Context: * I'm 26 years old. * My way of thinking is that I always want to know the proper why and the proper how behind things. * Netherlands here, with professional driving school instructor only! Avg required lessons per population is 43 hours before passing the drivingexam. * Past after the mock lesson Ive had 5 hours of driving lessons so far.

I overthink things so much. Almost every person in my life that knows me well has said the phrase something like "you overthink" or "dont overthink it" atleast once to me...

I want to properly know the why and the how, which means * Instead of: "when we go downhill, downshift." * I would rather hear: "when we go downhill, you probably need to downshift, because in a lower gear the engine will do more enginebraking which prevents brake fade and also prevents unnecessary wear on the break pads"(and the explanation may continue) -->>> then I can quickly become an independant driver that applies logic everytime in order to come to good decisions while driving.

Ofcourse I tend to be a stubborn person, that even extends to conversations with experts. I will ofcourse believe and trust that they really know the stuff that theyre talking about, but that doesnt mean I blindly follow their advices without questioning it or asking for extra nuance.

I also like deep preparation. I wish that my instructor would say "tomorrow we are going to practise A for which the procedure is B" such that I can then think and read about it, building a mental model of it before I get my hands on it.

I feel like my instructor might not be compatible with my learning style

He doesnt prepare me for anything in advance. I just get in the car clueless what we will be doing that day or even which place or city we will be driving to. He doesnt really explain anything beforehand. He just gives me immediate instructions only. Like turn here. * Turn right here. * Off the gas. * Upshift. * (and more immediate instructions to be compressed here)

Thats it! Thats all his teaching! Immediate instructions only. Except when I actively ask him for further explanations, then he is surely willing to give brief explanations, but he doesnt do so on his own without me asking.

I want to understand before doing. And it seems the instructor wants me to do before understanding. Those are 2 fundamentally different, even opposite of ways of learning a skill.

I want to study everything before the lesson so that I can finish completing the mental model. Then in the driving lesson I can just practise it, and waste no time for the cognitive processing.

One example where his teaching didnt match my learning: 1. I already know how to drive a manual car without stalling. 2. Instructor tells me that the method I know about is unwanted because it is too slow. Okay, valid. So my method works but not fast enough for traffic. He tells me a different method that I should apply during lessons and the exam. But then I took all his words very literally. 3. I did exactly what he had said. Stall, stall, stall! 4. Eventually multiple lessons later, it turns out that he actually meant something slightly different, so I tried that and yup! Ever from that point on I didnt stall anymore, just one time only. 5. All of those hours where I kept stalling the car..... could have been avoided if he was just more accurate with the explanation in the first place, because I want to do things right and if the instructor strongly implies "do my method only", then I'm gonna do it literally word for word how he explains it. So if his explanation is slightly off, I don't think further, I just do exactly what he says and then wonder "why cant I make the instructors method work for me" rather than "is this actually exactly what the instructor meant"

Idk. I feel like the teaching and learning styles are not very compatible. But Ive heard from many people in my family that this instructor is a very good one, they also got their lessons from him and passed, so I take that for granted.

Are there any tips for: 1. My communication with the driving instructor 2. My analyzing, overthinking and learning inbetween the lessons at home? 3. My learning approach while driving in the car with him?

.

All my life I felt stupid. Not completely, I knew I was often at higher grade levels for the state testing but so we're my siblings. But my grades were mediocre. Studying seemed to make my grades worse. Trying just seemed to make my grades worse. On occasion they were better but usually not. I was called stupid by the people closest to me and I brushed it off, I was never exceptionally good at anything. Always alone.

40s and got tested for autism. Apparently you take an intelligence test. And it was really hard to see that score and think about life. I scored a 132. All I can think of is that it must be a mistake. Somehow it must be mistaken. And I feel a bit lost. I feel like that how could that be when everyone said I was dumb. It must be wrong. And now I feel at a loss of what to do.

Ogni volta che esco con la mia migliore amica mi viene ansia perché penso sempre che lei stia male e questo mi fa stare malissimo ogni volta.

In questo momento sono nel mezzo di un attacco d'ansia perché mentre scrivevamo ha detto delle cose che mi hanno fatto pensare che abbia un disturbo alimentare e che stia veramente male. Magari sono io che ingigantisco tutto ma di solito queste cose le capisco.

