Were you a gifted child?

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Back in the 1960s, the phrase "Gifted Student" indicated that the student was especially talented, such as being "Musically Gifted" or "Gifted in Maths". By the time the 1980s rolled around, the phrase "Gifted Child" also came into being as a euphemism for a child who was mentally deficient, such as a child with Down Syndrome or other condition adversely affecting brain development.

In the 60s, you might encounter a "Gifted" child who could play Chopin on the piano at age 3, while in the 80s you might encounter a "Gifted" child who still wasn't potty-trained at the age of 13.

When I was young, there was no term called "gifted". In elementary school I was on the other end of the spectrum. I went to something called "Special Classes". Those were for children who were behind and need a little extra help. Towards the end of high school I began to take off academically. And by the time I hit college, I was flying like a rocket. I am a pattern matcher, with very strong skills in that area. That trait has been passed down to my children and grand children.

No I was normal only gifted in writing n reading (at the time not anymore obviously )

Oh my brother most definitely has asd (social but better socially than me... Constant fidgeting n stimming since he was a toddler.. Constantly rocking in circles.. Impeded in many things despite trying.Etc) but diagnosed OCD..

Anyway he was labeled as gifted .

I think the gifted part helps with the awful issues that come with OCD.. Bcuz if he wasn't so intelligent he wouldn't cope as well.

And everyone likes him anyway, unlike me, which compensates for some social difficulties ...

I don't know if skipping grades is an indicator of being gifted but he skipped grades too...

I was never part of any gifted programme, but I have received a few comments asking why I wasn't because I was quite the history nerd when I was little. I gravitate more toward linguistics now.

Yes, I could read almost as fluently as now at only 2,5 and as a first grader (7-8 y/o) I read books for adults and could win very spelling bee without any problem because I had the condition known now to me as hyperlexia. I used to get the best marks at school. Everybody thought I was so different than the other kids because I was smart and mature for my age. Even when I was a young child, even before I turned five, I had an adult-like way of thinking, analyzing data reaching my brain and perceiving the reality surrounding me. I remember one such a moment - at three I wanted to put my fingers into an electric socket but what at the same moment prevented me from doing this was that instant thought I was going to die if I did this and when you die, it's already FOREVER An average toddler wouldn't rather think of this, she wouldn't have this awareness of irreversibility of death at such a young age, nevertheless I did.

No, Autistic, but in the 1970s on a part of the spectrum which was not known.

While tidying and clearing my mother's house I found correspondence with an organisation called the National Gifted Children's Association dated at the time the mismatch between my profile and the school I attended caused my mother a great deal of worry.

I suspect if someone had suggested to my mother that her first child was Autistic the reaction might have been less than pleasant.

I will express gratitude for the memory and learning ability which came witb the profile. It meant I had a secondary school experience with enough people with similar profiles that I avoided the horrible bullying that could have come my way in a totally mixed ability school.

I don't like the label. Insome eyes it looks like pushy parents of children who already have an advantage demanding extra privileges over children who had greater need because they struggled with the accademic stuff.

At near age 50 I finally have confirmation that I am 2e, twice exceptional: gifted and disabled. I am someone for whom on the outside my giftedness tends to outshine (compensate for) my disability, but my internal experience is the reverse. My ASD therapist says my giftedness is a blessing and a curse. I agree.

I just picked up the book "Bright, not Broken" which talks about when disability masks giftedness. I am hoping it also addresses when the giftedness masks the disability. The book "Differently Wired" did a bit. Or else I will need to find another book, not sure if there are adult 2e support groups. My adult ASD support group is kind of one since the folks who come live independently.

I do well, but I could do sooooo much better. It's frustrating. I want to see my ideas realized and yet I can't quite get there myself... I really like what I wrote on another post and will write it again (below) b/c it amuses me. I have all this potential (still)… or do I "accept" be ordinary? No, I can't. But I how do I be myself?

Would someone please check to see if I am plugged in and my power switch is on?

According to the NT definition, yes, I was "gifted". My family learned this when I was in kindergarten, when I read at a 3rd-grade level. (I first learned to read when I was 4.) The gift became a curse. Immediately, I ceased to exist as a person, and started existing solely as a disembodied report card. To start, my parents enrolled me in a private school with an accelerated curriculum, where I read excerpts from "Les Miserables" and did simple algebra in 3rd grade! Then in 6th thru 8th grade, I was in a regular public school but in a gifted program. Perfect grades were expected at all times! Anything less was harshly punished. Even a B got the side-eye, and a C resulted hours of yelling and a loss of TV privileges for 2 weeks. I also had violent fantasies about my teachers, who I blamed for my strained relationship with my parents.

Every time a report card was due, which contained a C or two on occasion, I was making suicide plans, to avoid my parents' anger. I had my first suicide plan when I was 8. By the time I was 12, my plans became elaborate and "multi-pronged"; that is, used multiple methods to minimize the chance of failure. In the end, I graduated high school with a 3.89 GPA, but felt no sense of pride for it whatsoever. Because it came at a very high emotional price, and nearly cost me my life. I used my high school yearbook as a bathroom reader, until I dropped it in a full bathtub one day.

College was OK. But my jobs early in my career were extremely stressful, to the point of me ending up in a hospital. Today, I work in a fairly low-stress, IT job that's far from glamorous, nobody at my work outside my department even knows who I am, I drink almost every day, and my health is far from perfect. So much for "gifted"!

My message to any "gifted" (read: cursed) kid reading this: NEVER LET YOUR FAMILY FIND OUT YOU'RE SMART. You will turn into a disembodied report card in their eyes.

So sorry. In my mind that is so very ignorant (yet probably a norm). My in-laws are punitive and my nephews suffer. I see my nephews' self motivation diminished.

