Crushing Tall PoppiesWhen Giftedness Becomes a Burden
When does giftedness, a perceived intellectual advantage with a guaranteed path to lifelong success, become a burden?
When giftedness is not recognized as a human trait, but is regarded as a prodigious intellectual benefit, it can become a burden. When giftedness is tied to and measured by academic achievement, then giftedness is misunderstood. When the expectation of a gifted person is that of academic and professional success, then giftedness can cause anxiety and distress. Giftedness is a life experience, not an educational experience. Giftedness is not what one can achieve, but who one is.
Giftedness does not make one better than others any more than having an extraordinary singing voice, or the ability to write bestselling novels makes one better.
The gravest harm comes to gifted people when the prevalent misunderstanding hoisted upon them is that giftedness is an unmitigated advantage.
When does giftedness become a burden?
- When a gifted child grows up with few or no friends with whom he can connect, giftedness becomes a burden.
- When your ethnicity biases others to believe you can’t possibly be gifted and you fall through the cracks of your school system, giftedness becomes a burden
- When families with gifted children have to sell their house and move to another city, another state to secure an appropriate education for their gifted child, giftedness becomes a burden.
- When you are misdiagnosed with a mental health disorder and spend tens of thousands of dollars on therapy and medications only to discover it is your overwhelming emotions, intellectual intensity, and sensitivity as a gifted person, giftedness becomes a burden.
- When a gifted child’s dyslexia is addressed in school, but his mastery of math that is four grade levels above his same-age classmates is ignored, giftedness becomes a burden.
- When the color of your skin does not align with the belief that giftedness can be nurtured in an optimal, advantaged environment, and you are passed over for a gifted assessment at your school, giftedness becomes a burden.
- When a parent has to continually take unpaid time off of work to advocate at her child’s school, begging for a challenging education for their gifted daughter who has become disengaged from school, giftedness becomes a burden.
- When you come from a poor, disadvantaged family, and your giftedness is masked by your lack of educational privilege and goes unidentified, giftedness becomes a burden.
- When school becomes so mundane, so slow, so boring that a gifted child checks out, resorts to unacceptable behavior to entertain himself, and becomes an underachiever, giftedness becomes a burden.
- When you’ve lived your entire life believing you were unloveable, weird, and a misfit and then identified as gifted at sixty-years-old, which then explains everything, giftedness was a burden.
- When a two-income family has to downsize to one income and live paycheck-to-paycheck to homeschool their gifted child because the public school cannot accommodate his accelerated learning needs, giftedness becomes a burden.
- When a gifted child is bullied at school for his intellect and vast vocabulary, giftedness becomes a burden.
- When you feel compelled to name a few of your gifted child’s bad behaviors to counter all the compliments from your mom friends like, “Wow, he is SO smart!” or “Raising him must be a breeze!” giftedness becomes a burden.
- When a family has to borrow money, pull from savings, or refinance their home to pay for therapy for their misunderstood, depressed, and suicidal gifted child, giftedness becomes a burden.
- When teachers say to a gifted child, “If you are so gifted, then why aren’t you making better grades?” causing shame, giftedness becomes a burden.
- When you are shamed for your overwhelming emotions and extreme sensitivity, giftedness becomes a burden.
- When therapists don’t understand giftedness and its significant impact on therapeutic treatments, then giftedness becomes a burden.
- When your therapist refuses to understand that gifted people have intense, over-the-top emotions and you are instead diagnosed with and treated for borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder, or other incorrect psychological diagnoses, giftedness becomes a burden.
- When a gifted child, with a 98 percent average in math class, is drug out into the hall and angrily told, “I’m tired of this crap. You need to pay attention!” giftedness becomes a burden.
- When a neighbor tells you, in front of your gifted son, “It must be hard for you to find friends for your him,” giftedness becomes a burden.
- When your gifted teen’s principal tells you outright that your child is an anomaly, giftedness becomes a burden.
- When a gifted child with his keen sense of justice lets his teacher know that a one-question quiz is unfair and he is sent to the principal’s office for insolence, giftedness becomes a burden.
- When a teacher tells a gifted child, “Stop raising your hand and give your classmates a chance.” giftedness becomes a burden.
- When your gifted child doesn’t fit in with most of his peers and is the child sitting alone at the lunch table every day at school, giftedness becomes a burden.
- When gifted people dumb down and hide their giftedness for fear of rejection, envy, or being accused of being arrogant, giftedness becomes a burden.
- When high expectations are thrust on you because you are gifted, and the pressure to meet those expectations is unbearable, giftedness becomes a burden.
- When a gifted adult longs for deep, meaningful discussions and the only conversations they experience are of small talk about the weather and the most recent gossip, giftedness becomes a burden.
- When gifted adults are envied and bullied in the workplace because of their creativity, strong work ethic, honesty, integrity, and intelligence, giftedness becomes a burden.
- When a gifted adult experiences workplace bullying and mobbing, loses his job, and has resulting emotional trauma, giftedness is a burden.
- When those who do not understand giftedness and proclaim it as a net-positive, a golden ticket to guaranteed success in life, causing grief to the gifted people who know better, giftedness becomes a burden.
- When you finally connect with your first real friend at twenty-years-old, giftedness had been a burden.
- When gifted people are so misunderstood that they come to hate their giftedness, giftedness is a burden.
