I was raised in a house with 3 other children. None of us have the same father and I've learnt that my father was very abusive towards my older brother and later me too. my older brother was and is a very competitive person and would beat me to a pulp if I ever exceeded him in anything. So I learned to act like I was too dumb for anything. This behaviour has followed me into adulthood and I had started to believe I was just really stupid.

But there was one memory I had as a child, a memory that resurfaced once I learn I am above average in IQ, but while learning to play violin(6-7 yo), the teacher said to my parents that I was a savant and would become a great violinist. The pressure of exceeding my brother made me abandon that dream. And this tactic of mine continued with everything I did. Anytime people would notice how extraordinary I was at doing something, I would instantly abandon it and play dumb.

My Step-dad knew my potential and used to joke that I was to afraid to deal with the extra work needed to become anything. But my parents have never known the truth of my own neglect. Not even after all the hospital visit and stitches I needed after the beatings.

Being traumatized my whole life has made me a hermit and isolation has made me depressed. I have a hard time letting go, even though my brother has no power over me anymore. He still occupies my fears of success. I have tried therapy, but I keep getting therapists that just want to get paid and not do their jobs. So they just listen to me rant for 40-50 min and call it a day.

I am sick of this life. I've been planning to leave and I've tried to a few times. But I don't want to hurt the ones that do love me. I want to find a solution to this insanity.

Anywho, if you made it this far, thank you for reading.

I'd love input from other parents or adult gifted children themselves on parenting my gifted almost 4 year old.

I believe my son is gifted - he is 3.5 years old and reading at a second grade reading level and has recently started playing advanced strategy games (Settlers of Catan, Stratego, Sequence, etc.). His reading comprehension is very strong. He is able to do basic arithmetic. His social-emotional, speech, and motor skills seem mostly age-appropriate.

At first it appeared as hyperlexia (advanced reading before age 2, fixation with numbers), but as he gets older I really suspect gifted being more likely.

My question to you all is how to best support him. My instinct is to foster natural curiosity and not push the identity much (gushing to other adults about it). But I am worried about when he gets to kindergarten and they are doing "B for Ball" he's going to be bored out of his mind. What did adults do that helped or hurt you? Did you find special or private education helpful? All input is welcome!

​I am currently living the bad side of being gifted. I tested 128 on the official Mensa 20-minute test, and based on lots and lots of online tests I vary in the 125–135 range.

​All was fun and games when I went through elementary and high school, procrastinating and feeling superior and all. I got praised as a child for being the "genius" of the family, for reading and analyzing difficult literature in school, for superior writing skills, and overall success in all subjects, including artistic skills.

​And I shot myself in the foot and went to CompSci to prove a point. I graduated with good success, but I wouldn't say I developed discipline or the ability to look stupid and not care, since I got by on bursts of energy, using praise from professors and family as fuel. But I developed some kind of perseverance and trust in myself, and got out of my shell.

​Due to some circumstances, I got traumatized and depressed shortly after, and I can't get out of it in 2 years. I tried working 3 IT jobs, but I lose it, whereas it used to just mildly bore me before that.

​I expected the world, I hate myself when I am dealing with uncertainty or a difficult problem, and I have lost my ability to be patient and regulate.

​In the past few months I have been doing better, due to what I can only call divine grace and immense human kindness. But, my expectations, ego, and work habits still overwhelm me when starting to work. ​I am also not as intelligent as I used to believe, and as people around me used to believe, so things don't come as easy to me as I expected them to.

​Truth be told, however infantile it sounds, I kind of expected a score around 140, so there it is. I got unbelievably upset over it, like a mad person.

And, I have everything a person my age could ask for. Literally everything, and more. So that fact hits me like a storm whenever I spiral, knowing how ungratefull I am and all, and just adds fuel to the fire.

​Question is, can anyone offer advice on how to get out and stop analyzing, if they have been through the same thing? My brain is literally bullying me. I can't manage it.

​Thanks

I’m in a point in my life where I feel like I really need to talk to someone like me. Nobody really gets me, and I really need to be able to communicate with someone who thinks like me. Are there any groups existing for this ? Or does anybody 130+ feel the same ? Thanks

I read a lot of statements online from people who are like "Being called smart made me a perfectionist and now I have anxiety."

