1. Skip the tutorial. 2. Literally skill trough the whole game because you never knew you could upgrade your gear to deal more damage and recieve less. 3. Eventually boss takes so many hits and kills you in one hit that you feel like the game is unfair. 4. Leave the game entirely thinking it is unbalanced. While in reality you were playing on a self-imposed nightmare difficulty, because you never knew you were supposed to upgrade your gear, let alone that it is possible.
I was called "gifted" all throughout my entire childhood. Was a very fast learner, excelled in several subjects, frequently praised and commended by teachers... yet here I am, 30 years old making a living as an uber/delivery driver.. I had the tools, but absolutely no idea or guidance on how to use them properly. I feel so unprepared and ill-equipped to survive in this world that it honestly hurts to think about.. Edit: Thanks for the feedback everyone. Not trying to play victim or elicit any pity. Just being honest, in case anyone out there can relate.
This is because college was boring and you couldn’t concentrate to get it done? Or Do you lose interest? Or you could not afford college? What’s the reason? Maybe you change your mind every day?
@@florencia2771 The prospect of going to college and falling dozens of thousands of dollars into student loan debt isn't exactly a viable life path for everyone
@@rand0m742 that's only in the US. In many countries you can go to college nearly tuition free provided that you pass an entrance exam. I barely had to pay a penny other than lunch and minor expenses during my 4 years of my engineering degree
IT, buddy. It's hard work and constant learning, but Uber pays enough to get A+ and Net+ certified and get a ~$20/hr entry level job in the a/c. I just pivoted into IT and am loving it.
My biggest hard lesson to learn myself was that we never learned how to ask for help, or even that help was available when you ask. We never needed help so we didn't learn how or when to ask.
@@dromdart3563 sad that this is actually what im going through right now, whenever I muster up the courage to ask for help I tend to compromise myself by offering like doing their homework just to ease the burden of me asking for help
Flunked my first year of university because of this. Two years later I am finally getting good study habits and a salvageable gpa at a smaller and more manageable community college. I still recognize I have problems talked about in this but I am getting there :/
@@johnsmith-mo6kz I barely scrapped by my 3rd and 4th year Uni, but my self image was compromised for near a decade after. I failed my first class in 3rd year, grades overall suffered. I didn't even realize how soul crushing an experience that was until many many years later
For me, it felt like help wasn't just never offered, but just flat out refused. Even if I ask for help. They just assume I'm being lazy, BECAUSE I am smart. "You can do this on your own." "Stop being lazy and making excuses, you can do this on your own." "You're smart and talented. You can figure it out on your own." "You've done well on your own so far. You don't need help."
Hi, I'm a 45 year old gifted kid who failed at life and never amounted to anything. I'm graduating from an online tech school today, after messing up in college 4 times. I didn't tell anyone. Thanks for explaining why. ❤
I’m an elder millennial who was a gifted kid. Got my bachelors degree in my 30s but still work at a job where I can be replaced by a high schooler. I know I can do better but I’m frozen. You’re not alone.
As a gifted kid, I have an absolute fear of failure. It makes my skin crawl. Therefore, growing up, I didn’t do any sports or extracurricular activities because “I suck at physical stuff.” Due to myself being gifted, I struggle to also show emotion. This video is the closest anyone’s gotten to understanding me, including myself. So, thank you so very much for clearing the fog. 🙏
@@wilfreddvit's hard to convince yourself about that. It doesn't feel okay to fail because we feel people's expectations for us and we're paralyzed by fear of having to handle their assumed disappointment. To be able to go past that you kinda need to be more selfish and think of your life like it's only yours and noone has the right to place their imaginary expectations on your shoulders. You don't owe anyone a success. You don't even owe it to yourself. A life isn't for ticking checkboxes, it's your time, your energy, your feelings and emotions. And life happens whether you like it or not. Not ending up on the path you wanted for yourself is not the end of the world. Your priorities might have shifted, your circumstances might have not been optimal, it's okay that you are not where you assumed you're gonna be. Just do stuff based on the present, not the future you imagined in the past. Yes it is not easy. It's a struggle to keep this mindset. But try remembering that and it might get at least a little bit easier.
I had that with social stuff as well. "I just don't like socializing.". But I suspended my disbelief and grinded it out hard. Now I'm social and very happy with it!
In my experience, many gifted students I know have either had learning disabilities or behavioural issues. This explains many students like them "learn differently". Now add raised expectations and they're under an immense amount of pressure, sometimes without the knowledge or resources to deal with their shortcomings. I know many parents of gifted kids whose children are likely on the spectrum, but they refused to get them diagnosed as if it would be an admission of weakness 😔
A lot of times, it's as simple as "Oh, this guy is a fucking genius, I don't have to tell him *anything* or communicate with him at all and things will just go well anyways"
There is another serious problem. Gifted kids can be intensely unsatisfied with surface level understanding. If a teacher lacks a deeper grasp of a subject and can't answer the right questions, then "learning" itself starts to feel futile. Authority figures designated to help you gain knowledge and comprehension can themselves become the bottleneck of intellectual development. It gets worse if parents also cannot field enough questions and the constant curiosity accidentally becomes a probe of limitations that finds the edge. This leads to an isolation bordering on desolation. Sincerely, a 44-year old "gifted kid" who started school at "5y+1day" and crashed and burned in college, and got my PhD at 41.
Takeaways: → Gifted kid complex is resistant to change. → Over usage of IQ to get ahead in life leads to under development in other areas (emotional, interpersonal, …) . → Emotion and intellect are the greatest contributors to change. → It leads to avoidance of experiences with failure and effortful success. → Much harder to control cognitive bias. → They are help seeking and help rejecting. → There is no perfect formula for most scenarios in life. → Hardest part to do is giving up your identity of who you are. → Challenge your assumptions. → Don’t use theory as a substitute for experience.
The main difficulty is not in the self-awareness, it is in the self-confidence and self-compassion needed to actually recover after the self-identity falls apart.
Holy fuck. This nails it so hard. I have the complete inability to be compassionate to myself. Because of this I am highly neurotic and even being kind to myself feels fake.
@@alejandrocespedes1544 You may want to try using your thinking to 'coach' yourself as if you were a child. Treat yourself with respect and compassion. Encourage yourself to try your best and learn from your mistakes. This helped me dramatically, hopefully it will help you as well. And maybe try looking at new endeavours as experiments and try to be curious of the result
Wow. I feel like my whole life suddenly makes sense. I have three things to add here, from my own experience: 1. Growing up, I was always expected to be the smartest kid in the class, in every subject. But as we go through life, we invariably encounter someone who is more gifted than we are, at least at some things. And we invariably encounter some subject that doesn't come effortlessly to us, and beat ourselves up over it, because being 'smart' means we're supposed to be good at everything. 2. I was actively discouraged (almost forbidden?) from 'wasting my time' on anything I couldn't be 'the best' at from the very beginning. As in, if you can't be better than Michelangelo, there's absolutely no use in pursuing anything creative. If you can't top Beethoven, there's no point in taking music. Better stick to those things you already KNOW you can excel at, and leave the rest alone. Because how would it look if you weren't exceptional? 3. Sometimes when a 'smart' kid asks for help, the response is 'You're a smart kid. You figure it out.' Even from teachers. I never did get the hang of studying. At 60, I still avoid things I'm not sure I can effortlessly succeed at, at least until they are no longer avoidable. I've had to teach myself a lot of things over the years, as the world changes so quickly. And I've learned to accept that there are some things I'm just never going to be good at, and that sometimes adequate is enough to get by on until I can pay someone with the talent to do it well. Life, man. What a ride! 😂
I agree with avoiding things I’m not good at. Also, I got divorced in early 40s. While I got my PhD, I raised kids and worked with husband in a small business. The business is not around anymore. So, no “real” work experience, no income for 14 years. I was newly employed when divorce happened. Decent salary, but nowhere near our combined income from the business. MY OWN LAWYER told me not to ask for alimony and forced me to take 50% child support because “you can support yourself.” That job was temporary and it vanished when my Ex started a business with my former boss. I’m perfectly capable of doing many high paying jobs, but I’ve found no one helps me in the job market because they think I don’t need help. And no one will hire a middle aged female PhD: I’m higher educated and they feel scared. So I just got a “better” job after 11 years of minimum wage, not for lack of looking. Savings are long gone. Because 2 powerful lawyers and a judge thought I was so smart I would have “no problem “, I was out $1,000s+++ and was living below poverty until this year.
As a former "gifted kid", the biggest breakthrough for me was that being gifted is not a curse, nor a big part of your identity. It's just an asset that you can use, or not, to solve your problems and get what you want out of life. Everything in this video is true, but once you catch up and learn how to make efforts, you are in a very good spot because you can work both hard and smart. More brain power = easier to learn skills that will give you a much better identity than being a "gifted kid" or "smart"
@@guillaumesora5385 You can still compare your learning speed and ability to understand complex topics, but it does not mean you are better or will be more successful if you're 'gifted'. Ability (or 'potential', the favorite word of gifted kids) means nothing unless you do something with it
I don’t know if this is weird, but I would consider being gifted part of my personality. Not necessarily how I act, but the way I think daily. I don’t know if how I think is normal, but I’m starting to think that it’s a bit more different then what I first assumed. Of course, this could be caused by some other mental condition that I may have.
Yes, I can relate to this exaclty. I was gifted in school and sports but lazy as hell and would always go for the easiest route. It is now by age 29 that I have learned work ethics finally. Too late to make it as footballer, but not too late to bloom in other areas of life and maybe make good use of career eventually. Trying not to take too much pressure still, but I am glad to worked hard last few years to figure this out in my late twenties.
What he said about substituting IQ for other methods of learning really hit with me. I'm in college and have ADHD/ASD, and I'm FINALLY starting to really struggle and be challenged. When I learn math, I pretty much ignore all the concepts the way they're fed to us in the curriculum, and I just let my pattern-finding brain do all the work for me. I just watch people work out problems, and memorize the patterns of the steps and recreate them. I studied for the first time in my life a few weeks ago for a cal 2 test, and it felt great, but I get burnt out super fast. I'm starting to learn how to learn. Okay wtf how is this video so god damn accurate? How does he know I have 0 emotional awareness or understanding?!?!?!
I’m literally the same as you….. I quit the gifted academic path to become a filmmaker and I’m still new, and not to blow my own horn but in a little over one year, I am already on par with people with 4-5 years of experience. And while I’m really good a self teaching, I still have a really hard time in the eq department, I still lack the fundamentals of basic human behaviour……a lot of this has to do with my 5 year long depression bout thanks to academics, but now I am learning and have gotten better but still totally not accustomed to society yet. Gifted people really have a completely different set of challenges.
it litearlly gets almost everything right, the worst thing is when you start to struggle and people stop talking about you being "gifted", it suddenly hits you, you either do things that "stupid" people do and prove that you still are smart, but at the same time you feel that if you start doing it you will no longer be gifted like you were before. Like the interesting thing is that a few minutes before I literally asked a friend for help, and he decided to do it, but the moment he agreed I started thinking about cancelling it, since "what if it doesn't work", "what if the moment he actually helps it will all come down to me not being talented as I've always perceived" and all sorts of stuff. Another thing is the studying and emotional awareness, because since youth I had also no problems just making friends, keeping them was a lot harder, and at some point I realised that every person I've ever befriended actually got cast away for one reason or another. It literally hit me like a year ago or so after for 3 years I started conscoiusly developing emotional understanding by bonding with others it took years to realise that people cast away were not wrong about many things that my ego just could not process. It all hit really hard and learning all those new things actually seems like undeveloping intellect that I was proud of and progressed with all my lfe. At least I can hope now for a moderate - good college life or... well, it will be one hell of a mess, even more than I am rigth now. Like the most strange part in being "gifted" is that you actually don't have an easier life than anyone since if you're too talented people will always put the expectations befiting your talent which creates the viscious cycle of pain and suffering while presumably being "gifted". On the other hand if you're deemed not gifted enough then you will still have high expectations and will have to suddenly adapt to real life environment that hits you with things that your talent is not suited for. Either way you end up miserable at some point and either turn your life completely around or are deemed as a gifted failure to society and there is no way out. P.S. It took way too much space, I did not expect that to bee this long so for anyone reading this I'm sorry for both inconsistencies in my writing and grammar, you can point them out if you so desire, but those were just my honest thoughts on life so far. I'm sure with time this will change, but for now it stands this way
Ohhh boy. We need more of this. I skipped 2 grades, MENSA level IQ. I also have ADHD, so I have the executive functioning of a potato. 🥔 I dropped out of high school and have really struggled in my adult years. We need to really bring this to light in our public education system.
The public education system isn't made for us. It's made for the people that it passes that still can't read, write, or do basic math. What the hell are we supposed to do in a world that wants that.
I dropped out of university at 22. At 29 I decided to go back and finish my degree because I realized my mind and body would not let me work in kitchens for the rest of my life. When I applied I didn't know if I would make it past the first month. Not only did I graduate with distinction, I'm now half way through my masters. Going back is hard, but it was 100% worth it. And, most of the time, it was soooo much easier to do as a full adult and not a new adult. My mental health was better. I had more emotional supports. I had more and healthier coping mechany. I was more excited and had a reason beyond 'because you're supposed to' for being there. No one ever judged me for being older. Anyone I talked to about it thought it was really cool that I made the hard decision to come back and we're fully supportive. Just because something was to hard when you were 19 doesn't mean it's going to always be to hard. You just have to be brave and try.
Man, you are lucky. I actually _graduated_ at 22. Then due to some ideological and political reasons I was forced to drop out of my professional _career._ My potential employers didn't acknowledge the progressive paradigm I was taught at the university and tried to force me to openly refute and unlearn it in exchange for some much more backward and conservative methodology which I was not only not taught, but my professors (mainly a bunch of former smart kids who were fortunate enough to having hijacked the college) ridiculed it publicly and loudly.
That is an incredibly inspiring story, thank you. My life? Autism-ADHD, anxiety and high IQ, depressed since age 7 lol. Too bad. Failure is just an opportunity to learn and keep going. Pick up, move on, and keep trucking. Life is a chain of shitty suffering, but maybe some things are worth that. Also eventually you become a certified badass with the resilience of a concrete bunker.
Eh, unless you're studying something you can't study somewhere else... Like chemistry with labs and everything... There's really no point to going to school. Start your own business or something if you've got the emotional support and all the trappings you need to go to school. Is it better investment for the time and money.
