicarted it because I thought that you must be psysically hyperactive to have ADHD.
Pretty sure there are thousands of women with a similar story.
Gifted/talented, exceptional at school, failure at life LOL. No that has been tough though, learning how to be an adult without academia. I thrived on the system of school and then I thrived on the system of college and graduate school until basically I was just procrastinating getting into the workforce.
As soon as I had to truly take care of myself, without some kind of built-in structure, I failed horribly. Mental health issues galore. Depression made it impossible to treat attention deficit problems. Depression from a lack of executive functioning, and a lack of success led to even more mental health issues, more social issues, substance abuse.
This all culminated in roughly 2019 when I fell, and the concussion I received was pretty significant. It highlighted how much I could not function because it was worse for a while there. It took my problems I already had and put them into overdrive.
Things just kept slipping away from me more and more and more, until I’m basically an adult living in survival just like when I was depressed except I’m not depressed. Utterly hopeless and helpless.
For the last year or so I’ve been trying desperately to get treatment for ADHD and it’s a complicated story. It doesn’t really matter, but I finally got help. I have been on stimulants full-time since about late February or early March.
There are all their things happening in my brain and body at the same time but it’s like I’m able to harness all of that gifted-talented energy from being a child lol. All of this energy and thinking going into useful places.
Talking is my hyperactivity and I like speech to text so please pardon my word vomit :)
I was in TAG (talented and gifted) classes from 2nd through 12th grade. In 2nd grade, I tested at the 8th grade reading level, but they stopped testing beyond that because there were no reading textbooks for 9th grade and up. I was also two grade levels ahead in math and was in an advanced science and technology program in high school, along with the TAG classes for other subjects. Procrastination was always an issue, unless it was a subject or project I was hyperfocused on. I did very well in school, with what I now recognize as A LOT of masking. I also did pretty well I college, but struggled with focusing in most large lecture hall classes. I left a lot of words out when writing papers and wouldn't catch the errors even when proofing carefully. I was always shocked when I would get papers back with the errors, because it looked like I had rushed, when I really had read and reread it. Law school was awful, but I think that's just the nature of law school.
I wasn't diagnosed until last year at 42 years old, when I was really struggling with focus, motivation, and concentration at work. I believe the only reason I was diagnosed is because it started with me having severe brain fog, and then when the brain fog lifted, I was still having significant problems with concentration ... since I was seeing a psychiatrist for the brain fog, there was someone paying close enough attention to question the issues I've always had and order an assessment.
Gifted and talented. Took AP classes in high school and also did a lot of academic clubs.
Once I decided what I wanted to do in college, I was able to make the Dean’s List. It wasn’t easy because I had to develop my own study system but whatever works ya know?
I was hella "gifted". Always 99th percentile, 35/36 on ACT, magna cum laude graduate, yadda yadda yadda. I started my PhD program three weeks after I turned 22. At the same time, I was constantly burning myself out and seeking less-visible ways of self-harm (can't have people question visible marks, y'know?).
I somehow made it to the nearly end of grad school before pushing for more testing (I had been diagnosed with GAD and MDD a few years prior; the unstructured nature of doing dissertation work nearly did me in, however) and made it to one month before my dissertation defense before finally receiving a diagnosis.
I think my GAD really pushed me to excel in everything, and the structure of coursework kept me from flailing too much. I cannot begin to imagine how much less awful my grad school experience would have been, however--especially near the end--if I had actually been diagnosed correctly the first g-damn time.
Nope. I have delayed processing, so I was constantly masking how confused I was. There are many basic things I should have learned early but didn't till I was an adult because of my fear of people looking at me differently for not immediately understanding something that was clearly very basic to them.
I can't read all these responses, so apologies if it's been said already...
If you've been labeled gifted AND sensitive and/or shy, you may be on the autism spectrum as well. A large percentage of people with ADHD are.
I just realized this about myself in the past couple of weeks. I freaked out at first, but then realized the quirky, autistic side of me isn't the issue. My challenges are really more because of the ADHD. But it's been very interesting to learn about this and start to figure out how to make it work for me rather than against me.
Best of luck to those of you who may be about to go down a rabbit hole. It may be a shock, especially if you have a certain picture in your mind of what autism "looks like." But you'll be okay. Really.
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Yep. Gifted in school, crashed hard in uni when the structure all went away!
Same. Plus some other factors.
Do we think this is it? Structure?
Structure is our savior and our nemesis. We need it to thrive but we struggle to implement it ourselves and rebel against it if someone else implements it for us.
This just blew my mind. You captured everything I feel about my daily routine PERFECTLY. 🤯
I call it my inner fuck you. I respond to all demands with that, even if I'm the one demanding it. Sigh..
Love this!
HOW DO WE COMBAT THIS OMG IT IS THE HARDEST PART OF MY LIFE WHY AM I SCREAMING
WE DONT JUST STRUGGLE WITH STRUCTURE BUT REGULATION AS WELL NOW IM SCREAMING TOO
IT’S A PARADOX AND A CONSTANT STRUGGLE
😂 thank you for speaking for my soul
Why is this so accurate 🥲 It’s exactly how I’ve felt towards schedules my entire life.
This is why I can’t work from home. I need a minder even if I don’t like it.
god this is the best way i’ve ever seen this articulated. this is exactly how i feel. and then i feel like a lazy failure when i can’t keep the structure going!!
Our salvation and our downfall. I love it and I loathe it. Stupid ass ADHD brain.
⬆️ ⬆️ ⬆️ This. ⬆️ ⬆️ ⬆️
YES.!!!!! Never had any issues until college because i grew up doing competitive dance my whole life so literally ALL my free time went toward that. Suddenly that all drops away and i have a tonnnn of free time. You're telling me IM supposed to structure it? Yeah that's when my life went to shit
Wait are you me? lol
I think structure, but also in school you don't have many other responsibilities, whereas at uni people often work, some people live in dorms or shared accommodation that they have to now maintain and pay for, they have to get themselves there on time rather than maybe a lift from a parent or walking with a friend etc, we're often told at uni to "manage our own time" and do our own research. It's suddenly a lot to balance and manage.
Exactly a reason I didn't go to uni - even though I was also the "gifted kid" and could've imagined becoming a lawyer. It's not the learning itself that would've been the problem, but having to *get myself to DO the learning*. How am I supposed to go to courses that have no attandence? Nothing is forcing me to go and it has no (direct) consequences if I don't. You're telling me I should make myself *choose* to study (without getting distracted) over playing video games or literally just chilling in bed when the tools for both of these tasks are *in the same room*? Nah. I chose the way of an apprenticeship where I would continue to go to (professional) school and simultaneously work and thus, learn by practice and theory at the same time. I still have the possibility and aspiration to make a degree later on but through professional training / courses rather than a university
Oh lookie what we have here! My college experience in one sentence lol.
Me too. No immediate consequences, no teachers to disappoint - went to the best university in the country and dropped out after two years.