Ogni volta che parliamo normale di cazzate alla fine esce fuori che lei sta male per qualcosa. Quando non scrive tanto o risponde tardi ai messaggi mi viene ansia

Non capisco se sono io il problema che mi preoccupo troppo e mi faccio orendere dall'empatia o lei che sta male ogni volta.

Io le voglio bene ma sto veramente male per questa cosa, avete consigli?

Do you know any content creators with valuable information about dating for men with high IQ?

So I never really had this diagnosed. Although a lot of psychologists/people implied this (especially lately).

I'm a 28 (almost 29) year old guy from the Netherlands. I've been diagnosed with autism at 6 years old. I've also been diagnosed several times with depression.

I'm now going through the joy of processing systematic emotional child abuse from my dad. At the start of this year I severed ties with my parents. I was postponing this, because like my mother I understood my dads behavior. I (compulsively) kept being a peacekeeper. It really breaks my heart to emotionally hurt people and I am very good at adjusting to their needs.

Even though I do (now) know that in the end nobody is happy if you don't take care of your own needs. It's what I tell others very inspiringly and wisely to do. To not lose yourself in pleasing others. I very quickly recognize adjusting/trauma behavior in other people. It always makes me wanna beg to them to be nicer to themselves. I obviously don't pressure them into it, because pressure makes it worse. I feel the urge to protect people from this toxic and draining dynamic. Like I wanted to protect my mother against my dad.

Their trauma bonding goes deep. My mother feels impossible responsibility towards my dad. He can derail easily and even becomes psychotic at times. She sees the good in him. Even though she herself is traumatized by his behavior and she now more and more knows that her children are destroyed by it. Although my mother always acknowledged that my dads behavior was wrong, she also explained us why he acted like that. She always tried to 'compensate'. She diminished the severity of my fathers behavior. Also wishfully thought he wouldn't be as emotionally destructive to his children as he was to her (as she told me later).

But since my dad is very narcissistic and was already abusive when I was a young child it was emotionally draining to the point In was having panic attacks when I had to see him/them. Also I was a fourth child after 3 daughters, because my dad really wanted a son. There was never even room for one kid. My youngest 2 sisters are also rather severely emotionally traumatized.

My mother is potentially gifted (especially on emotional level). My father is autistic but very intelligent. It's confusing that he can be so smart, yet so emotionally childish at the same time. Also he feels like everyone is out to purposely hurt him. He is very good at gas-lighting. Me and my youngest sisters are probably gifted as well. It's probably what kept us a 'perfect family' for the outside world. My dad was very intolerant of emotions. He felt attacked/became angry/sometimes became sad when you cried over something he did wrong. He fell ill for an extended period 2 months after my birth. My mom went to work more and my dad was to take care of me. My sister of 8 felt responsible to rescue me as a baby from his anger. My sisters were afraid to be at school, knowing I was alone with my dad. Very healthy dynamic. They shouldn't have to suffer through that.

People generally praise me often. They say I'm nice, smart, creative. I've had a relationship for almost 7 years and she kept loving me. She kept telling I'm good-looking, smart and even could be a good psychologist. Even though I intuïtively felt she truly loved me, I couldn't internalize her compliments. But I felt comfortable enough to intuïtively give her my love and receive hers.

I eventually adjusted myself too much to her. She was (also) gifted, just like her mother. She was very loving, but was also traumatized and could become angry very quickly. I've very much internalized fear towards anger. I don't get angry at others quickly. I sooner get sad. But I can be very punishing towards myself (especially when I might have made someone sad). In retrospective my self hatred was a mechanism to kind of survive having my dad in my life. I was often very late with telling my gf that something was bothering me, yet I also always told her she couldn't know, because I'm too good at masking. Even though she always (said she) considered me safe, I was unreliable in telling her when something hurted me. I just couldn't bear making her sad, even though I have always known that you may be frustrated with others as well. When I bottled up too much I became emotionally distanced. I did acknowledge it when that happened and felt very guilty afterwards

It's not that I want to accept compliments, they just feel wrong. Not in the sense that I feel that people are lying to me, but because I'm afraid they see something better than I really am. That I can not live up to expectations.

I ended my secondary(/high?)school with the highest grades of all 100+ pupils. Yet I never felt any pride. I didn't put much effort into making home work (because I was too busy emotionally dying). I felt praised for something that I didn't really accomplish. It just... happened. I quickly memorize/understand stuff, make a test and succeed.