8:04 Trying to change 9:44 No amount of logic actually creates behavioural change. The most potent changers of behaviour are emotions. 12:16 Identity: effortless success 14:08 narrowing of identity 14:55 Intellect is trained, but regulation of emotions and ego is weak. 15:13 Instead of discovering who they are, they are told who they are. 17:05 Intellect and ego 17:22 Ego hijacking intelect 19:58 cognitive bias is strong 21:22 "I am a special case" 23:11 Help seeking and help rejecting 24:04 Reading into possiblities of the future. 26:35 Ego protecting itself. 29:08 Looking for a perfect formula. 32:20 "Why didn't you do it 10 years ago ?" 32:39 What does it say about you? 33:28 Do you wanna be "stupid kid" with a life or a "gifted kid" with no life ? 35:40 The more gifted we are, the more we think that things should be easy for us. 36:20 The change requires abandoning everything you invested in. 40:45 Intelect can be hijacked 42:51 The very thing that can change your mind is the thing you avoid. 43:32 Finding solace in being both blessed and cursed. 46:10 Abandoning your identity 46:40 Theory becomes a substitute for experience, thus it becomes separate from reality. 47:37 remedies: strengthening your emotional awareness 48:35 Do you get to say that your life is hard ? No, nononono... :| 49:34 remedies: understanding ego 49:43 "If I do this thing, how will it change the way I see myself ?" 51:14 Challenge your assumptions 51:14 Your intellect is used to protect you, not challenge you. 53:10 remedies: get experience 55:31 Questions
applying your intellect can raise your wisdom over time if you learn from your mistakes. feel like I went from a 6 to 16 from my teenage years until my forties.
@@azorahigh3218 same i also felt it bro I got 2th placement on my first Quarter of my classroom with barely any effort (aside the studying..I'm not that well active)
Being gifted myself, I developped a sense of overconfidence and arrogance. I went through the traditional education system, because my parents rejected the proposal of my doctor to send me to a school for highly gifted children. Because I was always good at many subjects without putting in real effort, it was a huge blow to my ego whenever I failed at something. Even now I blame myself for evey little mistake that I make. The hardest lesson I had to learn was to let things go the way they turned out and cope with failure in a healthy way. Have a nice day :)
Helps to realize that error is the fastest way to gain understanding. It's really like a shortcut. What way other than profound failure teaches so quickly? If you seek knowledge, you have to appreciate failure.
If your parents sent you to a specialized school, I think it would’ve helped. Gifted school was much freer in terms of expectations. The teacher wouldn’t waste our time with homework, and the projects had a sliding difficulty where you could match to your own level. But most importantly, being around other gifted kids all the time made such a difference. You would get to have intelligent conversations with your peers, and be motivated and inspired by each other. It was lonely before I went to a gifted school. And my old classmates are also now amazing career connections later in life.
I am not even halfway through the video and I can already say I have never seen someone describe by childhood, current struggles as an adult and how they developed. It's surreal. It's touching on all of my main problems and I never saw so clearly how they're actually related. I am blown away
@@aoeu256 I'm gifted with an IQ of 143. This hits home. The over intellectualization of everything I do. I love research and challenging my brain as I am sure you do. The issue though is that I go through continual cycles of picking up new career opportunities then getting bored, quitting, and searching for something else to challenge me... I've began to lean into my best gift which is writing. (always scored higher in the area then other gifted kids) SO, now I am starting to write books and trying to pursue that since it brings me a great sense of fulfillment. The hard thing is that hyperbolic theoretical mind... constantly playing the outcomes/probabilities.
This is so on target. I’m 65 years old. I’ve been in therapy for over thirty years dealing with the problems you’ve addressed…but none of my therapists ever shared this kind of analysis. Not only was I called gifted, I was also called self-sufficient. I had difficulty in college (though I have a Masters degree, I took the easiest classes I could find; if I thought I was going to get lower than a B grade I would either drop the class or withdraw from school. It took me 7 years to get a BA and 6 to get an MBA). My relationships were always difficult. Though I’m doing better with friendships, connecting to compatible and supportive people, I haven’t sought a romantic relationship in over 20 years. I used to dance, but the what I call “mating ritual” associated with it and not getting a dance partner at an event, was too much of a hit to my ego/self-esteem. At work, I am an underachiever for sure. I can’t play the game to get ahead. I haven’t enough esteem to be a professional or get into a managerial position regardless of my degree. No amount of giftedness can help-or If I do get noticed as smart, I quickly land in hot water because I don’t have the social skill nor ability to endure a difficult learning curve.😢
1961 here, mine's a very similar story, like sentence-for-sentence, only amplified. I have good social skills but it's akin to being bipolar: I make people laugh and feel good then go home and crash for a couple of days.
Male, 62, never called gifted as a kid (although my IQ was measured in the mid-140s and still seems to be in the range 120-155), partly because "gifted" wasn't a thing where I lived as a child in the '60s, and partly because I spent over half my time away from school with asthma. Still graduated top of my year in high school. Remote parents with a focus on academic achievement, so I have an avoidant attachment style and alexithymia. (Lol, analysing myself just as Dr. Kanojia said. Memo to self: labelling is not understanding.) Ended up with a Bachelor's in Mathematics (and a senior prize from the university) because that was easy. Depression followed. Now working in a meat-packing plant. Like you, I can't play the office politics game and in fact going into an office starts a panic attack now. The literal view of Sartre's words is true for me: Hell is [having to explain/expose my self to] other people, so I don't bother much with having a self. Never had any therapy because I've never met a therapist who I thought could understand what my interior life was like. Partly that's a function of living in a sparsely populated area. Perhaps. I'm learning about how my mind works, and still weighing the pros and cons, risks and benefits, of re-building myself from the ground up at this age. I'm skeptical. The risks seem large and the benefits unclear.
In the interests of history I feel I must share my similar story of a kid labelled as ‘gifted’ in the early days. I was labelled in the late 70s - early 80s. I was put in an experimental program just like the one that Bart is put in, on the Simpsons. Totally overpowered ego. The times and culture treated accelerated intellect as almost Godlike. The program was called EPIC Educational Program for Individualised Curriculum. 12 kids in a glass goldfish bowl in the school library working at their own pace with teachers manuals and workbooks- self directed learning on any day for as long as you want, any subject you choose. After completing high school 3 years early and set to go to university far too early, because I felt responsible to fix the world’s problems but realised at 14 that I most likely couldn’t do that alone- I decided that the best thing I could do is breed! Typical misdirected ego. So I had a child by 17 and three more soon after. I spent the rest of my life in a monumental struggle for survival as a single parent. I’ve still never found a true peer to date, now aged 54. Usually my closest peers are 30-40 years older but they’re never my developmental peer.
Even worse than being a "gifted kid" is being a "gifted kid" who was never gifted to begin with. Imagine dealing with all of the same issues that come with assuming that identity but never really having the capabilities that the gifted have
It's even worse when you feel you've lost the one thing you had: your intellect. I spent years sleep-deprived, isolated, high, and borderline insane. Even after a year of getting my health together, I don't feel nearly as intelligent as I used to. "I don't see the point of living now other than to kill time" is what I want to say, but my emotions are so deadened that I can't even feel despairing anymore. I don't think I have these behemoths of cognitive biases holding me back anymore, but at the same time I don't believe I have the raw mettle to actually make it anywhere.
This. I've lost all confidence in my intellect, especially with the amount of time I spend coping with multiple mental illnesses and physical health. Luckily, I've learned to define myself in ways other than "smart" or "intellectual," though I do still consider myself to be those things to a lesser degree
Dude this scared the shit out of me. I spent a couple years sleep deprived and felt just dumb. I’ve since fixed my sleep and feel just as I used to but damn. Your comment scared the crap out of me.
@@borat1 >couple years sleep-deprived It's good you cracked down on it. I took it to 9 years. Who knows, maybe after another year or two I'll be back to normal
I was considered a “gifted kid”, my mother held me back in kindergarten because she felt developmentally I was behind. Then I scored a 135 on a IQ test administered by my psychologist at age 8 when being tested for learning disabilities. Long story short, I left high school with a 2.8 gpa… my untreated ADHD was a huge role in this. But I also think the social stigma and my mental health played a role as well. I was always considered highly intelligent by my teachers and peers even if my grades didn’t reflect it. I had teachers who tried their best to just talk me into trying and just studying for once. But the idea of “school” was just so mundane to me and I struggled to motivate myself. I couldn’t rationalize why I’m being told I’m so intelligent yet struggle in school? It wasn’t until recently I finally understood why.
I dreaded parent-teacher confrences because they'd always talk about how I was failing and how "they know he's smart, they know he can do it" but they never wanted to actually help me (I did actually ask for help on many occassions). But, you know, it's not the shitty system. It's the shitty student with adhd that doesn't want to do homework or learn, right? Good luck on your journey, fellow brain :)
My mum did the same. Three years in stead of two. Had me tested when I was 11 but didn’t talk about the results (40 % effort and above the top level)..
@@dinetk3125 my mom didn’t tell me my results until way later. She told me my dad tried to say I had a bunch of learning disabilities so he could take her away from me. Then I got an iq test and scored extremely well.
I am 55 years old and back in “the day” the educational system just didn’t know what to do with me. We had no STEM programs or IEPs. They tried to move me ahead a grade but I just didn’t integrate with the other kids. I was a “first grader” and “second graders”, although closer to my age, were intimidating, mysterious, and above me. I needed to stay in my lane. Intellectually I could have advanced a grade or two but emotionally and socially I wasn’t that developed. As discussed, I never developed effective study skills or habits. I never finished college. Technically I finished high school via GED. My biggest problem is that I’m TERRIFIED to ask for help. I’m teachable/trainable and once I learn something I get really good at it-even if it’s something I don’t necessarily want to do. My lifelong dream has been to have a mentor to teach me some kind of skill that I can be good at and maintain my independence-but I’ve been afraid to ask and because I’ve been chronically underemployed I’ve been unable to pay for someone to mentor me in any skill. Classes are okay but I’ve always needed one-on-one to really grasp the concept. I’m now old and should be facing retirement but am still trying to succeed. I expect to be working well into my 70s but at what I don’t know. I’m still not giving up. I hope I’m not being delusional thinking I can still have success.
I would say success can come at any age, though don't discount what you have achieved so far. Plenty of people would consider themselves a success if they achieved what you have.
Wow, what an inspirational story! You definitely aren't being delusional, your persistence and dedication to your goal even after so long is honestly really impressive. Keep going, we're rooting for you!!
Apprenticeship is something I've wanted also. I had experienced that for a short while doing masonry, but he was quite old and died before I got to learn the very technical skills and the business side of it. Loved it though. Made me feel like I was playing with Legos and Tetris and going to the gym all at the same time.
I started college as a gifted kid in 2016, full scholarship, honors college, soccer star, all the signs of a bright future. By 2018 I was depressed and extremely unmotivated to do well in any of the classes. I had to take some time off and really process what I wanted to do, and how I was going to do it. I had the chance to just walk away from college life debt free, I found a well paying trade job, but I just felt like it wasn't my calling. I had so much unfinished business that I went back and really dedicated myself this time with more maturity and understanding of my strengths and weaknesses. It can still be difficult sometimes, but I'm no where near as overwhelmed as I was originally. These videos from HG were really helpful in understanding why I, as someone who did so well early in life, really struggled with adulthood more than all the "dumb kids" who seemed to barely get by.
Jesus, this is an eye opener. You are right about the study habits. I was one of those dysfunctional gifted kids. I super excelled in all the classes I liked and blew off the others. When I got to college I had no idea how to study. Because I already knew how to do impressive. But it was all I knew how to do. It took getting 2.3 in all three quarters of Spanish and being the only student with a Spanish surname to make me learn to how to study. It took two quarters to get my cumulative back up to over 3.5 after the Spanish classes bombed my cumulative GPA. Then something I've always wondered about... I always put off writing my essays etc... until three days before they were due. Then I would cram. I always passed with over a 3.5. So what would have happened if I would have started on those essays when I should have? I would have gotten 4.0's for sure and known my subject more thoroughly. So you're right, even in the domain of the gifted. I know this because I went to grad school twice. To even get into a good research school's desirable departments requires you be a gifted person. So you can be gifted, but if you plan on doing grad school, they are all going to be gifted. So you better learn to study before then!
@@CeeT_ 18 here, I'm glad I found out about this stuff so young... scary to imagine what would've happened if it wasn't diagnosed until fifty or something
@@hassassinator8858 22 here already feeling like I’ve wasted a good chunk of my life and don’t have anything to show for. In my country men are expected to be married by 25 and get a job at 21. I now understand how I failed in college and why I can’t do what other kids did despite being a topper in high school. I feel determined and more educated than before to take actions to try to fix my life. Hopefully I can do the same. I’ll try to to update this comment with my progress in one year. Hopefully I like Dr K can change my life for the better.🤞
19 here. I'm so glad I found this video at this point of my life. Next falI was going to put myself in a carrier that I'm not sure if I'm going to like but everybody tells me it's the best for me. Sorry for my English btw
As someone who's been told I was gifted as a kid (Idk if I'm truly 'gifted' or not, I never bothered to test myself), I find these to be useful in getting unstuck from the 'gifted' mindset: 1. Things take more time than you think. Gifted kids are used to success coming quickly and easily. Life doesn't work that way. Be PATIENT. 2. Related to the above, learn how to grind - meaning, learn how to work on something consistently for a long time. When you get into the flow of learning and practising, thoughts of whether you're smart or not goes away. You're just focused on the journey, and getting the results through repeated losses and wins. 3. Find joy in learning new things, in GROWING. Gifted kids often have the idea that they can't grow, that they are already at their peak and any movement will just lead to downfall. The reality is, no one is perfect. There's always room for improvement. So let yourself improve. Imagine allowing yourself to be bad at something, and improve over a long time. There is freedom in that. 3. There is more to you than being smart. Are you kind, friendly, have a sense of humour, etc.? Find other qualities of yourself other than intellect. Also try to believe in your inherent value. Being smart does NOT define your worth as a person. 4. Work on not caring what others think of you. People may be born gifted, but the pressure to excel and be good at everything absolutely also comes from external validation/enablement. Stop relying on these for your self-worth. You are ALLOWED to struggle, you are ALLOWED to make mistakes. Some people may be surprised or smug ("you find this hard? Haha I thought you're supposed to be smart!"), fuck those people, they don't know what being gifted is like. Feel free to add any more points that helped you guys get out of the gifted kid set as well!
Number 3 really hit me. The compliments/comments that I really remember for a long time are the ones that have nothing to do with my brain. Even something as simple as being recognised/commended for trying something difficult, regardless of the outcome, can stick with me for ages.
5. The world isn't going to roll out the red carpet for you at every turn just because you're smart. As far as jobs, a company needs to know what you can do for them that's specific to their needs and future vision, so you have to be effective at selling yourself within their context not just "I'm a genius!" As far as personal life, very few people want to be friends with someone that they feel is either rubbing their intellect in everyone's face or doesn't have anything else to them.
That "cognitive empathy" thing really hit home. This kind of thing is precisely why I've struggled with relationships, "feeling what the other person is feeling" is not something I can remember ever having experienced.