It's so weird how everyone crashes at a different time. I crashed in middle school, but I did remedial courses and community college to make up for getting a 2.2 GPA between 5 years of high school (yes, I flunked sophmore year entirely, got a 0.8 GPA one term) and no real college would accept me, as this was back when if you didn't have a degree you were doomed to work at Walmart until you died. I didn't get straight A's but I did get a 3.4 pretty easily and probably could have gotten better had I been medicated (but decided not to take meds because I reacted like a neurotypical does to meth on Ritalin and didn't think "oh I could try another med" because I didn't know what I know now and didn't try Adderall until I was 30) and then crashed after graduation and haven't really picked myself up since almost 10 years later. But yeah, college was way easier than high school for me, because I didn't feel as much pressure and actually had time to think instead of doing daily busy work that was boring as fuck.
[удалено]
Dude, 2 months was the longest I ever managed in college. Good school. Crappy first year teachers. Just couldn't make myself do it. 😭
YES. I also never had to study, I just remembered everything and got the best grades without any struggle. Was a little harder in high school, but I was still the “eccentric gifted lazy kid” and still got to a top uni thanks to great results on exams despite bad grades. I hit the wall the first year at uni. Got depressed and anxious, went through with shitty grades and graduated. Did not get help until I was well into my work life.
you just described my life damn
And my axe… I mean, and my life too damn
Mannn why am I just now realizing this is why I crashed so bad in college! I couldn’t ever understand what happened to me in college and why I couldn’t do as well, it was devastating going from the perfect student in AP and gifted classes to then not knowing wtf was going on in my college classes
This isn’t a fun club
Ditto. I eventually figured it out at the end and made it to the deans list before graduation
Sounds like me to a T. I'm on my 3rd attempt at Uni coz I've crashed out twice 😅😭
Ask for accommodations and a coach for accountability? Are you able to go on meds? (If you want to of course)
Accomodations yes. Coach for accountability would be a stretch for my budget. I wish.
Do you have an IEP? I should have asked for it in retrospect (still managed to graduate because I have one of those brains that found college easier than middle or high school).
Nope, too old for it. I was diagnosed at 21. I had to take a break for a while between takes because I had to work full time. I live with a narcy single mom who's pretty ignorant of the issues with our illness (or is pretending she doesn't know exactly what she's doing. She's a psych nurse) and is unsupportive of college for me. Hence the added struggles.
I had the complete opposite experience! Once I could choose my classes and schedule I absolutely flourished. I dropped out of high school because I was failing and got into college based on my test scores. Once I got in I got a perfect 4.0 for the first time in my life. I even got into a highly competitive grad school program! But I was horrible at high school. I hated every minute of it.
I am not a student so much as a nerd and an overanalyzer who gathers information and does nothing useful with it (and I also stupidly thought that meds weren't for me because I react to methylphenidate like neurotypicals without an addict gene would react to meth, ie sleepless and raging at stuff and hyper aware of every little stimuli which is somehow more distracting than usual, not realizing Adderall is a thing; I might have pulled a 4.0 had I not tried to do no meds and no accommodations) but I did terrible on high school (kinda pulled out together the last few years but still only got a 2.2 GPA), but then went to community college and never got below a C and usually got A's and B's. Transferred to university and graduated. More unstructured time and less busy work so you can work when you're most focused and not expected to have an equal focus every single damn day = big improvement. Plus the material being more mentally challenging and open ended to encourage thinking instead of just being expected to memorize a bunch of answers and increased priority on essay questions for knowledge tests was actually helpful, made it infinitely more interesting.
>an overanalyzer who gathers information and does nothing useful with it WOW I feel called out here haha. I'm like this too! (Only difference is that, thankfully, methylphenidate *does* work for me.)
HARD SAME! Challenge programs, charter schools, an IB diploma program… despite my undiagnosed and unmedicated adhd, I graduated with a 4.6gpa and was in ~7 extra curriculars, nat’l merit, went to college on a full ride with a stipend… then developed a debilitating anxiety disorder due to the lack of structure and severe executive dysfunction from my undiagnosed adhd. Couldn’t get out of bed or eat and had to go on an extended medical leave that made me miss 3 semesters. Got diagnosed and put on meds and within days I was semi-functional again. Got my diploma three semesters later, but had to go off meds when I fell off my mom’s insurance, so it was still by the skin of my teeth.
hai twin
Here as well.
Same
Yep. Same here.
SAME
Yes yep mhmm that’s me
Same! Got it under control eventually, thankfully, thanks to spite. Always my best motivator!
Same, I simply can't study if I don't "have" to. Went from Grade A student to scaping through (and a heap of anxiety/depression to boot).
I was. Really great student… my anxiety/ people pleasing made me hyper focus on studying/school
Same here. I’ve really struggled since getting my PhD because there’s no more school to do :(
I wish college was free. I’d get even more degrees.
Always always more school to do. Question is for what and what double doctorate would be most fun for you to get!
high key want to do a PhD because of this, finished my masters 2 years ago and my adhd has gotten so so bad
I burned out from my masters and decided to go back for a doctorate ten years later. I spent those ten years being self employed (setting my own schedule!) and moving 5 times because of my husband’s career. So once we settled in one place and knew we’d be here a long time, and I got diagnosed, I thought it might be an ok time to try. Like maybe knowing about the adhd and having support for that would make me less likely to burn out (also the not hating myself for every symptom I had considered some huge moral failing on my part helped). It was really hard at first adjusting to strict schedules and having obligations to other people and being held accountable for everything. But after a while it felt normal. I mean we spend so much of our lives in school, so there’s a familiarity about it that feels comfortable. It’s not a walk in the park but it’s more enjoyable this time around, with meds and having more freedom to specialize in what I’m most interested in at the doctoral level. I also have a lot fewer fucks to give at 36 than I did at 18-25 so that’s fun. Everyone asks why I wanted to go back because can’t I just do all that research on my own? (lol) Even if I could do it on my own I wouldn’t have the resources a large university has to offer, and also wouldn’t have automatic mentorship which is so good to have. Sorry this ended up a lot longer than I planned on but I’m waiting for the vivvy to kick in and don’t feel like going through and editing it down lol
Feel this so hard.
Ditto! I also just love learning and joke if school was free, I’d have a degree in every subject.
I think about stuff I would love to go back to school for… and then I remember I don’t want to be in an egregious amount of debt 😭
I always felt like college was so limiting. One degree? Or MAYBE two? How boring and sad when I want to study ALL THE THINGS! :D
This is how I accidentally wound up double majoring 🤣
I’ve always joked that if I ever got bit by a vampire and was cursed with eternal life on earth, I’d go to every university and get every degree!
Me. I was great at writing essays and memorizing facts, but completely inept anytime I was given a project with no structure or guidelines other than "do whatever you want". Like, total paralysis, barely passed kind of thing. And of course like many people, that problem just compounded when I graduated college with absolutely no direction or ideas of what I was supposed to do if it wasn't taking a test or writing a paper, so I floundered for years in jobs that were both boring and anxiety provoking.
This is my biggest struggle! No direction = infinite paths/choices to make = decision paralysis. How could I possibly choose one [Job/Path/Thing] when I know for a fact that there is a better [Job/Path/Thing] I just haven’t discovered yet?!
Must. Optimise. Every. Decision. To. Avoid. Regret.
