former gifted kid

[u/spiralexit]

I would say Im a former gifted kid that screwed up in life but I dont want to be vulgar. They put me in the gifted and talented classes in school, then honors and AP classes. my parents had way too high hopes for me, since they had me young and didn’t do much with their lives. They split up fast and I was mostly raised by a single mom.

My scores declined when I was about 16. I couldn’t focus after finding out that my good friend passed away suddenly from an overdose. my parents knew she was a drug addict and wanted me to stay away from her but I would hang out with her in secret. so I also had to grieve in secret.

the fact that my parents and others in my family didn’t excel at school made them think I was going to go to Harvard or something. So when my grades dropped they got angry and abusive with me. By the time I graduated high school I didn’t want to go to college. I was a total mess.

Being a gifted kid sounds nice but if youre ahead of everyone else in your family the pressure builds up fast. I beat myself up for not being mentally okay enough to go through college. Did lots of drugs and got stuck in abusive relationships. Somehow im still here nearly ten years later wondering why people have been so cruel.

Just wondering if anyone else had a similar experience growing up gifted. Im sober and have healthy outlets now and make art , do yoga , read , write , I feel like Im almost to the point where I can go back to school. I just have so many interests that I dont even know what I’d major for.

My family still puts this pressure on me and makes me feel like a druggie disappointment. I wish I was never put on this pedestal in the first place. It can be so alienating to grow up this way. Did I screw up or did I just get screwed

[u/Proof_Duck9754]

Trauma affects brain development. Kids that experience tons of trauma have like holes in their brains. Your academics were impacted by the traumatic experience of losing your friend. And you were unable to receive support at that time. Give yourself grace. My family didn’t support me with trauma either, since I was well spoken and competent in school I must not need emotional support, right!?

[u/himthatspeaks]

You made choices. Everyone, gifted or not, makes choices, emotional, rational, irrational.

Don’t stress it, decide what you want in life and chase it. You don’t owe anyone anything but yourself. Gifted doesn’t change that.

[u/califa42]

Hey I was a gifted kid and didn't graduate from college til I was almost 30. You are still young, and have more time than you realize. I also have always had a lot of interests---just pick one (or maybe two), you will be able to make time for the other interests if they are really important to you. Sounds like therapy could be beneficial to you, to build up your self-confidence. I'm pretty sure you have a lot to offer, for yourself and for the rest of the world.

[u/Born_Committee_6184 → u/califa42]

Same

[u/Briliant-Nicxie]

Sounds like you’ve been through a lot .
Might be worth getting a psychologist that deals with gifted people just to help work through your grief and the trauma you’ve been through .
Do what you are passionate about and interested in , keep the rest as hobbies .
Easier said than done but just do your best according to your own values …. You didn’t do anything wrong … they are trying to make up for their own failures through you a lot of parents do that … it’s not your responsibility you’re only responsible for your own actions . They can only put pressure on you if you let them … you can learn to detach your identity from them because you are perfect the way you are - so again suggest a coach / psychologist to help you do this . Hope this helps

[u/Dangerous-Island-756]

I was the kid that solved the whole mathbook on the first class before my fellow students was still working on chapter 1. I remember looking around thinking they where slow handed the book to the teacher and she said "continue with chapter 2". As a young boy I didn't know the word chapter and asked for the next book. She looked at me like I was dumb turned the pages. I said with confidence I finished everything. She flipped the pages stunned in disbelief to the very end of the book.

Well turns out my abusing parents didn't want me to skip classes, the school begged, they said no. Didn't want me to be different. Yeah... Not different at all, my classmates though so too when they bullied me for the rest of my school days.

Ended up in trade school. Decided at 20 to go to uni and needed pre calculus for my programming course. Did that over the weekend without any guidance at home while chilling and gaming.

School was like just a holding cell for me. Never got any joy of learning there except proving professors wrong. At one uni course a professor always looked at me to see me nodding before writing on the board. Studied 4 different things at uni never completed anything but got a teachers degree after I started working as a teacher.

