Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional How can an former twice-exceptional child help?

Sigh...

I want to help kids in someway that are like how I used to be. In fact, I might be called a twice-exceptional adult because I grew out of screaming fits and bad social skills to adult mental illness.

I mostly want to see kids like this treated properly. As a kid, they tried sticking me in special ed part of the day and honors courses the other part. Special ed did nothing to teach me good skills, I would just sit there and do homework.

I tried to teach kids about nature, but well... it turned out that I wasn't good at teaching kids. I still have overemotionality and shutdowns and stuff and that happened in front of kids.

I don't even know for sure what illness I have, I had such a weird mix of some traits from ADHD, childhood bipolar and AS, though I'm BP as an adult and that could be it.

And on top of helping somehow, is there any support groups of adults that were emotionally disturbed or twice exceptional kids?

If you are wondering, I am now going into research science as an ornithologist, trying to be successful in life at least.

I might try to help parents on this forum, I came here in the past, but I forgot what I said then.

edit: Oh, I guess I registered but never said anything.

Oooh!! You can help me to help my son please please please! He is in first grade and has been suspended twice for screaming meltdowns. The school doesn't know what to do with him and I don't want to have them ruin his love of learning! I asked someone else here this same question: What do you think would have helped you when you were younger in school? My little guy is so smart but gets so overwhelmed with all the sensory and social poundings he is exposed to all day. Thanks so much for offering your help! You are awesome!! Nan

Well, not much the school did helped, but it did help if I was left alone for a while. They would have the teachers hover over me and watch me and try to verbally calm me down, but I think if they would have just left me alone for a little while in a safe room maybe where I couldn't hurt myself, I would have calmed down naturally. Maybe they could have given me something also that I liked to do, to distract me. I loved science back then, and when I was screaming like that, I would have liked it if they just would have left me alone with some sort of scientific toy I couldn't resist. I mean when I was learning about science and got to go to a room they had where you could play with science stuff, I was very happy.

Also, they punished me for my behavior. That didn't work because I didn't understand what I was doing wrong. They saw me as a bad kid when in reality I just had strong emotions and couldn't contain them. When I was 12, the school report said I had the emotions of a 3 year old, but the thought processes of an adult. That's hard to live with. I wasn't acting out on purpose.

I would educate the other students about it also. My main problem in school was the other kids learned my triggers, then would set me off on purpose because they thought it was funny. When there was no triggers around, I did fine and enjoyed learning. I don't know how to explain this to a little child, but as far as I know, I don't think my school tried to tell the other kids why I was different and why they shouldn't do that.

Also, the teachers tried to make me have friends when I was happy playing by myself. I don't like the idea to do that. I naturally made friends later on in my life.

Sometimes I feel that I should have been home schooled. But at the same time, I would have been more socially isolated than I am now. That's a toughy for me.

Angnix, Would you mind if I printed out your response to show my son's schools administrators??? Maybe an anecdotal example will mean more to them than all the articles and books I keep giving them. Nan

Angix,

Welcome! We're so glad to have you join us and offer some insight. I'm sure plenty of parents will really get a lot out of hearing your perspective.

If it isn't too personal of a question (and please forgive me if it is), I'm wondering if you were ever medicated as a child and your thoughts/experience with that...

Nan, I wouldn't guarantee that something that worked for me would work for you, but you can print it out if you want to.

For a short period of time, I was given ritalin. My grandma who raised me didn't like what it did apparently, but I forgot what it did exactly, since it was so long ago. Ever since then, I protested medications. My mom was schizophrenic and she took medications, so I didn't want to admit there was something that I should take medications for. I didn't start taking medications until I mentally broke down as an adult.

I don't know what my views on medications is really. It's great for me now and sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I was medicated with something when younger, but I can't relive my life. I've heard both great and bad things about medicating children. I probably should have been on something as a kid, but would it have decreased my intelligence? Currently, I have noticed my brain is foggy on my meds and I have lost some of my brightness, but nowadays I would rather have that state than to be in a state of mind where I have lost touch with reality completely. But on the other hand, I was told that if I wasn't severely emotionally impaired, they would have let me skip grades and I could have done better. I did have attention deficit, and I read in reports that they thought that I would have scored higher on IQ test if I would have payed attention more, I was in the gifted range, but not genius according to those tests.

But as I said, I can't relive my life. All I can do is know that I'm on the correct medication now even though my mind is a bit foggy, and I can work on my science stuff and getting into graduate school finally.

And I would love to state there is hope! My mental illness and childhood problems have set me back, but I'm moving forward little by little. That's all I can do.