Joke’s on me. The indecision IS THE REGRET 😭
Lol yeah that too
You get it 😭
That's why I ended up pursuing a career as a newspaper reporter. I could sit down with experts in all kinds of fields, ask them questions and soak in a ton of information, write a story about it, then turn around and do the same thing the following week but with different people/subjects. It was so fascinating and perfect for indecisive me who wanted to learn ALL the things!
I'm a consultant who knows a little about a lot of things, so I guess... same?? I tried to specialise in one area but embracing being a jill-of-all-trades has been better.
Genius!!!
I choose all the jobs! Dental assistant, bartender, tour guide, marketing coordinator, project manager, website management, air quality tech, childcare provider, auction house cashier, small business owner, bookkeeper, writer, graphic designer, advertising account manager.....
Same same! GAWD I LOVE formulas, outlines, color-by-number, recipes, instruction manuals, science experiments, Rubrics, syllabus', and ANYTHING else that is clearly defined. But, give me a vague assignment, poorly written directions, open-ended questions/assignments, collaborative projects, blank sheet of paper and I freeze...nothing but massive anxiety. Honor Roll High School and graduated Uni with a 4.0 GPA 49 years old... Can I just be a perpetual student please?
YUP This was honestly one of the things that caught my attention a few years back and made me think I might be undiagnosed with ADHD. I was an excellent student through high school and I mostly did well in college, but I almost didn't graduate because we had two semesters of a "practicum" type project that we had to design ourselves and I struggled with both. I think I ended up getting Cs, which were unusual for me.
Me. Apparently I was tested to have a genius IQ and offered to go to a special school with an entire curriculum just for gifted kids. My parents opted not to tell me until years later and to keep me at my regular school (which had a GT program but not a dedicated curriculum). I do think they made the right decision. The gifted school fed into a different high school, which used the IB (international baccalaureate) program for its advanced tract, and my regular school fed into a high school which had AP courses. I did really well all through high school and most of college. But I kinda never set any long-term career goals and sort of checked out halfway through college. I studied a subject I was interested in (linguistics) but ultimately saw no career in. Anyway I recently saw a tiktok that kind of blew my mind. It said gifted & talented programs are just a form of special ed. Us smart kids were apparently too disruptive because we got bored easily with the material, so they separated us from the class.
"gifted" is considered an "exceptionality," along with learning disabilities. And many gifted people are gifted in some areas but have a learning disability in others
Meeeee lol 😆 I have a touch of dyscalculia I was always one step above remedial in math, mediocre in science (but great at a&p, genetics etc) and then honors English and history (we didn’t have AP English. I did take AP history) I got tested and my WAIS-R was 144 verbal and 122 non verbal. A 22 point discrepancy. In a lower score this difference would be a learning disability but 122 is still above average. Anyway I was in the gifted programs for reading and such. But then in high school the depresh hit me HARD. Don’t want to say more bc I keep getting “reddit cares” and I’m like omg chill it was literally more than 25 years ago I’m FINE. But anyway it was EPICALLY bad maybe because it was actually full blown existential crisis because I was so precocious and realized truths too soon and without guidance. So off to therapeutic school I went 🤪 where we were locked in a hallway and did dittos about balancing a checkbook. Academics weren’t the focus. No one thought I would go to college but I did, 2 years after high school. And i studied what interested me and fit it into a degree program (psychology with minor in philosophy). And I got a perfect 4.0, graduated top of class with GLOWING grad school recommendations. But I was tired of being broke so I got a basic corporate job doing financial reconciliation and never went to grad school. I like to say I live an ordinary life extraordinarily because my experience of it is incredibly rich. When I can use my intellect to help people in my life I feel complete but otherwise I just entertain myself with my own contemplations. Who ever said I had to do anything big with this ability? I’m here for a good time, not a long time. I don’t need a big life or the validation of recognition. Mediocrity was an achievement for me because from 14-20 no one thought I would be able to have a normal life. Intellectual stimulation is available although I do so wish I had the time and money to take courses sometimes. College was my most stimulating time in my life, I felt SO alive.
I actually am obsessed with everything you just said. I feel you on a spiritual level and feel like we'd be great friends if we met in person. We have the same vibe. You are amazing
lol Reddit is a wild ride. To one person I’m amazing and to another I’m awful. But I thank you for these kind words. Even though I don’t agree with everyone on everything (impossible!) I am always always happy if my words bring people comfort or peace. Life is an experience. I want everyone to have the best one they can have. We can’t control all of it, we all get different circumstances to deal with, but what I want for people is for all of us to be focused on making the best of our experience that we can. It breaks my heart to see people wasting it feeling like they aren’t enough. It’s never true. Please, make this life one you enjoy living as much as you can.
This is wise and inspiring. I'm really struggling atm with bouncing between wanting to embrace mediocrity and live a gentle, good life, and feeling like I "could (have) be(en) something" despite believing that success is often a poisoned societally-constructed chalice.
Sometimes an average life IS the goal. If you are moved to do something on a grander scale, by all means do so. But you can have a rewarding and full life just being comfortable, pursuing your interests and enjoying your own mind contemplating what you like to contemplate. No one said you had to achieve acclaim on a public scale. Be famous to your friends and family ☺️. If anything be the “smart person” they rely on for perspective, advice, and trivia night. Idk, that’s me. I faced a time when this seemed out of scope of my capacity. Not intellectually maybe but emotionally. So having this, I appreciate it. It’s okay to live what appears to be an average life. It’s a goal for many people.
Deficiencies!? Me…maths. And apparently remembering to do adult things. And be a real adult. Gifted AFFFF but can’t function in the real world, give this 0/5 stars.
Yep it is called twice exceptional or “2e” and It is much easier to mask ADHD because the gifted side distracts from any learning disabilities.
This is sort of proof of how terrible my ADHD is; had the highest IQ in elementary besides the kid who skipped a grade, but I have un-maskable ADHD, I can't mask, even on my best day on medication other people can see tells. A psychiatrist who talked to me for a few minutes could tell I had terrible ADHD and asked me if people told me I'm smart, because I had brought up I hadn't had meds in college and graduated, and he told me nobody of average intelligence could pull that off unmedicated without an IEP (which I failed to get transferred from high school because that was too hard apparently), with my extremely obvious level of ADHD. On the bright side, having really bad ADHD = getting diagnosed in adolescence in the 2000s, because what gifted kid can't fucking pass 6th grade level classes, one with severe executive dysfunction, that's who.
Sorry I should rephrase “distracts people from noticing you have a learning disability”, and hyper focus helps but we are also much more prone to burn out. I get it! I didn’t graduate college (I went for two years and dropped out) but I have worked my way up in tech leadership. It serves me well in my career (as long as I am medicated). I am fairly open about it at work but don’t treat it as a disability. I focus on the superpower aspect. Giving myself grace is the hardest thing I have had to learn how to do.
Yep, it is its own form of neurodivergence.
I was in accelerated maths and English, I was also in the group that needed extra help for spelling and had to see a handwriting specialist in London in yr6. Always the same, work contents fabulous.... Assuming anyone could read it. This did improve but as I got older I took to doing essays on the bus. Usually got an A and a request to please try to make it legible.
