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I’m in this entire comment section and I don’t like it
“The Woods Would Be Very Silent If No Birds Sang Except Those Who Sang Best”
Skill issue
oh mighty, become my employer and bestow on me all the right skills that made you successful
No because I don’t have skills nor am I successful.
oh mighty,
Missing noun.
Tell that to Ozymandias
Before or after looking at all his works?
After. It would be super rude to come all this way and not look at his words…
excuse me, kind noun, I’ll correct it in a jiffy
i mean, “gifted” is basically doublespeak for “on the neurodivergence spectrum” and society just fucking hates neurodivergent people.
It’s not really that we’re aware of our deficiencies, it’s that society makes us feel bad for things that are completely natural and should be viewed as sidegrades mostly.I don’t follow this at all.
My son is in the gifted program. He is also one of the most socially intelligent people I’ve ever met. Makes friends easily, is a natural leader, shows kindness and acceptance towards all people, and adults frequently comment to me how mature he is when interacting with them. He is well accepted by society and moves around in it with ease.
I also think you’re missing the point. Are you familiar with the dunning Kruger effect? It’s the idea that smart people are better at recognizing their own shortcomings because they are smart, and less intelligent people aren’t smart enough to realize all of their shortcomings.
You can be mature, well liked, and have leadership and people skills and still be a neurodivergent. Neurodivergent is a very broad category nowadays. People with things like ADHD and ASPD often end up being CEOs or self-employed. They are in fact overrepresented in those kinds of jobs. Not every neurodivergent person is socially inept or immature, to think otherwise is frankly abelism.
Heck even I used to be considered mature and capable at one point. Could never get away from being considered weird though.
Edit: Oh also if you look at the definitions and the way professionals use these terms being gifted is considered a form of special educational needs. Likewise you could easily make the argument that anybody who is gifted is by definition neurodivergent, as being neurodivergent just means you are outside the typical range of human neurology, which gifted people are.
The top level commenter was the one who made the comment that being gifted makes you neurodivergent and the comment that society doesn’t like neurodivergent people. I simply pointed out that my kid meets their requirement of neurodivergent and is very socially adept. I made no generalization about what neurodivergent people are or are not like, that was the other commenter.
I wonder why it’s me you challenged and not the other poster, when your criticism is similar to my criticism of them and doesn’t really apply to anything I said (although I can see why it was inferred).
You are EatATaco, right?
The top level commenter was the one who made the comment that being gifted makes you neurodivergent and the comment that society doesn’t like neurodivergent people.
Yes and I generally don’t disagree with either of those points. Gifted people are much more likely to have things like ADHD, Autism, Anxiety, and so on. Even if this wasn’t true being gifted still counts as special educational needs at the minimum if not neurodivergent. It’s also true that society often treats neurodivergent people (even gifted ones) badly.
I am challenging you because you essentially did the following: my son is gifted and can’t be neurodivergent because he is (proceeds to list a bunch of things that aren’t actually incompatible with neurodivergence).
You can be liked by your peers and still be mistreated by society, those aren’t mutually exclusive. Normally it’s through things like school and work not being designed for neurodivergent people as much as it is about outright discrimination.
Do you get me?
my son is gifted and can’t be neurodivergent because he is (proceeds to list a bunch of things that aren’t actually incompatible with neurodivergence).
Except I didn’t say this. The other poster made the claim that gifted means neurodivergent, and the neurodivergent are rejected by society. I pointed out that my kid is gifted and socially very accepted, challenging either of their claims.
You can be liked by your peers and still be mistreated by society
A fair disagreement, which certainly is also not true for my kid, but I think we might be wandering into pedantic territory, but either way I certainly did not say that my son can’t be neurodivergent because he does well socially.
Hi! Assuming that neurodivergent people can’t be socially intelligent is kind of offensive, neurodivergence is a wide spectrum and it manifests differently for everyone.
Also, just because someone seems good at something doesn’t mean it’s not a massive effort for them, read up about masking :)
This. Especially the second half.
You made the comment that society hates neurodivergent people. It was you they implied that they can’t fit in, not me. I just pointed out that my kid is gifted (according to you, neurodivergent) and that he is also socially intelligent and fits in quite well.
shows kindness and acceptance towards all people, and adults frequently comment to me how mature he is when interacting with them
None of this is rare for people on the spectrum.