I was just wondering if any of you had that experience. Personally, people mostly called me stupid and awkward because I was autistic so, while I was intelligent, it never came across well because I never knew how to communicate. So I love being called smart lol.

Most of my life was people expecting me to perform and then not receiving praise for it. Like, the two results I could expect were "Okay good, you performed how we told you to" or "You're a stupid idiot who can't do anything."

I truly can't relate to the problem of being traumatized from too many compliments.

Many times gifted people are considered to have social difficulties. These are mostly caused by differences in how gifted people think and relate.

I would like to bring you an insight I've been having, based on my own experiences on being gifted.

I've always had intuitions about people and circumstances. It is as if I am constantly receiving bits of information and these are being elaborated in the background of my mind. I know it is there, but I don't need to articulate the whole process in words to actually understand it. I may, if I want to communicate it to other people, elaborate on it, putting into words was appeared to me as this pure, mute complex of thoughts, feelings and emotions. But, when kept to myself, its mere observation suffices.

On the other hand, I've always been very keen to logically elaborate and to give linguistic expression to these intuitions; maybe because I sense that in the word 'intuition' there is an element of arbitrariness, moodiness that can lead to bad, biased conceptions and decisions.

But the fact is: my intuition is very, very strong. Not that I immediately come up with perfectly elaborated reasons to address, for instance, a change of behaviour in a friend. For that I would need facts which are not immediately present to the senses. But very small shifts make themselves noticeable very quickly; I can sense a certain emotional colouring to it that I've been learning to better interpret as the years go by.

Let me give you an analogy. By knowing the state of a system and its rules of development, I am able not only to describe it as it is, but also as it will be. I sense people and concepts as movements; as movies, not a photographs.

Now we get to the emotional part: what if the end of a movie is so sad, that it is hard to accept? I think that is one of the reasons why gifted people fail in socializing. Either they ignore their own intuitions and perceptions and invest in relationships which are damned from the beginning; or, as self-protection, they withdraw, not wanting to see the sad end of a movie they already guessed the main narrative development.

I'll give you some concrete examples of my personal life. I had this girlfriend. She was in a transitional phases in her social relationships. She had had a traumatic experience with an old group of friends and at the time was looking for a new group. I've never been part of these groups; but I didn't mind, if that made her happier. I was a musician playing in a mildly popular place in my hometown; I was a resident musician there for a while and attracted a lot of attention. Suddenly, this couple started to appear in my presentations. In the first interactions, I've already made kind like an narrative arch in my mind about them; I knew I couldn't stop this arch to reach full development; I was also younger and doubted myself much more at that time. But I knew they were trouble.

A group formed around this couple and my girlfriend. I was at the center of it for a while, because I was the common element of interest, the mediating object of it. As the group was forming, I was seeing where it was going, and I knew that would eventually affect my relationship with my girlfriend. I'll try to reconstruct the very fast, very immediate reasoning behind my intuitions.

First off; they were an young couple and already had two kids. This, combined with the fact that there was a huge attractiveness gap between the husband and the wife, combined with a flirtatious behaviour of the husband, led to me to think that he had settled for her for reasons other than attraction. Shortly after, I discovered he was unemployed and living in a house given to them by the wife's parents. Flirtatious behaviour, convenience relationships and this urge to establish an in-group dynamic has led me to think he was looking to create a propicious space for affairs. Organizing parties, creating expected weekend shared activities, these are all ways in which you create a desirable circumstance, that attract people looking to socialize. But they were also eager in their dealings; too much questions, I noticed; awkward attempts to befriend me in such a short spam of time. My girlfriend wasn't noticing it at all. She was immersed in it. Anyway, I could continue to try to describe all the elements that merged into this narrative arch. But I knew that this group would evolve to become abusive, full of infidelity, gossips, impostures and that it would bait people promising acceptance and socializing through private parties, but would demand them a loyalty akin to that you would encounter being demanded in sects. I knew it from the beginning that I would grow distant from my girlfriend, for I was not able to fully pretend I was enjoying that environment. And I also knew that my girlfriend was a very gregarious and gullible person.

Past two years from the first encounter, I had already broken up with my girlfriend. The group collapsed under the weight of rumours of the husband fucking other women in the bathroom, while the wife was there at the party at their own home. There was other cases of sexual harassment, malicious gossips. Anyway: the collapse was kinda scandalous.