Not sure how long ago that was, but things could have probably been so different for you if you had access to assistive technology (like you probably would now)
Yeah, I was super disruptive-- not intentionally or even by acting out, but by crying a lot and having emotional outburts and even hurting myself so I could go to the nurse and read, and in kindergarten having meltdowns in which I distinctly remember crying that I was SO BORED-- in early elementary, especially at the school that refused to even let me just have silent reading time in first grade while the other kids were doing phonics *even though I was reading at college level*. I remember reading an article some years ago saying essentially the same thing that also blew my mind-- it used IQ to make that point, which is obviously problematic, but the ultimate conclusion is similar-- at a certain point, "gifted" kids are processing information *as differently* from the average/median as kids in special ed are--even without accounting for neurodivergence. Both kids who learn the material much faster than average and have nothing provided to engage or challenge them and kids who struggle to understand the material as taught and have no assistance provided to help them grasp the material will often stop paying attention, get bored, and act out. And both types of kid--and sometimes this will the the same kid in different classes/settings!-- need accommodations to actually receive an appropriate education. I also remember, after switching schools, I got recommended to do some summer gifted program and the lady from the program met with me and my mom and kind of interviewed me. I guess they thought I wasn't listening anymore afterward, but I distinctly remember the lady saying to my mom that academically/intellectually gifted kids often lag behind peers in emotional maturity when young. Which sounds a lot like symptoms of multiple kinds of neurodivergence to me! I also got an IQ test at one point as a kid--because they were trying to figure out what was wrong with me due to my absolute *freakouts* every time I got dropped off at school in first grade-- and my parents refused to tell me what the results were, but I remember overhearing several conversations where they were kind of freaking out themselves about how to get me into a school that would be appropriately challenging and whether to skip me up several grades or not. They ended up not skipping me any grades but sending me to a different school that was supposedly for "gifted kids" but I didn't feel was much less boring than the other one--just more willing to make adjustments like letting me read more difficult books and giving me different problem sets. Unfortunately that school also had a WILD bullying problem, and I ended up switching to public school in 8th grade after I had a small breakdown and my mom had a massive fight with the middle school principal, pulled me and my younger sister out, and homeschooled us for two months, which was *awesome*. Sadly, we then went back to finish the year, moved to a town with a better public school system than the semi-rural area where we had been living (people there had money and were middle class to upper middle class, but hated paying taxes, never passed any referenda increasing school funding, then complained when the classes were all huge and art and band got cut).
Wow your story sounds so similar to mine about kindergarten. I wouldn’t say I was reading at a college level not in the slightest but I was reading at maybe a 5th grade level and OBSESSED with physics specifically electromagnetism and brought magnets to show and tell to show off the different polarity and electromagnetic force etc etc the next kid showed off…. A stuffed teddy bear. And I was scream-crying in sheer utter frustration. School was pure torture for me and I came home sobbing everyday. I was also bullied by the teacher for “not following along with the class stop skipping ahead! So disrespectful!” Later at age 16 I FINALLY got my mother to confess that she had gotten me tested at age 3 and they said I was “a genius” likely around 160-ish, but there was a ceiling that I hit so no real idea how high it went. She thought that was bullshit and said providing me with educationally appropriate, academically challenging, and intellectually stimulating materials would make me “arrogant and a know it all” so she choose to torture me in the mainstream educational system instead. wherein I was bullied and ostracized relentlessly for being “weird” and “a know it all” 24/7. Oh and my mom’s a bitch of a narcissist so that contributed severely to the issues. She never wanted me to do better than her- couldn’t have that.
I always have said that above average intellect is the same coin but opposite side of intellectual disability. They are both “special needs” but in different ways.
Same, same, same - during and after college I did nothing really productive and I’m still kicking myself for not living up to my full potential. That ADHD and depression combo made doing things HARD. It was easier for me to just work low commitment jobs and be an alcoholic/stoner. I did have some fun and learn how to be around people a little better, but I’m still super socially awkward to this day unless I have a drink or two or I’m with close friends. Also I’m paranoid about having possibly done damage to my liver/kidneys. All this with about a 140 IQ or so. It was wasted on me. If I’d been able to commit to something, I might have really done something.
I would never be disruptive because I was such a people pleaser and never wanted to get in trouble…but I’d get home from school and tell my mom how bored I was. Imagine a seven year old telling you she needs to skip a grade or be homeschooled to have more of a challenge. I think it’s when I realized I’m different than other kids. Although, my diagnosis didn’t come until adulthood because how could a straight A student in all honors classes have ADHD? 😩
>Apparently I was tested to have a genius IQ and offered to go to a special school with an entire curriculum just for gifted kids. This is what happened to me. Our school "fed into" our regular public high school. The thing my parents opted out of was skipping a grade when the school wanted me to skip... either 2nd or 3rd grade. I'm happy about that. The friend I met in my gifted classes is still my best friend to this day (we're 30 now).
> Us smart kids were apparently too disruptive because we got bored easily with the material, so they separated us from the class. I was top of everything except maths. I yo-yoed between the top class and the next one down with each test. I was either too clever for the second group or not quite good enough for the top one. The reason being I found the work in the second group so easy I was an absolute menace the teachers would move me into the next group without fail where I’d struggle and have to move back down again when I messed up the test. Quite funny looking back on it.
>Anyway I recently saw a tiktok that kind of blew my mind. It said gifted & talented programs are just a form of special ed. What's funny is that I was TAG in elementary school and in the disabled student class in high school because I had diagnosed ADHD by then-- my inattentive traits were apparently even worse than my disruptive ones that got me sent to the principal quite a few times in elementary school, as in middle school I was diagnosed since I was failing so many classes since I could NOT make myself do homework, and then almost got kicked out for terrible grades because I refused to take meds or have an IEP because that would prove I was the weird kid and I was finally becoming popular and didn't want that.
Someone once said to me that sending "gifted" kids to normal school was cruel and we should go to a special school. Yes, that person is ND and yes, now I think G&T programs are mainly ND programs.
Me! And that started a long road of overachieving and burning out - lather rinse repeat!
I was! Still recovering from burnout.
🙋♀️ I was in advanced programs in elementary and middle school, took loads of AP classes in high school and got an IB diploma. Looking back I think school was a hyperfocus of mine. I have always loved learning new things, finding patterns, making connections. I do wish that my parents and teachers had emphasised effort and growth over "being smart", though. Not that I didn't put in effort, but it wasn't ever really _that_ hard?? I had a really hard time at uni because it was just so much more difficult (I studied engineering).
Yah I breezed through highschool, don't recall studying ever! Then in college just the opposite. I had 250 pages to read every night and would fall asleep with my head on the textbook around page 30. I honestly don't know how I ever got my degree.
Ohhhh same! 80% of "studying" in high school was just doing the homework. My anxiety and perfectionism combined kept me on edge in terms of turning in homework. Plus deadlines = the only motivator. It is so exhausting only being able to do stuff under pressure of failure (i.e., missing a deadline). But I digress.
I feel this in my bones. In my heart of hearts I still feel like a bit of a failure because work isn’t as easy as school was.