Makes friends easily, is a natural leader
Contrary to popular belief, autistic people don’t have trouble to make friends on a vacuum, they have communication problems with non-autistic people. If your kid is on the gifted program…
Don’t take any of this as offense. I’m autistic and I’m finding my way to thrive in life. It just would have been easier if I had been given the appropriate resources instead of being discriminated against.
None of this is rare for people on the spectrum.
As I said to the other poster, it’s not me who said this but them who implied it. They were the one who said society hates neurodivergent people. I’m pointing out that my supposed neurodivergent (why isn’t addressing their claim that only neurodivergent people can be gifted?) child is very socially competent and well accepted by society
That being said, this kid is not neurodivergent. My other one, definitely. Smart and sociable, but ADHD.
I was just mostly addressing the fact that none of the reasons for which you claim one of your kids isn’t neurodivergent is actually a valid refutation.
At no point did I say my kid is or is not neurodivergent, until this last post. The poster I was responding to was wrong either because being gifted does not mean being neurodivergent, or because being neurodivergent is not hated by society.
being neurodivergent is not hated by society.
Neurodivergent people are mistreated by society though, regardless of if we are hated. Some neurodivergent people very much are looked down upon, bullied, and face massive discrimination too. It depends a lot on what kind of neurodivergence you have and how it presents to other people.
society just fucking hates neurodivergent people.
Let’s keep in mind what I was initially responding to.
I see what you’re going for here, and I disagree.
You’re saying that “gifted” refers to someone who is neurodivergent. Implying that neurodivergent people are gifted. I assert that gifted people are more likely to be neurodivergent. Not the other way around.
Look, I know tons of people diagnosed with all sorts of neurodivergent brains who are pretty worthless when it comes to being “gifted”.
I do however, also know plenty of gifted people who have discovered that they are in fact, neurodivergent.
I’m just saying.
i’m not saying that neurodivergent people are “gifted”, i’m saying that the term “gifted” is a euphemism and i don’t like the term.
It’s a way to ignore the issue of people being different and needing individualized treatment, instead saying that they’re “gifted” as if they’re just blessed by god to do better in school, which is a toxic idea.
We shouldn’t call kids “gifted” and give them the next year’s textbook, we should recognize that it’s extremely likely they’re neurodivergent and need a diagnosis and different adjustments depending on the person. One person might just need a separate room to study in, one person might need permission to sit in the back with headphones on listening to music, one might need an extra teacher who personally helps them out.
Now we’re going to put you in the
special edgifted school program.fml
I was told that when I went to college I would realize that I’m not that smart. Instead I met a bunch of people who got depressed because they weren’t as good as I was. I tried to explain to them that I was a freak who was masking so hard that I collapsed from exhaustion whenever I got home, and they shouldn’t try to compare themselves to me because the part of my brain that does logic ate the part that reads faces and understands how talking works. I wanted them to understand that there was a lot that came naturally to them that I would never be able to do easily.
Humble autism.
I was put in GT classes in middle school because I went to a (shitty) private elementary school where every kid went on to GT. Somehow I struggled through GT until those classes weren’t offered anymore (sophomore year of high school) and I hated every minute of it and was really bad at what they wanted me to do.
If I could do it over again, I would beg my parents not to put me in GT classes.
I had a guy in my class. We shared a first name and middle name. If he was going to school today he would have had a IEP. My high school guidance counselor who also created the class schedules was in a feud with my parents about some trivial thing. She knew but didn’t care she swapped my almost by name doppelgangers schedules. Poor dude got stuck in advanced classes and they stuck me in the the regular classes. I didn’t say anything since I hated the advanced classes. I had straight A’s for the first time in my life. Unfortunately at around five weeks in they decided to swap us since my parents found out and of course the teachers knew it was a ‘mistake’. I told them I wanted to stay in the regular classes but of course that simply wasn’t possible. I could have had a high grade point in high school but since they insisted I had to be in the advanced classes where maintained a B to C grade in everything except computer science and physics. I know why I sucked in all the other classes today but back then I had that ‘keen awareness of my own deficiencies’. My parents were so busy having their childish feuds that they refused to get me help for my problems.
I wonder how many of those who would fall in the blue area represented here have some form of Executive Dysfunction or as in my case additional issues?
When I was a primary school kid we didn’t have gifted and talented classes. Kids who were ahead of the class could continue doing more and more advanced maths, move onto the next year’s work, though in 6th grade the problems only went up to advanced 6th grade. I don’t know what you would do if you were smart but unsatisfied with maths, I guess you’d be disruptive.