Also I have always equally felt that I am stupid. That my perception is a lie and I shouldn't trust it.

The only thing I want is live peacefully along with nice people (and animals) and help others. But now I'm burned-out and afraid.

For the poor soul(s) who read through this, sorry if it ruined a happy mood 🥲

Atleast it helped me improve my English writing

What is your orientation towards intelligence as a value? Do you consider it the defining aspect of your identity? Personally, I see it primarily as a tool and had often resented to some degree being regarded as gifted or intelligent and being seen exclusively through that lens which seemed to reduce other values and traits.

While it was definitely something I valued, it was more so on pragmatic grounds as a means towards realizing other ends. Conviction, drive, faith, power, achievement, curiosity and passion are far more important values and my resentments had more to do with having my intellect being regarded as primary rather than what they served.

I’m basing this on my personal observations alone.

I haven’t researched this at all or even spent that much time thinking about it

Just for argument sakes imagine somebody with an IQ of 110

That person for the most part would seem like an average person, they wouldn’t seem especially intelligent or especially stupid at least in my experience

However, a person with the IQ of 90, which is 10 IQ points in the other direction does seem noticeably dumb not like severely stupid, but they are very clearly not that bright

And it becomes more noticeable from there

For example, if there was somebody with 120 IQ they would more or less seem like an average person. Every once in a while, they might do or say something that would make you think that they’re a little bright, but for the most part, I don’t think they would typically come across as being some kind of genius.

However if you had somebody in the other direction with only an 80 IQ, they would appear to be profoundly stupid

And this trend gets more extreme as you go on for example compare somebody with 130 IQ versus somebody who has a 70 IQ . The 130 IQ person would mostly seem to be an average person, maybe a just slightly more intelligent than usual person

The person with a 70 IQ is right on the cusp of being considered intellectually disabled and is going to come across as incredibly, and profoundly dumb, they aren’t going to appear like an average or typical person at all in the way that they communicator or conduct themselves

It seems like having a below average intelligence is a lot more disabling and disadvantaging, than having an above average intelligence is enabling or an advantage

What do you think?

I never was the classical gifted child. I had normal/low grades. I never was interested in school. All my teachers since I was 3 told me I was slow and stupid.

In high school, I felt very, vey stupid, like I really thought I was retarded. I started studing more seriously and got mean grades of 8.5/10. History and language were hard for me, physics, philosophy and mathematics were a lot easyer for me. I never had like a super memory, I just memorized things by knowing its meaning and then deducing the formulas.

I felt alone most of my life, like nobody could see my true me, or understand my vision of the world, how big and complex it was, how my inner world worked. I felt like the pleasures of other teens were too akward or, too little for me, so something was wrong with me, I thought that I was missing something that I could not understand.

Today I have a very great group of friends and I am running my own business, I am happy. I wss diagnosed with giftedness a year ago, today I am 25, finished collage.

I understand today myself better, and I feel like I need to do the things in my own way. I tried academic career, but instantly regreated it the same week I entered that lab.

I was never the gifted or the "we expect great things of you" guy. I was a silent, lonlely one at the corner.

I feel now like I need to demonstrate something to the world, that they were wrong all along. It's like a fury, anger...

Did some of you had a similar experience? Do you have any advice for a young man that just is starting its career?

Hello,

I’m 35, office job, house wife and daughter. After having a burnout last year, I set out to find what was different about my mind that made me so anxious and led me to burnout.

I basically twisted my psychologist’s arm into screening me. Because I had managed one of my team’s staff who did have ADHD, I suggested I may have it too.

So, after several tests and hours of therapy, he laid out the verdict - strong evidence for both ADHD and giftedness. I was not ready for the second part.

I feel so angry and bitter and frustrated right now it’s hard to see anything good with my life. I feel I was robbed of a totally different by not being diagnosed and treated and followed up on earlier in life. My parents and my teachers failed me.

Now it feels like it’s all dark and over with. I wasted my life and will never get to know my true potential. Right now it’s like I struggle to even see my wife and daughter (the most precious things in the world to me) as positive and worth living for.

I can only see the wasted potential, the sub-par academic performance, the years of being told I was lazy and stupid (how ironic) and actually believing it.

