Finally, after almost two years of waiting, my insurance cleared me to do a neuropsychological assessment. After ten sessions speaking with a specialist, she diagnosed me as 2e, gifted and ADHD. Yay.
I was pretty certain that I had ADHD, but I also thought I might be on the autism spectrum. This is a very important result for me, because in case I ever need to find a new psychiatrist I won’t have to go through that old loop of being treated like a drug addict because I want ADHD medication. Lisdexamphetamine works extremely well for me, and it would be a shame if I had to stop taking it.
I have to admit I was surprised at her assessment that I’m not autistic. I scored pretty high on the RAADS-R and I notice several aspects of autism in my behavior. It would explain many things. However, she thinks I am… gifted.
Let me tell you folks, I need some help with that. I hadn’t thought about this before, and I’m really sorry to say this, because I feel like I’m really close to being ableist here, but… I hate being gifted. The reason why I say that is that I had never really considered what it looks like to even discuss giftedness.
I’ve been online for a couple of years, lurking in spaces that discussed neurodiversity, this site included, and I found these spaces to be full of incredibly cool people. Open-minded, welcoming, warm people who want to share their experience being neurodivergent. People who discuss ADHD and autism not as something to be ashamed of, but as a unique part of their own identity.
But then when I look for communities dedicated to gifted people, I might as well be trying to browse a MENSA forum. Everywhere I looked it was always a gaggle of people humblebragging about their IQ and how it’s so difficult to be so much deeper than everyone around you. The “highest IQ” people were out there saying the dumbest shit I had ever seen.
That’s when I realized that I don’t even know how to talk about this. Neurotypical people are largely open to discussing autism and ADHD. Nowadays, with increasing awareness of the implications of neurodivergence, I find that people have become increasingly open-minded and willing to learn about how to accommodate the needs that neurodivergent people might have.
However, how am I supposed to tell people that I’m gifted without sounding like an asshole? According to this assessment, I have a very high IQ, but that’s not something I feel comfortable discussing with most people. I will talk openly about my ADHD, but it really sucks that this other aspect of my brain that I’m so eager to discuss and learn more about has to be kept under wraps, because otherwise people will think I’m an arrogant prick.
I hope you folks understand. How do you even deal with a giftedness assessment? What’s your experience talking about it with people who are less informed about neurodivergence, and do not understand the negative side of giftedness? It honestly feels like the loneliest part of my brain.
Also, one last thing. My personality assessment had a category of traits related to openness, as in the Big Five personality model. Within this category, there’s a trait identified as liberalism, and I’m in the 80th percentile for that. I believe this means I’ve been officially diagnosed as the least liberal person on this website.
I don’t think I have ever met a “gifted” person who wasn’t autistic. I also haven’t seen that term used much in recent years, as I’m mostly familiar with it from the early 2000s where it was used to name a special education program in the school system. A program that was (as far as I can tell) 100% attended by students that were level 1 autistic (low support needs).
From my understanding, the term “giftedness” mostly describes a very particular, narrow kind of exceptional ability, mostly in processing speed and fact retention. While this is certainly nice, it doesn’t mean that someone is automatically poised to become a great leader or something, despite what the gifted program may have led us to believe. It is possible to be incredibly good at standardized testing and also to suffer from a lack of ability in other key areas, and I would say that the majority of the students I know from the program embody this.
Ultimately, my advice in general is that you don’t need to tell people unless they have similar experiences and it would be a positive thing to do. I find that neurotypical people tend to misunderstand the reason that we tell them such things, and it can ireverably change their perception of us. I have had people tell me that they think I am trying to brag when I so much as tell them that I am very good at math, so I can’t imagine how they would react if I used the term “gifted”, given its loadedness in the cultural context here. My personal approach is to be open about my ADHD with neurotypicals, because it is well-understood and accepted and doing so earns me some much-needed grace about certain things. But I only discuss autism with other autistics unless it’s online in a space like this which is demonstrably anti-ableist, because doing so with neurotypical people has only ever led to my social isolation once their perception of me changed. And giftedness is like the next step up in level of misunderstoodness. I have only ever discussed it with other “twice-exceptional” individuals, and all of them (us, in fact) have very much disliked the terminology and not identified with it.