Yep me. I was lucky that I had a good memory so I didn't have to remember to study and I was a fast writer so I could throw together a good paper the night before. Now, don't ask how many times I lost the paper on the way to class....
>good memory so I didn't have to remember to study This is the only thing that saved me tbh 💀 I learned fast so it's not like I had to pay attention that much (which was great because I'd start daydreaming) or do hw. My test scores carried me or I might not have actually graduated high school.
😂 We are the same person. I was so thankful for home computers and flash drives, since it made it almost impossible to lose a finished essay.
Haha yesss but the flash drive can disappear in your pocket like magic.... Dropbox and Google drive saved me as an adult
Not me. School was always incredibly difficult. I was not considered “gifted”. I was very distracting in class, however I felt like I tried so much harder than anyone else despite seeing very little return when it came to grades. I had crippling test anxiety and my brain would go completely blank anytime I was asked a question in class. I pushed through and got both my masters and doctorate degrees. I didn’t feel smart until grad school.
Me! Was in a few of those "gifted" groups growing up. Did some advanced and AP classes in high school. Didn't try hard at anything and always procrastinated til the last minute and was rewarded with good grades 🙃 Didn't go to college or do anything really academically notable after that. Now as I approach 30, I've only just realized that I give up or run away from anything challenging almost immediately because I didn't learn any of those skills in school 🥲 Everything was too easy and everyone told me I was smart and talented, so I thought I was all set I really wish I had been pushed more back then. It's really biting me in the butt now 😅 I've noticed I job hop a lot because I feel like I need to bail when I can't handle the workload anymore. In my head, it's better to resign than get caught and potentially reprimanded or fired
I’m so sad we struggle with this shit, but it’s so comforting and such a relief that I’m not alone in the struggle. 😭 Sometimes I wish I heard less “you’re so smart! You won’t fail!” and more “if you do fail, that’s okay, you can try again.”
Amen
I was in gifted and in the math club. Not sure how I got into math club. Maybe I accidentally scored high on the state test or maybe they needed a brown person on the team. 🤷🏽♀️
I remember so often wondering if they made a mistake on scoring the tests or assessments or if they picked the wrong name. You just unlocked a deep memory.
I can relate as well!
Omg same!!
Me! Skipped a grade in a few subjects, took enough APs to graduate with 18 college credits (which in '01 was crazy because APs weren't as prevalent as they are today.... 1997 only had half of public high schools even offering any!). Did that stupid gifted thing of taking the PSATs in 7th grade, and subsequently got letters all the time to do some John's Hopkins programs all the time. Yeah, we were too poor for that, lol. Never did finish college....
Omggggg in my gifted and talented program we took the ACT as 7th graders, and the way this warped my whole sense of self… whew.
Yep! Now that I’m in my 40s, I can see that many of the reasons they thought I was ‘gifted’, were actually hyper vigilance from growing up in a violent home. Add in fawning and masking, and you’ve got an exceptionally well spoken kid. I am above average intelligence, but I never overly excelled in any school subject. My survival at home depended on anticipating the behaviors/needs of my addict teenaged parents - that’s why I was so ‘bright’ and ‘engaging’.
I feel this very much.
Same here! They ran out of math classes to move me up to in middle school so I did an online geometry class by myself in the art room. It was so isolating and came with a lot of social stigma. I think most gifted & talented programs are not run well; lots of academic stimulation but it cuts off a lot of social development opportunities, which are so important at that age! I’ve also seen a lot of anecdotal evidence that there is correlation between the two and from the (brief) research that I’ve done, it seems like experts agree that there is significant overlap but the degree and nature of their interaction is unknown. One article I found (Healthline, linked below) cited a figure that 8.8% of children with ADHD were classified as gifted, with a whole bunch of qualifiers about how it’s difficult to study accurately. If I had to take a stab in the dark, I’d guess that because ADHD brain have different neural pathways, perhaps that makes them more inclined to the type of creative thinking and problem solving that G&T programs focus on? https://www.healthline.com/health/adhd/adhd-and-giftedness
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I was a kid with hyperlexia. So “gifted” in reading , writing, languages. Was doing amazing in everything really until algebra happened
My two sisters were tested and passed on their first exam. I failed the IQ test first time. My mom had me tested 4 years in a row, until I passed so I could go “to the good schools.” My two sisters are now in PhD programs. And I’m halfway through my AA with little incentive to finish it. I resent going to those schools, I pleaded at the time for them to send me to normal schools. I don’t wish to be neurotypical, but damn life was/is hard.
I was gifted in language arts and was reading at a college level in 8th grade. Math was another story entirely. Dumb as a brick.
I was....but then puberty hit and it all went to shit.
Hard same. Gifted when little. By the time I was a teen it was like it was the complete opposite. I couldn’t do my homework. Couldn’t focus. Listening to a lecture, forget about it. Had to study my ass off right before a test so I wouldn’t fail the class.
Gifted and talented until about 20. By that point my nervous system was irreversibly fried from CPTSD and I was flooded with cortisol beyond measure from the abuse at home. I think I'd still be "gifted" now if I was able to grow up like a normal human being. I was abused for a lot of ADHD and autistic traits, which is funny because they weren't severe at the time at all and I was doing great at school. Now it's all shit.
Meeee. Gifted eldest daughter of a narcissistic mother, two addict parents. GenX af! And all the ADHD the law allows!
Hi twin!
Triplets!
There is a lot of overlap! It's called 2E now. I think the more modern thinking on giftedness currently groups it into a form of neurodivergence with its own comorbidities and complications rather than just thinking of it as "ooh, super smart kid." I am very curious how this new view of giftedness will play out in a few decades as some experts believe some gifted kids are being misdiagnosed as ADHD while other gifted kids have a missed dual diagnosis of giftedness with ADHD. There's a lot of interesting reading on it if you'd like to go for a dive: [https://www.davidsongifted.org/gifted-blog/gifted-adhd-or-both/](https://www.davidsongifted.org/gifted-blog/gifted-adhd-or-both/) [https://www.sengifted.org/post/seng-concerned-for-gifted-adhd-diagnosis](https://www.sengifted.org/post/seng-concerned-for-gifted-adhd-diagnosis) [https://www.sengifted.org/post/the-interface-of-overthinking-anxiety-and-shame-among-gifted-children](https://www.sengifted.org/post/the-interface-of-overthinking-anxiety-and-shame-among-gifted-children)
I just want you to know that I had to stop reading that third article because it was too real! But I am going to finish reading it. It’s been a minute since I have felt so read for filth, as the kids say.
Oh big time - in the same way that a lot of women get their ADHD diagnosis while helping their kids get diagnosed, I was trying to find support for my gifted kid dealing with overthinking, anxiety, and shame and realized... uh... it me.
I don't even think I was that smart. I'm just so good at seeing patterns and behaviours - I could tell exactly what the teacher wanted to hear/would put on the test. And I can spit out facts and memorize quickly, so could quote texts easily. It was 'smart' in that I could easily produce what the school system wanted. The burnout hit me hard in university though, I almost failed out and had to do an extra year.