More advice, don't ever say something to a kid about how they are not normal. Say they are different and that's great, especially saying their giftedness is great. But please just don't use the words not normal or abnormal, those hurt a lot for some reason. I even hear as an adult stuff like "I thought you were a normal person when I first got to know you, but later on I started to suspect you had some sort of mental disorder" and yes, that is a direct quote I got from someone a few months ago, I don't talk to her anymore. Now if she said something like "I noticed you were kinda different in some areas and that is interesting!" then I appreciate that better, I hear stuff like that from some people too and those are the people I keep as friends. The friends I made later on in school said nothing about my illness at all and treated me like everyone else.

And I would say the thing I appreciated the most growing up was that I was supported with what I liked. People would indeed think a little girl that carried around a bird book everywhere she went was strange... but at the same time they thought it was great I could remember so many bird facts, and with encouragement I turned it into a career goal. But it has to be balance out with learning about other stuff too. I read some great advice, if your kid especially like something, try to connect what the kid is learning with their favorite thing. That draws their attention better. I did this myself as a kid, if it was a report I had to do, I turned it into a bird report. If it was an art project, it would turn into something about birds... I wouldn't discourage that. I don't know how I feel about a kid that likes knives though.... I think there is some sort of line somewhere...

That's about it for now.

Thanks Angnix...The suggestions you mention DO work for my son but the school doesn't use them.

About "not normal" I wish people would not use that also. Being different is so cool and interesting, I emphasize that to my son often. He has "superpower hearing" and he sees cool details that no one else sees. But he still wishes he were not "in autism." Anyway, thank you so much for your insight. I love it!!!! Nan

Yeah, I'm more of a mix of stuff that's not clear. I don't really like labels either, and some kids fall outside of labels. For example, I have many traits of autism, but I can read facial expressions kinda ruling it out too. ADHD, I had lots of traits of that too, but as an adult I can concentrate pretty good, like my life is disorganized, lol. Childhood Bipolar is a little more likely with me because I ended up with adult bipolar, but even my current state is not typical bipolar! One book I read that was helpful was Kids in the Syndrome Mix. I picked it up from the library and it was a good read.

I mean I have spells I am normal currently, then suddenly all at once I develop delusions, hallucinations, very rapid mood changes, sensory overload and panic attacks. That all went away pretty much with medication. As a kid it was meltdowns that really did me in.

Good hearing for example is pretty cool, but when hearing is too good it's downright painful, you just want all noises to stop.

Just to give you an idea what I had to deal with, here are a couple of snippets from my childhood psych reports, as an adult, I was able to obtain these and show them to my mental health team to give them an idea of my past, but for some reason really doesn't mention my meltdowns so much, they seemed to be more concerned about hyperness and social skills.:

http://img697.imageshack.us/img697/4568/evaluation1.jpg
http://img372.imageshack.us/img372/841/evaluation2.jpg

Angnix - Thank you for sharing. I value your insight.

Oh, I might as well add some more musings.

I don't know how I feel about a personal assistant. I had a lady follow me around for a short period to time to help control my behavior. But this lady was MEAN. She would threaten me in the hallway and even smack me sometimes when I was misbehaving. I tried to report her to the principal, but they didn't believe me, and the lady just got more abusive. Anyway, it was kinda embarrassing when the lady followed me around too.

Oh, and special seating in the class is embarrassing too. I don't know exactly how sitting next to the teacher really helped my behavior, in every class I sat right next to the teacher and I had to stare at the other kids in the class all day. Plus it just singled me out as different.

And the worse was being in special ed when the rest of the kids in that class were LD. And I got no help... seriously, I sat there and did homework while the other kids got other training, because they really didn't know what to do with me. They had puzzles that were hard for the LD kids and they got a piece of candy for solving them, but I did them easily and earned so much candy... lol.

And I should have still gotten a chance to be put in a gifted school or to skip grades. I could have done that, but they held me back because of my behavior.

Oh, and follow up on the kids, I went off to college with no support. I didn't consider myself disabled anymore, but indeed I was and actually I didn't do as great because I can't learn very well if the material is not only hard, but also something I am totally not interested in learning. In fact, the off-major classes I had to take I did poorly, but later on in college I was 4 pointing the zoology courses. I really needed a tutor in English-related classes and higher math. Plus, I found out I could have gotten more scholarships with my status, but I was bull-headed and denied I had problems and took out student loans that now I am having a hard time paying.

Oh, and please correct people that tell you that it's your fault that your child has problems... I STILL have people coming up to my grandma, mostly family members and saying junk like "she wouldn't be like that if you would have spanked her more" stuff like that, and she believes them and takes it to heart.

Also when they grow up, don't put your kid under lots of emotional stress. I mean when I have no job, since I have trouble in that area, they force me to take care of my dementia grandmother in exchange for room and board, and don't even let me have a break from her. The emotional strain tears me up(both meanings of the word tear), they might be able to handle it, but they don't care that I don't. Know your kids limits!!!