What does the GT stand for? I’m unfamiliar with the acronym, as it seems schools across the nation use different terms to describe the same thing.
Gifted and Talented.
I am neither.
E-sports are really catching on I wouldn’t have minded some training in school!
Oh, man, somebody actually thinks the “excellence” part of the curve isn’t plagued by things like how much easier is to spot all the ways things can cause problems down the causality chain (guess what, when it’s easy and natural to, for every action being considered, see 3 or more links down the chain of possible consequences, one always finds risks and negatives) and associated tendency for paralysis by analysis or simply the being quite abnormal compared to most people.
In my experience the perfect spot of the curve when it comes to felling good about oneself in this one human characteristic is to be what I call an “entry level genious” - a barelly into the genious IQ, just about intelligent enough to feel more intelligent than th majority of people one encounters but not so intelligent one is aware of the limits of intelligence and how little even genious adds to one’s overall capabilities (and example of this would be Elon Musk), or in other words, on what is pretty much the peak Dunning-Krugger point of Intelligence.
(All the best salesperson types I’ve worked with were at that sweet-spot: intelligent enough to find it easier to outsmart most people and have high self-confidence but not enough to understand the potential problems and limitations of what they’re selling)
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I understand the allure of grass being greener on other side but I think you’re simply buying the image that salespeople selling/projecting.
It’s not even expensive skill to learn: it takes few months of training to learn how to project “entry level genius” vibe but once you dig in there you’ll see the edges of hologram.
If you think salespeople are actually successful ones, sales dept is always hiring 😉… I wonder why 😳
I’m thinking more Startup Founders and highly specialized Tech salespeople, rather than run-of-the-mill salespersons.
People with a grifter kind of personality is maybe a better way to describe the kind of people I mean.
The best do think of themselves as highly capable and competent because the best seller there is absolutelly believes in what they’re pitching - it’s smilar to how in Theatre, the best acting involves the actors literally feeling as if that situation was trully happenning to them.
IMHO the best way to deceive others is to first deceive yourself (though what I’ve seen more commonly done is avoiding knowing too much about something and in too much detail so that one is not even aware of the risks and pitfalls and only knows the positives) because of how amazingly truthfull that makes one sound.
I get what you’re saying however … what you’re describing is simply advanced people skills i.e. learnable, practicable ways to interact with others – yes, even loose moral core is part of it
If you think that this is actually what drives excellence, I urge you to take volunteer gig at charity nonprofit where they will teach you how to properly harass people into giving you money
I never said it was excellence, I said it was being a good salesman: never stated that I think salesmanship is some kind of great human quality, or that it is at all a quality or even that it has any kind of moral value positive or negative.
It was never a value statement about salesmanship as a human practice, it was simply an observation about how in my opinion human intelligence relates to proeficiency in that practice.
I think you unwittingly used the context of Society around you and what it tells you are great qualities, to fill the gaps in what I wrote and hence drew moral conclusions from it rather than from my statements which did not at all include a moral judgment.
Further, the possibility that I somehow “leaked” my opinion on it from a moral standpoint is inconsistent with how, personally, I don’t even have a positive opinion about salesmanship in moral terms, though I recognize the rewards it can bring in present day society to be good at it and appreciate a good salesman with the same kind moral-detached respect for expertise as I would appreciate a good conman or a good thief - whether one agrees or disagrees with that kind of job, one cannot but appreciate the smooth elegance of mastery in a complex domain. I can hardly “leak” a positive moral opinion when my opinion on that practice is neutral or slightly below neutral.
(Also, I couldn’t care less about what present day Society tells us are great human qualities, except perhaps that, having to live in it, I have to navigate that crap just like everybody else).
Bro really said Elon Musk
Elon Musk is obviously such a genious that he was forced to buy Twitter. He tried to play it to his benefit and screwed himself over.
The green part only exists in a dreamer’s mind, it’s blue all the way
there’s no such thing as two standard deviations
I’m in this picture and I don’t like it.
Me too, the red band on the left hand side
As I’ve said before, G&T when you’re young means MANY G&T’s when you’re older.
