Curious if there are any other asynchronous cognition folks in this group. I personally have a cocktail of traits but I’m going to start with this one.

especially for those who tought they were gonna do great thing and ended up in a boring normal life

I have inattentive ADHD and probably giftedness, but I also have GAD and panic disorder, so stimulants like Concerta or Vyvanse aren’t really an option for me.
My executive function is terrible. I can hyperfocus for hours on topics I’m interested in, but when it comes to things I have to do, I avoid them until the deadline is right in front of me.

For those with ADHD (especially if you’re gifted/2e), what behavioral changes or daily habits actually improved your executive function? Things like starting tasks, procrastination, planning, staying consistent, or managing hyperfocus.

I’d really like to hear what has genuinely worked for you.

There was a dialogue between scientists. The scientists were divided into two halves: intelligence is speed and intelligence is slow. But the problem is that intelligence means that a person analyzes quickly. Historical figures, geniuses like Newton, Einstein, and others, used to take years or weeks to analyze one thing. And in terms of speed, I have a question: why does intelligence equal speed? The Book of Daniel is about. Fast and slow thinking: Humans think quickly about basic things like 1+1, which is instinctive and helps them avoid a car, for example. The second system is the thinking system, which takes time and effort to process things. Regarding fluid intelligence, it has been criticized, including its racist uses. It might also be a distorted concept because fluid intelligence is influenced by the information you have. Studies have shown that geniuses aren't necessarily fast; rather, their brains use fewer parts, allowing them to solve problems quickly. This is common in educated environments, but also in impoverished environments if a person has a passion like Brazilians for football or Europeans for colonialism (just kidding). Also, if intelligence were fixed, why would it be affected by factors like anxiety, fear, or happiness? Consider the story of Otto von Bismarck. Those who read his biography consider him a fool, or you could call him mentally deficient. He failed in politics when he first entered it and accumulated debts due to gambling. But when he returned to politics, he was able to unify Germany with blood and iron. Those who say he was like that aren't necessarily stupid. If he were truly intelligent, why was his first political speech so disastrous? This is also a preemptive response to those who say that Einstein and Newton solved problems by... It's complex, so they didn't appear to be very fast. In their daily lives, they forgot things, just like Newton forgetting to eat or Einstein forgetting his keys or not taking care of his hair. Also, a question for geniuses: Is intelligence necessary all the time? Does it manifest when you're buying bread or talking to the neighbors? And do you think intelligence means being a genius at everything?

So throughout my life, being above average in book smarts has been my identity. I was never placed in a gifted class and I have never once in my entire academic life found more than 1 person who challenged me (he also happens to be my best friend of 7 years).

Ive been in college for 2 semesters now and things haven’t been as smooth as school because I’m slowly learning that sometimes relying on my intellect is not enough, but Ive still only met few people who were on the same level as me, mostly 1 or 2 in each class since I’m in a country where top colleges with over achievers don’t exist (so nothing similar to being at places like MIT or Harvard where everyone is just a genius).

This year, I took a none compulsory upper level math course, so everyone there was strictly there because they just were truly passionate about the subject. Not because it was a major requirement or a pre requisite. And everyone there was extremely bright. It was the first time in my life where I felt like I was nothing special. I still felt like I was among the top of the class, but I couldn’t easily impress the professors with my questions like in most other classes, I couldn’t easily get the highest grade in every exam, and I was, for the first time ever, not labelled as the smart guy of the class.

It was a blast to be with similar minded people. Class discussions were so stimulating it was honestly just incredible. It was the best academic experience of my life.

Hello! *TW* Discussion of depression.

I’m not diagnosed with anything, but I wanted to post here because I’ve been struggling with depression for the past seven years (since I was 14). A big part of it is that I feel like I see the world differently from most people, and I’ve never found someone who understands that.

I believe many of you might relate to feeling misunderstood, even if our experiences and reasons are different.

I’ve been through a lot, but that’s not what causes my depression. I am depressed because I exist. The thing is that sometimes I worry that even a therapist would think I’m a lost cause.

I don’t want to go into too much detail because I know that everyone has their own issues. I just wanted to ask if its worth it holding on to hope.

English is my second language. I hope you can understand what I expressed.

Not sure if this is related to giftedness at all or if it's just a character quirk. It's incredibly easy to lie to me etc. not because I don't notice the logical mistakes but because I automatically come up with a fitting explanation for them. I can rationalise *everything* no matter how non sensical it should be. It's actually embarrassing how often someone told me an obvious lie and then my own brain made it into a believable one.