Burdens Shared By Our Gifted Followers (quoted as is)
- When you’re guided and encouraged opposite your actual abilities and desires because you’re “real smart” and “should be” that way, giftedness becomes burden.
- When you offend people and “burn bridges” for not actually being how gifted folk are supposed to be, giftedness becomes burden.
- When you’re excluded as “too smart” because only “normal” people should do something, giftedness becomes a burden.
- When you take a placement test on moving to a new school, and they throw out your scores because they are “impossible,” giftedness is a burden.
- When trying to get your best friend to kind of understand you, you tell her about your giftedness and then you’re continuously being blamed for using your giftedness as an excuse to justify your existence or behaviours. This is when giftedness can become a burden.
- Giftedness becomes a burden when a school system shoves you into a deep special ed class with no windows until you drop out in the 8th grade and end up homeless for the remained of your teenage years believing you’re stupid, emotionally unstable, think to much, say to much, feel to much because the antiquated school system has no concept of 2E.
- Giftedness becomes a burden when almost all of this cycle plays out again when the 2E half grown teenage son is labeled a few points above MR by a school system.
- Giftedness becomes a burden when at 34 years old a stranger has to point out to you that you are indeed the polar opposite of stupid as you plunge down the path of positive and not so positive disintegration as you come to terms that you & your children are not just gifted but profoundly gifted & at this level there is very little support available & less than 0.1% humans who walk this earth will ever mirror your body language.
- Giftedness becomes a burden when the things you thought were mental illnesses and could be worked through are in fact just the way you’re neurologically wired. When your inability to ever stop thinking 10 different trains of thought at once or to work your body past the average humans breaking point again & again because visual spatial & phycomotor rule you and you have to come to terms with the fact these are not things that can be fixed so there is no relief in sight.
- Giftedness becomes a burden when your parent decides to be like “oh yeah I did a bunch of testing years and years ago for my job here are my results, they even made me redo it because they didn’t believe the score” and they didn’t think being PG was something that mattered or would somehow pass on to their children.
- Giftedness becomes a burden when you have built a new life and massive social media following based on your brutal honesty, lack of filter, and processing your trauma/emotions publicly, giving out all of your knowledge freely then finding out you’re PG & not being able to disclose this HUGE thing that connects every dot in your life because it will only lead people to feel misled, defensive, untrusting, & undermine all of your work because your damn moto is “you’re smart enough to do this” & that’s a hard pill for folks to swallow coming from a gifted person.
- Giftedness becomes a burden when your emotions are so intense that at any given moment you can slip off the edge into an abyss that consumes you because at this level to much joy or love can be just as overwhelming as to much sadness or pain.
- Giftedness becomes a burden when at certain ranges you’re more likely than others to statistically end up homeless, addicted, & or commit suicide because society is simply not built in a way that allows PG folks to survive it.
- Giftedness becomes a burden when as a 2E/PG adult there are very little resources available for you & you even find yourself isolated in gifted communities that are obsessed with equating giftedness with academic achievement & you know this won’t likely change for your children as they age.
- Giftedness becomes a burden when no matter how hard you try you overwhelm anyone you talk to with far to much information & you watch the persons face melt into a blank overwhelmed state & you WISH you were capable of simply talking about the weather or local gossip because then you wouldn’t be treated like you were insane & avoided by everyone.
- Giftedness becomes a burden when very few folks who talk about it truly touch on the dark & painful aspects of giftedness…
- Giftedness becomes a burden when you are denied an IEP because your IQ “shows you are capable of writing” when you have Dysgraphia, but are constantly chastised for unfinished school work when you can’t keep up because of your diagnosed learning disability.
- Giftedness is a burden when you can’t relate to your peer group and trying to figure out where you fit in.
- Giftedness becomes a burden when you spend so many years fighting the school system to get at least a few resources for your child, with no avail, until you pay for a new evaluation and your by-then teenager decides to flunk it, and the neuropsych isn’t trained enough (despite what she told you) to understand that the spikes in the profile are a sign of something else, so she tells you that your child is NOT gifted, thank God way far from the 130 and all the issues that entails, that he’s a PERFECTLY NORMAL 107 (the magnet gifted school he attended overseas that required evaluation be damned), after all the people who score between 80 and 100 are the happiest. At the same time she tries to sell you a therapy implying that your child might have BPD, but since it’s not a diagnosis she can do before the age of 18, she won’t obviously put in writing that there’s anything wrong, but please, force him into therapy while you can.
- Giftedness becomes a burden because you ALWAYS will be different from the norm. While this can be fine and even a blessing at times, you don’t get a choice, and you are always confronted with having to adapt, adjust, accommodate. It is rarely easy.
- When you constantly downplay your gifts and talents to make others feel comfortable, giftedness becomes a burden.
- When you finally connect with your first real friend at twenty-years-old, later or never, giftedness had been a burden.
- When gifted people are so misunderstood that they come to hate their giftedness, giftedness is a burden.
- When you offend people and “burn bridges” for being you, giftedness becomes burden.
- When you’re excluded as “too smart” because only “normal” people fit in, giftedness becomes a burden.
- When you’re continuously being blamed for “using“ your giftedness as an excuse to “justify“ your existence or behaviours. This is also when giftedness can become a burden.
- It becomes a burden when you’re in an anti-intellectual environment and around people who aren’t interested in the same things you are.