@@victorleina2147It can actually be comforting from a slightly different perspective. Examples that people can do something kind for someone even when they don’t “feel it”. Don’t get me wrong, I know exactly what you mean. I feel awful when I do it as well, kinda like I’m not actually being comforting to someone who needs it, cheating them out of what they need. But see? If you feel bad about that than your heart is actually in the right place. To them, all they can see is your actions and not what you feel. The fact that you try despite not being moved might just be the first step, but you don’t have to be scared of yourself and make it the last.
Damn sociopaths. No one feels anything any more. Young kids 20's or younger have no sense of how to read emotions "in the air". It's like they are disabled. Lost a whole sense... Sense of being alive and one with all.
This is so 100% true. I spent my 20s frantically doing things I was "supposed to be effortlessly good at" in secret for hours and hours a day just so I could then show I was really good at it and pretend like I didn't put any effort in. I'm really embarrassed that I did this, but I now understand that I thought my self-worth had to come from people thinking I could just learn things really fast without effort. A lot of therapy has helped me come to terms with doing things I enjoy but am not super good at and then not caring if people saw this side of me.
Haha when I was a teen I got up at 5 am to do my homework, just so I could show up to school and make a show of never taking notes or doing homework in the work periods. All because one time a friend’s mom said “Izzy also never studies and plays all day, how come she has bad grades and you’re on top of the class?” And my family was so proud that I built my identity around that.
When I entered my graduate program I realized everyone struggles with the same things and have the same limitations even though everyone is so smart. It really helped me to get a realistic perspective.
Wow. This made me realize somethings. I was actually the opposite. I was mediocre in school and watched kids like you surpass me. It constantly made me feel stupid and like I wasn’t good enough so I didn’t try because “well they understand things and get good grades so effortlessly” so clearly I must be dumb. I never saw the other side of things. Those same kids weren’t just excelling effortlessly. They were going above and beyond to maintain the facade of things coming so effortlessly. Behind the scenes they were waking up early, skipping meals, skipping fun activities, spending all their free time studying , reading ahead, ...etc. Not saying there weren’t a small percentage of people that barely try and really do have things come effortlessly, but I’m sure that wasn’t the reality for 90% of the gifted kids . They really were putting in the hard work , but presented it as though they barely tried and just magically excelled. I hate to say it, but it makes me feel better to know I was never really stupid, I just didn’t apply myself.
I've learned to read at the age of 2. I could count to a thousand by 4. Was top of my entire school. Everyone throughout my life always told me how smart i was. Well, long story short, im 24, still live with my parents. Make BELOW average in my area as a mere QA in a bank. The agony of knowing you wasted your potential and talent is worse than being untalanted, unskilled, stupid. Because if you're average you have the excuse. If you're gifted and never utilized it... It's torture. It's with you every second, every minute of your waking hours, all your life.
i bet you usually try to sabotage yourself because you want to be more like the others instead of being at the top and getting praised. probably why you are working that job right now.
@@wanz100 it's the opposite, I'm searching for "the ultimate occupation". Overanalyze stuff and too afraid to commit, to the point where i developed a neurological circuit in my brain that sabotages the stuff i try to do, in an attempt to show my own self that "it's not the thing". Or "too low of an aim. I can't devote myself to this".
At least pat yourself on the back for being self-aware. Better to know what you need to change (or at least aware of the fact that you need to do so) at 24 than 44. Best of luck mate, don’t give up on your dreams.
I was literally talking today with my Coach about how changing seems hard, and how I feel like I have all the ingredients to cook something and the knowledge to do so, but something inside me resists it. Feels scary seeing this video pop up immediatly after my coaching session lol.
Wooow he described my experience. I went from not needing help and thinking anyone who doesnt get it, right away must be super stupid, to start struggling myself in college and being ashamed to ask for help, to ultimately growing up emotionally and begin understanding everyone that has ever struggled and finally stop being so isolated and judgemental. It humbled me. I crashed and burned in college but i never gave up because till this day i love learning so i eventually succeeded but when i hit that brick wall it took me years to learn how to learn cuz i was still socially awkward and my ego/identity was in jeopardy so i never asked for help.
As I meditated with you, I realized I've hurt so many people that I found it nearly impossible to find compassion for myself. It made me cry. I think I needed that. Thank you for this and for what you do. You probably get this all the time, but seriously. Your content is changing my life, and I'm sure many others for the better (been watching a LOT of your stuff lately as I walk along this path of sobriety). I cannot thank you enough, and am very grateful. Grateful to you and to who/whatever entity (if there is one) has allowed me to return to 'now'. And I am also grateful to myself for, despite all the horrors I've endured and unleashed, choosing to move in the direction that leads to 'good.' Good for myself and all else. You probably won't read this, but seriously man, thank you. As a person who has viewed myself as an evil, soul crushing monster of a being for years now, you've returned me to 'now' where I am simply human. You've allowed me to acknowledge consciously that life is not easy. Because it's not. But we're here, and 'it' (life) simply is. And that the future will come. But that we have within us enough strength to continue through whatever darkness may come. Bless you, fam.
Every single gifted kid I knew, myself included, without exception, has ended up having either undiagnosed ADHD or Autism (or both like in my case). I firmly believe that's what it actually is (maybe not for every gifted kid, but, at least anecdotally, the VAST MAJORITY of us). This is why so many gifted kids have trouble in adulthood, because we've been masking our whole lives. It's not even a complex, it's literally undiagnosed neurological differences. There's a reason I was doing college math in element school: undiagnosed autism. It's absurd to think I was sent to a gifted program instead of a school psychologist. And I went undiagnosed until just last year (I'm 37 now), because my special interests and hyper focus were on math, science, reading, and the arts (all the subjects you need to excel in school).
And I did fail out of college, one of the top colleges in the US. I passed out of the first two math classes at Harvey Mudd and people thought I was a genius. Then, because I never learned how to study and also had undiagnosed ADHD and Autism, I had SEVERE mental health issues on top of my inability to study. So I flunked out. The letter they sent me is what saved me. It basically said don't bother trying to get back in, statistically, you'll just flunk out again. That pissed me so off. My spite fueled my motivation to get back in. I learned how to study on my own. Before, I was like, "my brain just doesn't know how to do chemistry." After learning how to study, I realized I could learn ANY topic if I studied it hardest enougj. I went to the community college, took all the hardest subjecs I failed at Mudd, aced them, then reapplied and got back in to Mudd. It was a slog but I was able to graduate.
i think this is what it was for me too. the video specifically didn't really resonate with me because i knew i worked my ass off sometimes because i hit walls early on because i probably had those things too. even in uni i didn't find the curriculum or studying inherently challenging, but i stopped going; i never really addressed those neurological things and i was going through some things like burnout and major depression, so i just couldn't get myself to continue.
I’ve always been a gifted artist, my earliest memory was of me drawing. The biggest problem for me was thinking that I didn’t need to improve since I believed I didn’t need to. Now I’m dealing with my ADHD and letting go of my ego and I’ve made vast improvements. One must ALWAYS improve.
Honestly, I’ve had a similar experience. I never bothered learning the fundamentals or even basic anatomy because I figured I didn’t need to, I could just feel everything out because I was so gifted. Now I’m really struggling and trying to learn all the stuff I missed out on, lol. Glad to hear you’re not only improving but have learned the importance of doing so!
This may not apply to some people but for me, the need to *always* improve can be a bit overbearing at times. While I have seen improvement over time, some days I literally just want to chill and not work on something like sleep or play a casual game. There is a certain grind culture attached to improvement culture that I don't care to engage with (and get no enjoyment from) and one can still improve without feeling pressed for it. Rather improving via curiosity and enjoyment than improving for the sake of improvement itself, and enjoying the times my brain wants to float along after some hard work.
The "one trick pony" thing really got me. I was a gifted kid, I play league and I started one-tricking Lux ~10 years ago. Now, whenever I play another champ, I feel this deep sense of shame because it's so obvious that I'm just embarrassing myself and hurting my team. I should be better than this - but I'm not because I've one-tricked the whole time. So I feel like I NEED to play my main or I let everyone down - and I never get the chance to learn. That's really reminiscent of the whole gifted experience to me. If I'm not "carrying" in the game or in real life, I'm not worth anything. Self worth is entirely based on achievement. And the only way to get through that is to let yourself be bad at stuff, which is horrifying.
I know right, when you are so used to being a front runner in one aspect, then life happens and you have to be an underdog for a persisted period of time, that can be extremely scary.
Take the jump now, or it'll haunt you forever. The shame you feel now for underachieving is nothing compared to the shame you'll feel later on at having "failed at life". Take the jump now.
I am actually getting emotions bubbling up, a sadness from deep, a sense of loss of all those years dealing with this shit. I had to fall and fail hard before I could find the strength to try again. I feel the need to share this with those who suffered due to my struggle. At times it was unbearable.
I had good study habits as a kid, but that's because I loved to read and science became fun for me. Then middle school hits, and the study habits absolutely left my body. I managed without it for all of middle and high school, and then college hit and murdered me.
This was exactly me during my school days. I was very invested in math and science that I used to study the books of higher grades until one day I just cant and passed university barely without learning anything and I'm stuck in a dead end job which I hate while my peers who I thought were dumb are killing it in their respective careers.
I feel ya, never studied for anything right up through high school. Just showed up and paid attention. Of course I did better at things that interested me. Once in college, I had to first learn how to study before I could make any headway in my courses. What an eye-opener, I realized what the majority had been going through while I was skating by on natural ability. One side benefit for my life, I resolved to never again look down on people of 'average' intellect. They can possess qualities like perseverance and agreeableness, that intellectuals erronously think they can survive without.
@@watkinssixtyfive7788 I wish I'd read biographies of accomplished scientists (for example,) before the negative patterns set in. It turns out they all worked their tails off, hit rough patches and so on.
As you get older is worse, because you're not a kid anymore and the auto-blame is much stronger. And it just takes to be a bit gifted in order to live what you're telling, you don't need to be a genius. Great video, very accurate, it sounds as if you were talking about myself, which makes me feel less unique (in a good way).
The cognitive empathy part blew my mind. This really explains what I feel/do! I have had such a hard time putting words to it. It feels wrong to say I don't have empathy, but still I don't FEEL the emotions. This is exactly what I do! I use logic!
My therapist in college referred to it as “intellectualization” and said it’s the most common defense mechanism of smart folks (most of the people at the college). I’ve never heard the term “cognitive empathy” before but it’s a reasonable descriptor of the same basic process. It’s a way to keep uncomfortable feelings at arm’s length.
I've often felt emotions strongly but have always struggled to put them into words. I think I grew up intellectualizing my inner state as a way to avoid having to feel negative emotions... This leads me to spiral into whirlwinds of affect and be tossed around in their vague, murky currents. Learning to put names to my emotions has helped me to feel less like I'm drowning in them. It forces me to confront what I'm feeling and why, which then puts me in a better position to be able to handle them. My first impulse is usually still to avoid my emotions, but I try to remind myself that in my experience, acknowledging the emotions lets me move through them and move past them much faster.
I wish I had access to this information in my 20s, or 30s, or even my 40s. I'm now approaching 60 and have learned much of what you teach the hard way. You validate so much of what I've experienced in life and give me tools and perspectives for some things I haven't quite figured out myself. Thank you for all you do!
Dude, I was so broken from the gifted kid college experience. I got in to the honors college, full ride, great music scholarship. But I just felt like I couldn't get stuff done and finish it. I thought I had ADHD. I remember spending 20hrs trying to write a 5 page paper and just being unable to do it. I eventually had a breakdown and went to the counselors who just wanted to treat depression first and wouldn't evaluate me when I asked. I went along with it but quickly just stopped going. That went on for a couple years and I ended up dropping out, then trying to come back a year and a half later, which didn't work. I was in my senior year and decided to just abandon it. I went into tech because I liked computers, and then a couple years later I ended up teaching myself web development and landing a job out I absolutely love, way out earning what I would have been making teaching. But that year I taught myself web dev, it feels like I filled in so many gaps, learned how to learn, and just kind of figured out what I needed to do in my life. And I DID get evaluated after I taught myself and got a job and was pretty damn ADHD, fuck you college counselors.
Same here. The first two years were great, but then suddenly it was almost impossible for me to focus and deliver, specially on the subjects that clearly required a lot of time and technical practice. There were subjects I tried to pass 4 times and I either failed or dropped them. I was even silly enough to repeat a subject I had already passed because I wanted to get a higher grade and I ended up getting the same grade again... Eventually, after trying several times to get on the right track, I just dropped out entirely because I had new responsibilities and the work/study balance did not work for me at all, and it was not worth spending more and more money on it after dragging myself through it for 10 years. COVID was sort the straw that broke the camel's back and there was no going back. I still don't regret the whole experience. I met a lot of great people that I love and appreciate.
Two years ago, I stumbled upon this video that made me feel uneasy, and I chose to ignore it. Two years later I am still where I was, grappling with the same uncertainties and the duality of being torn between embracing help and pushing it away. Recently, my constant oscillation between different viewpoints has damaged the trust and respect of someone dear to me. A recent trip, intended to strengthen our bond, instead brought into sharp focus the stark realization that I am lost, unsure of who I am, and that my reality is disconnected from my lived experiences. My fear, anxiety, self-loathing, and selfish selflessness have been for nothing. Don't delay any longer. Procrastination only leads to unnecessary pain for ourselves and those around us. The past is immutable, but we can discover our convictions and reclaim our right to life. This stranger has, will be, and is walking the same path as you.
Didn't study almost anything in any school before university, I was doing almost nothing, barely going from year to year at the end of school cause I started to skip days. Still my abilities kept me on track and I had perfect exams... End up in one of the best technical universities in my country. After first year it was like hitting the wall, amount of material to learn and just feeling I'm nothing special started to overwhelm me. Passed two years struggling and on start of third year I just broke... Too much stress, all the stuff I skipped before, not knowing how to handle learning and just daily stuff that had to be done caused huge depression and huge mental problems. Never finished university I just couldn't cause of panic attacks and emptiness, which took also my long time girlfriend. Took me like three years to back on track with life, got not bad job which I like. But wasted potential and all the years of pain are still here. Still working on self confidence and taking care of MYSELF is the hardest thing to do for me. Don't be like me kids and teenagers talk to ur family or friends and ask for help. 🙂 I'm a tougher person now, I'm trying to be as good as I can and I want to be happy, I work on it and that makes me feel better. I care way less about other people and what people think its good /important. I'm good with myself. 😉
I usually don’t write comments, since my still gifted brain thinks I’m afraid I’ll fail, but this episode hit home for me. I was a gifted kid mostly in private school. Add in ADHD being diagnosed at age 8, finding out I have depression in my late teens, and being in a semi-co-dependent family, and I’m a hot mess. The best way I can describe gifted kids is that we both *know* we need to fix our issues, and even how to fix it, but we remain paralyzed by fear. I’ve been in and out therapy, and even though I’ve learned about my emotions, if my fiance asks “how are you?”, I respond with what I’m doing, not how I feel. As another TH-camr put it, you’re a kid with the intelligence of a average adult, but then you’re an adult…with the intelligence of a average adult. Thanks for the video though!