Eh ignoring the fact that someone with privilege doesn’t need to worry about g&ts at any age. As always, being skilled or talented is a necessity for the working class
Let’s not fall into some delusion that the ruling class is full of excellent or above average IQ/EQ people
They are talking about the alcoholic beverage in the second G&T
What was the first G&T?
Sorry, I wasn’t in any gifted classes in school. My only talent was getting beaten by my siblings.
Gifted & Talented
Oooh. Sorry. I should have gotten that.
I know lol
OK, I just had 5 Ginn tonics, how much more?
Giftedness easily becomes a social disability if your environment isn’t good for it. The education system isn’t ready to handle you constantly being ahead of the class? Get ready to sleep in school as the best years to take advantage of it pass by. Your topics of interest are too complex for everyone else around? Have fun enjoying your friendships less than everyone else. You don’t mask your intelligence? Here, have 10 lottery tickets to get bullied, no, you can’t return them. Congratulations, you graduated from college. Do you have the money for a masters degree? Oops, guess you studied for nothing. Got into debt and got a masters, but the job market isn’t booming? Do you have rich parents, or rich friends? Aw shucks, guess you couldn’t network your way into the type of job you would have liked.
Being intelligent helps, if you’re patient, hard-working, and have the means to look out for the less conventional options, but not so much as one would instinctively think.
Was everything super easy for you? Congrats, you never learned how to struggle and persist and you get discouraged easily. Good luck growing your skills and knowledge now…
Hey that’s me! I coasted through high school and got to college having no work ethic or ability to really study material that I almost, but not quite, had down. Dropped out senior year to work in IT, got fired a year later, and had to move back in with my parents for almost a year before I went back and finished my degree and got a new job.
It was very humbling
I coasted through elementary school and ran up against undiagnosed autism, ADHD, and GAD (it was the 80s and I wasn’t disruptive) once homework started getting real. Had no problem learning the material, aced the tests, struggled with homework and writing assignments. “Not working up to his potential” became “lazy.” I took myself out of the gifted classes in middle school and bailed on “college prep” classes in my sophomore year. By the time I graduated I had failed English three times and wanted nothing to do with college and its endless papers I’d never write. Went to tech school for IT/electronics and did field service work for a bit before getting burned out and laid off. Landed in corporate IT and got real intimate with depression. 25 years later I’m still trying to recover from a lifetime of fighting uphill on hard mode against AuDHD, anxiety, depression, trauma, and the resulting burnout, keenly aware of my shortcomings the entire time while simultaneously fostering a deep seated contempt for the orphan crushing machines that define modern life.
My life would have been a whole lot easier if I had only been sociopathic.
It’s rare, but you ain’t alone. Man, I feel your pain. This happened to me, too, in the 80s. I was undiagnosed ADHD, which was never suspected because at the time it was just “ADD” and I wasn’t hyperactive. I had a lot of difficulty focusing, which affected my ability to learn and got me labeled – yep, how’d you guess? – “lazy” unanimously by all the adults in my life. I still got excellent grades most of the time, which just reinforced the lazy theory.
But wait, it got worse! I hit a wall academically when we started learning more advanced stuff and I wasn’t able to brute-force my way into A’s and B’s, and so I immersed myself in art (as a way to cope, I’m now realizing in hindsight), graduated in the bottom quarter of a prestigious prep school, and graduated 5 yrs later from college with an art degree. And I didn’t know what to do with my life, so I went back! For a second art degree! And I nearly flunked out again and had to reapply and finally graduated again…jfc, this is exhausting having to recount, haha…anyway, fast forward a lot and guess what? Now I’m a programmer. Web developer, specifically.
Never went for the CS degree. I wanted to, but I honestly thought I was stupid and utterly incapable of handling the curriculum - especially the math - so I wrote off that career path entirely. Like, I never gave myself a chance. I’m finally where I feel like I should be, but it took so long to get here, ya know? I wish I knew when I was younger that I wasn’t stupid.
Any advice for someone who just graduated but never did any real work due to the same problems (gifted but adhd). I just finished college but I just struggle so hard with the job aspect.
Sure! Note that everybody’s different, so what works for one person may not work for another. The following is based on what works for me.