- When you find yourself constantly trying to ‘sell’ people on things so you can share what you love. When you find yourself ‘code-switching’ to fit in, using glottal stops so you’re not seen as elitist. When you can’t use the vocabulary you want or reference ideas that are so important to you, or having to constantly explain things that fascinate you and feeling like an obnoxious show off.
- Seeing people’s eyes glaze over when you start to talk about more intellectual or technical ideas. When you want to discuss other people’s passions further with them, only to realise that they don’t research things intensely and feeling like you’ve lost a potential connection to share what you love. When your own research backfires and you end up reprimanding yourself for having an insecure attachment style, still being orally fixated or not being fully self-actualised.
- When you’re overwhelmed by your own curiosity. When you meet experts/profoundly gifted peers and experience the Dunning Krueger effect.
- When you don’t have the time or energy to research everything in depth and feeling like a fraud because you know FR Leavis was a huge academic figure in the arts in the UK but not very much else about him.
- When you feel like a sell out because you haven’t read the entire canon of ‘classical’ Western literature.
- When you’re not around people you can share what you find so fascinating.
- It becomes a burden when you’re in an anti-intellectual environment and around people who aren’t interested in the same things you are.
- When you find yourself constantly trying to ‘sell’ people on things so you can share what you love.
- When you find yourself ‘code-switching’ to fit in, using glottal stops so you’re not seen as elitist.
- When you can’t use the vocabulary you want or reference ideas that are so important to you, or having to constantly explain things that fascinate you and feeling like an obnoxious show off.
- Seeing people’s eyes glaze over when you start to talk about more intellectual or technical ideas.
- When you want to discuss other people’s passions further with them, only to realise that they don’t research things intensely and feeling like you’ve lost a potential connection to share what you love.
- When your own research backfires and you end up reprimanding yourself for having an insecure attachment style, still being orally fixated or not being fully self-actualised.
- When you’re overwhelmed by your own curiosity. When you meet experts/profoundly gifted peers and experience the Dunning Krueger effect.
- When you don’t have the time or energy to research everything in depth and feeling like a fraud because you know FR Leavis was a huge academic figure in the arts in the UK but not very much else about him.
- When you feel like a sell out because you haven’t read the entire canon of ‘classical’ Western literature.
Giftedness can be a burden, as gifted people have experienced all too often. When has giftedness been a burden to you?
Please tell us how giftedness has affected you, and let’s help each other share the load of these burdens with support, understanding, and love.
When giftedness becomes a burden…
I came across this article today, ages after it has been posted, though that did not change its impact. I could see bits and pieces of my own experience in both the article and shared stories from all the commentors. Reading things like these help me to advocate for and trust myself all the more and take steps to become braver in sharing my own story, as well as thinking about how I can serve to assist and suppor6 others who are in similar situations.
Thank you all so, SO much.
I’m honored and grateful that my writing has helped in some way, and more grateful for all the people who leave their stories in the comments. As a community, gifted people need to understand and advocate for themselves and advocate for all gifted people.
When you find yourself unable to relax in groups for fear of being called elitist or arrogant just for speaking your truth.
When your parents use your giftedness to support their own self-esteem and ignore yours.
When you’re taught as a child that your intelligence is the only good thing about you, and then as an adult that it is arrogant to take pride in it.
When you feel like there is no one you can truly be yourself around, because the last time you told someone they got angry and accused you of being insensitive.
When your friends dismiss all of your struggles and traumas and just tell you that you are privileged.
When you’re so desperate for love and acceptance that you accept abusive relationships because at least you’re not alone.
When your biggest achievements make you cry because there is no one to share them with.
It becomes a burden when you’re in an anti-intellectual environment and around people who aren’t interested in the same things you are.
When you find yourself constantly trying to ‘sell’ people on things so you can share what you love. When you find yourself ‘code-switching’ to fit in, using glottal stops so you’re not seen as elitist. When you can’t use the vocabulary you want or reference ideas that are so important to you, or having to constantly explain things that fascinate you and feeling like an obnoxious show off.
Seeing people’s eyes glaze over when you start to talk about more intellectual or technical ideas. When you want to discuss other people’s passions further with them, only to realise that they don’t research things intensely and feeling like you’ve lost a potential connection to share what you love. When your own research backfires and you end up reprimanding yourself for having an insecure attachment style, still being orally fixated or not being fully self-actualised.
When you’re overwhelmed by your own curiosity. When you meet experts/profoundly gifted peers and experience the Dunning Krueger effect.
When you don’t have the time or energy to research everything in depth and feeling like a fraud because you know FR Leavis was a huge academic figure in the arts in the UK but not very much else about him.
When you feel like a sell out because you haven’t read the entire canon of ‘classical’ Western literature.
When you’re not around people you can share what you find so fascinating.
Your burdens have all been added.
I’m so sorry you’ve experienced these burdens. It’s never easy, and even knowing that experiencing these is common for most gifted people, all of these are still painful burdens.
Thanks, Helen, for sharing your thoughts!
I read this right before attending class and it took all of me not to cry. So many of these statements are the reason I left teaching as a gifted specialist and to train to become a counselor. Those who are gifted need a safe space to process all of this.