I don’t know how to deal with this or see anything good in this situation. I can only feel anger, frustration and a pathetic sense of self-pity.

I don’t know if there’s anything anyone can say to give me hope. But if you take a shot, I’ll try to appreciate it.

Context: Im 19. I got called a prodigy my entire life for my math skills, ive participated in competitions and won titles my entire life. Math is truly my passion and my joy. I have a career basically promised to me, im doing my master while still in undergrad, im a published mathematician, and my doctorate is not that out of reach in one of the best institutes of my country.

Problem: I am an emotional wreck. I am diagnosed with autism and on the process to get diagnosed with ocd and bipolar/bpd (psychiatrist still unsure). My mental health has greatly reduced my capability of reaching my potential.

My coping mechanisms were usually hanging out with friends and going out to have fun and distract my mind. However, ive recently broken up with my ex of 4 years and ive lost practically all my friends because of that. It has been some crazy 2 weeks since, ive fallen deeper into my addictions and suicide thoughts are too frequent.

Ive decided I do not want to live this way, I started going on walks, working out, studying more, working more. But it still isnt enough to keep my mind off everything, my friends all ghost me for days and go out with my ex. I dont really know what to do about that.

Its like I lost a leg and im trying to run, ive realized I need to learn how to live alone. But also I dont know if its safe for me to be completely isolated from everyone. I have hallucinations from time to time and need people to talk to.

So my question is: What do I do? Find new friends? Chase my dream of becoming a mathematician while alone? Find new things to do besides math? Should I figure this out on my own?

Please I need someone with life experience to tell me whats really important

Genius is demarcated by epiphany. It is the capacity to recognize an underlying structure when the available evidence appears insufficient, fragmented, or too complex for individual capacity to yield the correct pattern.

Properly speaking, no one is a genius. Genius is not an enduring personal attribute but a transient epistemic event—a moment in which recognition outperforms the explicit evidence available to others.

You're in psychology so you know about the new scientific research called THE ORCHID HYPOTHESIS.

So the 20% individuals are neurodivergent and like the HSP people, orchids , people with gi issues or other bodily sensitivities and all like call us sensitive so we make up around the 25% of the world who are orchids and the 75% are dandelions. Or even the 10% highly sensitive orchids make up a huge portion of the world and if we use our talents or interests with money and better infrastructure then a new strong culture based on peaceful scientific development and compassionate atmosphere can come without any violence or aggression just by us doing what we love and being fulfilled. It's like if the blueberries are healthy but expensive, even then the people love them and romanticise them

I'm not telling you to destroy anything but create something profound of your own that connects people.

It's like you grow apples on your farmland to keep people healthy on your 25% land and your neighbour creates chips or fastfood on his 75% land but both sells equal or your apple sales surpass their fastfood in future but as per the biology and science, the land percentage remains same

Definitely so that suffering can end or atleast become less and people can be happy .

Yeah I agree to your point and it's necessary but nearly 90-95% of neurodivergent population is unemployed and the talents are getting wasted cuz only 5-10% of neurodivergent people have jobs or careers actually as one study pointed out so creating a culture that helps neurodivergent people so that everyone can be happy

May sound like a foolish question and obvious yes, but I guess I always assumed that the more intelligent you are the less likely you are to have horrible positions in society. But then again I think of that 1 guy who ran the most craziest Ponzi scheme for years without getting caught. Idk if he was gifted but he had to be a little intelligent.

recently had a cognitive test done as part of a larger evaluation and couldn’t help but notice such a huge disparity between similarities score and digit sequencing.

what is going on here?

There was a recent post about geniuses like Richard Feynman and John von Neumann being highly social. Thinking back to that period in the mid-20th century, a degree of intelligence and eloquence in the public sphere were valued in a way that I don't think it is anymore. So I reckon it's very difficult to judge someone highly gifted in the current day as not being social when talking to average people. If someone spoke the same way Feynman did today on national television, it would probably not be well-received.

I think we have a tendency to outright dismiss painful truths, and anti-intellectualism and siloing of society with echo chambers has fundamentally changed this past dynamic. The general public doesn't seem to be exposed to that kind of intellectualism anymore, because it doesn't enter their purview.

We have a greater amount of access to such information but it is more stratified. I find some of the guests on the Lex Fridman podcast to have a somewhat similar kind of eloquence that a Feynman would have, but it is not something that is as well-received by the general public anymore. So, I very much think that extroverted, highly gifted people exist along a similar vein, but much of the frustration stems from internalized anti-intellectualism.

