Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment I think I am gifted

This is interesting conversation. I'm a big fan of 'coming out' as gifted - perhaps not at work, or on casual meetings, but with friends of the heart. After I came out to myself in the course of my son's school experiences, I sat a few friends down and admitted that I have come to believe that people wouldn't like me if I showed the full power of my mind and that I appologise for whenever I've held back with you and how I've kept steering the circumstances away from subjects and that I'm sorry that I acted this way in the past - it was unworthy of the friendship you have shown me all these years, and I will now cut this behavior out and just be myself. This is always followed by me saying 'Do you still want to be my friend?' and each friend in turn saying, "oh sweetie, I know you are super-smart, that is what I like about you."

So now it's time to think about if by saying I'm gifted I'm implying that I'm smarter or better at thinking than other people. I can't bear the thought of this. So far what I'm coming up with is that "Unusually often, I'm better at thinking that the usual expectations people have of how well a person can think."

This leaves lots of room for me making mistakes and misjudgements,which I do on a regular basis. I've never thought that it's true that the 'smartest person' always comes up with the best answer. Wisdom is I think the character trait that is open to all people, and that just doesn't seem to have much to do with IQ - for better or for worse. I guess since what I value is Goodness and Wisdom, I don't mind having the corner on thinking ease.

But over and over and over again, I irritate people by thinking better than is expected, and I make errors when I project ease of think onto other people. So identifying myself as Gifted allows me to make fewer errors while interacting with people in general.

Plus everyone who is gifted seems to be gifted is such different ways, that I could never reduce it to 'better at thinking' -

Let's figure this out, OK?
Grinity

I would strongly encourage you to read the book Living with Intensity.
http://www.amazon.com/Living-Intensity-Understanding-Sensitivity-Excitability/dp/0910707898
I strongly disagree that it is not relevant as an adult outside of the academic world--it is a fundamental part of who I am and how I see and exist in the world. And for me personally, even though I was identified as a kid, being familiar with Dabrowski and OEs and his theory earlier in my life would have made a profound difference. Also--you might google something like "gifted adult women" and I bet you may find some interesting info.

funny enough...I've googled gifted adult women and I keep coming up with the same articles and pages hehehhe. It seems like I have read most of the pages. I have tried rearranging my wording etc...I think it's interesting though because like Grinity mentioned everyone seems to be gifted in different ways. Which might be my problem as well. I keep looking for someone like me. hehehe. I won't find them. Luckily I have some friends whom I can relate to in ways and I am getting a deeper understanding of myself and my expectations. I am going to try and get that book from the library. thanks deacongirl

I did not intended to imply that I am "better at thinking than other people" with my earlier post. I just meant that I was surprised that people at a gifted parents seminar seemed to be in denial about their own giftedness. To me, it lacked sincerity. I also found it weird to be treated like I was being brave or making some kind of breakthrough by acknowledging this aspect of me in what appeared to be kindred company.

Srry knute,
I didn't read all of the posts in great detail...I just saw someone (not sure who) making the connection between the self-lable 'gifted' and 'better at thinking than others' which does sound snotty, it just does...and then I was twrilled off into my own train of thoughts. And I'm grateful for whoever laid that track, because it's an important track.

I felt great sympathy for you Knute, at the reception you got from the other parents of gifted kids. How awful for you! How ugly to see how they feel about their own children - as brave freaks to be pitied.

((caution: in the next few paragraphs I'm going to go back and remember how I used to feel and see the world. I will use the words 'stupid' and 'dumb' because that is how I used to see the world. I would strongly alert people that there are very few places on this forum where these words are appropriate, and appologize in advance to those I am about to offend.))

I've gotten used to the idea that this is one of those identities that females in general often come to very unwillingly. So much denial. That is one of the features of this issue that lead me to think that 'Giftedness' particularly in adults, is as much an Identity as anything else. In the U.S. at least, there are very few subcultures where intellectual honesty and rigor and curiosity are celebrated. For the general population, there is a conditioning of 'well you aren't so smart/special' then the males are conditioned to insecurely have to knee jerk answer 'yes, I am, let me prove it' on top of the first conditioning and it's just a hot mess.