Michelle,
THANK YOU! I can’t put into words how much admiration and appreciation I have for what you are doing! To step out of the classroom to train to become a counselor to help the gifted is an amazing move. Our gifted children will benefit from your thoughtfulness and dedication <3 ~Celi
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I might refrain from sharing any experiences because they haven’t particularly been easy, but thank you, with tears in my heart and hope in my eyes, all I can mutter through this comment with depths of gratitude for this liberating read is a thank you. With love, a gifted internet stranger.
Sending love back to you, Osarieme! I see you and I understand.
Giftedness becomes a burden when you spend 4th class time tutoring the other kids that days math lesson.
Giftedness becomes a burden when those kids next year are put in an advance math class.
Giftedness becomes a burden when your begging the teacher everyday to be put in the more advanced group and being told your too valuable where you are.
Giftedness becomes a burden when you finally get moved up with a week to self learn 100+ lessons (1 year of math) join the group and are bullied by the kids you tutored the year before that your not good enough to be there and haven’t been there all year.
Giftedness becomes a burden when at your new school you are forced to repeat the math book you spent a year begging to advance from 2 years behind your level.
Oh J, I am so sorry you had to go through this. Although this is a common scenario among gifted students, it is still be upsetting and very frustrating. Teachers using more advanced students as tutors is, in my opinion, wrong. You are in school to learn, not to teach, and you deserve to learn something new, not repeat information you already know.
Kudos on your self-advocacy and repeated requests to be advanced. You know what you need, so keep asking for your educational needs to be met! And don’t hesitate to provide your teachers and school with information about giftedness and the special educational needs of gifted students. That you have to “teach the teacher” is also a burden!
Stay strong, J!
The learning model of our local medical school is, “See one, do one, teach one!” The theory is that teaching someone else reinforces what you have learned, so all that tutoring experience is probably not wasted. Still, it gets old after a while.
When my son entered 7th grade (first year of junior high back then) he worked all the end of chapter problems in his math book the first day of school just for the fun of it. He said he checked his answers in the back of the book and he got them all right but one and had figured out what he did wrong with that one. The teacher noticed and was supportive.
He took the SAT and out-scored college bound seniors, which qualified him for acceptance by the Johns Hopkins program for gifted children and attended a special summer camp for gifted children the summer he was 12. They recommended he take calculus.
Of course, the junior high did not have a calculus class. However, the local university allowed him to enroll in an evening class.
Now, the weird part: The local school board would not allow that calculus class to be used as a junior high math credit, because his body was not spending quite enough minutes in class. His cooperative junior high math teacher allowed him to work on his calculus home work in her class. He was only required to take the tests with the other students in order to document that he was passing the junior high class. Wonderful, wonderful innovative teacher!
When he got to high school he often helped other kids with their math. He said he never ever told them what to do. He just kept asking, “How much of it have you figured out?” Well, now that you have that much, what else can you see?” Doing that, they would work their own problem, then turn to him and say, “Oh, you are such a genius! Thank you, thank you!”
His opinion of why he was “gifted” at math was that he didn’t panic. He solved problems one little bit at a time whereas others looked at the whole problem at once and were frightened by its size.
I sure hope you eventually run into a supportive teacher! My son’s math teacher could have crushed him like his English teacher did, with busy work on top of busy work. We lived in a rural setting where hunting is normal. When the school let their soon to be replaced English books be taken home at the end of the year, he set the book up and used it for target practice with a shotgun.
I cried reading this. I was told by two therapists as a teenager that i was gifted but my family life was so abusive that i was not able to comprehend or believe this about myself. I stopped attending school at 15, only pitching up for tests or exams at my liberal arts school. No one ever addressed this. I got into university and dropped out due to my belief that i wasnt good enough and a desire to fit in with my family. Neither of my brothers, despite expensive private schools got into university. I thought that diminishing my self would make more more lovable. It didn’t. In my late twenties, after surviving a serious addiction problem, I passed, with 76%, a test on a 445 page technical textbook after being given two days to for study it. The employer who gave me the test asked me if i was gifted. I was still incapable of believing this of myself. I was soon pushed out of that workplace. Since then, I have been pushed out of more workplaces than i like to think about because of my giftedness. Still, it took me until i was in my late thirties to see this as the reason and to believe in my own abilities. Now, i see the level of animosity directed at me is pretty much in direct proportion to how jealous or insecure i make the other person, not because i am unlovable, unlikeable or even difficult.
My dad was gifted. He told me that he had also been called that, just before he died. He also told me about the concept of the ‘tall poppy’ when i was growing up. My mother and older brother are both narcissists, my father and I were gifted empaths. Growing up in that environment very nearly destroyed me. It has taken me many years to put myslef back together again.
The only test that I got results from was from one when my high school sent me to a psychologist who tested my IQ and said it was around 160. I have only recently looked that up and discovered that it is high, even in terms of degrees of giftedness. Reading this article made me feel understood. That is very rare for me. Thank you.
I’m honored that you shared your story despite the emotional scars it has brought you.
Everything you have said, the experiences you have had, the feelings about yourself, the envy in the workplace you have endured, the inadequacy you have felt–I’ve seen these in nearly all the gifted lives of my friends and family. You are not alone and you are very much understood in the gifted community.
Our own doubts about our self-worth and non-acceptance of our giftedness really puts a wrench in our spokes. I’m glad you are on the other side of all this, but I understand it’s been a burden.
