Any struggles you are dealing with as a gifted adult?

Perfectionism. Being TOO detailed oriented. I work from home and have two kids under four and I am constantly beating myself up that I can't keep up with everything as well as I want. I see every speck of dust on the floor as if someone is pointing it at with a spotlight and it's so stressful. I'm never happy or satisfied with what I accomplish. I'm very 'particular' about most things in life. Those are some major issues I have.

Apparently I'm a bit too expressive emotionally, because what feels like "mild annoyance" is often confused for "barely-contained rage" by those close to me. I suspect that's an overlap between my intensity and their sensitivity.

Conversely, I make too much lemonade.

This is funny, because I feel like I'm constantly in a state of barely-contained rage while my family thinks I'm placid and content.

What BrandiT and you have, and

- being careless
- see, hear, smell anything and everything
- feel confined due to societal and familial norms

I'm a very fast learner and generally learn things after one repetition. Unfortunately, I had to sit through three days of training this summer for a major upgrade to our database system. Just from messing around in the upgraded test environment before the trainer got there, I had pretty much figured out to configure everything and make it work the way I wanted it to. That three days felt like TORTURE and there were things I knew that our trainer did not. It was very hard to stay still and quiet so that the others in the room could learn.

This could also be made worse by attending law school.

Too late, I already graduated.

1. Having to hold back on humour because you know your audience won't understand the joke.
2. Having to hold back on meaningful discussion with loved ones because you know your audience won't understand your point or will revert to logical fallacies in rebuttal.
3. Emotional and sensory over excitabilities.
4. Marveling at the profound illogic of most people's day to day behaviours and decisions, and reconciling that with their right to vote being equal to yours.
5. Slow talkers and small talk combine to form my personal ninth ring of hell.

Whee, a 5 step journey to misanthropy!

Fortunately 1 and 2 can be largely mitigated by who you choose to socialize with and, for me, 3 is best poured into a vigorous workout or pet project. I haven't found a workaround to 4. With 5, I remind myself that I probably bore many people in my own way.

Been there.

My boss wanted me to create a multimedia presentation to advertise our data services at the next tech convention, and she assigned me to take a 2-day, instructor-led HTML class the department offers regularly to assist. I figured I'd pick up a few tricks, since I'd done everything informally on my own before then, and this needed to look professional, so, sure.

Rather than having canned slides, the teacher would create code examples in a text editor on the fly, then open them in a browser to see the results. The results were rarely what he intended, and he could never find his syntax errors. Out of sheer frustration, I found myself having to direct him how to fix them. If I hadn't, nobody would have ever learned anything.

Talking about something I find really interesting and beautiful and/or complex only to see the slow glazing of eyeballs of the person I was having a conversation with. This happened so many times as a child that I just stopped having those conversations for the most part unless they were in a trusted inner circle. Every once in a while I have a conversation with another person and they follow me down the rabbit hole and I am so grateful to have someone to share that side of myself with.

same here - whenever I got sent to a training class, I would be so bored due to the slow pace (and my frustration with the people who were just not getting it). That is the most difficult thing - when I get frustrated with a team member on not picking up how our (complex) environment works as quickly. In fact, one of them told me I made him cry because one day, I snapped with a "you really should know this by now!" after I had repeated the same commands over and over again, until I got tired of repeating it. And I can usually tolerate up to 4-5 repetitions to the same person before I start to get testy. (no, I could never be a teacher)

And I am the same way when it comes to people getting lost after they have been on that same route a few times. I can usually remember how to get somewhere after 1-2 times and I usually can backtrack easily - I tend to have a good map in my head and a good visual memory.

but I have gotten mellower with age... I used to be so much more rigid and intense over so many things... until kids. I still get annoyed and cranky, but people have told me that I am much more mellow after the kids came along.

Been there as well, although it was quite a few years ago. The clearest incident of this was taking a Motif class. But since I knew X11 inside & out and upside down, and had already spend a few days looking at it. Turns out I new more than the graduate student instructor. I have shied away from taking classes like that since. Why waste the money when I can learn this type of thing with a manual and some time.

I won't describe these as struggles, exactly...but I've learned how to insinuate what I've identified as the optimal solution into discussions and decision-making in a way that encourages others to believe that they have come up with a terrific idea, which I then affirm and praise. I've learned how to quietly, but firmly, correct the same errors over and over again until the correction takes root in the system, with a minimum of confrontation or loss of face.

aeh, it sounds as though your style and mine are quite similar.

I like the 'just asking' mode-- which paints ME as the "dumb" one in a discussion or problem-solving session... or "hey, I had this crazy idea..." when I want credit for something.

