i was wondering. i came across many many posts about neurodivergence online but none of them mentions about giftedness they are all focused on adhd and autism. im not complaining btw, i love seeing neurodivergence getting more recognition each passing day but as gifted person, i feel kinda upset that almost nobody remembers us ._. (photo to draw more attention). why do you think this happens?
People and psychiatrists in special do not see the dark side of giftedness and therefore do not recognize it as a "disorder". Just had a harsh discussion with a medical director about this.
oh damn, that makes so much sense. i wish more people realise that giftedness is way more than having high iq or being smart in general and more about being more sensitive, having different views, and having unusual ways of learning things. it has been bugging me lately.
Would you be willing to explain more about this dark side of giftedness?
Getting stuck on solving a problem because you know you can if you continue to give attention to it. Isolation due to understanding things others don’t and being ignored or ridiculed due to that rift. Things like that.
That isolation is real. Being able to see things from every angle all at once and then trying to present that coherently in a way that others can comprehend is exhausting at times. Sometimes I like the challenge, but mostly it’s exhausting because the vast majority of people are not open and willing to view anything from any different perspective.
Most of the time the language isn’t even formed properly to articulate it to another person so it just sounds like gibberish or crazy talk. But yeah, it is a painful knowing.
🎯 you said it…damn…y’all are my ppl…and I’m grateful to have found you all 💜
Holy crap I feel so seen right now. Thank you for your input on this subject.
Wow you just described me & I was not expecting that. That isolation is so true!! I haven’t felt like I’ve found my ppl til I got here & the cptsd subs….crazy!
being hyper sensitive about surroundings, events happening around. being way more curious than others (which leads to isolation). seeing things many things people miss. sometimes, these traits, especially being sensitive, turn into aggression because not being heard. can't do repeated things like work, studying, etc. getting bored easily because the brain chases new knowledge, etc. having different ways of learning so it makes hard for the individuals who are stuck in education programs for neurotypical people (can speak from my own experience: in my country there aren't any suitable school for my kind of people so i was stuck in a system that didn't work along with me so i would get bored at classes and do random things on my own and ask most out of place questions (just to get bullied from my classmates)). there are a few more things that i can't remember now.
These are autism/ADHD traits. Giftedness is not a recognized condition, it's a loose collection of traits which have heavy overlap with actual disorders such as those
Not being understood, feeling allen, not understanding why everyone else seems to know how life is going, outcast, seeing what's wrong but no one's listening, thinking I'm the problem,...
Giftedness in and of itself is not a disorder, but it can mask one. A gifted child may have their struggles overlooked, and not get the help they need. This is often the case for late-diagnosed autistic people.
Or sometimes they see the disorder and not the giftedness especially in young children who are low SES
I think part of the problem lies in the concepts. “Gifted” is an outdated and heavily loaded term, while “high abilities” (the current definition) refers more to a different cognitive functioning, not necessarily to superiority or the absence of difficulties.
That said, not all highly capable people are neurodivergent. Some simply have high intellectual performance, and that's it. Others, however, do fall under the umbrella of neurodivergence when there are associated atypical processing patterns, such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), ADHD, marked hypersensitivity, emotional asynchrony, etc.
I think they are often left out of the discussion because from the outside they seem to “function well,” so it's assumed they don't need understanding or support. But when high abilities intersect with other neurodivergent profiles, the challenges are real and often invisible.
“Some simply have high intellectual performance” — that is how I have always understood the term gifted to be used.
Possibly because it’s not in the ICD10 or DSM5 so doesn’t get recognised. It wasn’t included in my course and I’ve never seen it in any CPD / further training.
Because giftedness alone isn't a disorder or considered neurodivergence.
Yes, it's just a collection of traits, many of which overlap with forms of neurodivergence such as autism. It's the same as being an empath or a sensitive person. It may be a way of explaining a form of neurodivergence, but it's not a disorder or form of neurodivergence in and of itself (not to mention that labeling it as something different can ignore that the traits being described often do fit into an actual disorder)
Although the OP didn’t engage with me directly but echoed my points in a now deleted comment, it signaled to me that my initial response landed more literally than they may have wanted because I answered the question as one of categorization and “why", rather than recognizing they're moreso seeking emotional validation.
OP, please know I wasn’t trying to dismiss your experience. I can understand how giftedness alone can place someone in a space between ND and NT experiemces of feeling “too much” and also “not enough” at the same time.