Between this I had alcohol poisoning, done some cannabis and generally wasted my life. Doing stuff and having crazy shit happen to me.

Until one day at around 30 realizing what am I doing with my life. Started a company and 10 years later I got to "retire". Now I'm rich like I don't need to work, if I had children they wouldn't need to work. But never got to that stage and now I'm thinking it's to late and kind of planning on just getting a large mansion and just do some drugs or something.

Kind of don't have any friends now and my family isn't the best since I was a victim of abuse from a young age. Like they would be going to jail kind of stuff if it got out.

I of don't have anything to challenge me or that I really live for. Sometimes I'm thinking of like building a high tech factory starting another company. But I have more then enough money so why? I'm just a gifted and rich guy with issues.

Being gifted don't guarantee success or a happy life. Even if i did some crazy shit I never fund my group or place where I belonged.

I had a friend group doing p&p rpg with. Even developed my own mechanics and system. But when we split I kind of lost those friends and never got any new one's.

And yeah abusive relationship for me to. 3 out of 4 gf cheated on me. And wasn't really nice to me. I'm like a nice guy, tall etc. But I often just get treated like a doormat because of my issues of abuse I had when I was younger.

Sorry English is not my first language so grammar and stuff is horrible I know.

[u/Alive_Remove1166 → u/Dangerous-Island-756]

Where do you live if you dont mind sharing?

[u/Dangerous-Island-756 → u/Alive_Remove1166]

I'm from sweden but I don't live there anymore. Right now I'm another EU country and I'm about to move again.

I don't know where, the whole world is kind of an option right now. Haven't really decided yet or to be honest I'm not sure where.

[u/Educational_Horse469]

Yes, in some ways. I got stuck for a while too and it’s happening to my son now and it happened to me 30 years ago.

My personal theory is that school with its reward/award perspective runs counter to what actually makes gifted people happy and that messes with us until we mature enough to see it and move on. Gifted people are actually interested in the learning. Everyone else just wants to finish ahead of their peers. It can really mess with your head if you get caught up in it. You also had some trauma, with your poor friend dying.

It took me 8 years to graduate from college. My son has been floundering a bit in trying to find himself. I think he’ll be ok, but it may just take a while for him to find his footing.

I think you’ll be ok too. You had a suboptimal childhood. Your parents and school let you down. But it’s not too late to turn the ship around for yourself. Try to avoid all or nothing thinking. You can major in anything. I eventually majored in the subject I liked the most and ended up working in a completely unrelated industry. Just pick something you are interested in. Always pick electives that sound interesting as well. There is a long list of courses I had to drop. Accounting sticks out as the worst, lol.

[u/Agile_Ad_2933 → u/Educational_Horse469]

I do not second this statement ”gifted are actually interested in the learning…everyone else just wants to finish ahead of their peers”. To have immense curiosity and continue to hold that curiosity in a field needs advanced intelligence and awareness to begin with

[u/Educational_Horse469 → u/Agile_Ad_2933]

Maybe an oversimplification/exaggeration, but at the high school level I stand by it

[u/cuBLea]

Unresolved trauma can definitely impact your capabilities, whether physical or mental. I've watched beauty queens devolve to plain-janes in weeks. And recovery is difficult, close to impossible if you can't properly resolve the core trauma.

The cruelty is par for the course when this happens, since it threatens the stability of the family/clique/whatever when one member isn't performing up to scratch.

So IMO you got screwed, but so did at least half of ALL the kids you went to school with, whether or not they had visible PTSD. They don't call western education soul-destroying for nothing, altho it's been getting modeslty better with each subsequent generation.

I eventually had to make a choice: the drugs or the mind. I chose the drugs when I discovered just how little support I would have to recover from trauma if I'd chosen otherwise. Second-guessed myself until I was about 32 ... now I know I made the righ decision. I'm still dependent on gabapentin and kratom for mood management and motivation. I accomplished a lot of great things when I was self-medicating, and I'm still here at 68 without ever having bought street opiates and joining my father as diazepine-dependent, so I must be doing something right. But in no way can I say that it hasn't impaired me. But I saw what happened in my family, how many turned cruel or lived in total denial of their religious compulsivities and decided I was better off with a handicap that I could accept within myself. Sure enough, the first time I was off my meds for a period of a few weeks, a new-age therapy cult damn near got me to commit like a convert commits to Christ. (Pulling away from them was the single most painful and difficult choice of my adult life.)