IQ discourse and the generalized narrow focus of “intelligence” which sidelines all other kinds of intelligence definitely leads to communities that are focused around the topic becoming very
and I understand very much why you are turned away by them.I also personally think of “giftedness” mostly as a trait that is identified for the benefit of capitalists to exploit. The program had a heavy emphasis on how to become better than non-gifted persons in the domain of moneymaking, and the majority of the sessions were about becoming an entrepreneur. Very much trying to cultivate Tony Stark wannabes and such. And even if the students don’t become that, you know that capitalists are excited to identify potential workers who have increased productivity that they can pay the same hourly wage and exploit more surplus labour value from.
I also personally think of “giftedness” mostly as a trait that is identified for the benefit of capitalists to exploit.
Absolutely, and I felt like this was something very common in the “gifted communities” I referred to in my post. Lots of people talking about giftedness and being successful at work. It’s maddening, very STEM-coded.
I’ve also realized that it just kind of means being exceptionally exploitable. The lovely societal feelings of shame, never feeling like you are enough and all the trauma from growing up undiagnosed just elevates this tendency to a level where the burnouts we probably all have been through become parts of everyday life. It’s incredibly toxic at its core.
I only discuss autism with other autistics unless it’s online in a space like this which is demonstrably anti-ableist, because doing so with neurotypical people has only ever led to my social isolation once their perception of me changed. And giftedness is like the next step up in level of misunderstoodness. I have only ever discussed it with other “twice-exceptional” individuals, and all of them (us, in fact) have very much disliked the terminology and not identified with it.
That’s exactly what I mean, thanks for putting it so eloquently! I had honestly never stopped for a moment to consider this aspect of it. It’s a very loaded term that I’m really struggling to identify with. I didn’t expect this particular label to be so difficult to discuss constructively.
IQ discourse and the generalized narrow focus of “intelligence” which sidelines all other kinds of intelligence definitely leads to communities that are focused around the topic becoming very
and I understand very much why you are turned away by them.Yeah, I find it incredibly off-putting, because at some points it legit felt like the discussion was veering into very phrenology-like territory. Lots of bell curves being thrown around without any critical discussion of what the term “gifted” even means aside from your ability to do things that are seen as useful and desirable in a capitalist society.
I’m not saying that all “gifted” people are like that, but the combination of a label that is seen by most as a compliment or a congratulatory term has the potential to become especially toxic in online communities like the ones we have access to nowadays. This is not something that can be discussed in a space where people are competing for attention and internet points. That’s like a recipe for creating a hundred little Elon Musks.
Former “gifted” child here. Only diagnosed as autistic in middle age.
Another one here, can’t access an official diagnosis because “I’m doing so well” (read: masking). In hindsight though I am like textbook audhd, but being a girl hid all that really well.
I was also in the “gifted” program and turned out autistic. Life is hard. Godspeed comrade.
Also, congratulations on the diagnosis.
Thanks!
deleted by creator
There is a social component to giftedness and a co-option of the “gifted” category by the most obnoxious, self-important people you’ve ever met, like Mensa. This is really annoying and the whole IQ shtick is a hangover from eugenicist brainworms that we haven’t fully excised from mental health practice. “giftedness”, as a social construction just means a higher-than average performance in certain abstract and quantitative tasks. It’s a feature of human diversity, like eye color or height. Everyone would hate if there was a “gingers-only club” who all they did all they long was talk about how because they’re ginger they’re better than others, and the only people who would join are the people whose only thing they’ve got going on is being a ginger. Same with MENSA.
There is a clinical component to it, however, as my psychiatrist pointed out: gifted, neurodivergent people understand social cues or societal demands at an abstract level, and often use their talent to supplement their shortcomings, flying under the diagnostic radar, so-to-speak.
Only because gifted neurodivergent brains are good at providing what society expects to see as a functioning adult, the toll of being that functioning adult is often ignored or internalized in unhealthy coping mechanisms (some of them can be classified as masking), which lead to burnout, or to exacerbate comorbidities like depression, ocd or anxiety.
I got the whole “adhd but gifted and maybe autistic but not really?” like a year ago, and I can tell you it has changed some things for me, especially to how I realize that I don’t have to brute-force my brain to get through some of the limitations of ADHD like executive dysfunction or sensory overwhelm. I have been working with an ADHD-aware therapist in recreating expectations for myself that take into account my giftedness, but also that I don’t have to rely on it in order to avoid asking/seeking accommodations for my ADHD.
But overall, the thing that’s it’s helped me be kinder to myself.
My brain is running an emulator that’s running ‘be normal’ and the whole thing is a little bit buggy
And the emulator is the most inefficient, spaghetti code piece of shit software so any task that usually takes no energy to the ‘normal’ people is exhausting to us. That’s why it’s better to find ways to do the things be normal expects without having to emulate it.