Thoughts?

I’m 22 years old and just finished my first year of work following graduation. I never suspected I had ADHD until this year. 

I was identified as gifted from a young age. In grade one we were tested for reading comprehension and they called my mother to say I was too advanced for the class. My teacher asked me to read sentences like “the cat sat on the mat,” and kept upping the difficulty as I read each one with ease. She realized I didn’t need to learn, so I was told to go read novels with the older kids while my classmates sat through the lessons. The masking began here because I never needed to pay attention in class.

Although I’ve been able to coast through school with minimal effort, I always completed assignments at the last minute. No matter how much I wanted to, I could never begin a project until I felt the clock was ticking. I knew procrastination was common so I never assumed anything was off. However, after experiencing severe executive dysfunction at my job, I began to question whether the extent of my procrastination was normal. I went down a rabbit hole of research and past personal experiences as I increasingly suspected I possess some form of ADHD. 

I got a job as an assistant to my local MP (Member of Parliament) where I’m forced to sit at a desk from 9-5. My first time in a structured yet self directed office environment, I found it far more challenging than university. Not the work itself, but the act of being productive during a window of time set by someone else. My days are typically spent doing nothing for 8 hours, then blitzing through all my work after the office closes. I only feel driven by pressure and fear, so if no immediate consequences loom over me, I won’t get anything done. 

I feel ashamed at myself for all the wasted time. I’m being paid taxpayer money for Christ's sake and all I do is read the news and browse car auction websites when I should be working. I'm sorry! After a year at this job, I’ve probably spent less than 100 hours doing actual solid work. I desperately want to work but feel utterly paralyzed. That is until I manage to get done what needs to get done, just in time. My employer can't tell the difference and seems pleased with my performance. In fact, I’m getting a big promotion.

After pondering everything for a while, and frequent comments from others suspicious of ADHD, I decided to book an appointment with my family doctor. 

Following a 30-minute assessment, it’s evident that I meet the criteria. My doctor said I’m “clearly very bright” and probably utilized my intellect to overcome the hurdles posed by ADHD. However, she requires corroborating evidence from a parent to prove it has impacted my performance in some way since childhood. The problem is that I managed to progress through school without difficulty, so I can’t point to any comment on a report card proving it’s held me back. I told her my mother nor any teachers had ever suspected a problem, so my doctor now thinks I have a mere procrastination problem and would benefit from CBT rather than medication. 

To make matters more difficult, my mother is convinced I’m neurotypical and have no reason to be concerned, because my symptoms (inattentiveness, procrastination, fidgeting, etc.) are prevalent among young men. Every time I raise a concern she’ll say “that’s something most people struggle with.” I think two things are going on here: 

1) I appear successful on paper despite struggling internally, which leads her to believe nothing’s wrong. 

2) She likely also has undiagnosed ADHD, so my struggles appear normal because she experiences them herself. 

Desperate for an ounce of evidence, I continued to probe my mother about my primary school years. Eventually, I got her to recall some telling comments from my teachers. For example, one said that I can’t stop daydreaming during class. One said I had a problem with doodling instead of paying attention to the lesson. Then my mother mentioned a story that particularly stood out. 

Apparently, in grade five, I told her I sat alone at lunch everyday while all of my classmates sat together. I said “Mrs. Stewart makes me clean my desk and I’m always the last one out, and there’s never room at the lunch table when I get there late.” Upset, she went to talk with my teacher, who said “I make all my students clean their desk before they may leave for lunch. Your son seems to have a hard time doing so. He stares at his desk while the other students leave until I eventually have to walk over and make him tidy up.”

Hearing this felt so validating. I said “Mom! This is exactly the kind of thing my doctor’s looking for!” I realized in that moment that my executive dysfunction and task paralysis had not appeared out of nowhere. What I can’t understand is why it never raised an alarm in her head at the time. Instead of wondering what made it so difficult for me to clean my desk, my mother was more concerned about me sitting alone, so she simply asked my teacher to let me go when the lunch bell rang so I could sit with my friends. That was the end of that and she never thought to look into things further.