At that time, I thought to myself: I really need to start paying more attention to this strange thought process I am capable of. This is not mere intuition as given; it looks like intuition as given, but it is actually fast reasoning, which dispense with words but for me is completely understandable. As the years went by, I started testing this to see if I was not biased. I was right most of the times, in different situations; sometimes I could not assess clearly the causes of certain behaviours, but I knew where they would go from there.

Today I've carefully integrated this kind of knowledge in my "tool kit" for life. Of course, I try to remain self-critical and, when the time makes it necessary, I attempt to test it against reality. But most of the times I can lean on it. It is such a relief. It turns out I was ignoring for life decisions a form of thought process that I've always used in other fields of activity, such as music, philosophy, language learning, etc., etc., because I had a suspicion towards non-verbal thinking.

What do you think? Do you have similar experiences?

Hello everyone,

I’m 58, living in Ontario, Canada, and I am finally ready to stop playing a character just to dummy myself down for casual socialization.

My journey here wasn't academic; it was forged through fire. I survived a deeply dysfunctional, Mommie Dearest-esque childhood that forced me into adult-level psychological maturity around age 6. I've survived intense travesties of justice, systemic failures, and a Near-Death Experience (NDE). Those events triggered decades of brutal, relentless self-education.

Using Robert Kegan’s developmental framework, I spent a long time operating at Stage 4 (Self-Authoring). However, about two years ago, something shifted. I stepped completely outside the box of my own mind. I watched my need to argue, correct, or educate others simply evaporate. I dropped the ego-driven need to be right. Today, I hold my values deeply, but I view my own mind as an ongoing process rather than a rigid, finished product.

Living in a world that largely operates on Stage 2 and Stage 3 logic can be incredibly isolating. I have a long-term "coffee mate" neighbour who is trapped in the Dunning-Kruger effect. While I’ve learned to accept her completely, protect my energy, and genuinely laugh at TikTok comments with her, I am absolutely starving for deep, nuanced, two-way conversations where I don’t have to act as a silent audience or an emotional translator.

My saving graces are music and laughter. I don't just listen to music; I feel its architectural and emotional depth in my bones—it was my childhood escape. And despite everything I've survived, I laugh at myself and the absurdities of human conditioning constantly.

I’m joining this space to find people who can meet me in the middle. I want to read long-form thoughts, dissect complex systems without ideological shouting, and engage with people who have also done the heavy lifting to look at the jar from the outside.

If any of this resonates, I’d love to connect. What did your transition from Stage 4 to Stage 5 feel like, and how do you handle the unique isolation that comes with it?

The subject is the title entirely. At my job, my superiors do not seem to understand what I am talking about. Personally, most people simply do not click. I have only one friend I can really share my thoughts with.

For fun I had Google convert my GRE scores from 2000 into an IQ.

GRE stands for graduate record examination. It's the standardized test, like the SAT, but for graduate students applying for graduate school or PHD programs.

In the year 2000, my GRE scores were 800 math, 750 verbal, 710 analytical. I'm 69 years old.

According to Google:

Revised IQ Calculation

Because your Verbal score was actually in the top 1% and your Quantitative score was at the absolute ceiling of the test, matching your true historical percentiles to a standard IQ distribution curve (where a 99th percentile rank equals an IQ of roughly 135+) yields a higher estimate.

Your combined performance across all three sections in 2000 indicates a Full-Scale IQ approximation of **144 to 150**, safely placing you in the "Highly Gifted" range.

Curious if there are any other asynchronous cognition folks in this group. I personally have a cocktail of traits but I’m going to start with this one.

I have inattentive ADHD and probably giftedness, but I also have GAD and panic disorder, so stimulants like Concerta or Vyvanse aren’t really an option for me.
My executive function is terrible. I can hyperfocus for hours on topics I’m interested in, but when it comes to things I have to do, I avoid them until the deadline is right in front of me.

For those with ADHD (especially if you’re gifted/2e), what behavioral changes or daily habits actually improved your executive function? Things like starting tasks, procrastination, planning, staying consistent, or managing hyperfocus.

I’d really like to hear what has genuinely worked for you.