@@Blader445 Hey... I don't know if it's a good place to ask. I have an anxiety disorder and I just started therapy to process my childhood bullies. I think that exacerbated this feeling but I always just felt comforted by my grades. But I'm sort of facing a lot of anxiety during my freshman year, I don't look at my lectures because I want to hide at home, in my bed and have my anxiety attacks. Going to university gives me panic attacks in the morning. Should I continue to see if it gets better or drop out?
"No amount of logic creates behavioral change." This is spot on. I can reason out the things I need to do and why, but unfortunately, that doesn't translate to me doing it.
Thanks for explaining this. I have blamed myself for my lack of fulfilment of childhood‘ promise’ for fifty years. Too late to change things now, but at least I can go into retirement with that weight lifted. My teachers were either borderline gleeful at my failure or dropped a ton of guilt on me. That’s something else that needs to change. Just as it is now recognised that children with cognitive or behavioural problems should get help, instead of being left behind, ‘gifted’ kids also need additional support. Society is missing out by letting this group down.
I am a 'gifted' kid in highschool right now, and to be honest I'm kind of glad I found videos like these when I did, as they give a sort of guidance my parents aren't capable of. However, it is immensly scary what growing up on the internet can do to you, as I have observed myself changing over the last few years based on videos and creators that have resonated with me. I couldn't have turned out better, but I feel for others who also grow up on the internet, those who can't as easily differentiate between good and bad faithed people, and or can't find good thoughtful content over more time wasting or even conspiratorial content tend to grow up to become bad or lazy people depending on what kind of bad content they watched.
I have these thoughts myself. I'm 24, so I have grown up with technology largely at my fingertips. My parents were really trusting and didn't really check what us kids were doing, and so I can honestly say I'm lucky to have turned out like I did because so much of my general knowledge of how the world works comes from the internet. I can't tell you if I was just lucky to mostly come across good sources for that, but looking at some of my peers and people on the internet today, that has to be at least part of it 😅
Could you share more of this content? This is the first time I see something of good quality that explain and could really help people in this situation
i feel like the cure for gifted kids is to give them harder material to learn compared to everyone else so they learn to study and grind in school to obtain the studying mindset preparing them for college, med school, law school, and other really hard schools to get into instead of just being smart and breezing through grade school not knowing how to study or grind reading books.
Perhaps there needs to be more emphasis on other forms of intelligence in schools. It is more difficult to judge, but if there is more reinforcement (both positive and negative) for other kinds of skills, then there is more reason to develop those skills. Btw, this has to be to the point of affecting progress/success.
To get gifted kids to grow their other facets at the same time normal kids do they would need to be taking college level classes by 10 or even earlier. As someone who was taking college classes at 15, I don't think just speeding up with more difficult material is the answer. The lesson of how to use and practice using the other tools available needs to happen much earlier than that. I'd say around 3rd grade they need to already be expanding their tools. I remember around 3rd grade I was trying to use other tools to do the work, and was trying to learn how to study, because I knew I would eventually need it. But because I didn't have experience I was slow and sloppy. That got me in trouble with my teachers and parents so I leaned harder on my intellect, never branched back out and all but forgot other methods even exist. I was labeled gifted in 4th grade. I would say that by the time a kid is showing signs of being gifted, they are already heavily leaning on their intelect and need to be given problems designed to not be solvable with intelect alone to train their other skills. What those problems would look like, I don't know, but the gifted programs I was in only reinforced relying even heavier on intelect and logic and did nothing to help round me out, in fact it did quite the opposite.
@@ca-ke9493 This, 100%. Not all jobs use the same kind of intelligence, why should our schooling only train us all one way? We need more learning options before college, so people can find what they're good at at an earlier age and work toward it.
Thanks. I was a gifted kid. In a way it almost feels like a curse. It did help me develop this huge ego and the worst about having a huge ego is that it drives other people away
Fortunately, your ego is not so huge that you can't admit it. The biggest narcissists are the ones that aren't self-aware, so you can for sure get past it with therapy.
It's not even the ego frankly. I've had people simply tell me I think too fast for them and having deep conversations with me feels like their brain is running because I make connections so much easier than them. I found someone who was like me and once we started talking our friends were like "I know you're speaking the same language, but slow down". Our ideas were switching too fast for them. (I just kept getting more excited lol) My point is, finding friends is hard because your mouth is just telling them your thinking process and they lost you a long time ago
"They will critique it." Oh boy that hit. I'm the worst person to give self-help books too. I torch them in my head because they all feel so disingenuous. I literally can't comprehend how they work on people. However, I have the same issue with therapy. If a therapist tells me I'm having irrational thoughts about myself they've not told me anything new. I just need to know how to stop having them. I knew they were irrational to start with. Plus, mindfulness that is all the rage in therapy literally nearly had me fall into a massive pit of depression. Medications have not made me feel worse then mindfulness and meditation. It's like I don't know how thoughts are supposed to fix my own brain when my thoughts are what seems to be killing me.
Sounds like mindfulness actually brought up enough nasty stuff for you to feel depressed, so I would say it's working as intended and that "feeling worse" is what you need to tackle. I'm just a rando on Internet and these are my thoughts though.
When you are having the irrational thought. Actively think, "That is not true. Stop lying to me." Step one is slowing momentum. Also. Start your therapy/psychiatrist/psychologist what not with that. Start with, "How do I stop it? " then do the stupid crap they tell you. It will feel stupid, probably. Do it anyway. Then be very transparent with your help, don't hold back that you think it is stupid or that you don't think it will work. But you can start with the above. If you're having a hard time finding help (who isn't?) try to dig into your background for when those thoughts started. There is the possibility that those thoughts didn't originate with you. Best of luck.
“Stopping thoughts” is like trying to dam up a mount spring with your bare hands. It won’t stop the water, even if you dam it it up, it’ll just burst through to the surface somewhere else. Two different options I can think of are “Observe Without Judgment”, or maybe “Flag and File.” OWJ is sort of Buddhist in flavor. You look at the thought, accept that you’re having it, but then remind yourself that it’s just a thought, not a Commandment that controls you. Like having that thought doesn’t mean you have to obey it. Then you sort of let it float away when it gets bored without acting on it. “Oh! I’m having one of those irrational thoughts my therapist mentioned. Those happen sometimes. But it’ll pass.” FaF is seeing the thought, then actively tagging it with a cognitive narrative of your choosing. Like if a balloon with “I’m worthless forever” floated up, you can see it as above. But it’s like writing your own sentences on your own balloon. “This is one of those irrational thoughts. I’m not worthless- I matter to me and my friends and family, even the people I help at work are glad I helped them out in their own momentary way. And I don’t have to be any one way forever. I control the things I do- I can still work to change parts of me I want to change, if I invest some effort into it.” Now the random balloon with the irrational message has some balloons with things you wrote on them next to it. It’s outnumbered.
The part about studying is really spot on & ive known it for a while. I had no reason to study all through 12th grade and for some reason i didn't even bother applying to a fancy university. I applied to ONE school which was close to home, got in, then continued as normal. The entire first year was no different for me than high school. All 100 level classes were still easy, except English 101 and 102 which were required ended up giving me trouble because it felt like a waste of time. The second year was when i started to hit the brick wall because i couldn't just show up and get an A. They started assigning projects which were time consuming. My normal learned procedure of waiting until the day before to write a paper was suddenly impossible but i kept trying it. I even became aware of the need to start working on assignments early but couldn't bring myself to stop procrastinating. Towards the end of the semester i would drive all the way to school then be embarrassed to go to class. I would end up going to the library but i wouldn't even work on my assignments i would just read other things or go to the computer lab. I actually physically witnessed the concept of people who were not as smart to start but "geniuses art hard work" go through and be extremely successful in college. I ended up withdrawing from class and getting a job at a warehouse then my mom and stepfather kicked me out. Primarily because my stepfather moved out of home at 16 and he only barely tolerated the idea of me living there because i was still in school. Eventually at 26 i had paid off the previous debt and i went back. I graduated cum laude in chemistry but i still dont really consider myself successful, just "comfortable" because i am better off than so many others in society.
According to my parents and many other people I didn't need help. I was smart, a bit shy (later diagnosed ADHD/autism) but too lazy to put in the work. Sometimes when my procrastination caught up with me I'd finish an entire course worth of paperwork in the last few days before the deadline (or after.. you guys know how that works). This would reinforce the belief that it was indeed just laziness. I continued this habit in college. I procrastinated as long as humanly possible but in the end that resulted in burnout after 1 failed study (partly out of my control but did take a hit from that one) and 2 more unfinished ones. Now I'm 33. One year off from the example in the video but in that exact situation struggling to graduate. I found out it wasn't laziness. Everything seems to be working against you. I couldn't describe it better than the video I'm commenting on. You have to make the intellect robot punch itself in the face. To kill the ego and all the reinforcement that helped build it. Again and again until it can be built up in a way that it can stop dragging you down. I accepted help only after I got dragged into the doctor's office by my family. Don't know if I'd still be here had that not happened. I thought they couldn't help me. The point of psychological treatment is that only you can help yourself. That realisation has kept me from seeking help myself because I didn't believe I could. But it can help you help yourself. It won't be a perfect solution and it will be hard. But somewhat decent can be good enough until you find something better. As a closing statement I'll say that life gets lonely when you're just talking to yourself. Find people who will listen and it might help you on a path to recovery. I read a lot of comments in here and I hope you guys find your way out. Hang in there.
One more thing. Ignorance is a bliss. People with higher levels of intelligence and complicated personalities as result find much harder their intellectual and emotional needs met in life because their needs are much higher than average. For example intelligent people very often have much higher expectations of themselves and as result very often find harder to get satisfaction in life.
TLDR: Please do more of these! Everytime I listen to you talk about struggles with being a gifted kid, it's so calming because it's like someone opening up and reading off what happens inside of my brain. I wish I saw some of this stuff when I was younger because I fell into the exact patterns that you talked about in other videos after my raw intellect and last minute effort wasn't good enough in my senior year of high school where I got my first B+ in English, ruining my unweighted 4.0 even with AP and college credit classes. That, and a gaslighting ex girlfriend shattered my identity. Like you mentioned in this video, my identity was so malleable and I was so easily a target for gaslighting because I based my identity off of what people have told me commonly throughout my life. I did a lot of work to fix that, but I'm still kind of off. I'm finally going back to a cheaper college at 23 because I finally accepted that it's okay that I can't afford my dream school I got into. And I got diagnosed with ADHD after doing a bunch of research and assuming I have it, and the tips on that are helping, but please do more videos on this. It would be a blessing to many of use gifted adults to have something easily laid out to refer to to avoid a lot of harmful patterns and grow in other areas of our lives that we just haven't known how to work on.
I know I'm late, but i think as a gifted kid the solution is to create purposefully uncomfortable situations. I used to have this mindset, but i joined my schools cross country team in 9th grade, which as someone who had never run a day in their life, i was instantly always in situations that i was the worst at. Cross country is something that just didn't come easily and such i learned how to not be embarrassed by having to try more than others. I'm not saying that everyone should join a sport, but purposefully setting kids into things they truly have to work for is extremely beneficial.
I agree with your point on purposefully creating uncomfortable situations. Staying in your head applies to a lot of kids, especially gifted kids. These situations are necessary to pull them out of their heads to face reality. And me personally, I think cross country is perfect for that because I also know what it's like to realize that some things can't be attained with the IQ alone.
It doesn't always work, tho. It depends on how you're raised and what kind of issues you have. I do that to myself all the time, but it doesn't solve the main issue, cause I'm fine not being the best at something I never did before, my problem is that I *need* to show constant, linear, clear progress in line with how long I've been doing a thing to not feel like I'm stupid, useless and a lost case that should just die. So I'll be fine at first with anything new cause it's new, but as soon as my progress slows down even a bit and I start to not show clear progress every single time I practice it goes downhill. It's why I just can't seen to hold on to any hobby. Cause I can't do anything casually just for fun. I need to constantly improve towards a clear goal or I feel like shit.
I found out I enjoyed dancing in 10th grade. I kind of suck at it. But I realized most people really aren’t paying attention to me so I do it anyway. I like trying new things. Sometimes I’m good at them. Sometimes I suck but it’s still fun. Not sure if I was great on the study skills thing like he said though - grade school came very easily to me. But I managed to get through a postdoc so I guess I figured it out. I was ok with being a B+ student (at a school for gifted kids) and having a life. Ditto in college.
Being gifted or being pushed too hard by parents is as dangerous. When I was a kid my mother pushed me to be the best in everything, seriously. When I made small mistake I was yelled at, beaten...I had good grades though, but in summary, I was bullied at home and also at school due to my looks, poverty, behavior Fast forward several years and I'm 27, I don't know what to do in life, I still live at home. I work however and help covering bills, cooking meals, etc. Trying to constantly study something (with more or less success). Signed for CS degree which I will try following and accomplishing. Current economical situation doesn't help either. As I live in Poland, costs of living are high, if I'd have to rent small apartment I'd have to pay 75% of my salary or more. Employers don't want to give raise neither and when I apply for a new job, they will usually ignore my resume mostly because of salary expectations, in short - they expect you to know everything but for intern salary. Unless you emigrate or become top lawyer, programmer, be lucky to be born in wealthy family or meet proper people then you are fucked.
immigrating doesn't necessary solve problems. Renting in greater London, for instance, will set you back about as much relative to your salary. Renting in a smaller town will be better but there won't be jobs, unless you work remotely. But if you work remotely, you don't need to immigrate...
“We expect them to give up everything, because that’s what they have to do to change” 😅 This hit me hard! I realized I was struggling in life so I sold everything I own, moved into my car, and have been working to restart my identity. It’s hard to do and I keep hitting barriers that make me feel stuck. Love the content Dr. K, I’ll look into your coaching program.
Dr. K mentions early in the video that gifted kids don't need to study, which I agree with. I do think since No Child Left Behind passed in 2001, it's become easier to get through school without studying in the US, because the education system has been dumbed down to ensure high graduation rates, which are a benchmark used to determine a school's/district's funding for the next year. It's not just gifted kids who are going to college without having any experience studying anymore.