I’m always grateful when gifted people share their life experiences because it validates all of us and helps us to feel seen. Seeing ourselves in others gifted stories lets us know we are not alone. Thank you for sharing your gifted story, and please continue to share your story to give hope to gifted people who are struggling with their giftedness.
When you cannot get treatment for your teenage major depression because you are making all As in high school, giftedness is a burden.
When your college advisors and parents spend more time telling you what you should do to “meet your potential” than helping you find out what you *want* to do, giftedness is a burden.
When you are now experiencing suicidal ideation but nobody believes you because your college GPA in an honors program is 4.0, giftedness is a burden.
When you are *still depressed* and spend your 20s fending off unsolicited advice about what you “should” be doing because you are an “important human resource,” giftedness is a burden. The last I checked, I was a flawed human being, not a “public resource.”
When you are in your 40s and want to run as far away from your giftedness as you can because people’s attitudes towards it nearly killed you, giftedness is most definitely a burden.
I am late to the party–sorry! Thanks for the chance to vent though. I am *not* giving up on my efforts to accept myself, my disabilities, and my giftedness simultaneously.
Your experiences took my breath away and yet, your experiences with your giftedness are not unusual. I’m always brought to my knees when I read, again and again, how painful it can be to be gifted. And it is only because too many do not understand giftedness. I see so many gifted lives in your experiences.
I’ll be adding these to my article. Thank you so much for sharing your painful stories, and I’m happy it helped to vent. Also, you are never late to the party; we always need more voices to speak out about giftedness.
Lastly, your strength and resilience shows in your vow to no give up on yourself. Good for you! Please keep in touch! <3 ~Celi
I am in tears reading this . I have been in the process of trying to scratch and claw my way out of the many negative effects of being gifted and it going unrecognized, compounded with some childhood trauma ( oldest child born to a teenage mother who didn’t truly know how to love anyone, traumatic divorce. etc). Determined to succeed and not fall victim to what I call a curse on the females in my family, my mother (i.e- friend at the time) agreed to sign me out of high school. My guidance counselor told me ” It is totally against my actual job description to tell you this but, i fully agree and support your decision to leave school to attend college”. Within a week I had my GED in hand, recommendations from the only two teachers who took the time to understand me and enough drive and determination that i was sure there was literally nothing that could stop me. A week after that my step dad and aunt were moving me into my college dorm. I excelled in my classes however, I was bored. The required courses for first year art students I had already learned in 8th grade. Just over a half a year later I came home on summer break and met a boy. Looking back I’m almost certain that due to my complex relationship with my mother, and that I subconsciously felt unwanted and unstable most of my life, intensely loyal its crippling and am a “fixer”, among a few other reasons. This boy became the catalyst for the next 10 years of my life and the biological father to my now 10 year old GIFTED daughter. In the past 10 years, I have painstakingly analyzed myself, my life in its entirety, my beliefs, my fears, literally every tiny aspect of myself I have scrutinized over all while just trying to survive. I was lucky enough to meet a bad boy who is now a good man when my girl was just 5 months old. she is his, last name and all. However, due to our economic situation life has been cumbersome trying to self repair, while also trying to be a wife, and agonizing over whether I’m being a good mother while feeling guilty because I’m sure I seem self absorbed to the outside world for trying to heal myself to ensure my kids don’t need to be healed. Throughout the constant thinking, the alienation, the existential depression, the constant feeling of failure and being overwhelmed by the two beautiful kids you love so much but the one requires external stimuli and is being so loud that it is filling me with anxiety, and the other one is sensitive and how can I deal with her breakdown and her need for justice and explanation when I’m having a breakdown of my own. And the world just keeps buzzing, and someone always needs something from you, and your family keeps asking why wont you take depression medication or the toxic positivity they spew due to the very superficial understanding of life that they have fills you with resentment towards them and towards yourself . And the constant advice about how you should just stop procrastinating and do it already. And the questioning of beliefs and opinions amd decisions when you’re the only one who has actually extrapolated and researched and knows exactly why you believe the things you do. The many arguments that have happened because you physically can not accept the idea of doing something just because society says you should because that doesn’t neccesarily mean it’s the right way and that everything needs to be questioned but that’s right i forgot, I’m just a pain in the ass who just has to be different from everyone else to make myself feel cool. Being deemed the wierd, eccentric. “Crazy” one in the family, and just how much that hurts because I’m not effing crazy, I’m unfulfilled, stifled, not living a life with autonomy that is authentic to who I was born to be. The constant sarcastic remarks of how I think I’m so smart yet so dumb at the same time because surely I should have figured my life out by now…… whew, I can breathe now. I could go on for a lifetime about the repercussions of unrecognized giftedness and its correlation to broken homes, teen moms etc. but right now I have to prepare myself for the tornado that is about to walk through my front door. My super sweet, super social super energetic son and my daughter who is just so astonishing to me that it’s hard to articulate. I will fight myself everyday to ensure these two loves of mine never know the struggles I have faced. And while I realize trying to figure myself out while figuring these two out and being sure not to allow history to repeat itself is a task equivalent to scaling Everest I continue to remind myself that all of the self perceived flaws are characteristics of people who has “high developmental potential” whatever that means 😑😂🤣 rant over… for now. Please disregard my lack of punctuation. This presented itself as manic more than a coherent presentation.