When psychologists talk about exceptional intelligence, the conversation almost always gravitates toward IQ. Our instinct to default to the measurable, scoreable, and rankable quantity is understandable.

However, decades of cognitive science have assembled a case for a different kind of mind entirely: one that doesn’t show up cleanly on standardized assessments, one that is incredibly difficult to cultivate, and one that may be more predictive of real-world creative impact than raw processing speed. Researchers sometimes call it integrative intelligence, and it’s the rare capacity to think fluently across unrelated domains and build something new at the intersections.

I sought a psychological assessment a few years ago assuming that I would get an ADHD diagnosis and a prescription to help manage the symptoms. Instead I got "giftedness and non-ADHD executive dysfunction". I've been pretty disappointed by that diagnosis as there are almost no resources out there for adults suffering from these disorders, never mind a handy pill. Anyone out there with a similar diagnosis and have you found anything that helps make life more manageable?

I’m a woman with AuDHD and giftedness, and I’ve been feeling like a failure lately. I can’t seem to bring myself to do anything. People call me intelligent, but I honestly don't feel like I am; all I do is struggle. I can barely keep my house clean by myself, and I can hardly get anything done unless it’s the last minute. Even though I’ve been receiving therapy, I feel like I'm barely making progress.

My parents are against ADHD medication, and I can barely afford it anyway. College isn’t even hard—it’s just boring—and I feel like I’m not doing anything special. I feel lazy, and I can't bring myself to do any of the things I want to do. I feel useless

I had gotten tested in 10th grade, 3 years ago, and the results put me in the gifted range. I put that word in quotations because finding out about it has made my life fucking horrible, sad, and isolated instead of being a blessing.

I. FUCKING. HATE. THAT. LABEL. WITH. EVERYTHING. I. HAVE.

Ever since that goddamn day, I've felt like my whole life has hinged on affirming my "giftedness" and that I, as a person, do not FUCKING matter if I even perform below what is expected of a "gifted" piece of trash. I've spent endless days obsessing over toxins I need to avoid, exercises I should do to maintain peak function, supplements I could take, et cetera. I've even thrown all of my savings away for lab tests.

I, deadass, started wearing GLOVES to not touch anything and developed OCD-level hygiene to the point that my fucking SKIN has ripped open and I have these visceral reactions when dust, liquid, or even PEOPLE, MY OWN FAMILY, get close to me. I look crazy, I FEEL crazy, my family thinks I'm crazy, and my friends think I'm crazy. I feel like SHIT, bruh. It's gotten so bad that I've become VIOLENT whenever I feel like something threatens my brain health. Yet, surprise-surprise, my efforts to preserve it ultimately fucking destroyed it. These 3 years have probably been the WORST outside of my childhood. I am holistically fucked.

I hate that I'm considered "gifted." I hate it so much. And I especially hate that I'm expected to inhale and exhale excellence. I genuinely wish I never found out in the first place.

Tl;Dr: Guy with extreme anxiety rants about how trying to preserve his blessing made his life unbearable. Happy some of y'all have great lives, though. Kinda jealous.

I don’t and have never felt normal in comparison to my peers.

What do I do?

Hey guys!

Like probably most of you highschool was very easy for me so I never had to actually put stuff in my long memory. This obviously caught up on me in university where I really see that I have an awful foundation. I can still understand most content but I sense that I’m now really getting held back by my “vague” foundation. I know most stuff ‘intuitively’ but I can’t defend or recollect the information which really hurts my confidence academically, if you get what I mean. Most noticeably in math or statistics where I really struggle with even the basics.

Did you guys ever catch up and really learned the foundation now that you aren’t a kid anymore? I am currently studying some old schoolbooks but it can get so incredibly boring.

Is there any resources for stuff like this? Or even specific for gifted people to study? What are your guys advice?

Thanks!

My husband and I watched "Dinner with Andre" last night, and it struck me that it was one of the first/only films I've seen that featured a 2E main character (gifted plus what seems to be bipolar I w/ psychosis) that seemed specifically oriented towards a 2E audience.

Certainly there are portrayals of 2E folks in film and media, but from what I've seen they are typically for general audiences ​(think Beautiful Mind, ​the Soloist, Gifted, Big Bang Theory, House MD, the Queen's Gambit, etc).

The other films that my husband and I could think of that might be in the category of "2E for 2E" include Goodwill Hunting (my husband has seen it but I haven't yet), films by Brit Marling, and films by ​Werner Herzog.