I can't put in words how great it feels to move in terms of accociating myself with the topic of the video from "yep, that's all about me" to "thankfully, some of the points do apply to me, but most of them don't. That means I'm doing something right (finally)". Right now that feeling comes only when I exercise, but I hope that it'll come when I study too, the feeling of "if I don't feel strained or exhausted - that means something's wrong and I didn't put in enough effort". I went with a friend of mine to an English speaking club (where I live English isn't the first language), and before I went there I might have had some kind of an expectation of an outcome, but it already wasn't solidified as much as 2 years ago when I graduated from school and declined the same invitation. When we went there, we kind of spent time with people, played some games, but when I came in I thought that people's connection (as a group) and language level are going both to be far beyond compared to what my skills are. I was tense at first but by the end of gathering I was leaving with a realisation that I didn't even "at least didn't do bad", I actually did good. I was praised by the guy who's around my age (mb few years older) and he asked about how I reached such level at my age. Sadly, I couldn't explain how. Expectation hasn't been fulfilled either, which feels strangely right. It's like "well, I might fail or embarass myself... (and there's a new addition appearing to this) but fuck it at least I'm gonna try and give it my all". I'm going to try to pass the exams for probably the only education that can be useful for me in my towns university and get in next year because 2 years ago I thought that there's no reason to continue to receive education for me (since I already have an occupation that brings me sufficient amount of money) and from my experience on relying on "theory" and "this won't work" if I continue to abstain from action it's only going to be much more miserable for me and I have had enough. To be honest, about the "party" thing never have I felt "pathetic". I just felt like this isn't the kind of community I can enjoy myself with.
Formerly gifted kid with ADHD here. In my 30s and still have to remind myself to adjust my attitude and go along with the "dumber" way sometimes, especially when with other people. But the result is relationships, loved ones, community, and gainful employment. It's worth it, but hard to do in the moment sometimes.
its harder to develop those other essential skills and experiences in life as adult to survive when all focus is just everyone pressuring for academic success.. its unfair for a kid... this happens in sports too, supposedly talented kids are ruined exact same way by excess focus and overtraining, preventing forming friendships and other important experiences related to that context. Im sad this aspect in culture is so dominant, coz it has no relation to society in large, ie wrong thing at wront time of life.
I am just shy of 53 years-old, and was tested and labeled as gifted in elementary school. I am 20 minutes into this video lecture and I am losing my mind listening to someone describe a great portion of my life's struggles, and the underlying causes. I'm blown away, also, by the comments I'm reading below this as I write. Never ask for help; I surely don't need it. Cognitive empathy? Absolutely. I don't think I "feel" like other people do except for very rare occasions. Alcohol. Fixed my problems, but created worse ones until I entered recovery. Anti-depressants, hormone therapy, meditation, therapists out the yang, so many jobs left or fired from because I can't relate to my coworkers, on and on... I think I might be "on the spectrum" as a "highly sensitive person". I am so glad to have had this video recommended to me and will like and subscribe for sure!
The thing that has fucked me up the most is my anticipation of the judgement of other people. Because I don't mind being "a fuck up." I'm not thrilled with it, but I know enough to know that isn't all that I am and I'm kind enough towards myself to give myself a break about it. I'm not out here celebrating being a gifted kid turned burn out, but at the same time it isn't the end of the world to me. And I'm alright with it. But even to this day I'm haunted by even small comments people made in passing. I remember 5 or 6 years ago being at a bowling alley with friends when someone I used to go to high school with stopped by the table and recognized me and asked how I've been, only to follow it up with "I always thought you were one of the smart kids." It isn't something I lose sleep at night over, but obviously it meant something to me if I can remember it. I don't even remember the guy's name but I remember the comment. The older I got, the more divorced my reality became from the expectations of those around me. And the more that happened, the more it made me want to separate myself from the others. To the point where I just went full-on hermit mode. Obviously those decisions have negative repercussions. It's just wild to consider the cascade of cause and effect hat led me down the path I chose. I recognize it's far from hopeless and it isn't the end of the world, but god damn was I not prepared for the weight of it all.
Every time Dr. K has a "gifted kids" video, I feel like he's been watching documentary footage from my life to do these talks... it's so helpful to hear a trained person break down some of the "whys" of my life. I feel like some of this topic today is covering in a more detailed way something that I've said about my own life before - I wish that I'd had less "paths forward" available to me in high school, rather than excelling/having an easy time in everything, as that would have helped me choose a fitting career path for myself and buckle down to succeed in college, rather than just flailing and flaming out because I had no direction and no study skills. Ugh... man, I wish I had access to this kind of information back then.
I was put in gifted programs since second grade and man let me tell you- this video AND THE COMMENTS are hitting home. I’m very recently getting into the improvement of my mental health and breaking my barriers, and analyses like this are really motivating. 💖🙏🏾
I just failed my 1st year of uni in engineering after procrastinating all year and a lot of things you said sound very true to me. I watched this video with my dad too and we really could see our relation as him being the advice giver but I keeping rejecting it too.
I’ve seen a lot of stuff on this subject- the gifted kid to burnt out adult pipeline. But I love how this video really went into depth as to why it happens so much. I am soooo so grateful that my parents did not overly praise my “giftedness.” I have been for a while now, and this video really reinforced that feeling. They focused much more on compassion, empathy, generosity, humility, and honesty. And even though they are very smart, they (mostly) lead by example in what they pride themselves in as well. I remember my dad being happy when he first found out I was gifted, but I nearly never heard my parents brag about my intelligence, and if so, it wasn’t ever in front of other people- my peers, nor my parents’ friends. They rarely compared me to other kids in that regard. But looking back I can see how my teachers’ reactions to my childhood intelligence gave me a little embarrassing ego for a time. I never wanted to make other kids feel bad or anything, but I certainly LOVED to show off whenever I got the chance, and I’d even create opportunities to show off. Not in front of the whole class, but just to the teacher. I’m talking about doing extra work I was never asked to do, just to show my teacher I knew something, as if it would give me extra credit. 😂 But all I wanted was for her to be impressed with me, at 7 years old! 😭 I don’t think I realized that’s why I was doing it at the time, but as soon as I turned that little paper in and she didn’t start singing my praises, I felt so dumb and embarrassed 😂 Anyways, I think my parents’ raising me helped counteract that a lot, and we are a very social family, and I had friends of all ages outside of school, so I didn’t get to maintain that feeling of superiority. Which meant my perceived value and self-confidence never rooted itself in being better than others in any way. That bit of perfectionism was definitely there for a while, but I desired straight A’s far more than my parents ever did, and I grew out of that eventually. And now I love trying new things, even when I’m terrible at them! I’m one of the least athletic people I know, but I’ll happily make a fool of myself because games are fun and I’ll act competitive even when I know I’m gonna lose at pickleball or whatever lol. And SOMETIMES, I even improve a little, but I enjoy myself either way. I’ve also never been afraid to ask questions, and I’m really grateful for that. I definitely struggled with learning to study though. Admittedly, I’m still horrible at it and dread it and hate it. I never had to until middle school, and I still just didn’t most of the time. Got by with B’s and a couple C’s, which I hated at first. But I just couldn’t apply myself, even when I went to college. Didn’t know why for a long time. But the giftedness + my adhd (undiagnosed until age 25) were definitely the main culprits. Actually, hearing about the “gifted kid to burnt out adult pipeline” began my journey to getting diagnosed with adhd lol! Speaking of which, I’d love a video on the overlap of neurodiverse and gifted people. I don’t usually like to talk about that fact that I was in a gifted class, for multiple reasons. Partly because it often brings up negative feelings for others (I’d say especially siblings of other gifted kids). And partly because I really do believe that most of what we did in my gifted class, all the other kids could have done. It was almost like Montessori learning. It was largely just hands on and doing more of what we enjoyed. Like we voted on which culture to study each year for social studies, instead of just learning the dates and locations of wars we couldn’t understand in the first place. I think all kids should be learning that way. And so many kids that weren’t there with us had strengths we didn’t have, but they didn’t get praised for those very often. I just think the school system as a whole is pretty imbalanced and messed us all up in different ways. It makes learning a competition in a way that affects our self worth for the rest of our lives sometimes.
How did this man describe me with a 99% accuracy, even I could not be this accurate when depicting myself to others. Thank you, very much, for these videos brother. You are helping more people than you could imagine
The cognitive empathy part really was a huge realization for me. I feel a lot of this gifted kid stuff hasn’t applied to me, as I have always had a huge motivation and fear of failure. I can really recognize the presence of cognitive empathy as a substitute to emotional empathy in my life.
I wish there was more representation for gifted kids who did bad in school due to pressure, disinterest, or mental/emotional related reasons. Sometimes I feel out of place because I decided to do bad in school. I gave up on it because everyone tied my identity to it when I did good, and I felt a strange sense of contempt when I did bad, but I remained intelligent far beyond my years at the time (now, it feels like I've regressed, partially because of piled-on trauma and stress), reading at a high school/college level in 4th grade, helping adults with things that their own similarly-intelligent adult friends couldn't figure out, figuring things out quickly, implementing solutions very quickly, and being included in intricate adult convos while still being very young. Whenever I *did* try in school, I could catch up even if I was months behind, but it always left me feeling much worse in the end. Come to think of it, I gravitated towards being around older people because my peers would become alienated by me more often than not (Something I still don't have an answer for today, and I'm certain it wasn't me being weird), leading to me being kicked out of friend groups and developing trust issues with people around my age. Also, treatment of teachers in school when I didn't live up to my prescribed identity of "smart kid" made me develop an emotional disdain for teachers in general (getting called out in front of the entire class because "you should be able to do this" still hits to this day lol), so anything I learn nowadays I have to teach myself, and it's been a struggle to approach the idea of going to college. Graduating from high school was a huge breath of fresh air for me, school went from a haven where I could learn a bunch of cool stuff to what felt like an emotional ball-and-chain.
I'm only at the mid point of the video but pretty much everything thus far is applicable to me. All the ego/intellect stuff, growing as a gifted kid, skipping on developing identity, etc. Even as I am listening through the topic, I am experiencing the same thoughts Dr. K is describing. It feels so ironic that I feel like a special case of a gifted kid because at multiple points in my life, I grew up with trauma and without my parents' protection and it messed my emotional mind up so much up until today, I can't help but feel like nothing is going to work for me. The help seeking/rejecting part is so fricking relatable because of this. I automatically, almost unconsciously reject so much help because I can't help but think nothing's gonna work and my only lifeline today is that I hope I can figure out the best for me in the future.
The hardest part for me rn (23F) is that I was told for so long, you’re gifted, you’re different, you’re smarter than everyone, etc. that when I started struggling or even got to middle school (diff gifted program than elementary school due to school district change), I was told I might not qualify or my IQ is not high enough and then I was consistently surrounded by “genius level” IQ gifted kids and compared to them when I didn’t perform. Or shamed for not learning/operating like a neurotypical person. So it just felt like no matter what I excelled in or succeeded in and the little changes that I was able to manage, were not deemed enough and therefore not praised, thus not being reinforced and not remaining consistent. And if the change stopped being consistent, then the cycle restarted. Going for an evaluation for ADHD later today, or just any evaluation to figure out if there is something I had learned to mask/cope with as a kid, or if there is anything I can be offered as an option or opportunity to function better in my adult life.
I was considered a "gifted kid" throughout all my years in elementary, but I kept going with the mindset that I'm just as smart as everyone else if not less, since I really underplayed my intellect. It's helped me a lot in the long run, but hurt me in terms of my self esteem
I am gifted and autistic (diagnosed at 20, now 21). I got in first place at my state’s Federal University in the most disputed major (Medicine) while studying just 2 months before my country’s SAT-equivalent. Aaaand I’ve failed twice ever since. Lol. Med school is tough and, same as the profession, demands an amount of effort that I’m simply not used to making on a daily basis. My obvious answers were avoidance and procrastination. I’m ever more aware of my shortcomings though, and I hope that next semester will be different. I don’t mind failing a subject again, I just want to stop sabotaging myself and start getting used to the amount of effort (and subsequent suffering) that comes with living an adult life with responsibilities. This video was great btw. Having such an inquisitive and stubborn brain, it’s nice to hear some facts about giftedness from someone other than my psychologist. Watching this just 2 days ago made me realize that I really gotta let go of the “life should be easy for me” mentality. And for that I thank you deeply.
Hi Dr K, I've been following you and lurking for a while, but only yesterday have I started to kinda binge-watch your stuff... and I've struck freaking gold. As an ex-gifted kid, I have learnt far more in a couple of videos of yours than after years of reading and watching other material on the topic. I never had the tools to get it right back when I was a kid, so I was set up to fail. I was constantly underchallenged at school, so I coasted. To make matters worse, I grew up in a dysfunctional household where I was abused and emotionally neglected. Nobody instillled discipline in me or taught me anything on time management or how to study. Now that I'm doing my master's I'm paying a high price for this. All my life I've felt that I'm inadequate or a loser, which I used to compensate with delusions of grandeur and addictions. I've been starting to fear that maybe I'm doomed to fail. Now I know what this is all about. You being an ex-gifted kid as well, I get the feeling that you understand me in an uncanny way and that I can finally turn my life around. That I can stop being so hard on myself and accept myself for who I am. That it's possible to enjoy life and at the same time make great progress in whatever I set my mind to. I'm in awe of your work and, what's more, of the person I see in you. I think you're nothing short of amazing. I feel deeply indebted to you. What a world this would be with more people with your empathy. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Much love to you and everyone watching this.
@@sp123 I agree. The thing is that I've always disregarded my achievements, telling to myself they were "the least I should've done". As I used to say, every win was a tie. Only after I had a phone call with a close friend a couple weeks ago did I realise how wrong I was and started gaining a more realistic perspective on this.
@@manuelriveros2911 you have to understand that success is more generational than anything else. Most people who are doing better than you probably had parents who set them up to succeed from the beginning. Everyone wants to talk about hard work, but fail to mention that most doctors come from families with doctors, most pro athletes come from families with pro athletes, etc. I was told years ago that it takes two generations to form a career and the older I get the more I realize its more true for successful people than not.
@@sp123 Interesting. I come from Argentina. My mum was he first one in the family to attend university. She's an attorney. As for me, I won a full scholarship for my bachelor's in Italy. I was the only in the family to emigrate and have been living in Europe since mid 2014. I have only realised thanks to my friend and my therapist (and Dr K and you) that I've been close to making the best out of my situation, all things considered. It was never enough, nothing was ever enough. I'll never forget when my psychiatrist at that time told me that he was amazed I was this normal (I was 19, now I'm 31). That many people would have been far more damaged in that household and that showed how strong I am mentally. I shouldn't forget that I've come a long way and that I always can make it better. People like you guys help more than you may think. Thanks a lot for your encouragement and support. Appreciate it, I really do.
This describes me to a t, on how I've experienced life so far. Through Highschool was easy, then college came alone, where I failed pretty quickly due to just a lack of ability to study how I was told to just do, as explained in this vod. I've finally made the step to start college again, but am still afraid of failing and wasting the time and money on it. I don't know if it'll work out, but the biggest issue I've had is not knowing how to explain the issue without sounding super egotistical and/or narcissistic. It's always just "I just want someone to properly understand the issue I experience on a daily basis" as I think that a person can't help as they don't understand, as they will probably tell me the same as everyone else has before them. I find this video more as a reference to give someone to try to get the help I think I need. (I'd like to add, that a thought popped into my head as I finished typing this. It isn't help I need, its understanding that I desire. Plenty of people probably understand the issue I experience, but for me to get by it I feel it needs to be someone close to me in some way or another.) I bet that rant is just a logical part of my brain being like "okay time to think this out".
