Is this feeling of being misunderstood something we must become accustomed to?
I suspect that most people don't understand giftedness because they have no experience with it. Which means that yes, we have to get used to it. 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.
The only time I don't excuse failure to have a basic idea about giftedness is in teachers. IMO, people in the business of helping children learn have a responsibility to understand how different groups of kids learn. Schools talk about the importance of understanding the needs of many different groups of kids (ethnic, racial, low IQ, learning disabled, etc), yet often ignore the gifties completely.