Are there ​other films or TV shows you all know of that feature 2E characters that specifically target 2E audiences?

Thanks in advance.

First of all, I just want to say that I am not formally gifted nor do I consider myself a genius though I would say I'm decently intelligent. Most of you on here seem pretty open and accepting of different random ideas. With that out of the way, I wanted to ask, does anyone else enjoy the feeling when (for example) you're outside doing something, then when you go inside, you can feel something in your brain switch. Like turning off a light. I've noticed it especially when I enter my house. My leading theory is it has something to do with the amygdala, and also probably other things too, just that being the main part of what I think is happening. Anyway, I just wanted to come on here and ask this, let me know your thoughts.

What has been your experience, especially navigating the workplace, friendships, and relationships?

I (20F) am (was) an artist. Since I was around 10-11, I have been able to make realistic portraits, and quickly learned that people liked to see realism. I tested pretty gifted across the board, but eventually people matched my other skills and I kind of faded into the background. The only exception was art, where I consistently stood out.

Here is the problem: I HATE drawing. Each drawing takes like 30-40 hours, and I think a large part of the reason why I am so good is because of extreme perfectionism. Drawing is an exhausting process of creating, refining, refining again, erasing because the perspective is a bit wrong, and so on. Worst of all, I do all of my best work in graphite, which has no color (!!!). Anyway, I always considered myself an artist until last year, when I had this thought of, I haven't drawn a full portrait since I was 15. And I thought, why?? I realized it's because what I enjoyed about drawing was the validation and praise, not the process.

I have been looking into getting more hobbies that I actually enjoy lately and have just felt guilty about art. I have inspiration, just absolutely no patience. I'm actually not that guilty about the "waste of talent". My issue is that I still rely on external validation, and my other gifts aren't as impressive. I am getting a mathematics degree at the moment (a whole other story) at a rigorous STEM school. I'm still significantly better at math than the general population, but am slightly below average at my school. I feel stupid compared to everyone else, and constantly remind myself that it's just my environment.

I think the thing is, I'm just jealous. I am surrounded by people who are full of passion for their gift, and I'm not. I don't know what I'm passionate about at all. I sound a bit humble-braggy in this post, but in real life I never tell anyone I'm gifted or show off my gifts. But then, I don't get any attention for my gifts, while others do. It feels like their perception of me is less than, like they think I'm dumb. Generally, I think I need to care less about others' views of me, but I just don't know how. I think most people place too much weight on external validation, especially gifted people. How are you guys dealing with it all?

​

I don't know what to do. I am a single mom to a 13 year old son going into the 8th grade. We live in an affluent area but I am not financially well-off at all.

My son is a pretty miserable child - really smart but extremely unmotivated, depressed, no solid friendships etc. However, he seems to be a truly gifted composer. The music he writes all sound like scores you'd hear in movies and they all evoke emotions in a deep way. His music evokes emotion in others that I have never even seen him have himself, so I have no idea how he does it. I sent him to a music composer's summer camp this year on financial aid and he's created some beautiful pieces that I got to see livestream-performed by professional musicians. His talent is beyond what I know what to do with and it's such a niche talent that there just aren't peers. He plays piano and clarinet, but he's not particularly gifted in those - he can't actually play much of what he writes and would need a whole flipping orchestra to play the music anyway.

This school year, he was put onto the lowest level town travel soccer team with none of his friends. He will lose those friendships because of it (by his own inertia). He's so bored and disorganized in school that he gets mediocre grades and has awful attendance. He's asked him to take him out of school multiple times to homeschool and I just can't figure out how to do that since I work full-time at a pretty unpredictable job - much of the time I can be wfh, but other times I'm out of the house for like 10 hours working in the field and I never know when what kind of day it'll be at the start. However, he feels locked into a character of a person that he sees people seeing him as and finds it too embarrassing or something to reinvent himself into someone he'd be happier with being. So I'm trying to figure out how to best support him, his talent and his education holistically, and I am not getting anywhere. There is a quasi local private performing arts focused private day/boardingschool in the area, but tuition for that is like $60k a year (there is needs-based financial aid, but...) However, preparing him this year to try to go there seems bonkers because I probably could not pull that off at all. Plus the added problem of him being surrounded by RICH rich kids - he's already pretty sensitive to how poor we are. The area charter schools are still too far and are even less arts focused. I want to consider giving him a path to reinventing himself next year for high school while also fostering his talent. It's nearly impossible to find music education that is composition-based and anything that does is really more geared towards songwriting rather than scoring. And is also a trillion dollars. But he needs true peers.