This one did hit home for me. I’ll be using those tools in the future for sure. Thank you so much for having created this platform and giving so much support to so many people.
I was also born 'gifted'. In elementary i didnt do any of my homework but would ace all my tests and assignments. Then i hit the wall in 7th grade due to my mom's depression (this affected my mental health a lot and now im considering trying to get a diagnosis for persistent depressive disorder). in middle school i would start relatively high and decline in grades as I developed an addiction to video games and youtube. I thought that i could go on like i did in elementary, but instead became negligent of school and my own body. It felt like everybody had been lying to me about myself. Like i was never smart, but they told me that so i could fall into this dark place. at that point, my only identity was 'the golden child'. always kind, empathetic, intelligent, perfect... now i were nothing. Im in high school now, studying art and architecture and im doing decent at school. Ive given up on getting As everytime. im happy to get a B or C. No matter how my parents hate it, I wont care anymore. that the only way I can live now
this video hits home hard. Because of my "giftedness" life is incredibly hard. I think my autism also influences it, but the main thing is that i can see how things will turn out, better than other people. I generally don't talk much about this, because I don't wanna sound like I brag, or make other people uncomfortable because they struggle with things I find second nature. I don't have friends around me, they all are working and far away from me. I am in a university degree that I was coaxed by my family, stayed because i found it easy, and gave me time to work on myself and my hobbies instead. Now things are hard and I don't have neither the organizational skills or the time to invest in nothing in my life.
@@gabrielfoleiss I am still fighting, I guess. I do everything badly. I think a lot about what i can do. I try to stay away from social media(the only I use is youtube) and electronics as much as I can to find time to think about a way out. I stay on this shitty degree. I try to go to events and find people. Even though I hate change, I try as much as I can to put healthy changes in my life. Even though I would like to do things in a better way, i still do them badly. my motto is "doing the best in preparation for my deathbed". The day I die , at least I can get peace by knowing that I did something. That is the sole thought that gives me some solace.
You are not alone and, your problems are mostly related to disconnect between your inner drive and path you forced to tread. This is sure way to get depressed. Life with out purpose and emotional and intellectual satisfaction is nothing but very slow and painful dying.
I swear we're living the same life... The great thing is that you're still trying... Even though you don't like those efforts, they're still efforts... Somewhere last year I stopped trying... Dark times... Didn't realize I did till November... Till this day I'm still trying to fix my relationship with effort... Every effort I make needs an internal motivational speech... I hate it here
I could be wrong but I think prolonged periods of working on things which does not resonate with you leads to low levels of dopamine and over time it makes everything difficult and pointless even thing which before were giving you satisfaction.
I really resonated with this video and the interview you did last video. I didn't even realize at the time but you're completely right, succeeding at something you aren't good at actually brings you joy. I didn't care much when I got into a top uni in my state, but when I was trying to make a rap beat and made something that didn't sound completely trash I started getting super hyped.
Personally, it took having a massive ego death over the period of ending high school and starting college for me to finally start looking inward and trying to change. Granted, I think most of the change I go through is fueled cognitively, my willingness to change and try new things was spurred by an intense emotional response. Also, the Help Seeking and Help Rejecting portion REALLY hit me. I still find myself doing this, and I'm fortunate that I have a small group of people put up with it and actually show me that they did think of this, or they did think of that, and that the advice they're giving is actually good. What a great lecture.
This is describing my life!!! Labeled gifted by 2nd Grade and out in a program called P.A.L. from 2nd-6th, I then entered into Honors level classes from 7th-12th. I also had undiagnosed Bipolar Disorder, C-PTSD, Generalized Anxiety and trauma-induced ADHD to contend with. In doing trauma work I can identify a lot of my learned behaviors as coping mechanisms, but I knew I was considered “overly sensitive” before the age of 5. I kept wondering if something traumatic happened before that age that I just can’t remember, but this makes total sense. I feel deeper than most people and have an inability to regulate my emotions. I also identify with most things coming easily but have a weakness in one subject. Mine was math. From long division in the 3rd Grade with a bad teacher on, I struggled with and feared math. It didn’t help I had a dad who could lean over my shoulder and easily identify what I had done wrong with an algebra problem I’d been working in for a half an hour. Lots of 😭. I ended up staying in Honors math through the 11th grade where I stopped with Pre-Calc. I didn’t need a math credit my Senior year and I sure as hell wasn’t going to put myself through an AP Calc class for nothing! I never learned how to do a proof In Geometry, Physics was a joke, yet I somehow managed to pass these classes with a C. I was an A, sometimes B student otherwise. I just managed to fake my way through it somehow. I also credit being in the Honors Classes with other “smart kids” being the reason I passed at all. In my small school Honors students were basically the same 25 out of 92 in the same classes together. If I had been in the “regular” classes with kids who didn’t strive as hard as I did to help me along, I would have failed. I will also say, the shame gap is real with me.
that's where I think a lot of this comes from. I don't think we naturally go towards only what's easy, I think we go there to numb ourselves... that was how it was for me anyway
So I've gone through all you've said. I had actually due to traumatic experiences of failing a lot realized myself that I needed to let go of my identity. And I did it and it hurt like hell. I think it was kinda traumatic. But whatever, it was for the better as I did indeed pull my life together. But now I feel stuck again. I got through university and now I have a stable job. But I feel stuck again. I have a small group of friends, one I hang out with virtually every week, I go to the gym, and I play video games. That is all I do outside of work. Some part of me feels satisfied by this, but another part of me feels like I am letting my life go and not doing anything and I'll regret it. But I don't do anything. I can't ever seem to feel satisfied. Or well I can't seem to feel like I am enough. It's all a mess and I don't know what to do.
I think that I count as a gifted kid, and everything I've ever had came in ease for me. School was a breeze before highschool (which I am in now), I was even able to learn English almost fluently with a bit of help from my grandmother. But these last two years, since I was 14-15, it all came crushing down. This is setting me in a state of deep depression I think, and it is hard to say that it's hard for me now. And I don't want to get help so my parents won't worry about me, but I know that I need it.
hello, six month later if im allowed asking how is your life? im in your position right now. im 13 and havent been to school for half a year because depression. i just found out that im what society calls "Gifted kid" and my life havent been worse.
Things have changed a lot. I was under a lot of stress at the time I found this video as well, which had my condition even worse. I didn't speak to anyone about it, which was a giant mistake. With a lot of this stress off of me and being away from a few people, my mental health improved a lot. My social situation not so much. I hope your's will improve as well! If you aren't doing so already I'd encourage you to both talk about all that you feel right now with someone that you trust, or even seek professional help if you think it's what you prefer. Sending all the love and hope to you!
Me "fixing" my problems: 1. spend 12 hours a day consuming information for years at a time 2. form my own conclusion which I trust because it made it :) 3. go to therapy because all the information said so 4. present my conclusion to my therapist while internally knowing that it is wrong but not knowing how to talk about the problem any other way 5. therapist agrees because the information I present to them is tailored around my conclusion 6. feel dissatisfied with the help and continue to form my own conclusions but now I feel more alienated 7. end therapy, isolate myself because that is all that is familiar to me and feel even more certain that only I can help myself 8. realize that I need help and do it all again
I feel like if I ever go to therapy, I'm gonna end up the same way. Hyperintellectualize may through the conversation and not recei ve any real help because I'm afraid of what I'll find
@@tmnic6971 I think you are probably right about that. I still think it is worth going to therapy with the awareness that you are hyper intellectualizing in mind. After finding this community a few months ago I feel like I have grown more than I ever did in therapy. I know that eventually I will hit the end of the line with youtube videos and streams, though. I actually started therapy again this week and first session I dumped my conclusions and such lol. I see it as me getting most of my help from this community but I might as well get therapy at the same time. If the day ever comes that Dr. K videos stop helping me it will be really nice to have a therapist there that already knows you. Plus I think with the recent breakthroughs I have had from these videos, I am way more aware of what my mind is trying to do when it comes to staying in control and protecting itself.
@@TheSonicSpud yea I'm definitely open to getting therapy in the future. Reading your comment helped me realize that I would probably come to therapy with a conclusion already formed and it wouldn't help me so if I ever do go to therapy, I would try to come in without any pre-conceived notions of what therapy is supposed to be like
Why do people fall down? It's so they can get back up again. Normally when people have problems, they usually talk about them with friends or any close ones. Therapy tend to be a last solution, unfortunately, most therapies don't give any significant result and may even end up with you having medications prescribed for something that could in reality be solved differently. You would probably like therapy sessions to be like how it's portrayed in the manwha "Dr. Frost", unfortunately, fiction is fiction and reality is reality, people are usually motivated by money rather than the solution. It could be a good for you to read Dr. Frost and then reflect on what you consider your own problems and the solutions towards them, as the great Captain Jack Sparrow once said, the problem isn't the problem, the problem is your attitude towards the problem.
I feel like I lucked out, and between my parents and some good support, I ended up leveling up my Wisdom almost as much as my Intelligence, so I kind of managed to figure out how to work around the issues I had with studying habits and whatnot. I also feel like I'm JUST smart enough that schooling mostly came too easy, but also not so smart that I didn't ever encounter situations where I had to be like "Ok, I'll have to actually buckle down and put some work into this." Like, I think I'm not actually gifted level, just well above average.
I feel like I started out as a gifted kid, but then didn't develop cognitively fast as the others later on. So it all is even now. I'm average but used to stand out. Weird but ig I'm glad. The change is drastic tho. I used to have problems with friendships and was pretty lonely, now it's not that big of an issue anymore. (sorry for my bad English)
I have figured out a lot of these things on my own and the further I went into this video, the more you hit every nail on the head. I am speechless and I'm writing this as I'm about 1/4 into the video. Couldn't have been more grateful for finding this channel. Thank you for everything you are, if you ever get to see this comment.
Thank you so much for this. The medititation session at the end made me cry. Not a sad cry; but a grateful cry. It was the first time I felt like I have the strength needed to confront the hurt that I've been scared of for so long. My fear is like a curtain wrapped around me and your lessons help open my mind and loosen it. Thank you for this enlightment and for helping me and so many others.
I actually have learned to deal with this challenges with two key phrases: "Embrace the feeling of being uncomfortable" If you get used to the feeling of being uncomfortable, new experiences won't be as daunting anymore. You start embracing being bad at things and learn to acknowledge that being bad at things doesn't imminently make you a bad person. "You are not that important" what I mean by that is nobody cares if you were a gifted kid. Nobody cares if you need longer to study, literally everyone is on their trip and way to busy with themselves.
"being bad at things doesn't imminently make you a bad person", you know why it's hard for gifted kids to do that? Because if they embrace that, that also means the opposite is true as well: being good at something naturally doesn't imminently make them a good person.
I feel like no good ever came from thinking “I’m smart.” Nobody will deny that it’s good to feel capable, but that capacity always comes from practice (in some form or another). Granted, some people *are* smarter than others, but nobody wins their first game of Go, especially against a strong opponent. Rather than pacifying yourself by thinking “I’m smart,” actively strive to become capable. When you succeed, then it will mean you weren’t so dumb as to preclude success-and that’s all the “smarts” you actually need, anyways.
I disagree. One of the best things I did was start owning my intelligence. Most of my life I've been a high IQ square peg being malleted into a normal IQ round hole. And one day I got tired of it and started telling normal IQ people to buzz off. And frankly, it was the best thing...because high IQ people have life strategies that are definitively superior to the life strategies of normal IQ people, and this is evidenced by the fact that there is a positive correlation between intelligence and virtually every positive life outcome, and a negative correlation between intelligence and virtually every negative life outcome. Intelligent people have superior life strategies! The evidence strongly suggests this. The only problem is that society is set up for the normal IQ people, sees their overly-emotive way of navigating life to be the "normal" and "well adjusted" way, and so tries to force high IQ people into that strategy. Contrary to Dr. K's claims, there is a negative correlation between emotional problems like alexithymia and intelligence, and positive correlation between empathy and intelligence. He's just wrong in the idea that high IQ brings about these problems, and so is society. The issue is society trying to force high IQ people into an average IQ life strategy. High IQ people, having superior life strategies, need to lean MORE into their intelligence, not less, and stop catering to what average IQ people are doing, because they're just wrong about everything. When I finally started doing this: telling normal IQ people they're wrong and I'm not going to listen to them...my life drastically improved. Yup, it's rough having to figure out everything myself, as I can't lean on anyone else. It's lonely sometimes too. Yup! That's true. But my income doubled, my mental health drastically improved, I'm way more independent, and I'm far more useful to myself and others. TL;DR: High IQ people need to stop trying to adjust themselves to the flawed life strategies of normal IQ people. Instead, claim your independence, figure it all out yourself, and stop listening to your intellectual inferiors and their overly-emotive way of navigating life. All the evidence suggests that you're right, they're wrong, and they have way more emotional problems then you do.
@@saintsword23 *than you do. Is English your native language? Would you please give an example of a "high IQ life strategy" as distinct from a "normal IQ life strategy"? A strong example seems rhetorically necessary, since what you've said could just as easily reflect an embittered and antisocial narcissist's copium as it could a very stable genius' wise insight--about which (purely statistically speaking) I should be somewhat skeptical.
@@alexandersanchez9138 I will if you agree to engage me seriously rather than finding petty typos and calling me a narcissist. This isn't narcissism, it's the result of going through three decades thinking I was the problem until I laid out the facts. The fact is that BY DEFINITION, high IQ people are cognitively superior to average IQ people. As a result, they come out better in virtually every measurement of life outcomes. That's just a fact. Here's another fact: Dr. K is completely wrong about the issues high IQ people face. A quick search of the academic literature reveals that there is a significant negative correlation between intelligence and alexithymia (source at the end), and alexithymia is his own example. "Narcissism" is always the first charge intelligent people get hit with when recognizing the gulf between them and normal people. But just look at the facts. I thought I was the problem for 30 years until I just looked at facts. Normal people are the ones with bruised egos about this issue, not the intelligent. I'll eagerly engage further upon agreement of more civilized behavior going forward. Reference Connolly HL, Young AW, Lewis GJ. Consistent evidence of a link between Alexithymia and general intelligence. Cogn Emot. 2020 Dec;34(8):1621-1631. doi: 10.1080/02699931.2020.1789850.
