this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2024
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Tell me, master Bruce, why do we fall?
So we can pick ourselves up.
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.
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.
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.
This never goes away, but it at least got me a job.
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.
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!
If your undergrad offers you zero income opportunities, you weren't so gifted after all