Kids who assume the Gifted Identity serve the purpose of making everyone else feel badly about their own intelligence (why can't the rest of you be more like little Besty?) and the same time that they are being heaped with the same conditioning. I thought I wasn't smart because I had terrible spelling and immature handwriting, which I felt humiliated by - not sure if that was self imposed or my interpretations of how people were acting. I also thought I wasn't smart because I couldn't crack the code of what was the meaning of the pointlessness of elementary school, or why it was actually difficult for the other kids, but I couldn't find it within myself to believe that the adults didn't know or didn't care that I was wasting hours and hours of my school day, so I trusted the adults and blamed my 'stupidity.' For years.

This is very similar to how elementary school age boys sometimes are singled out for the role of 'sissy' to teach the other boys what it means to be a man, i.e. don't be like the girls or that one boy over there. See how we'll treat that boy - you sure don't want that, do you?

Even as recently as my son being 3, I had a conversation with a boss, and self-depricatingly referred to my inability to let a confusing situation 'drop' like everyone else seemed to be able to do, and how I was unable to overlook certian inequities and wanted to talk about things that clearly no one else wanted to talk about. I used to call it 'The Elephant in the Living Room.' Now I look back and think: They weren't in denial, they were just seeing the world through different eyes and failed to notice what jumped out at me. What looked like an Elephant to me was like an ant to them.

My boss said: "You talk like you think there is something wrong with you!" Appparently he didn't see it. I agreed that I did think that there was something wrong with me, but that I just couldn't figure out what it was. Which I somehow felt that I should be able to do (LOL) Part of my conditioning was a strong message that I had better be 'like other people' (or else I am in great danger) and no one can do that. My perfectionism was out of control. We were all created with a great variety of strengths and challenges - that is the nature of humans.

I owe my son such a debt of gratitude for dragging me out of the closet, toppling all the carefully built up rules I had made to keep my 'safe' from the danger that no longer actually existed. When he was little I used to say: I don't care if he learns in elementary school, I just want him to be a good classroom citizen. This reflects my earlier belief that there is so little to learn in elementary school but that can't be helped, it is the way it is because of some great secret that I'm too dumb to understand, and my belief that social skills aren't just important for life long happiness (they are) but vital to save oneself from pain of mistreatment and exclusion.

But this gift my son gave me means that I wasn't really able to be the parent I should have been in those days. It wasn't my fault. I couldn't have known any sooner. But it gives me great satisfaction to post here and hope that
1) I can do for others what he did for me
2) I can be of service to other parents who like me, didn't know and couldn't have known, but maybe now I can share what I've learned so that your kid doesn't have to take the years and years of crap my son took from the adult world without me getting the picture.

He has a right to be in a classroom where the teacher is teaching stuff within his readiness level to learn.
6 years old is too young to expect a kid to 'suck it up' and sacrifice themselves so that other kids can learn.
He is in the classroom to learn, not to play a leading role in the conditioning of other kids that they are somehow lesser because they are at a different readiness level.

Females need other options besides 'they are right and I am too stupid to understand, but I trust them' or 'I still feel stupid, but I suspect that they are stupid too, I don't trust them'

Males need other options besides 'I feel stupid, so the stupider I feel I more I have to prove I'm the smartest' or 'I'm the smartest, and I can't even remember that I used to feel stupid so I started this game by pretending' or 'I just won't play and keep to myself.'

Even among people with the Gay Identity, there are some who find it easy to blend in and 'don't see what all the fuss is about' as long as they can be their 'work-self' at work and their 'home-self' at home. And there are others who can't walk down the street without attracting comment and attention who just don't feel that they can be 'who they are' without the various parts of them that seem to scream 'I'm not one of you' 24/7. I'm not saying one way is better, just that each soul is unique and has it's own journey, and that all the Identities have a wide population varies in this way. The little girl sitting in the corner who the teachers all love may be just as gifted as the little boy throwing chairs across the room out of despair that he has to read baby books.

I lived the particular experience of never being identified or accomidated as gifted. I know that there is a parallel story for kids who were identified, and even perhaps accomidated to various extents. I've heard stories about kids being conditioned that they are 'better' than the unseen kids in some other classroom, and that they have a special responsibility to 'cure Cancer' or 'End War.' This is also a deeply wrong and painful way to treat a child.