There was a dialogue between scientists. The scientists were divided into two halves: intelligence is speed and intelligence is slow. But the problem is that intelligence means that a person analyzes quickly. Historical figures, geniuses like Newton, Einstein, and others, used to take years or weeks to analyze one thing. And in terms of speed, I have a question: why does intelligence equal speed? The Book of Daniel is about. Fast and slow thinking: Humans think quickly about basic things like 1+1, which is instinctive and helps them avoid a car, for example. The second system is the thinking system, which takes time and effort to process things. Regarding fluid intelligence, it has been criticized, including its racist uses. It might also be a distorted concept because fluid intelligence is influenced by the information you have. Studies have shown that geniuses aren't necessarily fast; rather, their brains use fewer parts, allowing them to solve problems quickly. This is common in educated environments, but also in impoverished environments if a person has a passion like Brazilians for football or Europeans for colonialism (just kidding). Also, if intelligence were fixed, why would it be affected by factors like anxiety, fear, or happiness? Consider the story of Otto von Bismarck. Those who read his biography consider him a fool, or you could call him mentally deficient. He failed in politics when he first entered it and accumulated debts due to gambling. But when he returned to politics, he was able to unify Germany with blood and iron. Those who say he was like that aren't necessarily stupid. If he were truly intelligent, why was his first political speech so disastrous? This is also a preemptive response to those who say that Einstein and Newton solved problems by... It's complex, so they didn't appear to be very fast. In their daily lives, they forgot things, just like Newton forgetting to eat or Einstein forgetting his keys or not taking care of his hair. Also, a question for geniuses: Is intelligence necessary all the time? Does it manifest when you're buying bread or talking to the neighbors? And do you think intelligence means being a genius at everything?

especially for those who tought they were gonna do great thing and ended up in a boring normal life

I never asked questions in school because I had learned talking got me screamed at.

I never disclosed my ideas because I learned thinking got me smacked.

I learned to do well at school but not well enough that I stood out because then I would have no friends.

I learned to hide any areas I struggled in because it was fueling my parents' marriage collapsing.

No summer programs or talented clubs or anything to show for it because I was too busy running away and being homeless.

I did not present as a gifted kid. I only got identified in college because all of my "giftedness" has been hidden for safety. I can't relate to the "burnt out former gifted kid" stereotypes because I wasn't burnt out from being gifted; I was burnt out from surviving violence.

So throughout my life, being above average in book smarts has been my identity. I was never placed in a gifted class and I have never once in my entire academic life found more than 1 person who challenged me (he also happens to be my best friend of 7 years).

Ive been in college for 2 semesters now and things haven’t been as smooth as school because I’m slowly learning that sometimes relying on my intellect is not enough, but Ive still only met few people who were on the same level as me, mostly 1 or 2 in each class since I’m in a country where top colleges with over achievers don’t exist (so nothing similar to being at places like MIT or Harvard where everyone is just a genius).

This year, I took a none compulsory upper level math course, so everyone there was strictly there because they just were truly passionate about the subject. Not because it was a major requirement or a pre requisite. And everyone there was extremely bright. It was the first time in my life where I felt like I was nothing special. I still felt like I was among the top of the class, but I couldn’t easily impress the professors with my questions like in most other classes, I couldn’t easily get the highest grade in every exam, and I was, for the first time ever, not labelled as the smart guy of the class.

It was a blast to be with similar minded people. Class discussions were so stimulating it was honestly just incredible. It was the best academic experience of my life.

Hello! *TW* Discussion of depression.

I’m not diagnosed with anything, but I wanted to post here because I’ve been struggling with depression for the past seven years (since I was 14). A big part of it is that I feel like I see the world differently from most people, and I’ve never found someone who understands that.

I believe many of you might relate to feeling misunderstood, even if our experiences and reasons are different.

I’ve been through a lot, but that’s not what causes my depression. I am depressed because I exist. The thing is that sometimes I worry that even a therapist would think I’m a lost cause.

I don’t want to go into too much detail because I know that everyone has their own issues. I just wanted to ask if its worth it holding on to hope.

English is my second language. I hope you can understand what I expressed.

Not sure if this is related to giftedness at all or if it's just a character quirk. It's incredibly easy to lie to me etc. not because I don't notice the logical mistakes but because I automatically come up with a fitting explanation for them. I can rationalise *everything* no matter how non sensical it should be. It's actually embarrassing how often someone told me an obvious lie and then my own brain made it into a believable one.