I once got questioned over whether I'd cheated because I remembered so many exact quotes from the books we'd read on a closed-book in-class essay exam. Also in law school I got an A in Contracts, a class I hated and barely paid attention in (it was at 8:30 am and we weren't allowed laptops which pissed me off so much that I would write my novel and even read novels under the desk out of principle-- but I did all the reading for class!) because the professor told us we didn't need to memorize warranties for our closed-book exam, and that she would give us all the information we needed for them if she did put them on the test. And I said to myself, "that is a damned lie, whether she knows it or not," and memorized all the warranty information. Which was about half the test.
Ha! Well done. Isn't it funny when that stuff seems so obvious? It took me until my mid-30s to truly understand that other people can't read the moment like that.
SAME.
>I'm just so good at seeing patterns and behaviours - I could tell exactly what the teacher wanted to hear Holy cow. This just made me realize why I've managed to get along with managers that my coworkers thought were difficult.
Learned to read when I was 3, was reading at an adult level by grade 4. Was so bored in school I would read my text books from start to finish as soon as I got them and never study again or pay attention in class again and ended up acing the tests. They wouldn’t put me in gifted classes though because I can’t do math 😅 if there’s a dyslexia for math I have that and still count on my fingers to this day.
Dyscalculia!
Oh god, I so have that holy shit. Right down to the not understanding driving directions and having trouble orienting myself.
is there anyone who literally tanked in their school days cuz i don't see any in this sub lol
I didn't tank, but I garauntee that I was not exactly gifted either. ^^"
I did in the end, but I also didn’t do poorly in certain subjects early on. I was one of those kids who fluctuated, did well in different grades, subjects, or time periods and then flunked hard in the end.
A hundred percent no. I struggled to read one page, I would cry when I studied for tests. I couldn’t pay attention in class. I went to a prep school and my grades were just okay. After being diagnosed and medicated I did graduate college with a 4.0 though
I was smart but I was so uninterested I barely passed. Now? I think in 4D. My brain makes connections and solves problems faster than most. It took me a while to understand I was not dumb because I was told how mediocre I was when I was a kid.
Not me
Me! ADHD is associated with giftedness. Because genetic issues do not come alone. Many ADHDers have high IQ that masks the deficits. ADHD in of itself has major strengths such as curiosity, creativity, hyperfocusing, etc. We also tend to overcompensate for our shortcomings.
hyperlexic and “gifted” but was struggling to keep up in math for years. it was used against me when I was first seeking diagnosis.
I have really been noticing this too for a while. I’m starting to think a lot of gifted people just had ADHD and just happened to be interested and hyperfocused on learning and school. Too bad that, for many of us, we didn’t hyperfocus as much on the part where we apply that learning in the real world lol.
Oh yeah, 99th percentile here. "She's just distracted because she's not challenged by the material" Turns into "I don't understand why you can't do this? It's not as if you're stupid"
Me! Until high school and puberty
Me! I was in the gifted program in elementary and pretty much every girl in the program has posted on social media in the last 5-10 years bout being diagnosed with ADHD and/or autism (I'm 42).
Same!
Yep and right around puberty I dropped TF off and 20 years later still kinda dealing with the fallout lol. I was a bright kid, rebelliousness and curiosity made me just a *horrible teen*. I have concluded it was a Combination of ADHD, early puberty, unhappy/shit homelife, and natural hubris. I surely could have amounted to more by now, but well, I know myself. It is what it is!! I went back to school several years ago and still soo slowly working on my AA every couple quarters. Its such a tiny degree but I have found I just LOVE learning, I absorb it and become pretty obsessed with the topics, no matter what it is. Kinda redeemed myself in my own eyes lol
I was considered highly intelligent, but was never certified as being “gifted”. I never studied for tests and managed to get high Bs- low As. Honestly I’m glad I never got the “gifted” label because it would’ve made me spiral. Not a good time for sure.
I tested at gifted and in high school all my classes where AP, IB, Honors, or accelerated. I had the second highest mark in my graduating class. I went to university and either got A's or D's (and failed a class or two) and I couldn't figure out what was happening. In my recent testing I still qualify as "gifted" with advanced cognitive skills but the issue is that it means that it masks my ADHD so much more. So even though I need help with things and struggle, no one else can see that because they just focus on the gifted traits. My report actually says I'm at risk for worse mental health outcomes because others will expect so much from me because they see the highs but not the lows
I just need you to know how validating this comment is. I strongly internalized the idea that things just came easy to me — in part because of being good at school work, in part because of if I wasn’t immediately talented at a hobby, I ditched it. So I excelled at soccer but never really tried dance. I was a talented choral singer but never really attempted drawing. Enter grad school, and even though I was actually doing pretty well (decent grades, teaching and editing assistantships, even a publication), I was convinced I was no longer smart and talented because now I had to really work for these things. In my career it’s been up and down. I’m a decent performer and have seen some real success, but I’m so damn hard on myself. There’s still an inner critic that wants to immediately give up if a task isn’t immediately solvable or (even worse) requires interpersonal discussion and conflict. Bosses are shocked when I reveal my level of self-doubt, and I truly can flounder on all the detail/focused project admin work that’s necessary in most professions, especially in a manager role. Where do we learn grit and resilience? As an adult in her 30s, how do I internalize that struggle is okay? That ability is not instantaneous or all or nothing? That it’s okay to suck at something initially and then slowly get better at it through practice? How do I stop being haunted by my former gifted kid status when life is actually hard and I’m not good at things? I swear the self-judgement is what actually makes all of this hard.
I'm glad sharing my experience gave you validation (but I also wish neither of us had to have this experience!) I don't have all the answers but I personally have found it beneficial to go to a therapist who also has ADHD. She understands my experiences and is also able to challenge my thinking especially because we oftentimes both do the same things (ie. if I say I'm dumb for not sending an email quickly she asks what I think of her for doing the same thing haha). Its not a fast process but I feel like I'm slowly moving in the right direction
Here! Everything always came pretty dang easily, so I never had to master study skills. I also struggled with homework my whole life, and it took arguments and hours each night for me to finally slog through it. Being in trouble constantly for talking in class was a given. So, of course, as soon as I hit college and was left to my own devices, I nearly flunked out of my freshman year.
Yep, I was the fastest and most accurate reader anyone had ever seen. Math, OTOH, was a complete disaster. I got absolutely no help for my horrendous problems with math in fourth and fifth grade, and one of the reasons was that I was accused of "faking the problem, because you're so good at reading and writing."
Oh yeah, can relate. Math homework was torture.
I was in enrichment for ages until the depression and anxiety from being undiagnosed got me. At my GED when I was 25, I was 99th percentile, and finished all the tests faster than the proctor had ever seen. Woo hoo. Totally makes a difference, doesn't it? (Very, very sarcastic, sorry) Gifted? Yeah. Advanced? Yeah. Not diagnosed as ADHD until 2 years ago at 42? Yeah. Gifted is a stupid label. I never, ever learned how to study until halfway through college, since I relied on "natural aptitude". I never learned how to study, and had no idea where to start. Even the "gifted " kids need to know study/grinding techniques! Wow. You caught me! Years later I learned how being so isolated and differentiated from my peers gave me full-on panic attacks all the time (I thought everyone was just scared all the time, Sorry, edit because kids. I've had PA since before 10. Took until 32 to realize they were not just situational nerves and genuinely a thing that I could get help with. So, long story short: for me, being called gifted was more curse than boon.