I considered one parent emotionally abusive, but still I received sufficient support to have the "glow" of entitlement. My parents didn't explicitly punish me; even so I had high self expectations and was depressed, to a lesser degree as a child (it peaked in my 20s - college was a disaster I barely survived). Now with my own children, I err on the side of lenience, which I worry about also. Where is that balance?

At work I called myself a "recovering overachiever" for a bit when the environment was relatively supportive. It really gets my goat that at work I am discouraged from pursuing curiosity, quality and efficiency. Have I mentioned I need a new job (or direction in life)? Yes, 243 times on WP alone. But like the article says, there is SO MUCH I want to do (and an equal amount of anxiety)! !! Which way to go? I have to put a foot down in some direction... once I get it out of my mouth (as they say). Hahahaha.

"Recovering overachiever"... that's perfect! I couldn't have said it better myself.

I used to be an overachiever because my parents trained me to be one... like a dog with a shock collar. So when I started working, I worked extremely hard to make sure my work is perfect, at the expense of family, friends, personal life, and even my health. I was putting in 14-hour days and being on call 24/7. All because I was promised a mythical great future, which never came. Quite the opposite: my "hard work" landed me in the emergency room from all the stress. I also had to take blood pressure and anti-anxiety medication for 6 months afterwards. Even my parents, the utmost believers of the "hard work pays off" myth, changed their tune when they found out.

Ever since, I've been doing the bare minimum to keep my job, and bolting out for my car or the train station at 5:00 PM on the dot. What's scary is that my recent bosses respected me more than my early bosses ever did. They see me as a human being who does a necessary task for them, rather than a dehumanized, overachieving lackey.

Yep, when being taken for granted at work, multiple times friends advised me to do less and ironically (to me) I was rewarded each time. Yet it remains personally dissatisfactory. Although I am also working minimally, I continue to chomp at the bit to do more--- I don't see that as conditioning so much as my innate being --- I want to do more, I am a sensation seeker, an innovator --- not a match for my current environment. I am hoping it's a match somewhere (or somehow).

I wonder that your parent's drive usurped your own. Kind of like if I demand my (NT) child to do this and do that, his response would be "I won't, you can't make me!" when he would have done those things himself otherwise --- but I would have taken his power. My (ASD) child would do those things, but I wonder that her response in the long run would be similar to ours...

Now I want to own my power. (Not as in "super powers" that make everyone cringe, but as in authentic power for who I am (strengths and weaknesses). Less defined by others, more defined by myself.)

It's all very fancy talk. Time will tell.

I see some shared experience.

Secondary school. Liked the end of autumb and summer terms because exams formed a big part of the marks and I was good at exams.

I dreaded the end of spring term because the marks were all based on coursework, with which I struggled and it was a parents evening rather than a report. I remember being very cautious in what I said in conversation with my mother. I would say sonething which showed intelligencr, or all the information in my head, and that would trigger "The conversation" about the parents' evening feedback, disappointment, letting myseld down.

I am very greatful I wentvthrough my schooling at the time exams were the mrasure, with no coursework input, as I suspect on the systems which came in acfew years later I would have been in difficulties.

It feels a little bit dissatisfying to me too, but I'm too jaded to care. I do the bare minimum, and chalk it up to "It's what the NT society wants from me; if you can't beat them, join them." At least it's better than feeling suicidal and chain-smoking cigarettes from all the work stress. I also became very well-versed in labor laws. Which I means I became very brazen in asking for work accommodations when I need them, because I know how failing to provide them can often land managers in hot water.

Yes, definitely so. Aspie kids tend to be more docile, which stems from fear of punishment. Any teenage rebellion they have, it's often covert and inward-directed. My own consisted of sneaking my parents' whiskey and replacing it with water, although I did it to cope with stress, rather to rebel outright. (They never noticed, and if they did, they probably blamed each other. ) But in the long run, aspie kids will feel resentment, both toward you (the person controlling them) and toward life/society/rules in general.

I totally get that. It sounds like you've made significant health improvements --- kudos to you. I relate to your statement about mental and physical health and consider legal action.


I am just getting that. I didn't know that about myself. I started in an ASD support group and the stories from the other participants support that theory. Heck, I still do it. I haven't seen this aspect called out in the literature I've read. Teasing: Perhaps it's implied, or maybe i missed those gestures.

I took legal action. It was recommended to me by the ER doctor (well, his name badge said "N.P.", but it's semantics) who treated me in the hospital. I listened to him, and hired a lawyer. It turned out the company was breaking labor laws with my job. The out-of-court settlement consisted of me getting my hospital bill paid for, and back wages, enough to pay for a cruise I took a few months later under the pretext of a medical leave. As part of the settlement, I also got reassigned into a mickey-mouse role where the most I did with computers was carry them, at my original wage to boot. A far cry from my original role, where I was doing the work of 4 people, and was on call 24/7 as well.

As part of the "medical leave" pretext, I still jokingly refer to that cruise as "oxytocin therapy rehabilitation", due to the large number of hugs and close dancing I got from the women I met on the ship.

Multiple managers got fired after this settlement, and even the CIO started looking at me funny when walking past me in hallways or the building's smoking area. I found a new job later that year, that paid $4 more per hour, and was virtually stress-free in comparison. I kept in touch with one former colleague; he said that the IT department was dissolved a year after I left, and replaced with a consulting firm, with one VP functioning as a symbolic figurehead. When I found the new job, I'm sure the CIO and the VP were happy to see me go.

I'm freely talking about it, because the two-year Settlement Nondisclosure Agreement lapsed long time ago. One thing for sure: wreaking legal havoc on my employer felt a lot more "gifted" than all my straight A's put together. But sadly, I have no genius-level aspirations I used to have as a gifted child. All I want today is basically bread and circuses.