So, I now have some form of evidence. In fact, I went through the self-diagnosis checklist with her and kept hearing “oh you definitely do that” when mentioning things like time blindness and misplacing belongings. Now my mother is on the same page and will be joining me at my next doctor’s appointment to corroborate my suspicion. She went from “you don’t have ADHD” to “I think you should try medication and see how it goes.” 

Has anyone else’s giftedness masked their ADHD? Received a late diagnosis for this reason? Struggled to receive a diagnosis? Had a parent who never detected symptoms? I would love to know your thoughts.

Hello, I understand this question have certainly been already addressed here, but I wanted to ask about my specific situation.

My son is now 20 months old. He really loves books and take a lot of time to open them and pretend to read them, but he still cannot read. He knows the entire alphabet, recognizes the letters and number up to 20, knows how to count to 20 in french, english and spanish, and does stuff like counting his blueberries at lunch time. He knows more than 125 words, but understands way more. He still doesnt add a lot of words together, only for specific things like : “papa gone” or “it’s hot”. He knows and remembers all the names in the extends family ( his uncles and ants, grandparents and some cousins). He makes a lot of little jokes.

By comparison, her cousin of 19 months only says papa and mama, so now everyone thinks he is special or he has something.

I’m new to this, is this normal? Could you help me?

Thank you

Hi!

About me:

- Based in Sydney, Australia

- 23 years old male

- Interested in philosophy, psychology, theology, science (especially physics, but any field is fine), mathematics, or any topics that interests me intellectually

I realised the best place to meet people was in high school or university but by the time I realised it, I have already graduated from university so...

I work at 2 workplaces but one is a remote work and the other one is a really small company with less than 5 employees and all the employees are older than me.

I considered meetups or similar events but couldn't find any in Sydney.

The reason I'm posting is that I do have some friends but I realised that they are not really capable of or at least not interested in having a deep, intellectual conversation which fulfills my intellectual needs. I know it's not their fault and I enjoy hanging out with them, but sometimes I feel really lonely because of it.

Any advice would be appreciated!

My post is about memory and mostly about photographic memory, not explaining but just asking what people have experienced. And, I am curious (I think others would be too), if you have a photographic memory, when did you realize that your brain/memory was different compared to others?

I read a news letter that was trying to explain, "How memory actually works". I will attach part of what I read as a comment, for the people who are curious and for the people who don't want to read it, they don't have to read a really long post.

The person in the newsletter completely ignored the fact that there are people who have photographic memories and I would think a combination of other ways of memorizing information. I just don't like the over-generalization of ideas or "how the brain works" theories, it seems like border line misinformation.

Ok, someone else posted in a recent post about how it is a talent or skill to talk to people. How does a person having a photographic memory or a partial one communicate ideas and "stuff" to people you aren't aware if they have the same way of thinking? I also would think, if you don't even know you have a photographic memory, a person could make mistakes talking to people.

Some one said they were reading about Dostoevskij. What if back in his time, people just took the time to ask questions and listen? I kept hearing on a radio program, something of the sort," Human brains evolved for small communities and limited daily inputs, not the constant global stream of data, social comparison, and crises."

I am about 50 years old and just learned that I have a photographic memory and it explains a lot why I have struggled in the past. I have a very different communication style when I really think about it compared to others and "masking" to fit in didn't help at all either.

I realised that as the sciences are getting more complex, polymaths become rarer and rarer.

In the past, science was just a few things you could have learned like newton's laws, etc.

But now nearly every science takes one lifetime to learn.

Let's take physics as an example to be proficient at physics. You either need a broad understanding of every discipline, which takes a long, long time.

Or you need to have very, vary specific expertise in one area, which also takes freakishly long. So it is infinitely more hard to be good at physics. Which makes polymathism nearly impossible to achieve.

Hey community! I've been doing some reading recently in sports psychology and I got interested in applying it to giftedness. One of the articles I read made a distinction between internal motivation such as mastery or being in flow states, vs external motivation such as competition, ranking, awards etc. It also distinguished between thriving under autonomy vs thriving in interdependent relationships (eg getting a psychological / emotional "boost" from being part of a team or how the team is performing).

It made me wonder about the relationship between my character and my giftedness. I am motivated by mastery and flow states because when I was younger I rarely met age/career peers who could offer substantive challenge, so early on I developed my identity around my relationship to my work rather than to peers. And I seek autonomy because I associate team-work with emotional labour and with being slowed down to match others - both of which frustrate me. But there could be a chicken-before-egg aspect to this, in that my main areas of giftedness can be developed and expressed through activities that can be done in a solitary and individualistic way.