@@saintsword23 My bad, friend. I merely intended to provide some constructive criticism which I earnestly expected you to receive with humility, grace, and appreciation since all people (including high IQ people) make mistakes; I certainly didn't want you to feel disrespected or even attacked over a silly typo or a rhetorical blunder (however glaring or ubiquitous). Let it be known, hereby and henceforth, that I, Alexander Sanchez, shall engage santsworld23 with all of the respect, civility, and dignity befitting this hallowed forum--and this profoundly serious and consequential topic! I apologize for my previous transgressions and assure you that they WILL NOT be repeated at any point in our subsequent correspondence. I look forward, with eager anticipation, to a brighter future for us both if only you choose to accept my apology and my word at its face. Nice. With that out of the way, I maintain my request for an example of: 1) A decision problem that occurs in life, 2) A policy that is "normal IQ" 3) A policy that is "high IQ" 4) An argument that the "high IQ" strategy is superior to the "normal IQ" one. I feel like supplying such an example will greatly improve the rhetorical structure of your argument by grounding your claims and ameliorating their a priori potentially nebulous/impredicative character. For the record, I am not currently challenging--nor have I challenged at any point in the past--your claim that Dr. K is wrong about alexithymia and IQ. In my estimation, even raising the issue now would be premature as I still have yet to grok your concept of "life strategies".
I wouldn't call myself "gifted", but I've always been one of the "smart kids" at school and I relate so much to rejecting help, for like a month I'd ask chatgpt for help and then rage quit when it forgot half of the variables I told it to account for lol
Wow, this is really contextuallizing for me why I am the way I am... I was a gifted kid who grew up with a lot of traumatic situations and a mother who was abusive on every level. THe lack of emotional connection and nurturing I grew up with caused me to have to depend quite a bit on my intellect to get through. Here I am at 46, still longing and learning about my emotions and others. I have lived my life through mental constructs, creating and believing in what made sense and what would protect me from a volatile mother. Letting go of her and the rest of my family has allowed me to step back from the constructs and see what my life is, what life is... and I am griefstricken for all that has been lost. I've been cleaning buildings for over 25 years, alone. I have one good friend who is deeply mentally ill and often isolated/dissociated. I do have 2 great kids, but they have their own lives, thank god. As one crappy, child molesting uncle put it, "You had so much potential," while shaking his head. The odds were stacked against me. I realize I'm not done, but many days I really struggle to go on.
I think my parents (mainly my mom) thought I was gifted. They took notice to my neighbor's son's tract of being good at math and then going to school to become an engineer. So they saw how I was good at math and science, and pounded it into my head that I needed to become an engineer before I even knew what they did for a living. My entire college career was a struggle due to the inability to study. I graduate and struggle finding a job because I'd beat myself up for having a 2.5 GPA. Eventually I find a good engineering job and move about 300 miles from my parents and family and it's been that way for about 20 years now. Fast forward to now...my parents neighbor's son (who is probably 48 now) moved BACK into his elderly parents house next to my parents, and is retired. He does nothing and goes nowhere and buys nothing. Has like no friends (except online gaming friends). He only plays video games and that's it. Buying a case of motor oil for his 10,000 mile 4th Gen 4Runner is "a lot of money" to him. I feel so scammed when I think about it because my parents emulated that guy's career path for me without even knowing what engineering was about, let knowing without know that there is a certain population of engineers that save 95% of their income and have no life at all in order of having this goal of retiring before age 50 to do nothing more than sit at home.
My relative is a retired, and wealthy Engineer. He's got a busy family life, and hobbies that stimulate his mind, and keep him active. It's all about personality, and effort. 👍
I can relate to this so strongly... I grew up in poverty and messed up family. Despite my family not being able to afford math textbooks, I have somehow picked up mathematics quickly and effortlessly without studying at home. I even got sent to a math competition where I scored 3rd place in my region without doing any serious work. I was emotionally stunted, still am to some degree, so all I had was my strong math and science grades, that is all that kept me from feeling like complete loser at school. At age of 16 I have been struck by a combination of unfortunate events, and due to lack of support, not being able to ask anyone for help, my grades suffered. The material taught got more complex, it was not possible for me to just figure it out on my own. My attendance rate was about 30%, I barely passed high school. I went to some shit university to study non-stem subject as a way of escaping my family. At least there I tried, I really tried to fix my poor work ethic and graduated with very high grade, but that degree is not going to get me anywhere. It was just 3 years of a pleasure island, escape from shit reality. But of course nothing is free, so now I am paying the price of essentially wasting 3 years of my life. Now I'm trying my best to work hard every day and learn programming in my spare time. I believe this is my last chance to make some use of my 'intellect'. However it is getting hard to believe that you are gifted or intelligent when you are working a minimum wage dead end job at 24.
Hey BW 24 is still very young & I'm glad you have been able to have that experience at university! Clearly you have the know-how and will to get somewhere, and you showed it in college. If you go at it and put the time and effort in, you can be a make a living as a programmer or something else soon!! (I'm 24 too, and more and more I realise how little experience I have and how much I still can learn from others)
Totally not gifted, but everything still applies to me too. Everyone has one thing, he likes most or is just better at than all the other things. You don't need to start with an unbalanced attribute distribution to become a one-trick pony and/or a master procrastinator.
Was looking for the "not gifted but still applies" comment and wasn't disappointed 😂 I think for some people it simply comes from the general fear of making failures that may or may not have been drilled in in some form or another early on
I think my experience growing up through school was not having to try or put effort into anything. Teachers and family praised me , and I believe that definitely led to an ego being built. When it got to my middle and high school years, I didn't study instead during the lectures I would do the work before it finished as well as the hw. I remember in middle school me and my friend would do all our work during class early and then leave the class to play chess in the library or tech lab (our tech teacher made us a 3d printed chess set). Going into high school rather than do my work in class I started to procrastinate and going into my junior and senior years I stopped going to classes. Even now in college I get and understand things easier than my peers but rather than knowing more than them im behind simply because I don't invest any time into even looking at material instead I just wing tests and assignments. Maybe not pertaining to this video my motivation to do stuff has crashed where I know what I want to do to improve myself but I just procrastinate.
Watching this, I'm glad that I was a very sickly gifted kid. I missed A LOT of school and had to teach myself from books and by testing myself. My mom had severe long-term mental illness and my dad had to work long hours, so it was all on me. I didn't want to let them down--it would have made everything worse. I was also very worried and lonely as a child, which probably helped me be more conscientious. I wonder if girls and boys have different experiences with giftedness. I wanted to care for my mom, for example, and I felt I needed to make her proud to help her be healthy.
Oh my god, this is so sad. Sounds like you had to go through parentification, i.d. had to be a parent for your actual parents. I was a sickly gifted girl, too
![PASULOL รามเกียรติ์ ตอนที่ 4 นนทกพบรัก [Ramakien Ep.4: Nonthok in love]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/tMUQgmZzf_A/mqdefault.jpg)
1. Skip the tutorial.
2. Literally skill trough the whole game because you never knew you could upgrade your gear to deal more damage and recieve less.
3. Eventually boss takes so many hits and kills you in one hit that you feel like the game is unfair.
4. Leave the game entirely thinking it is unbalanced. While in reality you were playing on a self-imposed nightmare difficulty, because you never knew you were supposed to upgrade your gear, let alone that it is possible.
That's a spot on analogy. But you forgot the "drive for uber" or "work at Quiznos" bit
ELDEN RING
I just keep investing time gathering experience and upgrading my overall skills
This- senior year of high school and everyone else is doing it no problem, meanwhile I can’t find the value in even a GED :/
Wow! Love your analogy!
I was called "gifted" all throughout my entire childhood. Was a very fast learner, excelled in several subjects, frequently praised and commended by teachers... yet here I am, 30 years old making a living as an uber/delivery driver.. I had the tools, but absolutely no idea or guidance on how to use them properly. I feel so unprepared and ill-equipped to survive in this world that it honestly hurts to think about..
Edit: Thanks for the feedback everyone. Not trying to play victim or elicit any pity. Just being honest, in case anyone out there can relate.
I feel you so much bro!
This is because college was boring and you couldn’t concentrate to get it done? Or Do you lose interest? Or you could not afford college? What’s the reason? Maybe you change your mind every day?
@@florencia2771 The prospect of going to college and falling dozens of thousands of dollars into student loan debt isn't exactly a viable life path for everyone
@@rand0m742 that's only in the US. In many countries you can go to college nearly tuition free provided that you pass an entrance exam. I barely had to pay a penny other than lunch and minor expenses during my 4 years of my engineering degree
IT, buddy. It's hard work and constant learning, but Uber pays enough to get A+ and Net+ certified and get a ~$20/hr entry level job in the a/c. I just pivoted into IT and am loving it.
My biggest hard lesson to learn myself was that we never learned how to ask for help, or even that help was available when you ask. We never needed help so we didn't learn how or when to ask.
It gets more hardcore when you grew up in unstable household and your parents don't give a fok about your needs especially the emotional one.
@@dromdart3563 sad that this is actually what im going through right now, whenever I muster up the courage to ask for help I tend to compromise myself by offering like doing their homework just to ease the burden of me asking for help
Flunked my first year of university because of this. Two years later I am finally getting good study habits and a salvageable gpa at a smaller and more manageable community college. I still recognize I have problems talked about in this but I am getting there :/
@@johnsmith-mo6kz I barely scrapped by my 3rd and 4th year Uni, but my self image was compromised for near a decade after. I failed my first class in 3rd year, grades overall suffered. I didn't even realize how soul crushing an experience that was until many many years later
For me, it felt like help wasn't just never offered, but just flat out refused.
Even if I ask for help. They just assume I'm being lazy, BECAUSE I am smart.
"You can do this on your own."
"Stop being lazy and making excuses, you can do this on your own."
"You're smart and talented. You can figure it out on your own."
"You've done well on your own so far. You don't need help."
Hi, I'm a 45 year old gifted kid who failed at life and never amounted to anything. I'm graduating from an online tech school today, after messing up in college 4 times. I didn't tell anyone. Thanks for explaining why. ❤
I’m an elder millennial who was a gifted kid. Got my bachelors degree in my 30s but still work at a job where I can be replaced by a high schooler. I know I can do better but I’m frozen. You’re not alone.
Congratulations on your graduation!!
How are you gifted then
@@fairlind EQ dosent have a big impact on acedamics unlike IQ. iS thAt A haRD CoNcEpt fOr yoU?
@@epicroblox8639 So you haven’t bothered to watch the video? EQ has a tremendous impact on performance of every kind.
As a gifted kid, I have an absolute fear of failure. It makes my skin crawl. Therefore, growing up, I didn’t do any sports or extracurricular activities because “I suck at physical stuff.” Due to myself being gifted, I struggle to also show emotion. This video is the closest anyone’s gotten to understanding me, including myself. So, thank you so very much for clearing the fog. 🙏
100% agree
it hurts how relatable this is
People often say that it's okay to fail. I just laugh at that. I cannot internalize this idea.
@@wilfreddvit's hard to convince yourself about that. It doesn't feel okay to fail because we feel people's expectations for us and we're paralyzed by fear of having to handle their assumed disappointment.
To be able to go past that you kinda need to be more selfish and think of your life like it's only yours and noone has the right to place their imaginary expectations on your shoulders. You don't owe anyone a success. You don't even owe it to yourself. A life isn't for ticking checkboxes, it's your time, your energy, your feelings and emotions. And life happens whether you like it or not. Not ending up on the path you wanted for yourself is not the end of the world. Your priorities might have shifted, your circumstances might have not been optimal, it's okay that you are not where you assumed you're gonna be. Just do stuff based on the present, not the future you imagined in the past.
Yes it is not easy. It's a struggle to keep this mindset. But try remembering that and it might get at least a little bit easier.
I had that with social stuff as well. "I just don't like socializing.". But I suspended my disbelief and grinded it out hard. Now I'm social and very happy with it!
In my experience, many gifted students I know have either had learning disabilities or behavioural issues. This explains many students like them "learn differently". Now add raised expectations and they're under an immense amount of pressure, sometimes without the knowledge or resources to deal with their shortcomings. I know many parents of gifted kids whose children are likely on the spectrum, but they refused to get them diagnosed as if it would be an admission of weakness 😔
A lot of times, it's as simple as "Oh, this guy is a fucking genius, I don't have to tell him *anything* or communicate with him at all and things will just go well anyways"
i’m a ‘gifted kid’ and my teachers told my mom they thought i had adhd and my mom just said “every kid is hyperactive”
@@YuYingL4388 mñp la lñll
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Lol
I was a gifted kid. I later learned that I am autistic and have dyscalculia.
Well said.
There is another serious problem. Gifted kids can be intensely unsatisfied with surface level understanding. If a teacher lacks a deeper grasp of a subject and can't answer the right questions, then "learning" itself starts to feel futile. Authority figures designated to help you gain knowledge and comprehension can themselves become the bottleneck of intellectual development. It gets worse if parents also cannot field enough questions and the constant curiosity accidentally becomes a probe of limitations that finds the edge. This leads to an isolation bordering on desolation.
Sincerely, a 44-year old "gifted kid" who started school at "5y+1day" and crashed and burned in college, and got my PhD at 41.
I went through that a lot.
Feeling like the teachers couldn’t give me a deeper understanding
Same, same. But MSc. at 49. Unlikely to get a PhD. due to time and money, because of basically all the things Dr. K said :-/
YES.
Hard relate, teaching can be such an obstacle
Takeaways:
→ Gifted kid complex is resistant to change.
→ Over usage of IQ to get ahead in life leads to under development in other areas (emotional, interpersonal, …) .
→ Emotion and intellect are the greatest contributors to change.
→ It leads to avoidance of experiences with failure and effortful success.
→ Much harder to control cognitive bias.
→ They are help seeking and help rejecting.
→ There is no perfect formula for most scenarios in life.
→ Hardest part to do is giving up your identity of who you are.
→ Challenge your assumptions.
→ Don’t use theory as a substitute for experience.
Jajajja la historia de mi vida, un asco.
@@ry.0 Vale.
Thank you
imma print this shit out rn
I wish I could scream these words into the ears of teenage me, but, knowing myself, I know I wouldn't listen 😂
The main difficulty is not in the self-awareness, it is in the self-confidence and self-compassion needed to actually recover after the self-identity falls apart.
Totally
Gives the bpd!! Especially if we have problem upbringing or chaotic..
Holy fuck. This nails it so hard. I have the complete inability to be compassionate to myself. Because of this I am highly neurotic and even being kind to myself feels fake.
@@alejandrocespedes1544 You may want to try using your thinking to 'coach' yourself as if you were a child. Treat yourself with respect and compassion. Encourage yourself to try your best and learn from your mistakes. This helped me dramatically, hopefully it will help you as well. And maybe try looking at new endeavours as experiments and try to be curious of the result
Wow. I feel like my whole life suddenly makes sense.
I have three things to add here, from my own experience:
1. Growing up, I was always expected to be the smartest kid in the class, in every subject. But as we go through life, we invariably encounter someone who is more gifted than we are, at least at some things. And we invariably encounter some subject that doesn't come effortlessly to us, and beat ourselves up over it, because being 'smart' means we're supposed to be good at everything.
2. I was actively discouraged (almost forbidden?) from 'wasting my time' on anything I couldn't be 'the best' at from the very beginning. As in, if you can't be better than Michelangelo, there's absolutely no use in pursuing anything creative. If you can't top Beethoven, there's no point in taking music. Better stick to those things you already KNOW you can excel at, and leave the rest alone. Because how would it look if you weren't exceptional?
