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I was seen as gifted as a child...

Skeletor

Well-Known Member
And now I'm a quirky nobody as an adult. I've found this to be the situation of many aspies, and I have a hypothesis as to why. People with Aspergers, and I am one, are usually mentally older than our chronological age, but emotionally younger. As children, our childish tendencies are seen as normal because we are in fact children. But we can also work college level math problems or quote Shakespeare, and are seen as gifted (I memorized a long poem for a fifth grade English class and recited it letter perfect for example). As we age, these things don't change. We still have our mental abilities, but emotionally we remain younger than our chronological age, some of us much younger, hence meltdowns, continued childish mannerisms, etc. We are no longer seen as gifted children, but as adults who didn't grow up emotionally.
 
I was literally just thinking about (and researching) this. I was also "gifted" as a child (and I suspect my IQ was the only thing standing between me and an autism diagnosis). The issue with "giftedness" (at least in the 90s when I was "identified") was that it came with intellectual supports (special classes etc.) and no real support or even acknowledgment of struggles (social, sensory, etc.). The other issue with it is that it came with a bunch of sky high expectations which I either couldn't meet, or didn't have any interest in.

I've often wondered if "gifted" was often code for "high functioning autism" before HFA was a thing...especially in girls, because I see a lot of former "gifted kids" expressing similar sentiments and struggles.
 
When I was a kid adults often said I was really talented and an artist. Now I have no idea what they think. Or if they think at all.
 
I wasn't. At one point in school, I was described by my class teacher as "a moody and rather erratic child who doesn't see the importance of tidiness." They wanted to put me in a slow learners' class, but my parents objected, insisting that I was intelligent and I should stay in the same class. I was very good at some things, but poor at others. I struggled with maths and the interpretation of literature - poetry and algebra were my nemesis. And yet, I had a good memory and could learn foreign languages with ease, or recall facts and other information without much studying.
 
Good gracious that hurt. Like a cosmic joke. Someone reaching in and taking what made us special and now we are not even average. We're weird. I need a hug (but can't have one---touch)
 
And now I'm a quirky nobody as an adult. I've found this to be the situation of many aspies, and I have a hypothesis as to why. People with Aspergers, and I am one, are usually mentally older than our chronological age, but emotionally younger. As children, our childish tendencies are seen as normal because we are in fact children. But we can also work college level math problems or quote Shakespeare, and are seen as gifted (I memorized a long poem for a fifth grade English class and recited it letter perfect for example). As we age, these things don't change. We still have our mental abilities, but emotionally we remain younger than our chronological age, some of us much younger, hence meltdowns, continued childish mannerisms, etc. We are no longer seen as gifted children, but as adults who didn't grow up emotionally.
I was seen as gifted by my mum as I taught myself to read and write before school but gave it up as I wanted my Dad's acceptance and for him not to call me baby. Unbeknown to me, he was infantilising me. He was the sort who could literally not bear to see success and joy in others.
And now I'm a quirky nobody as an adult. I've found this to be the situation of many aspies, and I have a hypothesis as to why. People with Aspergers, and I am one, are usually mentally older than our chronological age, but emotionally younger.
This is called asynchronous development.
You are not a nobody, Asperger's is a blessing. A wise old Indian chief say they have a license to be a shaman.
My intelligence seeped away as Dad called me weirdo as he was very mainstream conformist, and I wanted to be the same.
There is still time for you, follow your bliss as Joseph Campbell the great mythologist quoted, you could be a writer, a creative, many aspies are.
 
I very much relate, i have 'child like' tendancies and a sence of fun not generally reflected by those i meet, aside from N/D individuals.
 
i was in the gifted program, and moved to another district and they put me back in. kids would bully me because i wasnt smart like them. today i have been thinking about how smart i am, and how i can't communicate it in a real world setting
 
'90s gifted kid as well, and the one year I got sent to a program at another school, I totally loved it - we were allowed to do whatever we wanted. I ended up doing a paper and poster presentation about minerals.

High school was a total disaster. If being quirky wasn't bad enough, being captain of your school's chess team is a really effective way to knock your social ranking to zero. LOL.
 
I question the criteria that schools use to determine which kid is considered to be “gifted” and which ones aren’t. It seems that they base it all on math and science but the thing is you can have geniuses in other areas such as technology or even music. I think that I should have been considered to be gifted as I could memorize facts quite easily as a kid and I knew so much about music and could instantly recognize songs by listening to them and even replicate parts of them on the piano without any sheet music. I could also set microwave and VCR clocks by the time I was six and literally no digital clock in the house was ever blinking. But I struggled with math and science due to being undiagnosed with Asperger’s and I think that is why I wasn’t considered to be gifted. I could even memorize the layout of a room in a person’s house and come back six months later and state what exactly was different. And how many eight year olds can you think of that knows exactly who Beethoven is and is familiar with his works? Or can program a VCR without even reading the manual in less than five minutes. I also could understand two languages by the time I was six and I might not have been able to become fluent in a second language but I could understand commonly used words and phrases easily. My parents were from Taiwan and I grew up hearing my family speaking the Taiwanese dialect of the Chinese language. I think the way kids are determined to be considered gifted needs a major overhaul.
 

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