That tension is something many of us here can relate to. Your experience matters, and if inclusion around that isn’t being voiced, you’re absolutely allowed to be that voice.
Tall poppy syndrome. Everyone wants to cut us down
Giftedness is a trait, not a diagnosis. Neurodivergence is for mentally disabled people, and giftedness is not a disorder or condition. It may be in conjunction with being neurodivergent, but it's not a disorder.
Do well adjusted, smart and successful people need a support group?
that's not correct. im gifted and its not all about being smart, it's about thinking different and seeing from a different perspective. we have a darker side too. many of us are actually not successful due to the system seeks things that cannot be achieved by gifted people. and for instance, we are not well "adjusted"
Im still not understanding what population you are talking about. Maybe if you list a few common difficulties gifted people face that autistic and/or ADHD people do not, it might be more clear. I’m not seeing anything on your vent diagram that I recognise as problematic.
Gifted people have a tendency to question the established order and the established order hates anything that threatens it.
Gifted people question the established order because they have a different neurotype to the dominant neurotype.
It’s very much NOT all roses for gifted people by any means.
Life isn’t a walk in the park for anyone smart enough to see ignorance and corruption that also has the moral fortitude to try to do something about it. It is the behaviour of trying to correct the problem that causes the friction and difficulties. Are you saying that gifted people have a compulsion (or similar) that prevents them from following the status quo? Or that there is something else out of their control that creates this friction with established order?
My primary difficulty in life is that I can’t read subtext or implied meaning and consequently misunderstand what is being communicated to me.
Prevents, possibly not. Makes it incredibly hard? Definitely.
I’m not gifted but I’ve known gifted people who are not ASD or ADHD (they do exist) and they are the most socially maladaptive creatures known to man. Because they see the idiocy of what 99% of the population is doing.
Personally I’m ASD1 and likely ADHD AB’s it’s incredibly hard to play the game NTs play because I see no point to it.
Then there's people like me, we fall right in the middle of the three (ASD, ADHD, Giftedness), incredibly brilliant problem solvers, yet your engine just doesn't engage most of the time because either the topic isn't interesting enough, you don't aggree with the philosophy, or the difficulty makes it too frustrating, it's a razor thin edge to walk, finding the perfect balance between interesting enough to engage and challenging enough to keep you interested. No need to mention social ineptitude.
These are traits of disorders like autism, though. Giftedness is not a disorder or formally recognized diagnosis
Unfortunately, there are many forms of neurodivergency that are underrepresented in comparison to ADHD and autistic voices. To the point where many people incorrectly use "neurodivergent" as a synonym for autism and/or ADHD lol
It is curious, and something I've spent a lot of time thinking about. Giftedness gets included in the whole "Twice Exceptional" definition... but that's the only place i've seen it. I feel like giftedness/high IQ has a major effect on neurodivergence... it lets you workaround a LOT of it. Personally, the use of "AuDHD" that I usually see feels more like ADHD/ASD/Gifted and that someone that isn't gifted experiences ADHD/ASD MUCH differently... to the point that I feel like an imposter to use that label. I can't relate directly to someone who is ADHD, or who is ASD that isn't also gifted.
I think the reality is, people who are gifted are self-conscious about it and don't want to say "i'm gifted" because it feels like bragging. On the flip side, those that aren't gifted don't have a reason to consider it.
So, nobody wants to talk about being gifted, or dismiss it by saying things like "IQ doesn't mean anything" to protect those don't test well.
The reality is, "high IQ" just means "good at pattern matching and making connections quickly" ... its a hardware bias toward speed, and matching. (the latter being something big in ADHD or AuDHD, even with lower IQ.)
(complete nerdy tangent, but I did some tinkering in my 'cognitive atlas' project and got some fun considerations... )
High IQ Profile - aka 'the engine'
This is a standard set of traits and how they express in someone who is likely going to score well on an IQ test).
- Causal Reasoning Density (High Expression)
- Pattern Salience (High Expression)
- Working Memory Capacity (High Expression)
- Semantic Linkage (High Expression)
Speed Variable
- Decision Latency (Low Expression)
- Ideation Fluency (High Expression)
With all of these in play, you end up with 'test smart' and any of those 6 traits can interplay with other traits to further shift how your brain works. But you could have issues with the speed variables, resulting in never getting a proper 'gifted' assessment.
Ugh, all the NT Supremacists on here saying we’re disabled and disordered. You’re perpetuating OPPRESSION.