You don’t identify with “gifted” people, so… continue not doing that? Why do you feel compelled to describe yourself as “gifted” in the way we’d describe ourselves as ADHD or ND? (I’m also ADHD-inattentive type).
I sometimes disclose my ADHD to others, but I’d never say I’m “gifted,” I’m not sure what that even means, except to put ill-defined expectations on yourself and come off like a prick, as you say. Seems like an unuseful thing to be discarded, no?
Seems like an unuseful thing to be discarded, no?
Perhaps worth interrogating first to see if there’s a kernel of truth in the otherwise loaded “gifted” thing and see if there is anything useful to be had from being self aware of any useful positive traits you might have? But otherwise yeah that sort of self identification seems like an accelerant for social alienation.
I don’t really think in “gifted” terms cuz it’s a label I haven’t heard applied to anyone since I was a child, but I do seem to have some exceptional traits that make me potentially very useful for a lot of things. There are so many self serving ways to describe those traits, but I don’t really need that in order to recognise them in myself and figure out how to use them wisely. I also don’t need to declare myself to be “this type of person” because work speaks for itself.
I hope some of that makes sense. Like it’s okay (good even) to recognise your talents (or whatever term you like) so long as you don’t become grandiose about it?
Maybe I’m just really confused though about what the implications of a gifted label are.
I don’t really think in “gifted” terms cuz it’s a label I haven’t heard applied to anyone since I was a child, but I do seem to have some exceptional traits that make me potentially very useful for a lot of things. There are so many self serving ways to describe those traits, but I don’t really need that in order to recognise them in myself and figure out how to use them wisely. I also don’t need to declare myself to be “this type of person” because work speaks for itself.
Very well put. I know what I’m good at and I make use of these specific abilities. But, like I said in my other comment to decaptcha, isn’t it weird that this is a diagnosis that you have to kind of tiptoe around? I legitimately had never considered that before having that label applied to me by a specialist.
It’s honestly a weird diagnosis, but I had a similar experience and it felt like a rationalization of “well, children usually get diagnosed with ADHD when it starts to impact their grades and you managed to push through well enough despite that.” I have a history of getting pulled into “academically gifted” and “honors” programs throughout my school career (then eventually getting thrown out of them because I had untreated/undiagnosed ADHD and got bored/distracted lol).
I would mostly disregard being “gifted” as a diagnosis. Take time to acknowledge your personal talents to yourself, though. I feel like I often sell myself short, and that leaves me losing touch with my own strengths. When I spend more time recognizing my own abilities and accomplishments, I don’t have to make much of a special effort to be recognized by others - it kinda shines through if that makes sense.
I agree with this, thanks for putting it more eloquently than I could. I do think it’s useful to understand one’s abilities and limitations, if anything I’m also confused what “gifted” is supposed to mean, exactly.
There are so many self serving ways to describe those traits, but I don’t really need that in order to recognise them in myself and figure out how to use them wisely. I also don’t need to declare myself to be “this type of person” because work speaks for itself.
100x this, I will add that I spent decades struggling with all this until receiving ADHD diagnosis as an adult and starting proper treatment. I can honestly divide my life into Pre- and Post-vyvanse Eras. I’m so much more confident now bc as you say, my work can speak for itself.
You don’t identify with “gifted” people, so… continue not doing that? Why do you feel compelled to describe yourself as “gifted” in the way we’d describe ourselves as ADHD or ND? (I’m also ADHD-inattentive type).
It’s not that I feel compelled to, quite on the contrary! It’s just that I hadn’t really given the term much thought before it was applied to me by a professional, and now I realize how incredibly loaded it is. I certainly would identify with other people who have a similar life experience to me, but it seems like “gifted” is a unique term in the sense that it is also used as a generally positive term, like “he’s a gifted [job description]” as a compliment rather than a reference to a type of neurodivergence.
I mean, people generally don’t say “he’s an autistic writer” unless they specifically want to reference the fact that this is an autistic person who writes, whereas they would say “he’s a gifted writer” when they mean that he’s very good at his job as a writer. So when you apply “gifted” to yourself to discuss your neurodivergence with people who are unaware of this aspect of the word, it can sound like you’re just complimenting yourself, which may come across as arrogant, even if you don’t mean that at all. Does that make sense?