This technique was so ingrained in me, having grown up in academia and then drifted into working in it, too... that my transition to parent-advocate was pretty seamless. This is one of the few methods of getting unpleasant info or changes made with educators. It's not manipulative exactly... well. Okay, maybe it is. {sigh}

It's evolved over time into a complete communication strategy, though, and I have some trouble being assertive enough to just turn it off and be me.

Ohhhhh-- this.

It makes me SO sad to see DD experience this. SO sad.

Mainly adding to this for the programming motif. When someone asks how my algorithm works, I struggle to first figure out at what level I need to simplify the explanation, or use analogies. I know that if I simplify it too much s/he will feel I am talking down to said person. If I don't simplify it... glazed eyes..., but I do not see any portion of it as complicated, so I do not know where a certain person will get lost. Most of the time, I side step the question and just show them how to use it.

I don't know whether it is a gifted thing or just a social incompetence thing. My views of right and wrong and what is/is not offensive seem to be different to everyone elses. I am constantly finding innocent comments (I think) hurtful and offending other people inadvertantly. Problem is if the person I offend complains everyone agrees with them whereas if I complain (which I very rarely do because I tend to give everyone the benefit of the doubt) I get told not to be over sensitive/stupid/unreasonable. Until recently I really didn't understand why I had to extend patience and forgiveness to other people when they got so uptight about things I said - I was constantly thinking "did I run to the teacher, boss etc when you did x or said y? No? Then why can't you extend the same tolerance to me?" Unfortunately it fed the belief I had that I should have to do what I would excuse everyone else for not doing.

Indeed.

Although time is more of a constraint nowadays for me, at least LOL

Still processing my thoughts on this topic as my frustrations are many and jumbled...

Overthinking and perfectionism, in many areas of life. This leads to problems in various ways:

-unable to make major house repairs/renovations in a timely fashion, because we consider every possible pro and con. Repeatedly. Also being worried that something won't turn out as well as imagined, so project is never started.

-simple writing tasks, like sending a quick email or post, take forever sometimes because the wording has to be just right.

-unable to get rid of stuff because I can think of a dozen different uses for something (or maybe the kids will want to take it apart, or maybe we can use it for parts, or....)

Yes. My personality was already oriented this way, and then my graduate training involved collaborative consultation, and of course, colleagues and superiors are much easier to work with when they realize that you will use your skills and intelligence to advance institutional and client outcomes without necessarily demanding credit. There's a lot of selective pressure to maintain this communication style.

I'm blessed to have had supervisors who valued this enough to offer me incentives to increase the attractiveness of the position (not financial ones, of course, in public education! but scheduling and support resources that were important to me in terms of lifestyle and being able to be the kind of professional I want to be), rather than merely taking the credit. I think it helps that, though I never have to voice this, they know that I have no desperate need to hold onto any given current position.

It's only in the last few years that I've begun to learn a better balance between being my essential self and adapting to my communication/work partners.

yes yes 100% yes. I didn't realize this was related to my giftedness until this moment. One thing that has worked well for me is FlyLady (it's a sort of organization system for people who tend to be well, disorganized). Letting go of perfectionism is a big part of it.

I do have a real problem in letting objects go- I don't like things to end up in landfills so I am always trying to figure out how to get one more use out of them, or who I could give them to who would be able to use them. Thank goodness for Freecycle and Goodwill etc. In addition, my brother is Buddhist, so he is always reminding me that all things are impermanent, and no matter what I do, they will eventually end up in a landfill, it is not my responsibility to caretake objects forever.

As far as renovation, personal style, etc. sometimes I hate that I am able to see so many possibilities all the time, it can be paralyzing.

DH is the king of research... he has to research and research for a long time for so many things. (but we balance out because I tend to immediately execute... I can only wait so long before I have him tell me what he has so far and then just run with it... this even included where to live... if he had his way, we would still be researching different cities, but I really liked the city we ended up moving to 6-7 years ago, and just started the plan to move a few months later, leaving him stunned when it was time to go)

And we will both have moments of agonizing over making sure the emails are just right for whatever we want to say.

I am an extrovert and desire the company of others. However, I connect with very few people. I get very lonely.

Four years ago, I got into heart failure. This harms intellectual performance. I can tell that I am not up to what I used to be. However, I still have all the signs of being gifted. It is a depressing, complex problem.

This is definitely the spouse. Also micromanaging contractors to the inch/cm. And learning enough about a totally-unfamiliar field in the course of a new project to present the contractor/expert with a completed proposal/plan/brief that they then insert a few phrases of professional jargon into, implement, and charge you for. Alternatively, going over their proposal with a fine-tooth comb, finding and correcting substantive errors, and then getting charged for it. Contractors/vendors/advisors either love or hate working with my SO. Usually depending on their own level of skill and confidence in their field.

