When I complain about being a ‘gifted’ kid who grew into a talentless adult I don’t mean that I’m not trying to work on my talents or anything
I mean that the ‘gifts’ I had are useless
Reading books above my age isn’t a talent when I’m not eleven
Knowing big words isn’t a talent when I’m not a kid, it’s just growing up
It’s just a weird thing that happens and it feels shitty when you’re brought up being told you’re an exceptional child only to realise as an adult you’re just average
This
I did a lot of reading about gifted kids and especially gifted adults when I got my “diagnosis” because I was told I was gifted at 23 and well, it serves no purpose to have a confirmation that you’re gifted at 23
Thing is, gifted children are not amazingly better than everyone else. Gifted brains just don’t work the same so they build their skills in a different order
Basically when you’re very young, most people brain learn social skills and how to interact with their peers, but gifted brains are already at the next step which is how to understand and interact with the world
That makes the stereotypical young children that are very good at math, always asking questions about how things work, very upset when they don’t know a thing
But the thing is, when everyone gets older, they’ve mastered most social skills and now turn towards understanding the world
But the gifted children have already mastered that part and are turning towards how to build social skills. Except there’s no one left to teach us about that! Because we’re late to that party
Long story short, at the end everyone, gifted or not, goes through all the necessary steps to make functioning adults, so the difference that was obvious as a child has disappeared
But us gifted people often end up with social anxiety and impostor syndrome because we are actually less equipped than others to face a world that taught everyone to be confident and talk to people while we were busy reading books above our age
……………that last paragraph.
damn.
like my older brother, i qualified to go to the TIP program at duke/davidson between 7th and 8th grades, because my brain is hardwired to be preternaturally good at standardized tests and frankly not much else. and it was a really cool experience and i’m glad i had the chance to go for a few weeks, but more than anything i remember my mother relating to me one of the parental workshop things where they tried to emphasize, like, nah, your kid isn’t really better off, life isn’t going to be easier, their brains just work differently. not better or worse, just not the same, and they’re gonna need help navigating that. which from talking to all my friends i’m pretty sure no parent actually knows how to do (god knows i wouldn’t) so we’re all just flailing around in complete confusion because we were never told it would be like this