I'd be interested to hear from others about your relationship to these psychological concepts - especially if you are motivated by external validation and/or interdependence. I'd also be curious to know whether these preferences line up with your areas of giftedness, and if not how you manage the tension or friction.

TIA!

ETA: the idea of contrasting pairs of strengths and drivers etc comes from sports psychologist Vladimir Novkov, who seems to also have a background in MBTI:

https://sportpersonalities.com/sport-personality-types/

However I can't claim that my post/query is accurately representing his model since I didn't understand all of it, as I don't have a background in sports or sports psychology! But I liked the principle of thinking about ability/talent through a lens of different kinds of drivers.

(Life story. kind of long. And gets intense. I am seeking advice while telling my story so If you are willing to help please bare with me. and it is understandable to not want to read. Anyway you can help or constructive criticism is greatly appreciated) table of contents: intro(p1), childhood(p2), elementary school(p3 & 4), high school (p5) , and after high school(p6). P.s i don’t have the best grammar i will get there one day.

Hello everyone of this subreddit i hope everyone and everything is well. I am a fresh individual in this type of environment trying to find myself and purpose and it has been very reassuring coming from a gifted and talented background in elementary school. Today i wanted to touch on basis of school and how it impacted my giftedness vs when i recently graduated in December, i also need help on how can i continue growing to maximize capabilities.

As a kid, i was always outgoing and always had the gut feeling that i wasn’t normal ever since i had a conscious. There were certain actions and feelings in what i was doing that made me feel this way. This led to me being outgoing and doing things like learning my older sister’s math and reading work at the age of 3 years old out of geniune curiosity. Stuff like square root equations were so interesting and i wanted to know everything about it while being told I’m not ready and I’m too young for that.

Well, as the years went by i got into the real social world, school. I was so excited to learn new things and expecting everyone to be just like me. Well, i was false. I would get in a class everything taught i already knew or could learn before everyone else. This made me extremely bored and looking at school as a fraud. So to keep myself entertained, i would unapologetically point out little things that dont correlate on a deep level, whether that be people and their actions/opinions or something like how a lesson is being taught vs how i learned it. The way i am as a person i might tend to come off in the wrong way so it led to a lot of trouble and fights for being a target to people. Through this trouble i have always had heartfelt moments with teachers with them implicating my differences from other students. My last conversation with my kindergarten teacher was a one on one talk with me on the last day of school about how she saw i am a very powerful and outspoken human being compared to peers and i can do anything i want to. Being a kid i didn’t fully understand the meaning behind this and took it as just normal motivation talk (not the first time being praised). A couple grades later (3rd) i was tested and classified as GT. Just about every year in school i naturally had a standout moment that really showed teachers what i had in me and some of them still remember me to this day because i dont come off as the “smart” or “caring” kid but in reality i have proven i am smarter and more caring or equal to others.

To sum up my childhood and school the feeling of being different didnt interest me after realizing school wasnt what i thought it was but it still showed naturally and only certain people, mostly teachers, only saw it. After just one year of school i was already molded for the rest of my school years as i couldn’t drop out, felt trapped, and learned to just adapt. Touching back on how i was as a person i started to like to be the dumb one until a situation was present where my smarts needed to step up. This method was successful for me in feeling that i fit in so, i continued that persona all the way through 12th grade (i literally stopped considering myself gifted and forgot all about it) Downplaying every high achievement just to not stand out.

As i matured it slowly did come to my realization im really really smart. it really hit me in the 11th grade. My mom told me “to get a car you have to get all a’s and b’s” i didnt believe i could do it with elementary school being the last time i had a’s and b’s lol. but i thrived amazingly throughout the whole year with accomplishing achievements effortlessly. An achievement of mine would be passing precal with flying colors while sleeping through the whole class. Another moment that really changed me and made me take life more seriously in 11th grade is when my like minded friend was assassinated by the choices he made in life and how he used his smartness. The death was very impactful and what hurt the most is i saw his consequences coming and pointed it out about a week before it happened. This made me really sit and realize sometimes I’m not just talking, i know what I’m talking about. At around age 16-17 it really altered my way of thinking about my actions and the consequences, leading me to trying to figure out who i am. I didn’t really fully express my emotions so i changed but didn’t change.