I'm becoming more aware of the stories too, of the parents who single out a child from their siblings to be the 'little genius with so much potential.' I'm hopeful that soon we will be able to see and understand the whole generational chain of misfortune that sets parents up to take that road.

I'm putting all this out how I experienced it, and I don't expect it to resonate with everyone, but I do expect you all, my dear ones, to take the ball and run with it and let's develop a wider version of how we got to be this way. Ok?

Love and More Love,
Grinity

I'm watching all this ongoing news about the border wars and thinking how smart and creative some of these criminals are. �The hubby's always noticing the beautiful and original calligrapy painted on the side of freight trains. �Sometimes we talk about all that talent and what they could have done if they'd used those talents for good. �I don't think the answer is to tell a kid to cure cancer "when they grow up", although I'm all for giving them the education now so that they could. �Maybe it's because in some towns there's no respect in being gifted. �Even self-respect for being smart is condemned. �Huh.

Don't misjudge me. �This is a small corner of what I believe about the world. �My view is deeper and wider than this. �This one post is just anecdotally part of what I think is going wrong. �Honestly I have a heart for the throw-away kids and I'm discussing the bottom of the barrel with this post.

Eta: in the topic of self-perception and love and acceptance I am embarrassed to admit the family channel movie "Penelope" is playing in the background and it is still bringing tears to my eyes in a few spots. I don't have any pregnancy hormones to blame it on this time.

Thanks for your story Grinity. I have been reading this thread from the sidelines have found it fascinating. I can relate to all the stories in the thread about finding some missing pieces of my own puzzle as I learned about giftedness in response to my daughter's needs. However your story Grinity, almost every word of it, was my own.

In discovering my own giftedness I have finally been able to understand my difference. Far from making me feel superior to others (which, frankly, I often did - prior to coming to this realisation I could not understand how people could make the seemingly irrational and often poor choices they did), this realisation has helped me understand that I just happen to see the world differently. As a result, to communicate effectively I was going to need to adjust my thinking, expectations (not necesarily down, just to something more realistic) and communication style. I am now coming to the point where I can put this revelation aside and just get on with my life with this new understanding.

It has also helped me understand all the different faces of giftedness. I always assumed that smart people did big things (were doctors, academics etc) and life just hadn't lead m e down that path - yet! now I know I am more than capable I look forward to exploring what that means for me.

Thanks for the thread

Ooh. �Ooh. �I think I got something. �I had thought �"to say or not to say" (gifted) was about modesty vs. pride. I just now thought maybe it's about coming from "celebrating excellence" vs "celebrating people". �None of which is incompatible.

Thanks Giftodd, I'm so pleased. I do think that there is a bit of a paradox that when one stops expecting that everyone else is like them, then one can truly appreciate and celebrate others as they are. I also don't experience it as 'down' - maybe down is in the eye of the beholder. Part of it is just 'what works and what doesn't' and normally developing people in my experience do about the same proportion of 'what works' as Gifted people.
In a way I wish the 'ugly ducking' story was told with a chicken instead of a swan. Swans are so pretty, and nasty personalities as well. I've grown up trying hard to be a good duck, and was always bad at it. now I enjoy being a terrific chicken, and the ducks are more fathomable, and more fun too.

((shrugs))
Grinity

Giftedness is a whole bundle, and I think that's where the gifted=intelligence argument breaks down. I am gifted. I have no issues being gifted because it explains a lot about me. The intelligence portion is the most obvious piece; it's the one I don't need to comment on, and the one I dwell on the least.

What about giftedness is relevant to me even as an adult? It explains to others who can look it up why I have odd existential depressions. Why even at this age I sometimes get sensory issues from odd things. Why I see the world from an odd angle.

People focus a lot on academic giftedness, but the gifted term does not actually encompass only academic ability. The constant searching for meaning, the constant feeling that there is more I could be doing, and the really large range of interests I still have are all part of that. There is a reason why special clinics exist for gifted adults. You don't just grow out of it.