I sometimes disclose my ADHD to others, but I’d never say I’m “gifted,” I’m not sure what that even means, except to put ill-defined expectations on yourself and come off like a prick, as you say. Seems like an unuseful thing to be discarded, no?
Yeah, I agree, but still, isn’t that kind of weird? If you say you have ADHD or are autistic, it can earn you some grace, as Poutine put it in his comment. There really doesn’t seem to be anything similar to that in giftedness. I feel weird about being called “gifted” because it’s a diagnosis that I feel like I have to hide. I’m still processing that.
Just chiming in that self-diagnosis is valid when it comes to neurodiversity. You don’t have to accept the “gifted” label for all the reasons you stated. Not sure if it was already pointed out but I am very tired after work and could not really focus on all the comments here.
The gifted label is pretty harmful. I was labelled as just gifted as a kid and it’s probably the main reason I dropped out of uni when young and burnt out severely. The expectations that were put on me and the inability to see that I in fact would have needed help, kindness, time and space ended up burning me out very young. I was just like: “Everyone keelps saying I have it so easy, because I am gifted. So why is everything so incredibly hard when nobody is looking and why am I exhausted all the time?”
My upringing also featured those toxic ideas about giftedness you mention and I hated it. The elitism and misplaced confidence of some of my relatives who honestly also struggled and never finished much was disgusting, it had become generational.
Also, autism is a spectrum and afaik to be audhd you might not have enough of the tism to meet diagnostic criteria (which is a moving target that “being gifted” effectively masks). It doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
Fully understand why you feel uneasy with the label, I hate it.
I mean, people generally don’t say “he’s an autistic writer” unless they specifically want to reference the fact that this is an autistic person who writes, whereas they would say “he’s a gifted writer” when they mean that he’s very good at his job as a writer.
I think this is a case of a word being used in two different ways. There is gifted, meaning “good at”, and Gifted, as in the special categorization of giftedness. I think in your example, the former definition is being used.
It’s like stoic (unemotional) versus Stoic (specific philosophy).
Oh shit, my bad! I’m not fully with it today, I misread you, and I’d like to take back the compelled thing. I think I’m with you now. Yes, “gifted” is loaded af. Excellent points about “autistic writer.” I’m a USian old enough to remember the “Gifted and Talented” program in elementary schools. I think that the Gifted term has fallen out of favor for the reasons you and others have described.
Yeah, I agree, but still, isn’t that kind of weird? If you say you have ADHD or are autistic, it can earn you some grace, as Poutine put it in his comment. There really doesn’t seem to be anything similar to that in giftedness. I feel weird about being called “gifted” because it’s a diagnosis that I feel like I have to hide. I’m still processing that.
Just wanted to take a bit to say thanks for sharing all this. I’m curious about the way you describe “gifted” as a diagnosis… like, not trying to make a joke here, is that a thing in the new versions of the DSM nowadays? I’m personally not sure of the utility of the term in a clinical context… it’s just already too loaded, y’know?
Oh shit, my bad! I’m not fully with it today, I misread you, and I’d like to take back the compelled thing. I think I’m with you now. Yes, “gifted” is loaded af. Excellent points about “autistic writer.” I’m a USian old enough to remember the “Gifted and Talented” program in elementary schools. I think that the Gifted term has fallen out of favor for the reasons you and others have described.
No worries, comrade! When I was a little kid a teacher approached my parents to suggest a similar program, but here in Brazil it’s called “superdotação” or “altas habilidades”, the latter being something like “elevated abilities” and the former something harder to translate literally, like “super-skilled-ness”, which seems to be falling out of favor recently as well.
I’m curious about the way you describe “gifted” as a diagnosis… like, not trying to make a joke here, is that a thing in the new versions of the DSM nowadays?
Huh, I didn’t check the DSM and, looking at it now, apparently it’s not understood as a disorder. It was included in my assessment in the results section, but since I’m not in the US, maybe in my country there is a different way to approach giftedness? I’m not sure. Like I was saying before, I never dug too deep into the topic because I was more interested in learning about ADHD and autism, and I just kind of assumed it was officially in the same category because of the amount of people that discuss all three in similar terms!
Hi! Welcome to the club. Former gifted kid and diagnosed with ADHD as an adult a couple of years ago. I don’t think the gifted label is useful except as way to recognize that you have a comparatively higher need for cognition, something that can make the modern world’s saturation of distraction a particularly acute problem. It can be hard to find outlets, but the best thing is to just cultivate interests that use your whole attention and find people to do them with without worrying about whether you’re smarter than the people around you. Cultivating intelligence as an interest, as you’ve already found, just leads to insufferable behavior.
