Is this you?
Are you blessed? Cursed?
Doubt your smarts?
I hate to be the first to post, and sound conceited, but I never hesitate to answer these things when it won’t make me look bad, so I must do the honest thing…
yes
Nope, not me. If it was, I’d probably have an easier time with things than I do now.
Honest answers are good answers.
Anybody else?
My attention span is too short to read the entire article, so from that I have to conclu–HEY! THAT DOG HAS A PUFFY TAIL!
Eh. To some degree. I’m not quite profoundly gifted, but closer than a lot of the people out there, and it is a social burden at times. It’s gotten a little better as I and my peers have gotten older.
I’m not profoundly gifted, but I went to CTY (the program at Hopkins mentioned in the article) and was asked to join their Study of Exceptional Talent (meaning that I test very well, but then, standardized tests have always been my talent in life.) I don’t have what the people in the article have, exactly, but I was always ‘Gila the Walking Encyclopedia’ from early elementary school until I got to a tracked high school, and I was still exclusively a brain to the other classes besides my own. I’ve spent my life telling people that I’m not as smart as they think I am - it’s just that my talents are flashy. I have a big vocabulary and retain random facts well, so I tend to know a little bit about most things. Only once I got to college and grad school (a little ahead of schedule, but not nearly as fast as the people in the article) have I finally fit in a bit more. (The summer gifted programs were a godsend, in that I was finally among ‘people like me,’ as I put it after my first summer, age 11.)
Nope, not me.
I doubt that you’ll get many people who will admit on a messageboard that they are greatly gifted. In my observation, such an admission is likely to result in accusations of elitism or arrogance.
It’s odd that it’s okay for a person to admit having inherited genes that make her extremely tall, but if she were to admit that she inherited genes that make her extremely intelligent or extremely talented, many people would react with resentment.
There was a discussion in the Mensa Bulletin a while back on the issue of whether or not to mention Mensa membership on one’s résumé. There were quite a few horror stories about the reaction of potential employers to the revelation that an applicant is a “genius.”
I’m blessed coming and going, but not in a prodigy-type sense.
Somewhat. I thank Gods that I’m NOT profoundly gifted in the way those examples are because if I was I’m sure I wouldn’t have been able to cope. I have a hard enough time being merely bright, and growing up was Hell. I do feel that I’m wasting my potential and feel that ‘imposter phenomenon’ quite intensely at times. GilaB sounds like me in many regards.
I do see myself in that article. I was bored in school because everything came so easily and the other kids hated me because everything came so easily. (I tested at 160-ish when I was young.)
I struggled in math, but I couldn’t get help because I was so smart.
I’m forever thankful that my parents didn’t advance me through school ahead of my age group. The school’s recommendation was to put me in the second grade at four. I was socially backward enough (before coming into my own at 16 through much hard work) and I still struggle with social issues. I can’t imagine going to college at an early age and being even further ostracized.
Yes. It all resonates.
I’ve never been officially tested for IQ or any other measure of intelligence, so I can’t say for certain whether I fall into the “greatly gifted” category. I can say that my intellectual abilities were far above what most of my peers could keep up with throughout grade school. I often felt that pressure from both sides: don’t be too dumb or your parents will be disappointed, but don’t be too smart or you’ll get beat up at school.
Beyond that, not to sound melodramatic, there’s the loneliness of having very few people who you can fully talk to. With many of my friends, even these days, I find myself conversing with one metaphorical hand behind my back. My vocabulary, for one thing, can often get out of control. It’s an odd fact that my syllable-count actually gets longer as I get further intoxicated. For another, I love talking deep history and philosophy… but the only people I can ever seem to do that with are 40 year olds who too often pretend I don’t even exist (I’m nearly 21 ferchrissake!).
Even in college I’ve faced the mounting pressure of everyone realizing how intelligent I am. Professors push me harder. Fellow students give me odd looks when I answer questions one after the other because I’m sick of waiting around for some other schmoe to raise their hand. One of the ways I’ve chosen to handle this, namely slacking off because I can, is probably not healthy… but it gets the classroom limelight off me. I don’t want to be the know it all anymore. The hours stink and the pay is non-existent.
My father used to tell my brother and I that we could change the world if we put our minds to it. I don’t think he ever realized what a burden knowing you could puts on a person. I have the intellect and verbal ability to go places and do things, but what is the price? How can you compromise that knowledge with “normality”? Must it be an either-or path?
Heh! So did I, for creative writing and rhetoric back in the mid-80s. Man, I’d totally forgotten about that. Thanks for reminding me.
I got stuck in the middle. I’m intelligent but I’m not a genius. The result was that I’ve always been able to get by in most intellectual situations with minimal effort. But that’s let to the problem that I’ve become lazy and don’t make the effort to go for achievements that would require significant effort on my part.
I can identify with the part about youngsters who are prodigious at mastering things that are already known, but have no creative or innovative talents. That’s a tough thing, because you pull way out in front of the crowd at a young age, but the crowd eventually catches back up in adulthood. To have an IQ of just below 149 is to be damned with faint praise, but I suppose it’s better than 100.
Somewhat. I’ve never had my IQ tested, and I sincerely doubt it’s in the 180 range. But to echo lokij, thank Og. It was bad enough being just smart. I could get grades that were good for most people and still not feel like I was doing well enough, because I was used to doing better. I had people constantly ask me for homework help throughout junior high (I eventually started refusing, for several reasons), and I am not good at simplifying things for others so it was a real hassle. Fortunately, I was just smart enough that I could take pride in it and not feel all those pressures that those in the article feel, which would have been hard because I’m really shy. Even as it is it’s hard, because I got to university and suddenly felt dumb around my classmates.
Now this–
I see myself in, only for me it was the meaning of life.
I’m nowhere near that gifted, but I was ostracized by peers and did feel extraordinary pressure to excel. I’ve never achieved what my test scores predicted and everyone expected. Fortunately I found music and thus profound joy.
Nope.
When I was tested for the Gifted Program in elementary school, my IQ was 127, which is a respectable score, well above 100 baseline, and enough to get admittance but otherwise, it’s not particularly noteworthy.
I’m of above average intelligence but with six billion people on the planet, that means there’re a hell of a lot more people out there that are even moreso.
Thanks for sharing that article. My Hubby actually fits the profile more closely than I do. He sailed through school, everybody’s Golden Boy, but since completing his Ph.D. in molecular biology 9 years ago he’s been lost and failing his expectations. I remember attending his younger brother’s high school graduation and hearing their mom say she expected Nobel Prizes from each of them. She was one of those “no sports for you” types. His brother’s been living in a tree in Alaska ever since.
I hope that reading the article will give him some comfort.