Unfortunately my positive experiences in school have only been a recent development. Public school was profoundly mismatched to my personality and learning style, and it didn't help that everybody involved discounted the possibility of even baseline giftedness due to my poor performance on the CogAT. In elementary school the ASD was addressed by having monitors follow me everywhere and manhandling me into a "safe room" (the use of which has, thankfully, now been banned in my state) as punishment for even the most insignificant of offenses (e.g. swearing). At one point the police became involved. I'm at least glad that nobody thought to diagnose me with paranoid schizophrenia, because I distinctly recall thinking that everybody was out to get me. At least I had a reason.
I continued receiving special education services and no accommodation of my ability (even when it began to show in the form of consistent ceiling achievement scores in both math and language), all the while believing myself not to be especially capable. I knew about the CogAT results, but not the individual testing. Supposedly using the WISC would have been "unfair" to those who couldn't afford outside testing. Well, not accepting it seems unfair to 2E kids. I may be an affluent white male, but I hardly ever feel as if I've been tremendously privileged.
The district grudgingly granted me three years' worth of math acceleration after I took courses over the summer and a teacher advocated for me, but I was not permitted to advance into calculus even though I had already taught myself at the age of 12. Perhaps jumping so far ahead of grade level in such a short span of time was unthinkable for somebody of what my intellectual caliber was perceived to be.
I transferred to a private school for 9th grade and have been much happier since. They have had no qualms about letting me take courses at a local college and my state's flagship public university. I only wish I had discovered the opportunity to do so sooner. I'm now taking classes around 5-6 years above my grade level in math and 4-5 in science, but they feel too easy. I never have to study to earn 97+%, and it's starting to create some cognitive dissonance between the perception I used to have of myself (maybe bright, but not extraordinary) and the feedback I receive from those around me.
