MyGiftedLife.org

Hello my name is Robert. I just had a birthday last Saturday. I have recently been thinking about my experience as a gifted child, and I am pretty resentful, because I realized that all it would have taken on the part of my mother would have been to take me out of the elementary school I was in and put me into one with other smart kids, and I wouldn't have stuck out so much.

Because I was so smart, and because I wasn't good at sports and fighting, I ended up sticking out like a sore thumb and I became a target. Since I also didn't have any siblings, it was basically me vs. everyone else by myself. The whole only child thing is a topic for another forum, but if not for being picked on for being smart, I wouldn't have even really noticed.

The first time I was ever around other kids who were smarter than me was the summer after 6th grade. It was really my first glimpse of the outside world, as I rarely left my neighborhood or met other people who weren't in my same socioeconomic class. As I think about that experience, if it had lasted more than a week, it could have potentially been life-changing, because for the first time I felt like I was actually making friends, but since these people were from all over Ohio, and there was no email back then, it was hard to stay in touch.

Because of the experience I had growing up, I could offer myself as a case study for everything that is wrong with our public school system. The psychological damage I suffered from being bullied for 3 straight years in elementary school, the three years I lost when I should have been learning how to make friends, totally made useless the fact that I earned a college scholarship, and graduated on the Dean's List, and managed to not become an inner-city statistic as far as gangs, drugs, and murder, because finacially and careerwise, I am doing no better than a high school dropout.

I can't really find people in real life who can relate to my life story, so between gt online groups, and social anxiety online groups, I have been trying to find people like me, and maybe someone who can offer me some kind of tip as far as dealing with the same things I dealt with, and somehow putting it behind them and becoming socially and professionally successful.

If I try to tell my story to most people, they somehow make it my fault that I was picked on, and instead of trying to understand that this caused real damage, and totally wrecked the way I view and interact with the outside world, all they can tell me is "move on." For this same reason I do not go to mental health professionals. Unless there is a way to cure social anxiety without actually getting into what caused it, I know that a therapist would also not get what causes me to be afraid of social situations and probably tell me to get over it.

I have been in classrooms since elementary school where I was either somewhere in the middle or somewhere near the bottom. I like it best when I am somewhere in the middle or somewhere near the top with one or two other students with about the same grade as me. I don't like being far and away the best or far and away the worst.

I have a tendency to not stop writing once I start, and I can think of much more to write here. I am hoping that this is a lively forum. I noticed there aren't many members and that they haven't posted a lot this month.

I will be looking at some of the other forum posts and putting in my two cents where it seems appropriate for me to do so, and hopefully get some dialogue going.

Hi Robert,

Welcome from another only.

I wouldn't be surprised if most of us had an experience that stuck out for us of finally being in the midst of our tribe, and finally knowing what it was like to fit in. It was the summer after 7th grade, and I was off at a summer biology program. . . didn't do much studying, but I did play a lot of gin rummy, ate a lot of Cocoa Krispies in chocolate milk, and I think I even danced with a boy for the first time.

I wouldn't be surprised if many of us achieved lots and lots of academic success. . . and then our lives stalled out. <raises hand> And then, eventually, we got unstuck. I worked for just barely more than minimum wage for a long time. There are many jobs I just don't put on my resume because they're not "relevant experience." It's not entirely wasted time, though. I think you can learn a lot of things -- compassion for one -- from not always having it easy and good.

At some point, I think it is time to move on and revise the story, but not before you've gone back and excavated all that junk, and brushed it off and pieced it together to see what it means.

So welcome. Have a look around. I think often people participate more when they're struggling, or when someone new comes along who's struggling, so I wouldn't be surprised if folks start coming out of the woodwork.

Hi Robert,

Welcome!

JMHO that many of us are fated for a modern version of the Hero/Heroine's Odyssey: In other words, our lives will be about The Journey, not necessarily The Destination (or what sort of degrees we have, cars we drive, houses we own, designer labels we wear, etc.)