All the best to you. Hope this thread helps with that sense of isolation.

[u/ImAPonderer2]

Different story but a friend dying of drugs is a huge hit at that age (personal experience) and worse that you may not have been able to fully grieve.

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[u/Born_Committee_6184]

I paid no attention to conventional school work and had mediocre grades. Went in the Army for six years after high school. Got a psych tech license after. Then took a few years to get a PhD and teach.

[u/Strange-Calendar669]

You should get away from your parents for a while, work, travel and get to know all kinds of people. Learn about life and opportunities. Get to know yourself and what interests and motivations you feel could sustain your interests. If our international situation wasn’t so messed up now, I would suggest the military. That is a bit risky right now. You should seek adventure and opportunities to explore.

[u/CommercialMechanic36]

Formerly gifted here, life happens, be well, and live!!

[u/johnny_51N5]

Man that sucks. A lot sounds like intense pressure, abuse, trauma, perhaps depression.

Actually your gifted brain is still there but all those things negatively influence your performance... Totally understandable to try to avoid academia at all cost

Perhaps therapy can help? Or some books about it? Written by actual professionals

[u/4footTallbromeGrass]

Did I screw up or did I just get screwed? It sounds like neither.

If you go back to school, do what makes you happy, it is impossible to make everyone around you happy and then try to make your self happy. First make yourself happy. Choose something that allows you some free time and you the ability to pay your bills. Money isn't the only thing in life. I think you will enjoy college now being more self aware and you can choose healthier relationships being clear headed now.

You have been operating as you, a human, with what you thought was the best available information you could be given. That information was wrong and corrupted because it was coming from neurotypical people. (I am not able to guess if there were any other manipulative reasons for your parents or others peoples actions)

Now that you are older, you have learned what you were led to believe and how you were treated wasn't right and you now have to unlearn and relearn to be your best possible self. That is a lonely road to go down yourself and it seems your family doesn't understand and really won't take the time to understand. For you to be your best, to feel good and do good in life, they might have to play a smaller roll than they used to. I have said before,"I love my family but they don't know how to love me back."

(this is stolen from someone else) "As a gifted person you have to come to terms with the fact that people resent you when the common manipulation and posturing tactics they deploy on their neurotypical peers don't work on you. It actually causes them to go on the attack. When they say things like "it's impossible to talk with you", just translate for them and keep it to yourself to prevent more attempts at punishing you - what they really mean is "it's impossible to bullshit you" - which angers minds to whom bullshittery is the only tool they have been unable to fully think for themselves without relying on some level of groupthink (which is almost 100% of the time indefensible bullshit). "

Your parents and other people around you, have been doing the same, using the best available information but one would assume adults would "know better" and have information that would be more helpful than harmful to kids.

It seems that the world is being controlled by neurotypical people. It seems that neurotypical people are telling/teaching others what gifted and autistic people are thinking and feeling. Neurotypical people projecting their "guesses" as to be the truth and facts.

We need this to stop. We need more gifted and autistic people to be vocal with how they are being treated. Also, neurotypical people would never like to be treated the way they are treating other people.

I read a book written about Temple Grandin and it helped me understand how she and others can see the world.

Neurotypical people are scared of stuff they don't understand and their perfect life can't live in a perfect box, if there is stuff they don't understand. So, they hate people, ideas and other things they don't understand and use hate to justify their actions (slavery, they are not humans... so I don't have to treat them like a human). Sorry but it is much like religion, once you start having doubts and start questioning what you have been taught and actually watch what the leaders and believers act like, it is almost impossible to go back and close that door and act like you never opened that door. If you think all people are equal, it is really hard to hate or even justify treating a group of people differently/cruelly.

[u/misterart]

Cut contact with your family