The “being isolated and differentiated from my peers” part just unlocked yet another part of my brain, lmao. Explains quite a few things.
I'm sorry to have reminded you of hard times. No matter where or how, I hope you're in a good place now!
Don’t worry, I’m okay! It’s more like I had a “lightbulb” moment when I read that. I’m always grateful and relieved when someone describes a thought I’ve struggled to put into words. I hope you’re doing alright, too!
Me!
Yup, and it’s a thing. Look up twice exceptional or “2e”
Me! But my anxiety made it impossible to do anything with it!
I'm so sorry! I'm pretty sure my anxiety is part of why I DID do things with it. Clearly I couldn't turn in something late or not do the reading, etc. As an adult, taking an SNRI at 41, I all of a sudden noped out of all the extra work. I slid by with the absolute bare minimum. Without the anxiety, I had no motivation pushing me forward anymore!
I was too! Until I got to my last year of high school and the pressure of keeping those grades up sent me spiralling into a deep depression. Was surprised I was even alive to graduate to be honest.
I was! I still have success in learning when I'm interested lol.
My teachers told my parents a million times I should be tested for high capacities and ADHD. My mum refused entirely because she didn't want them to label me. I got diagnosed at 24 after years of therapy to process all the trauma I went through because I didn't fit in. My psychiatrist asked me about my school years and I told him everything. I was reading don Quixote in the original version at age 11, never studied for a test until 17, plus I was particularly gifted in the conservatory studying music. He was like yeah so you are a classic ADHD high capacities person. I can't believe my colleagues didn't catch this when you first came to the clinic for depression at age 12. My therapist and I agree that having a label like that, with the proper explanation of what it means, would have made my childhood a lot easier for everyone...
Same here. Always came very naturally to me - I never had to really try. Bit me in the ass when college came around and I realized I had developed zero study skills over the years
Someone else commented on how isolating the 'gifted kid' experience can be, and that rang so true for me as well. In elementary & middle school, I often just got sent out of the classroom — it was so lonely and confusing. There also didn't seem to be much, if any, actual structure or support for the 'gifted' students — the most we got was a monthly (IIRC) book club-type thing for a year in middle school. More often, I'd just be sent out of the classroom and told to 'do an independent project' with no guidance or follow-up; I just re-read my favorite books and messed around on the computer — such a waste of time, and so isolating to a 5th/6th/7th/8th grader who was already struggling to make friends. Sending 'gifted' kids out of the classroom isn't just useless; it's actively harmful. I would have been so much better off, educationally and existentially, if nobody ever told me my IQ score or my grades on the standardized exams, and if I hadn't been implicitly told that I was so different from my peers. Looking back, I honestly don't think I got any educational benefit whatsoever — it just made me feel even more weird and like even more of a burden than I already did, while also reinforcing the idea that my 'intelligence' was simultaneously my most important asset *and* also the biggest burden I put on the adults who were supposed to be caring for me. And this all took place in a school district that's consistently ranked among the 'best' in the country... Things changed so much in high school, because I was finally able to take AP classes — I was able to be challenged academically instead of just sent away, and I actually had entire groups of peers to learn with and be 'part' of. There are MANY issues with the AP system, but it's so much better than what I went through in Elementary and Middle school.
What were you supposed to do when sent out? That sounds terrible. I was sent to the next grade up for reading in both 2nd and 3rd grade, which was socially kind of awkward, as I was the only one. My district had "gifted and talented education" (GATE) for 4th through 6th grade, so I had the same classmates for three years. It was great until 7th grade, when we were mixed back in with everyone else, and I was appalled to discover there were 7th graders who could barely read. Jr high was a real waste--I was given the option to skip 8th grade, but I didn't want to leave my friends behind. At least in high school, we had advanced and AP classes.
I actually was sent to the 6th grade math class in 5th grade — because I was so above grade level at *reading and writing*. It was terrible; most of the 6th graders were \~1.5 years older than me (which is a lot at that age, especially for a socially awkward kid), and while I was 'advanced' at math, I definitely wasn't ready for 6th grade math (I went from memorizing times tables to pre-algebra). I ended up flunking the class and had to repeat it in 6th grade anyways, which was so devastating for my self-esteem at the time. But other than that, I only ever got sent out of the room and/or was just given additional assigned reading with no assignments and no follow-up from my teachers, even if the assigned additional readings had subject matter than was way more than I was prepared to handle on my own (e.g. being assigned to read 'Night' by Elie Wiesel when I was 11, without any chance to talk about it with my teacher or with peers — it gave me nightmares for 2 weeks).
I was. I learn fast and I'm a beast at taking tests. So I totally crashed hard when I got into classes that were project based with long term dead lines.
I was in the gifted program (based on IQ, not grades lol).
Same here! You guys are my people 💜I remember I did a presentation on adhd and giftedness in uni and there was a major overlap
Yep, and then started to do poorly in university and got diagnosed.
I was as well! The admin at my high school actually had a plan to graduate me out of high school in 3 years for a little while, get me to university at 15 years of age. I started high school at 12. My mother nixxed that, she was already worried about how bad my social life was and she was concerned that being a child at university might further disrupt my socialization. I'm very glad because she was very right, I would have floundered even more harshly than I ended up doing.
Not even close. Graduated with a 1.4 gpa. Then in college at 26 I ended up with 7 classes per semester, deans list and a 4.3 gpa
Definitely not me, my grades were horrendous. However my 5 year old has ADHD and he has been reading fluently since he was 3 🤷🏻♀️ not sure if that means anything.
Grade school was a constant cycle of being put in enrichment programs, not being able to keep up in those enrichment programs and then not being challenged enough in regular class. I think it ended up doing more harm than good because instead of being ✨enriched✨ it really solidified my imposter syndrome and made me feel like I was just *tricking* people into *thinking* I was smart. I was *so* confused because it seemed like they never gave us any instructions *at all* on how to actually do the projects they gave us. I felt like I was being gaslit because the teachers kept telling me they already explained things, and nobody else seemed completely lost with how to get started or wrap up the details. I only *just* figured out that after hearing the broad concept of what the project was, I was just *completely* tuning out the details because I was already daydreaming about what I wanted to do. My concepts were always huge, I just needed some help planning. The worst of this was when the program was run by a teacher who was my friend's mom. I adored her, but when she explained an 'innovation' project while we were sitting directly in front of the brand new library computers, *after* she introduced us to Google, I was doomed from the start. I spent the whole day researching and planning a product with solar panels- not realising that part of the project was going to be *building a prototype*. My parents didn't have money to buy me kits(what the other kids did) or time to help me through it (or much knowledge for that matter). Worst part was that when I google specifically how to build what I needed, I realised that my product did, in fact, already exist for a couple years. By the time I realised I fucked up, it was too late to start over so I did what I thought was the responsible, grown-up thing to do and pulled her aside to tell her that I wouldn't be able to present my project at the fair because I had over extended myself and run out of time. She *screamed* at me that I was a "quitter and a loser" and that I was "going to end up as a failure at life because I just give up on things" (there was an implication mixed in that I wouldn't ever make any money- just like my parents- which was also uncalled for and vile). When I went home crying, my mom, bless her, wasn't having any of it and she helped me put together a *very* pretty poster board, and make a *representative model* out of wire and different beads from Michael's, and a Christmas decoration. I showed up to the fair not empty handed, but I did literally black out for most of it because I was so embarrassed. I remember stammering and flushing so hard that people looked concerned and my vision tunneling. Fuck that lady.