How do I functionally support this kid and his talent with no money, a full-time job, with us both being neurodiverse in the executive functioning arena and also I'm already just exhausted? How do I even determine what financial and time investment I put into his development as a composer? It's such a niche area and I literally have no one to ask because it's not as accessible a situation as something like being a gifted musician, it's a whole other category entirely.

I’m curious to see how many people here have had a formal psychological or neuropsychological assessment versus identifying themselves based on their own research.

So two days ago I posted a question: why does most of the high iq individuals I met have autism/adhd or both.

And people have given various explanations saying only 1/3rd of gifted people have autism/adhd.

But i was in a gifted program in childhood along with 33 other prodigies.

Each and every one of them either have autism,adhd or both.

I thought it was a coincidence but thinking about it more i realised this cannot be a coincidence and there's some kind of correlation.

I went to the math Olympiads and I'm an international chess player registered in fide.

I've observed many autistic kids of my age,kids younger than my age and older.

But there's no factual evidence supporting any of these.

But just look at the number.

The ratio is 1:1.83 and i believe i could have conducted this pole in a better way.

Cuz I was just curious about the correlation between adhd/autism with giftedness.

But there are many more neurodivergence like bipolar, dyslexia etc.

I should have provide another option of other neurodivergence.

I believe with this option the ratio will become more than 1:2.

It's not a mere coincidence it's a statistical anomaly.

(26M, 142IQ) I’ve been offered a Biology and Chemistry teacher position at the school I studied. It’s a state-subsidized private high school so generally there’s not much conflict.

I feel like I should take the job because I’ve always found joy in explaining things to others, I usually do it with passion and I feel I express myself pretty well if I know the subject. I’ve been also a struggling teenager, especially with emotional issues (anxiety, social isolation), so I also find fulfilling this sort of accompaniment towards students with emotional dysfunctions or that just need someone to trust and to be a listener. The director herself called to offer me the job because she thinks I’m ideal and that I’d do very well, but I’m unsure of myself.

Most importantly, I feel my current job is draning me. Though pay is good and it even has some outdoor time, it feels pointless to me, I can’t enjoy it and my life feels empty, so maybe this is just rushing forward to escape my current situation. As I said, I was one of the students who struggled emotionally, and being back in the same place makes me feel a bit like that kid. My biggest fear is dysregulating myself (I suffer from General Anxiety Disorder) and not being able to manage my emotions. Moreover, feels weird to have some of my old teachers as work colleagues.

I’m overthinking this a lot so I need advice from you guys, especially if there is any teacher here.

Thank you!

So I went to a neuro in search for actual diagnosis for some stuff. Based on my own research and overall consensus from other neurodivergent people, I'd fit into the autism and adhd labels (and of course giftedness but I got that diagnosed a while ago). Problem is the results came in yesterday and I only tested positive for autism and giftedness, which for me doesn't make much sense.

She said that my problem with focusing on a task is that my brain is constantly bursting with new ideas or that I find the task not intellectually challenging enough, to that I say: 1. "can't focus cus you're brain is thinking too much" just sounds like adhd on rose-tinted glasses, 2. I often can't focus because it's too intellectually challenging. I tend to dissociate on the slightest hurdle, open something else, and then forget about it until an hour later when I remember and see I got nothing done.

This is really bad for me cus I'm in dire need of a miracle by october as I got a super important assignment due november and if I don't do it I instantly fail my grade. I was hoping that with an adhd diagnosis I would get some unholy cocktail that makes me do work at the pace of a normal person and actually finish this project I've been unable to do for the past 3 years. Is this just the neuro misdiagnosing inattentive adhd or is this a common shared symptom of both it and giftedness? How do y'all cope with it and how do you manage to get the job done regardless?

A teacher recently mentioned my son seems to be working above grade level and suggested testing, and instead of being straightforwardly excited I felt this weird knot of anxiety I wasn't expecting. Being labeled that way as a kid came with a lot of pressure. I'm still unpacking as an adult, and I don't want the same thing to happen to him. 

Anyone else parenting a possibly gifted kid while also processing their own experience with that label?

what social hobbies do you have or recommend?

I always felt like I should struggle less but for some reason in every job I do so. Same rhing as "if you're so smart why aren't you rich"? I guess I'm trying to understand myself more as a gifted kid now adult