I have a theory. Gifted people, we know, are highly sensitive and therefore more susceptible to experience adverse events as traumatic. A fair amount of traits listed for autism and ADHD are the same as PTSD. I have to wonder what percentage of adults being labeled autistic/ADHD is actually just gifted people who were traumatized.
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Nothing is ever as the media portrays, for many reasons. I’m aware of the complexity — there are several autism/ADHD diagnoses in my immediate family.
And, I didn’t say self-diagnosed, I said “labeled.”
I’m not sure what autism being “way more complicated than it seems” has to do with it being confused with giftedness?
What I know from direct experience and first-hand witnessing is that gifted people who are also traumatized display the same “traits” as autism/ADHD. As in, they tick almost every box for all the traits listed in all three categories.
Seems to me since PTSD characteristics coincide with the autism/ADHD traits, and given the highly sensitive nature of giftedness, there may very well be a correlation.
that could make sense, im going to research more about it. and i meant that media is oversimplifying everything just like u said
I don’t know. I used to think we are the black sheeps of neurodivergence.
Probably because I know just as much about it as I do Autisim and ADHD combined.
A lot of gifted people learn early how to look fine or even exceptional while dealing with intense sensory, emotional, and cognitive processing underneath. From the outside it reads as advantage, not nervous-system difference, so it gets skipped even when the lived experience is real.
There’s also some cultural discomfort around centering something that sounds like praise, even when it’s not about ego at all. It’s about having a brain that processes more, faster, and deeper, often with less margin.
I see this a lot with kids. Families show up confused because their child is bright but melting down, exhausted, or socially struggling, and they don’t see themselves reflected in typical ND conversations. That gap is actually why I started writing about this through a brain-body lens over at Little Brains & Bodies.
You’re not imagining it. The omission is real, and it doesn’t mean gifted experiences don’t belong. They just don’t fit the boxes the internet is most comfortable with yet.
Me with all three:
legit
Seriously!
When my mom tells me stuff and a few months or years later she acts like that conversation never happened and I still remember 😭
I swear I remember fucking everything and a) it creeps people out but b) it annoys people. I can’t help it. I’m not even sorry. I promise I’m not creepy, I promise I’m not a know it all, I just remember everything everybody tells me.
There’s pairs of us! I have a video recording of my life in my head. If I want to, or if something triggers it, I can find that tape and go back to it! Especially conversations! Drives my husband up a wall! But it’s almost 100% right. I used to be able to drive places in my head and find businesses in route for people pre-internet. Fun party trick! I was born with a high IQ and hyperlexia.
Realll. And it sucks, and it triggers my anxiety because I always think that everyone remembers everything I do too. And it gets me anxious when I think of them remembering embarrassing stuff of me and I don't even know if they forget after a day or take 10 years to forget. Honestly it gave me social anxiety because I think everything I do is getting remembered by everyone, just because I remember everything of others. What if they even forget what they tell me, what should I do with that information who gets forgotten by everyone but I myself replay it over and over again, even when it's not about me.
In society and school you get taught a lot. But you never get taught what to do with useless information, neither do they give enough information. Idk where I should get from the information I need, I suck at school because I have 0 knowledge of what I should do. They write stuff in instructions, but no matter what I read in instructions I get atleast 10 questions to every task. Clarify atleast the main points, where to start, what do you expect? Yes, I am a perfectionist, and no you don't have to explain everything in detail (I would appreciate it though) but PLEASEE, atleast give a little bit of instructions, don't expect me to write an whole paragraph and only write "tell me the locations", what will I do? WRITTING THE DAMN LOCATION, everyone else wrote a paragraph one DINA4 page long... T_T)
It frustrates me and the point that I get 10 ideas mid sentence and then I am not fast enough to write everything down and forget half where I wanted to write..
My structure is the worst my memories are the best.
Because giftedness is not a pathology.
Autism and ADHD are also not pathologies. They’re different neurotypes. As far as I know, there are no studies of “giftedness,” whatever the heck that means, as a distinct neurotype. It’s just having exceptionally high “intelligence,” based on a test developed by flawed humans generations ago.
In medicine, they are.
Doubling down on oppression doesn’t make it right. The Nazis used “medicine” to perform research experiments on Jews, the U.S. govt. used “medicine” to justify research on black men and women. It was deplorable in both cases, and it’s deplorable using it to justify the oppression and torture of ND humans now.