No apologies necessary for the punctuation. When the thoughts and the words flow, meaning is paramount to grammar. I got your meaning and your message, and I can completely relate. Read my article here to learn more about my unidentified giftedness: Learning to Live the Life of a Gifted Adult
My one hope, and the one mission I have in my life, is to promote a true understanding of giftedness as a life condition and not a label given in school to participate in gifted education programs.
My heart goes out to you! <3
This was very poignant, touching, and relatable to read. I commend you for doing the extremely difficult work of processing and reconfig with yourself while doing your best for your family. I know how challenging it can be managing adulthood while doing “self-repair” as you put it, and I can tell you firsthand that it can be a tightrope firewalk at times at best, and that’s without the additional layers of added responsibility. This article was posted ages ago, but I hope you are doing well.
And little of this requires a label or even any formal identification. A school and/or state can have neither gifted ID processes or gifted programs, but kids and families can go through almost all of these anyway.
Giftedness becomes a burden when you are denied an IEP because your IQ “shows you are capable of writing” when you have Dysgraphia, but are constantly chastised for unfinished school work when you can’t keep up because of your diagnosed learning disability.
Kandice,
Oh my gosh, 2e is even more misunderstood than giftedness alone. And when giftedness is equated with achievement, we have experiences like you shared.
I’m so sorry this has been your experience and your burden! ♥️♥️♥️ Celi
Giftedness becomes a burden when a school system shoves you into a deep special ed class with no windows until you drop out in the 8th grade and end up homeless for the remained of your teenage years believing you’re stupid, emotionally unstable, think to much, say to much, feel to much because the antiquated school system has no concept of 2E.
Giftedness becomes a burden when almost all of this cycle plays out again when the 2E half grown teenage son is labeled a few points above MR by a school system.
Giftedness becomes a burden when at 34 years old a stranger has to point out to you that you are indeed the polar opposite of stupid as you plunge down the path of positive and not so positive disintegration as you come to terms that you & your children are not just gifted but profoundly gifted & at this level there is very little support available & less than 0.1% humans who walk this earth will ever mirror your body language.
Giftedness becomes a burden when the things you thought were mental illnesses and could be worked through are in fact just the way you’re neurologically wired. When your inability to ever stop thinking 10 different trains of thought at once or to work your body past the average humans breaking point again & again because visual spatial & phycomotor rule you and you have to come to terms with the fact these are not things that can be fixed so there is no relief in sight.
Giftedness becomes a burden when your parent decides to be like “oh yeah I did a bunch of testing years and years ago for my job here are my results, they even made me redo it because they didn’t believe the score” and they didn’t think being PG was something that mattered or would somehow pass on to their children.
Giftedness becomes a burden when you have built a new life and massive social media following based on your brutal honesty, lack of filter, and processing your trauma/emotions publicly, giving out all of your knowledge freely then finding out you’re PG & not being able to disclose this HUGE thing that connects every dot in your life because it will only lead people to feel misled, defensive, untrusting, & undermine all of your work because your damn moto is “you’re smart enough to do this” & that’s a hard pill for folks to swallow coming from a gifted person.
Giftedness becomes a burden when your emotions are so intense that at any given moment you can slip off the edge into an abyss that consumes you because at this level to much joy or love can be just as overwhelming as to much sadness or pain.
Giftedness becomes a burden when at certain ranges you’re more likely than others to statistically end up homeless, addicted, & or commit suicide because society is simply not built in a way that allows PG folks to survive it.
Giftedness becomes a burden when as a 2E/PG adult there are very little resources available for you & you even find yourself isolated in gifted communities that are obsessed with equating giftedness with academic achievement & you know this won’t likely change for your children as they age.
Giftedness becomes a burden when no matter how hard you try you overwhelm anyone you talk to with far to much information & you watch the persons face melt into a blank overwhelmed state & you WISH you were capable of simply talking about the weather or local gossip because then you wouldn’t be treated like you were insane & avoided by everyone.
Giftedness becomes a burden when very few folks who talk about it truly touch on the dark & painful aspects of giftedness…
April,
No other comment, of the thousands I’ve received, has had the profound effect on me that yours did. Your life experiences as a gifted person are the reason why I write and advocate for gifted people. It’s why I spend so much of my time helping others understand giftedness. Your life as a gifted person is the reason that, when I feel like quitting because this takes up so much of my life, I don’t.
I will add your list of burdens to the article.
My heart and love go out to you. No one, not one person, should ever have to suffer simply because they were born gifted.
And remember, you are not alone! <3 <3 <3
~~Celi
When trying to get your best friend to kind of understand you, you tell her about your giftedness and then you’re continuously being blamed of using your giftedness as an excuse to justify your existence or behaviours.
…then giftedness becomes a burden.
I’m sorry this happened to you, but you are not alone in such situations.
Thank you for adding to our list of when giftedness can become a burden! ~~Celi
I did like this post, Celi. And yes, that really did happen. Given that my scores were thrown out, and the school tried to place me in a lower academic track based on where I used to live, I had to fight to get back into the uppermost track, which was still dead boring. The only good thing that came of it was that I was able to take typing class, which wasn’t offered in the college prep track. Yeah, seriously. These bumpkins thought kids going to college wouldn’t need to type. It was me, the future secretaries of America, a handful of jocks, and a suspiciously sadistic typing teacher who only wore red and black and would whack us instantly with a yardstick for dropping our wrists.
