I always feel like the outsider looking in, in any situation. At kids activities and classes, when they were at pre-school I felt it too (although in hind sight that may have been a touch of the typical "OMG your kid is the youngest in the class and can read!" kinda thing). And even with people my age - I have often, especially over the past few years, chosen to deliberately disengage from certain friendships.
Oh, yes, this. I have different friends for different limited roles, and I am very lucky to be part of a longterm online community of kindred spirits which sustains me. CTY summer camps, then college were the only times I really felt within a community of RL peers. Nowadays I don't connect deeply with people IRL though I have learned to fake it acceptably. Mostly.
I tested PG as a child - in one of the talent-search longitudinal studies and everything. Among my many issues :-) I have very low tolerance for noise (stresses me out), and strong intellectual and imaginational overexcitabilities. In the past couple of years I think I have finally gotten beyond my well-meaning sixth-grade teacher and her classroom library of dystopian and Holocaust literature. I still cannot tolerate the typical horror or action movie. Some of those fears run deep, deep, deep and holding them up to reality as it actually exists doesn't help.
DS7, at least HG+, shows major psychomotor, sensual (currently being helped greatly by OT) and emotional overexcitabilities. Right now we're throwing everything we've got at getting him more comfortable in his own skin. He's highly, highly 2/e.
DD4, I suspect PG, exhibits psychomotor (and then some), sensual, intellectual - really all of them, right now. It's hard being 4. She's up for hand surgery soon and then we'll look at OT for her as well given what it's done for her brother.
It does make home life interesting!