It is always a challenge adjusting to changes in one's own cognitive profile. Those who experience traumatic brain injury frequently experience a kind of mourning period, letting go of the person you were accustomed to being, the person you thought you would be in the future, and learning to accept and embrace the equally-precious and valuable person you now are.

I hope you know that your worth is not rooted in your giftedness, as delightful as that aspect of you likely is.

I definitely feel misunderstood a lot. I get told to 'just relax' all the time, because I am so focused on little things. And, one of the worst things is I'm so hard to please, because of having such particular things in mind - that I know I have inadvertently hurt people's feelings. I always try and express gratitude toward people, and when I don't like something, I am nice about it. But, there have been so many times where I think people expect me to jump up and down with joy and instead I'm like 'meh' because quite frankly.. it takes a LOT to impress me. It's not as if I grew up being spoiled or anything; I just have specific ideas in my head. It's rare for someone else to hit the mark. It causes my poor husband a lot of stress.

Thanks so much aeh. The first two years were especially difficult. I have learned to live with it. My gifted daughter is a senior this year.

This is where the phrase, "I'm so happy for you!" comes in rather frequently. Or, "I so appreciate the effort you put into this." "Thank you for thinking of me." "I can tell this comes from the heart."

I think it helped me a lot when I shifted from responding to the outcome to responding to the person generating it, and what this meant for our relational connection. The product itself is secondary.

This. Totally this.

Regularly, I have to document workflows and setup instructions, and I always have to assume they know nothing. Some of it is that I really don't know how technical people are going to be and whether they can fill in the blanks (there are a few folks that I know I can write very basic outline and they can fill in the blanks, but that is like 5% of the people I deal with) and some of it is that I have to assume they are not native English speakers. So often times I really write it in simple terms... and find people often copying snippets of what I wrote to supplement their documentation. For instance, instead of saying "edit the file and make change xyz", I found I have to write "type 'vi test.txt' and then move to the line that contains xyz..." even for documentation that is directed just for my team.

Thought I'd add on more than my lemonade...

On the non or anti-perfectionism side of the realm (which I'm not sure is innate or extreme mis-compensation or maybe it is intrinsic perfectionism vs. extrinsic perfectionism... nothing needs to be "just right" in fact I want exactly what's on the menu, after I've read the whole thing.)

Similar to HK and AEH, my style is such that when I walk into a room, everyone there gets smarter. Also have the training thing, but barring mandatory/dodging lawsuit work training, I've always managed to persuade employers that a fifty dollar book and a day of free time is better than a fifteen hudred dollar course and a week offsite.

Then the other thing is the talent for finding the minimum effort for maximum returns honed to an art in elementary through high school. Mix that in with the self effacing manipulation techniques and a flexibility of thought that is willing to adapt to situations, it is really, really hard to be assertive unless something is extremely important.

What I don't know is how much is inherent to the mind and how much is a product of the mind in a specific environment, which leads to angsty thoughts such as will traits I'd like to pass on to my son (in smaller doses, I'd hope) depend on him having less than stellar school experiences.

Totally.

And its ugly cousin, where I'm being treated like a moron by level 1 tech support. I try to get in front of that early in any call. "I know you're supposed to behave like I know nothing about computers, because I worked helpdesk at one point myself, but I'm an IT systems programmer with X years experience." Sometimes this works great, the person on the other line is happy to be working with a peer, and feels free to ask more advanced questions/directions, like "what's your DNS set to?" rather than walking me through a ten-step process to find it.

And other times... [headbangdesk].

I once had to call someone in my own department because my work laptop battery was dead. I identified myself and my role to her. And she walked me through the stupid, obvious questions anyway. At one point I lost my patience enough to mutter to myself, "treating me like an idiot," she decided she'd heard an f-word, and made a formal complaint. The managers involved accepted my explanation, but I still got a counseling sheet in my record, and was asked to make an apology.

She never got it, and she never will.

Oh, I definitely do - and perhaps I'm being over sensitive but I always feel like people want a bigger reaction to things. I always do my best to communicate something that makes them happy but I can't fake an over the top reaction.

Wow, this sounds familiar.

The hardest thing for me was 12 years of relatively decent gifted education led me to believe the world was full of people just like me, and that I'd be able to do anything.

I never learned to focus on what I truly enjoyed and was good at, nor that for a lot of people in the "real world" another person's intelligence and giftedness is a threat, not an asset. As a result, I feel like my career has been spent drifting from one "oh that sounds interesting" to another without ever having found something that fulfills my mind and soul.