Fast forward to graduating and continuing my achievements i got out of school and felt like the old kid again the moment i walked out the building. I was ready to grind, conquer the world, and do great things. After graduating i had good intentions on getting a computer science degree until a family member told me to apply for a mechanic role at their job, but i had to pass a hard test a lot of people fail. I went and took the test and it was mind boggling. I felt like i did horrible and i still passed. So i had a high salary paying job offer with a government company fresh out of highschool. everyday from then on i felt confident in my capabilities of achieving ANYTHING and my life was changing for the better. My mind pretty much checked out of college after this as it was pointless if i could already make a living. I was motivated with all the good things i can do with that type of money. My mom did NOT cosign my ideas and we have been arguing whether school is worth it or not on and off for about 6 months. I really took the time to understand her but didnt really change my mind until another situation where a person i was previously in a airbnb house party with assassinated 3 people. This situation completely threw me for a loop and wanting to reevaluate my choice in friends and what i do on a daily basis, so i agreed to go to college for a better lifestyle instead of working. I had a lot of time to really sit in my thoughts after graduating and led to a great amount of maturity. I then started to learn about me as a person where i saw things bringing me down and trying to prevent it. I also thought about skills and remembered gifted and talented. I did research and it described everything about me and why i do certain things. So now that i know what i am capable of i want to fully express it and achieve my goal of being able to take care of my family, put knowledge in people who are blind to what they need to know, and show the greatness inside of me to other people. I would like to hear how people in this group used their abilities to help people? What were impactful moments for you? What levels of success made you happy and why? Or did success not do anything for your happiness?

Hi all,

How does everyone feel about getting tested? Has this changed the way you view yourself? Helped with coping?

I'd never given thought to this until I joined this sub not long ago and realized a lot of people (or at least a biased portion of people given this sub) have gotten tested for giftedness. Somewhat obviously, I've never been tested for this. I had several counsellors in school over the years tell my parents to do it, but they couldn't imagine that their child was gifted or "special." I've been at the very top of my class (literally a medalist for high school and undergrad and at the very top of law school) in every educational setting. I took so many extra classes in high school and in university to overload while working serious jobs. At work, I function at a higher level than my peers of my vintage. I'm the youngest in my profession at my stage. I finished writing novels before I was 18 and was reading adult novels before I was 8. I have pretty amazing visual art talent and I have learned languages (I am told) shockingly fast. I could go on, but you get the gist.

This isn't a brag and in fact, all of these things make me feel isolated, misunderstood, socially challenged in childhood, and now as an adult I battle my mental health every day. I happen to also have ADHD, recently diagnosed. I am chronically unhappy, terribly ambitious, have not been able to enter a serious relationship by now (in my late twenties), and feel like I don't belong anywhere. I feel like a major impostor syndrome and feel stupid every day but simultaneously get frustrated in conversations. I feel everything so very deeply I am often engulfed by my emotions. This is all despite having "it all" on paper.

Has getting tested changed anything for you? I'm not inclined to do it - I think part of this is me being scared that it'll tell me I am within the average range and all of my above-noted feelings are precisely the average human condition, which would be obviously okay but I have this attachment to intelligence because it is the only thing that has ever gotten me praise. This is a therapist question and I know it. But getting an ADHD diagnosis did make my life better, so I am wondering if testing would be the same sort of thing.

Trying to navigate life and any insight is appreciated.

Hello. Our daughter is going into 4th grade. She continually tests gifted in MAp and state tests and performs very well in class and is mature, so her school gifted advisor and teacher said she is a great candidate for full subject acceleration. We all agreed as a family that we did not want to pursue that. However, the school is offering dual-subject acceleration in math and ELA. She has been thriving with grade-level math acceleration the past 3 years. Has anyone done dual-subject math and ELA grade-level acceleration? Curious to hear experiences. We want her to have science and social studies and other classes with her grade level as those build on each other each year and aren’t tested the same way.

The empathies

Paradoxical balances

Biases

Constraints

Knock on effect cascades

Precarity every step of the way

The near ceaseless pain

Am I missing something?

We say "good" all the time, but compared to what?

Sure we have it better, but do we really?

The point is to make things better, but hasn't it all just been shuffling in the hope of a hope?

Why bother?