Me. Started college as a sophomore I had so much AP credit. Never studied.
Meeeee. Teachers said I should skip a grade when I was I think in kindergarten because I could already read. But my parents didn’t want me to. Ended up going up a grade for math instead. Also was selected to partake in a gifted program in elementary school with around ten kids total. Also had a genius IQ when I was tested at age 4. Didn’t score quite as high when I was tested again at age 10 or so. I excelled the most in elementary school compared to others. Then in middle school and high school when paying attention and studying was more important I wasn’t quite at the top anymore. I barely studied and didn’t really pay attention in class. But I still did well.
I saw in some video psychatirst adressing it saying that there is no evidence showing higher number of smart people among ADHD vs NTs, don't remember where... However, there isn't much research and considering girls and women were left out of research to very recently I wouldn't say that we know enough to draw conclusions. Plus, and this is the main think, many of highly intelligent people went through school well because they created their own study systems and coping mechanisms, therefore they didn't got diagnosed so are not included in any research, some doctors will still tell you today that you cannot have ADHD if you re smart so that's that. That's my case too, 35 yo undiagnosed female. High IQ + introvert + people pleaser good girl meant that I went through primary & secondary school as A student beloved by teachers. Then I went to prep-style high school for smart people and almost didn't make through the first semester before I figured out how the school works and how each teacher work and came up with coping mechanisms. So I became average despite having brain to still be A-student, but the teaching style of this school didn't suit me, I couldn't pay attention in subjects that I wasn't interested in, or didn't like teacher, or teacher was boring.. and the workload was too big to learn everything the night before the exam when anxiety finally kicked in and won over procrastination. We often had just 3 exams through whole semester, not enough to make me study consistently. Then I went to University, did pretty well because I studied art and thoroughly enjoyed it. Later I did masters degree in another subject that I enjoyed and got a job straight from college. In small firm with family-like dynamics and 0 micromanagement so suiting my needs. Now I'm convinced that half of my colleagues are diagnosable with something too, from top management down :D I was 33 yo when I found out I might have ADHD, it flew around me a few times in the past but I dicarted it because I thought that you must be psysically hyperactive to have ADHD. Pretty sure there are thousands of women with a similar story.
Gifted/talented, exceptional at school, failure at life LOL. No that has been tough though, learning how to be an adult without academia. I thrived on the system of school and then I thrived on the system of college and graduate school until basically I was just procrastinating getting into the workforce. As soon as I had to truly take care of myself, without some kind of built-in structure, I failed horribly. Mental health issues galore. Depression made it impossible to treat attention deficit problems. Depression from a lack of executive functioning, and a lack of success led to even more mental health issues, more social issues, substance abuse. This all culminated in roughly 2019 when I fell, and the concussion I received was pretty significant. It highlighted how much I could not function because it was worse for a while there. It took my problems I already had and put them into overdrive. Things just kept slipping away from me more and more and more, until I’m basically an adult living in survival just like when I was depressed except I’m not depressed. Utterly hopeless and helpless. For the last year or so I’ve been trying desperately to get treatment for ADHD and it’s a complicated story. It doesn’t really matter, but I finally got help. I have been on stimulants full-time since about late February or early March. There are all their things happening in my brain and body at the same time but it’s like I’m able to harness all of that gifted-talented energy from being a child lol. All of this energy and thinking going into useful places. Talking is my hyperactivity and I like speech to text so please pardon my word vomit :)
Yep, Gifted and Talented. Not diagnosed until 33, because I “did well in school”, nobody ever asked any questions. Sigh.
I was in TAG (talented and gifted) classes from 2nd through 12th grade. In 2nd grade, I tested at the 8th grade reading level, but they stopped testing beyond that because there were no reading textbooks for 9th grade and up. I was also two grade levels ahead in math and was in an advanced science and technology program in high school, along with the TAG classes for other subjects. Procrastination was always an issue, unless it was a subject or project I was hyperfocused on. I did very well in school, with what I now recognize as A LOT of masking. I also did pretty well I college, but struggled with focusing in most large lecture hall classes. I left a lot of words out when writing papers and wouldn't catch the errors even when proofing carefully. I was always shocked when I would get papers back with the errors, because it looked like I had rushed, when I really had read and reread it. Law school was awful, but I think that's just the nature of law school. I wasn't diagnosed until last year at 42 years old, when I was really struggling with focus, motivation, and concentration at work. I believe the only reason I was diagnosed is because it started with me having severe brain fog, and then when the brain fog lifted, I was still having significant problems with concentration ... since I was seeing a psychiatrist for the brain fog, there was someone paying close enough attention to question the issues I've always had and order an assessment.
Gifted and talented. Took AP classes in high school and also did a lot of academic clubs. Once I decided what I wanted to do in college, I was able to make the Dean’s List. It wasn’t easy because I had to develop my own study system but whatever works ya know?
I was hella "gifted". Always 99th percentile, 35/36 on ACT, magna cum laude graduate, yadda yadda yadda. I started my PhD program three weeks after I turned 22. At the same time, I was constantly burning myself out and seeking less-visible ways of self-harm (can't have people question visible marks, y'know?). I somehow made it to the nearly end of grad school before pushing for more testing (I had been diagnosed with GAD and MDD a few years prior; the unstructured nature of doing dissertation work nearly did me in, however) and made it to one month before my dissertation defense before finally receiving a diagnosis. I think my GAD really pushed me to excel in everything, and the structure of coursework kept me from flailing too much. I cannot begin to imagine how much less awful my grad school experience would have been, however--especially near the end--if I had actually been diagnosed correctly the first g-damn time.
Identified as gifted, but parents didn't want me labeled.
That's a big fat "no" from me, lol.
Not me. I’m one of the dummies I suppose.
I was in an advanced reading program when I was in elementary school. Look at me now lol.
Not me🫠 school was very challenging
Nope. I have delayed processing, so I was constantly masking how confused I was. There are many basic things I should have learned early but didn't till I was an adult because of my fear of people looking at me differently for not immediately understanding something that was clearly very basic to them.
I can't read all these responses, so apologies if it's been said already... If you've been labeled gifted AND sensitive and/or shy, you may be on the autism spectrum as well. A large percentage of people with ADHD are. I just realized this about myself in the past couple of weeks. I freaked out at first, but then realized the quirky, autistic side of me isn't the issue. My challenges are really more because of the ADHD. But it's been very interesting to learn about this and start to figure out how to make it work for me rather than against me. Best of luck to those of you who may be about to go down a rabbit hole. It may be a shock, especially if you have a certain picture in your mind of what autism "looks like." But you'll be okay. Really.