I can attest to the auditory over-excitability, particularly. Ambient sounds and music can cause me tactile pleasure or pain outside of hearing, to the extent that I suspect auditory-tactile synaesthesia might be present. We seem to have a population of synaesthetes above the expected population rate frequenting this board, which begs the question of the link between synaesthesia, overexcitabilities, and giftedness.
I agree with this statement Val made:
It's not Jane's fault that she can't understand being gifted because she isn't gifted, any more than it's my fault that I can't understand what it's like to grow up in Angola or Greenland because I didn't grow up in those places.
As in any social interaction, there will be friction between the expectations of the more able party and the ability of the less able one. We're all human and, although our differences sometimes seem vast, we're much more similar than dissimilar to a person drawn at random from the population.
As to being misunderstood, I suppose that comes down to what and how you're communicating, and to whom. I think there are too many variables at play there for a hard and fast rule to be pinned down.
Sure, you might feel incapable of expressing the full range of your thoughts and feelings to the average person, which can be extremely frustrating, but there do exist people who can appreciate your thoughts and commiserate with you.