From a maturational and spiritual standpoint, we are actually the lucky ones, whose lives will cumulatively be richer/more meaningful than any number of cars or houses we could own. This does not mean that we have *everything* figured out, or are somehow omnipotent or infallible--but perhaps that we simply contain the drive to learn, survive and thrive. It is possible to build stronger and more varied types of intelligence through facing challenge than it is to be handed privilege on a plate...

Career confusion is a common conundrum amongst gifties, and the worldwide recession is turning a lot of industries upside down right now, so try not to spend too much time being disappointed on that score. Do you live in proximity to a good library or career resource center? A good career fit is as much about knowing yourself as it is about knowing the market. Lots of resources are available online these days, too.

Anyway, I was going to say that sometimes even people with The Magic Career Bullet can be wizards in their specialty, and still screw up other areas of their lives, LOL.

If one should find that his/her talents do not make an immediately evident fit with the present/local job market, there may be other avenues to explore. However, this is likely to involve hard work--both with regard to yourself (developing self-knowledge and well as skills); and doing research on the markets you might like to get into. JMHO that nobody can afford to be complacent in a high-tech, knowledge-based economy--thousands of folks are going to have to retrain or upskill (BTDT myself...)

Might you have considered volunteering? Sometimes we learn best through direct experience (about ourselves, other people, industries, and specific jobs...) Although I sometimes wish I could just learn by reading or watching a good film, LOL.

spiritj wrote:
Hi Robert,

Welcome!

JMHO that many of us are fated for a modern version of the Hero/Heroine's Odyssey: In other words, our lives will be about The Journey, not necessarily The Destination (or what sort of degrees we have, cars we drive, houses we own, designer labels we wear, etc.)

From a maturational and spiritual standpoint, we are actually the lucky ones, whose lives will cumulatively be richer/more meaningful than any number of cars or houses we could own. This does not mean that we have *everything* figured out, or are somehow omnipotent or infallible--but perhaps that we simply contain the drive to learn, survive and thrive. It is possible to build stronger and more varied types of intelligence through facing challenge than it is to be handed privilege on a plate...

Career confusion is a common conundrum amongst gifties, and the worldwide recession is turning a lot of industries upside down right now, so try not to spend too much time being disappointed on that score. Do you live in proximity to a good library or career resource center? A good career fit is as much about knowing yourself as it is about knowing the market. Lots of resources are available online these days, too.

Anyway, I was going to say that sometimes even people with The Magic Career Bullet can be wizards in their specialty, and still screw up other areas of their lives, LOL.

If one should find that his/her talents do not make an immediately evident fit with the present/local job market, there may be other avenues to explore. However, this is likely to involve hard work--both with regard to yourself (developing self-knowledge and well as skills); and doing research on the markets you might like to get into. JMHO that nobody can afford to be complacent in a high-tech, knowledge-based economy--thousands of folks are going to have to retrain or upskill (BTDT myself...)

Might you have considered volunteering? Sometimes we learn best through direct experience (about ourselves, other people, industries, and specific jobs...) Although I sometimes wish I could just learn by reading or watching a good film, LOL.


Ever since I first started researching giftedness, what I find a lot is that the people are very spritual and very nonconforming. So they don't define "success" the same way as the rest of us, and their spirituality is totally different from church or anything I am familiar with.

I very much bought into America's definition of "success," because while in school, I "succeeded" according to that definition, so I am more disappointed now than someone who never believed in our society's concept of success.

I also set high expectations for myself, and I hate settling, although I have had to do just that both occupationally and in my personal life.

I do not know exactly why, but the challenge you mention, that makes gifted people stronger, I am showing myself not equipped to handle. I withstood ridicule to continue pursuing education, thinking that employers would come to me and I would get the last laugh, and that I would be able to write my own story socially. I didn't count on not being able to find a good job, and by extension, no facet of my life is showing any signs of improving, and I have thus far not been able to push through the fear and anxiety that was created in my younger years to build the social connections that would make all of your suggestions easier to follow through with.

What is BTDT?