That fall, I fought to get to take the PSATs as a Sophomore (that wasn’t the custom back then), and my score was higher than that of the 600-some Juniors in the school. The school became very solicitous of me at that point – every school wants to brag about its National Merit Scholars – but the score was my get out of high school free card.
I could certainly provide more examples of when giftedness is a burden (the whole figuring out the solution and then having to wait a month until everybody else gets it thing is soul-sucking), but there are also times when giftedness is a benefit, and I think they more than balance out in the long run. At this point, my teen is happy and challenged in school, and that’s the most I could ask.
I’m sorry about the burden of your years in high school. Again, not uncommon——then or now.
That your teen is happy and challenged in school is huge and I understand why that is important. That my own kids were happy was all I could ask for, too. Their lives in school were such struggles that good grades, lots of friends, awards, or recognitions didn’t matter at all.
Thank you for contributing to this post and furthering the conversation about giftedness.
Also:
* When you’re guided and encouraged opposite your actual abilities and desires because you’re “real smart” and “should be” that way, giftedness becomes burden.
* When you offend people and “burn bridges” for not actually being how gifted folk are supposed to be, giftedness becomes burden.
* When you’re excluded as “too smart” because only “normal” people should do something, giftedness becomes a burden.
All three are heartbreaking, but I’ve heard these before—sadly. When those who don’t understand say giftedness is not a burden, they should read these more than once.
I’m going to add yours and Dr. Dad’s to the list on my post.
Thanks for adding to the list, but I’m sorry these happened. <3
And there’s also this exchange:
Admonishing person: “Be yourself.” (or “Be yourself, don’t use so many big words.”)
Gifted person: “Uh, I am.”
Admonishing person: “No, be your ‘best self’.”
And that giftedness is not “authentic” or so.
Oh good grief! If that is not the ultimate example of not understanding giftedness—believing that demonstrating your intelligence is a pretense. Did the admonishing person also believe that those on the other side of the bell curve are pretending, too?
It is already difficult to be a gifted person in a sea of neurotypical people, and we already have to tone down our giftedness so as not to overwhelm others, but to be expected to be someone you are not, that’s a harsh reality for many gifted people.
So sorry this happened to you, and I know you know you are not alone. We are just scattered so far from each other except online.
This was so beautiful to read. I mean not that the gifted are burdened, but it is so nice to be validated and to know that me and my children are not alone in this world. I am currently in my forties and can’t find employment most likely because my resume has ten different job titles on it instead of just one. I get bored with my new employment three weeks after hire and unless they promote every month it drives me crazy. Then I start to display “mental health” symptoms and am labeled by all my coworkers as “bipolar” and other nonsense when I am just bored to death. Unfortunately my children I see are starting to dumb down so they have friends, are so expensive to buy toys and such I can’t afford, angry outbursts for just being themselves. There is no place for us in this world and I don’t know where to turn. If we become homeless, it is assumed we have “mental health” issues and the like which I know at the bottom of my heart isn’t true. When I point out things to others, they call me “stupid” for what I said. But days later, after they analyzed it on their slow time, they realize I was right. But of course they don’t apologize or treat me any better. So hard being name called every day and being poor. Someone so smart should make more money, no? But, nobody will give me a chance. They won’t give my children a chance either. I emailed the public school nearby if they would accept my 3 year old for prekindergarten and they never responded. I guess that means no. She will be so bored four years old learning ABC’s she knew a year ago. I love watching Bones, and Big Bang Theory and Scorpion for genius, logical type of characters that nobody understands. I understand them. My hope these shows would change other’s thinking never happened, at least not where I lived. 🙁
I know that what you are experiencing is not uncommon for gifted people, but that doesn’t make it any easier. The expectations that gifted people are to act normal, be successful, but not too successful, yet become eminent in whatever they endeavor to tackle, are ridiculous and unreasonable.
I’m sorry you and your children are going through this; it is so unfair and painful. The only way to change others’ perceptions is for all of us to stand up and speak out.
I hope your path becomes easier for you and your family! <3 ~~Celi
I remember my 5th grade teacher telling me, “Let some of these other kids answer the questions, too.” I literally sat on my hands to keep from raising them too often after that.
However, I’ve learned to realize that others have “burdens” and even “gifts” that I don’t have, and to empathize with them. We need each other. We are not enemies.
I guess my biggest burden now that I’m over 70 is the number of times I think, “If you only understood. If you only looked more closely. If you could only hear,” then realize the impossibility of those wishes.
Yes, the impossibility of those wishes. If only…
We do all have our burdens, but I try to remind those who don’t understand giftedness that it can also be a burden and not only an advantage.
Thank you for leaving your thoughts and sharing your story, Mary! <3 ~~Celi
Absolutely true that giftedness is not only a burden. In many ways it is a blessing. From my perspective, though, the label “gifted” implies reciprocity–that because one has received a gift, one must give something in return. In some cases–primarily in school, this is seen as somehow “unfair,” and the responsibility of the all-powerful teacher or school administrator is to right this wrong. Not in all cases! But it really only takes one or two.