When psychologists talk about exceptional intelligence, the conversation almost always gravitates toward IQ. Our instinct to default to the measurable, scoreable, and rankable quantity is understandable.

However, decades of cognitive science have assembled a case for a different kind of mind entirely: one that doesn’t show up cleanly on standardized assessments, one that is incredibly difficult to cultivate, and one that may be more predictive of real-world creative impact than raw processing speed. Researchers sometimes call it integrative intelligence, and it’s the rare capacity to think fluently across unrelated domains and build something new at the intersections.

I sought a psychological assessment a few years ago assuming that I would get an ADHD diagnosis and a prescription to help manage the symptoms. Instead I got "giftedness and non-ADHD executive dysfunction". I've been pretty disappointed by that diagnosis as there are almost no resources out there for adults suffering from these disorders, never mind a handy pill. Anyone out there with a similar diagnosis and have you found anything that helps make life more manageable?

Hi all!

I’m 25F based in NYC who only recently realized what giftedness meant as an adult. Was identified as a kid.

Have been feeling pretty lonely in the way I see the world. Looking to chat / connect with other gifted people (bonus if you’re in NYC).

Or if you guys know anywhere I can hang around to find others! Was thinking of Mensa, but my school deleted my gifted records and I’d have to take the Mensa test to get in lol.

I’m a woman with AuDHD and giftedness, and I’ve been feeling like a failure lately. I can’t seem to bring myself to do anything. People call me intelligent, but I honestly don't feel like I am; all I do is struggle. I can barely keep my house clean by myself, and I can hardly get anything done unless it’s the last minute. Even though I’ve been receiving therapy, I feel like I'm barely making progress.

My parents are against ADHD medication, and I can barely afford it anyway. College isn’t even hard—it’s just boring—and I feel like I’m not doing anything special. I feel lazy, and I can't bring myself to do any of the things I want to do. I feel useless

I had gotten tested in 10th grade, 3 years ago, and the results put me in the gifted range. I put that word in quotations because finding out about it has made my life fucking horrible, sad, and isolated instead of being a blessing.

I. FUCKING. HATE. THAT. LABEL. WITH. EVERYTHING. I. HAVE.

Ever since that goddamn day, I've felt like my whole life has hinged on affirming my "giftedness" and that I, as a person, do not FUCKING matter if I even perform below what is expected of a "gifted" piece of trash. I've spent endless days obsessing over toxins I need to avoid, exercises I should do to maintain peak function, supplements I could take, et cetera. I've even thrown all of my savings away for lab tests.

I, deadass, started wearing GLOVES to not touch anything and developed OCD-level hygiene to the point that my fucking SKIN has ripped open and I have these visceral reactions when dust, liquid, or even PEOPLE, MY OWN FAMILY, get close to me. I look crazy, I FEEL crazy, my family thinks I'm crazy, and my friends think I'm crazy. I feel like SHIT, bruh. It's gotten so bad that I've become VIOLENT whenever I feel like something threatens my brain health. Yet, surprise-surprise, my efforts to preserve it ultimately fucking destroyed it. These 3 years have probably been the WORST outside of my childhood. I am holistically fucked.

I hate that I'm considered "gifted." I hate it so much. And I especially hate that I'm expected to inhale and exhale excellence. I genuinely wish I never found out in the first place.

Tl;Dr: Guy with extreme anxiety rants about how trying to preserve his blessing made his life unbearable. Happy some of y'all have great lives, though. Kinda jealous.

I don’t and have never felt normal in comparison to my peers.

What do I do?

Hey guys!

Like probably most of you highschool was very easy for me so I never had to actually put stuff in my long memory. This obviously caught up on me in university where I really see that I have an awful foundation. I can still understand most content but I sense that I’m now really getting held back by my “vague” foundation. I know most stuff ‘intuitively’ but I can’t defend or recollect the information which really hurts my confidence academically, if you get what I mean. Most noticeably in math or statistics where I really struggle with even the basics.

Did you guys ever catch up and really learned the foundation now that you aren’t a kid anymore? I am currently studying some old schoolbooks but it can get so incredibly boring.

Is there any resources for stuff like this? Or even specific for gifted people to study? What are your guys advice?

Thanks!