Hi rjridley,

BTDT = Been there, done that. It sometimes starts to sound too casual at times, perhaps, but one theme that keeps coming up on the site is the "Hey, that happened to me too!" Not to suggest that we're all clones or that we don't have unique experiences, but a lot of the issues that get raised here do strike chords with other members, sometimes a lot of them.

The American Dream tends to drop a lot of people, but the surface presentation covers up that fact. From my past experience, people simply fall out of the [rat] race, and we think they must have done something wrong, as we keep running to the next hurdle. The first time I fell out, I dropped out of college to support my parents. I fought my way back in through the military, excelled, and wound up dropping back out of the race. Then at some point a man my age should be married and trying to start a family. At another point, I should be earning $X per year and driving a more expensive car, not my favourite old beater. Again and again, I thought it was my fault that I was alternating between being emptily successful (only up to some invisible ceiling) and feeling a failure when I fell back down. It took me a long time to figure out that it was society's expectations which were unrealistic and, really, nonsensical.

I read in another thread about "degrees of giftedness," moderately, highly, and profoundly gifted. The person who wrote it, I don't know if it was their words or if they were paraphrasing someone else, but they were basically saying that moderately gifted are the ones that are achivement oriented, competitive, and status seeking. That is basically what describes me as a student, and most likely as an employee. My favorite times in classes were when there were one or two other students who scored as high or higher than me on tests. It was more enjoyable than getting the highest grades in the class and no one else coming close either for lack of trying or lack of ability.

I fully believe in the American Dream, despite knowing that other cultures define success differently, because until I graduated college and couldn't find work, I genuinely believed I had realistic expectations to achieve the American Dream. Now for most of you, having a different definition of success from that puts you at odds with your peers. However, for me, daring to achieve and, on an academic level, experiencing that achievement, put me at odds with my elementary school peers. It's a long story, if you're interested, google "acting white" to understand what I was up against. Those words were never used to my face, but the words that were used were bad enough, and it was apparent that trying to do well in school was "wrong."

So growing up economically disadvantaged, and doing what I thought was going to give me an economic advantage as an adult, in the face of torment that would not surprise if it caused me to have PTSD, and then not getting any fruits of my labor, creates an emotion in me that goes well beyond anger and frustration and disappointment.

I sacrificed trying to fit in because I thought I was working towards something, so while everyone else was having fun with friends in their teens and 20's, I was doing well in school, but for me, "well" was only "slightly above average" in most cases, and sometimes even "average."

This is the part that frustrates me. If I had gone to an elementary school similar to the high school and college I went to, I probably wouldn't even notice I am different in that respect. I don't recall experiencing trouble as a result of being black or poor (although I was ashamed to have anyone come over to visit me, I didn't want people knowing where I lived), and once I got to 9th grade, not being good at sports stopped being an issue, and I only recall being one of the top students in 7th grade Latin and 8th grade algebra.

My point is if I had not had to go through the bullying, my mental and psychological state (I was never abused or molested, I was never a crime victim, I wasn't around drugs) would have been more normal and I would probably be IN the rat race. I am always reading and hearing about people who want out, I was never in, so I will gladly take their spot, collect their paycheck, and live a great life.

While my background in sociology has taught me that there are institutional barriers to everyone being "successful," I have also seen way too often people who never even tried, and took themselves out of the running. My frustration is running the race when people were telling me to drop out, only to find out I was lied to about where the finish line was.

Iconoclast, which of society's expectations do you consider unrealistic and nonsensical? As carefully as I can broach this topic, I believe for example, society's expectation that someone my age has had a certain amount of sexual experience is totally reasonable, and one of my biggest frustrations is that an extension of my having trouble making friends is trouble turning that corner with women into physical relations. I am not a virgin, but I might as well be one.

For me, it is part of the same whole. There is an expectation to be at a certain level of success at both your professional and personal life. Until someone, or a group of people, changes the cultural norms, I believe that it is completely reasonable to expect and aspire to a certain standard of living.

I don't know if what I wrote has a coherent flow to it, and I can't think of any other way to end my post, so I'll just end it here.