I really am confused and conflicted and worrying like crazy over this... I was really surprised when the results came back and my IQ was average... I think the reason I seem so wrapped up in this is because after years of research and believing I was a gifted reader and that it explained everything (reading before K and on a nearly 7th grade level in 4th with full comprehension despite parents who don’t read), I was finally tested and proved correct, and then I come on here and everyone’s telling me I’m not a gifted reader and I feel absolutely crushed.
I'm seriously not trying to crush your ego. My wish for you is that you liberate yourself from these feelings.
You know that you'll never be the most gifted person out there in any particular area, right? Someone will always be a more gifted reader by your definition-- reading earlier, more ahead by the fourth grade, or whatever. This will hopefully come as a sort of relief; no matter how hard you try, you're never going to be at the top of the measures you are a bit fixated upon.
When you think about this, maybe you should consider why it is important to you that you see yourself as better than the great majority of the people out there that are average. Is it to give yourself courage, by thinking that even though you are just a GED holder you can achieve more in life than many with better credentials? (For what it's worth, I dropped out of high school at age 13 and later got my GED. Now I woudn't call myself a very high achiever or anything; I spent a decade in software engineering, where I certainly was at the top of my particular area of the game, and made some good money, but never achieved real fame and fortune. Later I went to law school and did well, but wasn't top in my class, partly because I have a tendency to focus very deeply on topics that interest me. But fairly often I've humiliated ultra-high-on-paper achievers in court, people from Harvard Law, people with vastly more experience, etc.)
You know that giftedness doesn't directly determine success in life, right? Quit stressing about this; it's a losing game. You will wind up either feeling like you're not living up to your potential, resting on your laurels ("I've achieved so much despite such humble beginnings, all due to my ability"), feeling bad because you don't stack up to others higher up the rankings, or something else that doesn't wind up helping you succeed.
It really doesn't matter how gifted (whatever that means) you are at this stage in your life; it matters what you do. Set yourself some goals and work toward them as hard as you can. If you really try as hard as humanly possible-- and I mean try so hard that you nearly break yourself-- you will almost certainly get somewhere that's good to be, even if you don't live up to your original self-concept in one way or another. Personally, I think it's more likely that you would exceed whatever you think yourself capable of by fixating on a couple of facets of your psychologist's report.
Let it go. Let the psychologist's determination that you're a gifted reader be a happy little nugget of self-confidence that no one can take away from you, and go on with your life. Don't doubt yourself because of your history, your parents' reading ability, or anything else. Just get on with becoming whatever you will become.