Also, one last thing. My personality assessment had a category of traits related to openness, as in the Big Five personality model. Within this category, there’s a trait identified as liberalism, and I’m in the 80th percentile for that. I believe this means I’ve been officially diagnosed as the least liberal person on this website.
My neighbor gave me the last of his adderall prescription since he said he doesn’t need it anymore and so I decided a little experimental self medication and I think I maybe ADHD too because this shit made it so much easier for me to function. I should probably get a diagnosis of some sort idk what I am but it is something.
I was called gifted as a child but had bad undiagnosed ADHD until I was middle-aged, when I got a diagnosis and treatment.
The gifted thing is probably not real critical. It’s never come up in real life. My wife was gifted too but we didn’t like know that about each other. It was cool when I was a kid because I got to read better stuff, complete some cool projects, and my teacher had a big effect on me. I know people who weren’t designated gifted that are objectively very intelligent; and I know people who were gifted who ended up making some really stupid and negative decisions, and other people who are just kinda quirky and/or normal.
There’s not really a good community for people like us on the basis of our “intelligence” since someone has to be smart enough to do well on some intelligence test, but gullible enough to believe in it.
There are lots of ways to make cool, smart friends. Joining gifted communities unfortunately isn’t one of them.
a lot of us need a support group but i don’t think that exists.
This whole thread has me wondering quite a bit about my own struggles
Everyone on the fedi is actually trans/uses Linux/is AuDHD even if you don’t know it yet
However, how am I supposed to tell people that I’m gifted without sounding like an asshole?
Other commenters have mentioned this already, but I’d still like to comment on it anyways.
The same way you did here honestly. In a nutshell, remembering Goodhart’s law:
When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
Like other school tests, IQ tests are tests that can be studied for, and the Flynn effect provides empirical evidence that studying for it works. IQ is a target, and does not in fact measure general intelligence, but rather how good one is at IQ tests… which can still be of limited use in the context of the educational system, but people need to keep what it does not measure in mind.
Especially in the case of neurodivergent people with high IQ (I would assume a large percentage of high IQ people are neurodivergent), people assume that because they are “smart,” they won’t struggle with things that neurotypical people don’t. As a result, the general public (including many health professionals) see simply “gifted” or “disabled” — not both at the same time
One thing that I really like to say, which melds really well with my philosophy and also countless examples in this world, is that “there are many ways of being good/valuable/intelligent, and everything comes as a tradeoff”.
It is arrogant to imply that you’re better than everyone, but not at all arrogant to talk about how you have strengths and weaknesses.
I have a mind with an extensive capacity for science, geography, languages, and history. But when peers start talking about movies they’ve watched, albums from bands they like, or anything to do with cars, I can’t keep up. I can compute numbers and arrange objects in my head, but I can’t tell very well whether an outfit looks presentable or what social cues a person is giving. These are tradeoffs and that is okay.
Market-centric and hierarchy-centric ideologies tend to put a single value on every person, so that every person can be compared by a similar metric. It’s very easily turned into a way of ranking people and that feels icky.
This finally clicked for me one evening about 10 years ago. I was alone in dealing with someone who was in the middle of an intense mood swing episode, who was giving me an earful. In between threats and monologues and posturing, they said “I’m smarter than you.” I’ve scored in the top 5% of every standardized test I’ve taken, but from that moment on, I was no longer interested in debating that or projecting my ego. Hearing that line just made me think “I don’t want to be ‘smart’, I want to have a positive impact on the world”. Whiz kids have done a good job of conceptualizing the world; the purpose is to impact it.Twice Exceptional is a phrase I hate too. “Oh, I’m special, but I’m extra special in a way that means you shouldn’t actually expect much from me.” It’s much easier to say there are tradeoffs in what your brain can store, what it can process, what its pace is, etc. When you look at it through the model of tradeoffs, you are able to value every person without situating them all on a single axis. Sure, some capacities and skill clusters will be axial, but there is no one metric, and that’s a very relieving (and socially adaptive) thing.
The “highest IQ” people were out there saying the dumbest shit I had ever seen.
Education is not quite the same thing as “IQ”, but this reminds me of a study where they observed that a higher level of education doesn’t really correlate that much with what your beliefs are, but it does remarkably correlate with how strongly you hold those beliefs. I think some of the questions were on biological evolution and climate change.
On a different note, your username just now made sense in my head.
deleted by creator