Hello Celi,
I like your posts but this one is not one of my favorite. We all know that giftedness can be a burden, listed all of them is never going to solve anything and will entice people to feel sorry for themselves… or give them excuse for not doing anything. Just my 2 cents
I truly appreciate your two-cents, Aggie, but let me give you some background. I wrote this for three reasons:
1. On Twitter recently, there was a long, heated, controversial thread started by someone proclaiming that giftedness is absolutely not a burden and essentially challenging anyone to disagree. Most disagreed. This was my owning up to the challenge to disagree.
2. Many of us who have suffered with the various burdens often need validation to know we are not alone, are not crazy, and that there are others who experience what we are experiencing. It helps some of us to not feel so lonely on this sometimes rocky journey.
3. It is an attempt to help those who believe that giftedness is a net-positive advantage to see the various ways giftedness can be a burden. Not like a terminal-cancer sort of burden, but more like being overweight, very short, hard of hearing, or living with allergies type of burden. It is an attempt to dispel the myth that giftedness is a total and complete advantage.
I’m sorry it is not your favorite post, but I’ve learned that my writing meets different peoples’ needs at different times, and my hope is that some of my writing has met some of your needs or helped you in some way.
I appreciate you leaving your two cents—-I appreciate all my readers’ feedback. It helps me to know what my readers need to hear. <3
I remember that thread and while I understood his original point, I’ve found the dismissiveness and mocking nature I’ve seen on posts since then to be contrary to supporting the point I think he was trying to make (or maybe I’m giving the person too much credit). I don’t believe that giftedness in and of itself is the burden, but it can lead to being grossly misunderstood and under supported which most certainly is a burden!
I agree with you, Aurora. In and of itself, giftedness is not a burden in its true nature; environmental factors can make it a burden, especially when “grossly misunderstood.”
In writing this, I hoped to accomplish, in a kind way, examples of how giftedness can be a burden. I do feel that the burdens are personally experiential, as some do not find their giftedness a problem at all. I also wanted to validate those who have suffered and felt dismissed by those who believe giftedness is a net-positive. I also wanted to try to disconnect the relationship between giftedness and education as there is so much more to giftedness than academic achievement.
I’ll admit, in my family, giftedness has brought quite a bit of emotional, financial, social, and educational repercussions with lasting emotional scars. I just want others to know being gifted is not always a total, enviable advantage with zero downsides.
Thank you for all you do, Aurora, to enlighten others about giftedness and its intensity (Embracing Intensity)! You are a wonderful and much-needed advocate for the gifted community! <3 <3 <3
Yes, giftedness is not a burden in and of itself. It’s just when you have to interact with society that giftedness is a burden. Only then.
I appreciate this post, because commiseration makes one feel better.
I think we should all contribute one. Here’s mine:
-When you take a placement test on moving to a new school, and they throw out your scores because they are “impossible,” giftedness is a burden.
Dr. Dad,
Oh wow, I’m assuming that really happened. That is so completely absurd and just ignorant on the school’s part, but sadly believable.
Yes, giftedness plus a society who doesn’t understand equals the burden.
It seems odd to thank you for contributing to the examples of when giftedness is a burden, but thank you, and I’m sorry that happened.
~Celi
When you read this post saying to yourself, “Check. Check. Check.” with tears running down your face, giftedness has become a burden. It has been all your life. My mother said on more than one occasion, “Intelligence is a curse.” She was correct.
I’m so sorry that you have experienced the burden giftedness can be, Pegi. I know it can also be enjoyable and even exhilarating, but for those who have suffered at the hands of those who do not understand the traits of giftedness, it is a curse, and I hope to validate those gifted individuals.
My heart goes out to you! <3 ~~Celi
I have experienced 90+% of your insights, and I have added to them the guilt of imposting a typical person for all of my teen and adult life. I was yanked into acceptance of my truth by my gifted-specialist therapist at 55 years old, after suffering aggregate stress related illnesses, and poor work acceptance borne of my rejection of self, and blame of bad imposting of normalcy. I am now living in a psychologically tumultuous love/hate relationship with giftedness. I race between the embrace of what it can offer for the remainder, and the comfort of denial, familiarity. I do not know where this will lead, or how this ends. This is surely a burden.
Kevin,
I can say without a doubt that I completely empathize with you–I, too, was middle-aged when I unexpectedly had to accept my giftedness. And I do understand the love/hate relationship as I have that, too. Amazing how we can, for most of our adult lives, conform to fit in, and deny who we really are.
I hope the rest of your journey of accepting your giftedness will be less tumultuous, and more enjoyable, and that you reap more rewards from your giftedness than burdens! <3
~~Celi
Giftedness becomes a burden when you want to connect to all the wonderful aspects of live you can see but there is nobody answering your request.
Maybe – just a thought – it would be nice to make a list answering the question “When giftedness is wonderful…”? To give a start:
Giftedness is wonderful when you are able to make people see the possibilities they have in life and if you are able to strengthen them to try those new paths.
With gifted greetings from Hamburg, Germany. 😊
Hello Cornelia!
Thank you for dropping by all the way from Germany! 🙂
Giftedness can certainly be a joy and can bring us many rewards. I feel those moments go without saying as most who do not understand giftedness believe we live a life completely in those enjoyable moments.
I wanted to validate those of us who have suffered because of our giftedness, and to help those who do not understand giftedness to see when it can be a burden.
For me, giftedness is wonderful because of my deep empathy, perceptiveness, and sensitivity which helps me help others!
Thank you for your gifted greetings, Cornelia! <3 ~~Celi
Oh, yes!