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Have you been prescribed meds? Take ‘em. If you were prescribed Adderall, Vyvanse, or their generic equivalents to address the “inattentive” type of ADHD (like me): they are classified as stimulants and you can only get a month’ s worth at a time (assuming you’re in the U.S.), so set a recurring alarm on your phone so you don’t forget to call in a refill or do it online. Put your local pharmacy’s phone number and address in your phone, and take note of other pharmacies in the area in case there’s a shortage (which is a thing nowadays). You are gonna have to advocate for yourself if they are out of stock, so get used to the idea that you may have to call and ask the pharmacy for the generic equivalent or other locations that do have it in stock. Side note: if you don’t have insurance, GoodRx might be worth a look.
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If you get overwhelmed easily, do whatever is necessary to make yourself comfortable and eliminate distractions so you can focus. Music is good. Disabling phone notifications during work hours might help. Interruptions suck, especially if your task requires intense concentration, so don’t let them disrupt your shit.
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Keeping track of tasks and deadlines will help you stay organized and feel more in control, so get in the habit of checking and updating your calendar (and/or task management app or text editor, whatever) every morning so you don’t get caught off guard by stuff that is already planned. I know, everyone says make a list, which is cliche and doesn’t always work for everyone, so find what works for you. Think of it as doing your future self a favor. You’ll be grateful for past you looking out for you.
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Take a break once in a while. You might want to set an alarm for that. Step away from the computer and get some fresh air or something. Meditate or do breathing/grounding exercises if that works for you. You aren’t a machine, and you really gotta be kind to yourself and remember that you have human limits. Taking a break is crucial, especially if you are hyper-focused on something and can’t make progress; it’s just gonna frustrate you more if you force yourself to spin your wheels, so be kind to yourself. For real, sometimes allowing your brain to relax can help when you get back to the task. Sometimes things fall into place when you look at them with fresh eyes.
Anyway. Sorry for the bigass bullet point blocks of text. I hope none of that came across as obvious, cliche, or old person condescending, but that is what works for me. It sucks that you have to deal with this and that you have to put in extra effort just to function in everyday life… believe me, I empathize with you. It can be a fuckin struggle. But the truth is, you can’t control everything, so address the things that you can control. Do your future self a favor…identify the things that mess you up and find ways to work around them. And be kind to yourself, you deserve it.
I sincerely hope that helps. Feel free to reply with questions or vent if you need to, or DM me.
Heey, thanks for the advice. I read it at the time but was too anxious to reply😅. You really did help me at the time. I am currently working in a hospital lab which is amazing for adhd people cause you need to do ten thousand things at a time while knowing a little about a lot. I really found my place and i’m in a good mindset.
Again, thanks for being so caring to response and I wish you all the best!
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Tell me, master Bruce, why do we fall?
So we can pick ourselves up.
Your topics of interest are too complex for everyone else around? Have fun enjoying your friendships less than everyone else.
This never goes away, but it at least got me a job.
If your undergrad offers you zero income opportunities, you weren’t so gifted after all
Reminds me of this comic, in Dutch but the translation is right below it (for all the dumbasses who can’t read Dutch)
Oh! I’m in the beginning stages of learning Dutch, but there were several words I didn’t know, which made me feel extra stupid. Well done!
Oh I feel this so much. There’s a range of jobs and environments where I do really really well. But the way most organizations are structured I can never find a place where my strengths are desirable in the long term.
And selling myself is not one of my strengths.absolutely one of the worst parts of having an invisible disability is having to be your own advocate, it’s so fucking exhausting having to constantly defend and promote yourself.
Try smaller businesses maybe? Corporate isn’t for everyone.
I got hired for two simple tasks and quickly realized the company (being small) was lacking in a lot of areas I specialize in or am passionate about. I started doing all these extra things and I got a lot of recognition and $$$ in return. I also don’t hate my job, it’s a small team and we all get along great.
In my experience, the expectations of most people about “gifted” level intelligence seem to be shaped shaped by things like movies and are wholly unrealistic.
Even a twice as fast CPU is no guarantee that the software running in it is any good or appropriate for any one task.
The awwwwtism range
Oh hey, throw in some crippling depression and overwhelming cynicism and I’m there too.
second place or (second region from peak) is apparently a hard place to be.
in alternate mindsets, it’s all fine – you are what defines you.
I don’t see the parallel. Care to explain?
Classic first peak mindset right here.
Cool. I’m dumb. Please explain it to me.
gifted people are gifted if you compare them with others (see how there’s a graph on the bottom right panel).
if you take out the comparisons, everything is all fine as individuals are who they decide themselves to be.
His last name is DROP TABLE Students;–.
Little Bobby Tables
That’s what they call him.