3. Sometimes when a 'smart' kid asks for help, the response is 'You're a smart kid. You figure it out.' Even from teachers.
I never did get the hang of studying. At 60, I still avoid things I'm not sure I can effortlessly succeed at, at least until they are no longer avoidable. I've had to teach myself a lot of things over the years, as the world changes so quickly. And I've learned to accept that there are some things I'm just never going to be good at, and that sometimes adequate is enough to get by on until I can pay someone with the talent to do it well.
Life, man. What a ride! 😂
I agree with avoiding things I’m not good at.
Also, I got divorced in early 40s. While I got my PhD, I raised kids and worked with husband in a small business. The business is not around anymore. So, no “real” work experience, no income for 14 years. I was newly employed when divorce happened. Decent salary, but nowhere near our combined income from the business. MY OWN LAWYER told me not to ask for alimony and forced me to take 50% child support because “you can support yourself.” That job was temporary and it vanished when my Ex started a business with my former boss. I’m perfectly capable of doing many high paying jobs, but I’ve found no one helps me in the job market because they think I don’t need help. And no one will hire a middle aged female PhD: I’m higher educated and they feel scared. So I just got a “better” job after 11 years of minimum wage, not for lack of looking. Savings are long gone.
Because 2 powerful lawyers and a judge thought I was so smart I would have “no problem “, I was out $1,000s+++ and was living below poverty until this year.
@@drkarenswrld I wonder if there's some kind of generational cycle here?
@@mobilityproject3485I think I started the curse 😢 and both children (adults now) are suffering where my ancestors did not particularly suffer
@@drkarenswrld That's a horrible tragedy. I think it's still worth trying to repair some of the damage
@@mobilityproject3485 I’m trying🥲
As a former "gifted kid", the biggest breakthrough for me was that being gifted is not a curse, nor a big part of your identity. It's just an asset that you can use, or not, to solve your problems and get what you want out of life. Everything in this video is true, but once you catch up and learn how to make efforts, you are in a very good spot because you can work both hard and smart. More brain power = easier to learn skills that will give you a much better identity than being a "gifted kid" or "smart"
Thank you❤
@@guillaumesora5385 You can still compare your learning speed and ability to understand complex topics, but it does not mean you are better or will be more successful if you're 'gifted'. Ability (or 'potential', the favorite word of gifted kids) means nothing unless you do something with it
I don’t know if this is weird, but I would consider being gifted part of my personality. Not necessarily how I act, but the way I think daily. I don’t know if how I think is normal, but I’m starting to think that it’s a bit more different then what I first assumed. Of course, this could be caused by some other mental condition that I may have.
yeah but I also learn thing too quick without the big “OHHHH” moments where you realize what you were doing wrong and use that for future reference
Yes, I can relate to this exaclty. I was gifted in school and sports but lazy as hell and would always go for the easiest route. It is now by age 29 that I have learned work ethics finally. Too late to make it as footballer, but not too late to bloom in other areas of life and maybe make good use of career eventually. Trying not to take too much pressure still, but I am glad to worked hard last few years to figure this out in my late twenties.
What he said about substituting IQ for other methods of learning really hit with me. I'm in college and have ADHD/ASD, and I'm FINALLY starting to really struggle and be challenged. When I learn math, I pretty much ignore all the concepts the way they're fed to us in the curriculum, and I just let my pattern-finding brain do all the work for me. I just watch people work out problems, and memorize the patterns of the steps and recreate them. I studied for the first time in my life a few weeks ago for a cal 2 test, and it felt great, but I get burnt out super fast. I'm starting to learn how to learn.
Okay wtf how is this video so god damn accurate? How does he know I have 0 emotional awareness or understanding?!?!?!
I’m literally the same as you….. I quit the gifted academic path to become a filmmaker and I’m still new, and not to blow my own horn but in a little over one year, I am already on par with people with 4-5 years of experience. And while I’m really good a self teaching, I still have a really hard time in the eq department, I still lack the fundamentals of basic human behaviour……a lot of this has to do with my 5 year long depression bout thanks to academics, but now I am learning and have gotten better but still totally not accustomed to society yet. Gifted people really have a completely different set of challenges.
@@animealpha4795 you're supposed to blow other people's horns??? I've been doing it wrong all this time!
it litearlly gets almost everything right, the worst thing is when you start to struggle and people stop talking about you being "gifted", it suddenly hits you, you either do things that "stupid" people do and prove that you still are smart, but at the same time you feel that if you start doing it you will no longer be gifted like you were before. Like the interesting thing is that a few minutes before I literally asked a friend for help, and he decided to do it, but the moment he agreed I started thinking about cancelling it, since "what if it doesn't work", "what if the moment he actually helps it will all come down to me not being talented as I've always perceived" and all sorts of stuff. Another thing is the studying and emotional awareness, because since youth I had also no problems just making friends, keeping them was a lot harder, and at some point I realised that every person I've ever befriended actually got cast away for one reason or another. It literally hit me like a year ago or so after for 3 years I started conscoiusly developing emotional understanding by bonding with others it took years to realise that people cast away were not wrong about many things that my ego just could not process. It all hit really hard and learning all those new things actually seems like undeveloping intellect that I was proud of and progressed with all my lfe. At least I can hope now for a moderate - good college life or... well, it will be one hell of a mess, even more than I am rigth now.
Like the most strange part in being "gifted" is that you actually don't have an easier life than anyone since if you're too talented people will always put the expectations befiting your talent which creates the viscious cycle of pain and suffering while presumably being "gifted". On the other hand if you're deemed not gifted enough then you will still have high expectations and will have to suddenly adapt to real life environment that hits you with things that your talent is not suited for. Either way you end up miserable at some point and either turn your life completely around or are deemed as a gifted failure to society and there is no way out.
P.S. It took way too much space, I did not expect that to bee this long so for anyone reading this I'm sorry for both inconsistencies in my writing and grammar, you can point them out if you so desire, but those were just my honest thoughts on life so far. I'm sure with time this will change, but for now it stands this way
actually fr bro
how does your brain 'pattern-finding work
Ohhh boy. We need more of this.
I skipped 2 grades, MENSA level IQ. I also have ADHD, so I have the executive functioning of a potato. 🥔
I dropped out of high school and have really struggled in my adult years.
We need to really bring this to light in our public education system.
The public education system isn't made for us. It's made for the people that it passes that still can't read, write, or do basic math. What the hell are we supposed to do in a world that wants that.
success is school has more to do with executive functioning than anything else.
I didn't even know there was a potato emoji. 😭💀
Pretty much the same. Perfect grades until I stopped doing any work completely. Didnt learn how to study until my late 20s.
@@AnAwakenedPanda wtf... 😐
I dropped out of university at 22. At 29 I decided to go back and finish my degree because I realized my mind and body would not let me work in kitchens for the rest of my life. When I applied I didn't know if I would make it past the first month. Not only did I graduate with distinction, I'm now half way through my masters.
Going back is hard, but it was 100% worth it. And, most of the time, it was soooo much easier to do as a full adult and not a new adult. My mental health was better. I had more emotional supports. I had more and healthier coping mechany. I was more excited and had a reason beyond 'because you're supposed to' for being there.
No one ever judged me for being older. Anyone I talked to about it thought it was really cool that I made the hard decision to come back and we're fully supportive.
Just because something was to hard when you were 19 doesn't mean it's going to always be to hard. You just have to be brave and try.
Man, you are lucky. I actually _graduated_ at 22. Then due to some ideological and political reasons I was forced to drop out of my professional _career._ My potential employers didn't acknowledge the progressive paradigm I was taught at the university and tried to force me to openly refute and unlearn it in exchange for some much more backward and conservative methodology which I was not only not taught, but my professors (mainly a bunch of former smart kids who were fortunate enough to having hijacked the college) ridiculed it publicly and loudly.
That is an incredibly inspiring story, thank you.
My life? Autism-ADHD, anxiety and high IQ, depressed since age 7 lol.
Too bad. Failure is just an opportunity to learn and keep going. Pick up, move on, and keep trucking.
Life is a chain of shitty suffering, but maybe some things are worth that. Also eventually you become a certified badass with the resilience of a concrete bunker.
Thank you. I really needed to hear that
Eh, unless you're studying something you can't study somewhere else... Like chemistry with labs and everything... There's really no point to going to school. Start your own business or something if you've got the emotional support and all the trappings you need to go to school. Is it better investment for the time and money.
I’m doing the same ish at 31. Bad ass!
8:04 Trying to change
9:44 No amount of logic actually creates behavioural change.
The most potent changers of behaviour are emotions.
12:16 Identity: effortless success
14:08 narrowing of identity
14:55 Intellect is trained, but regulation of emotions and ego is weak.
15:13 Instead of discovering who they are, they are told who they are.
17:05 Intellect and ego
17:22 Ego hijacking intelect
19:58 cognitive bias is strong
21:22 "I am a special case"
23:11 Help seeking and help rejecting
24:04 Reading into possiblities of the future.
26:35 Ego protecting itself.
29:08 Looking for a perfect formula.
32:20 "Why didn't you do it 10 years ago ?"
32:39 What does it say about you?
33:28 Do you wanna be "stupid kid" with a life or a "gifted kid" with no life ?
35:40 The more gifted we are, the more we think that things should be easy for us.
36:20 The change requires abandoning everything you invested in.
40:45 Intelect can be hijacked
42:51 The very thing that can change your mind is the thing you avoid.
43:32 Finding solace in being both blessed and cursed.
46:10 Abandoning your identity
46:40 Theory becomes a substitute for experience,
thus it becomes separate from reality.
47:37 remedies: strengthening your emotional awareness
48:35 Do you get to say that your life is hard ? No, nononono... :|
49:34 remedies: understanding ego
49:43 "If I do this thing, how will it change the way I see myself ?"
51:14 Challenge your assumptions
51:14 Your intellect is used to protect you, not challenge you.
53:10 remedies: get experience
55:31 Questions
Thanks
Awesome, thanks!
🙏
Thanks!
MVP
"int is 25, wisdom is 3"
a better metaphor has never been conceived.
My build is:
Intel 25
Vitality 2
Str 1
Wisdom 2
Dexterity 2
Diligence 1-15
applying your intellect can raise your wisdom over time if you learn from your mistakes. feel like I went from a 6 to 16 from my teenage years until my forties.
@@azorahigh3218 same i also felt it bro
I got 2th placement on my first Quarter of my classroom with barely any effort (aside the studying..I'm not that well active)
*charisma
"Wisdom and Genius: Rarely present in equal abundance"
Being gifted myself, I developped a sense of overconfidence and arrogance.
I went through the traditional education system, because my parents rejected the proposal of my doctor to send me to a school for highly gifted children.
Because I was always good at many subjects without putting in real effort, it was a huge blow to my ego whenever I failed at something. Even now I blame myself for evey little mistake that I make.
The hardest lesson I had to learn was to let things go the way they turned out and cope with failure in a healthy way.
Have a nice day :)
Helps to realize that error is the fastest way to gain understanding. It's really like a shortcut. What way other than profound failure teaches so quickly? If you seek knowledge, you have to appreciate failure.
If your parents sent you to a specialized school, I think it would’ve helped. Gifted school was much freer in terms of expectations. The teacher wouldn’t waste our time with homework, and the projects had a sliding difficulty where you could match to your own level.
But most importantly, being around other gifted kids all the time made such a difference. You would get to have intelligent conversations with your peers, and be motivated and inspired by each other. It was lonely before I went to a gifted school. And my old classmates are also now amazing career connections later in life.
I am not even halfway through the video and I can already say I have never seen someone describe by childhood, current struggles as an adult and how they developed. It's surreal. It's touching on all of my main problems and I never saw so clearly how they're actually related. I am blown away
Same like literally same
I am only slightly gifted IQ~125, but some of this stuff hits home...
@@aoeu256 I'm gifted with an IQ of 143. This hits home. The over intellectualization of everything I do. I love research and challenging my brain as I am sure you do. The issue though is that I go through continual cycles of picking up new career opportunities then getting bored, quitting, and searching for something else to challenge me... I've began to lean into my best gift which is writing. (always scored higher in the area then other gifted kids) SO, now I am starting to write books and trying to pursue that since it brings me a great sense of fulfillment. The hard thing is that hyperbolic theoretical mind... constantly playing the outcomes/probabilities.
@@aoeu256i used to have an IQ in the 130s, now i barely scrape the 110 :(
This is so on target. I’m 65 years old. I’ve been in therapy for over thirty years dealing with the problems you’ve addressed…but none of my therapists ever shared this kind of analysis. Not only was I called gifted, I was also called self-sufficient. I had difficulty in college (though I have a Masters degree, I took the easiest classes I could find; if I thought I was going to get lower than a B grade I would either drop the class or withdraw from school. It took me 7 years to get a BA and 6 to get an MBA). My relationships were always difficult. Though I’m doing better with friendships, connecting to compatible and supportive people, I haven’t sought a romantic relationship in over 20 years. I used to dance, but the what I call “mating ritual” associated with it and not getting a dance partner at an event, was too much of a hit to my ego/self-esteem. At work, I am an underachiever for sure. I can’t play the game to get ahead. I haven’t enough esteem to be a professional or get into a managerial position regardless of my degree. No amount of giftedness can help-or If I do get noticed as smart, I quickly land in hot water because I don’t have the social skill nor ability to endure a difficult learning curve.😢
i hope you find love and happiness as well as peace with yourself and life
1961 here, mine's a very similar story, like sentence-for-sentence, only amplified. I have good social skills but it's akin to being bipolar: I make people laugh and feel good then go home and crash for a couple of days.
I completely understand! Thank you for putting that into words.
Male, 62, never called gifted as a kid (although my IQ was measured in the mid-140s and still seems to be in the range 120-155), partly because "gifted" wasn't a thing where I lived as a child in the '60s, and partly because I spent over half my time away from school with asthma. Still graduated top of my year in high school. Remote parents with a focus on academic achievement, so I have an avoidant attachment style and alexithymia. (Lol, analysing myself just as Dr. Kanojia said. Memo to self: labelling is not understanding.) Ended up with a Bachelor's in Mathematics (and a senior prize from the university) because that was easy.
Depression followed. Now working in a meat-packing plant. Like you, I can't play the office politics game and in fact going into an office starts a panic attack now. The literal view of Sartre's words is true for me: Hell is [having to explain/expose my self to] other people, so I don't bother much with having a self. Never had any therapy because I've never met a therapist who I thought could understand what my interior life was like. Partly that's a function of living in a sparsely populated area. Perhaps. I'm learning about how my mind works, and still weighing the pros and cons, risks and benefits, of re-building myself from the ground up at this age. I'm skeptical. The risks seem large and the benefits unclear.
In the interests of history I feel I must share my similar story of a kid labelled as ‘gifted’ in the early days. I was labelled in the late 70s - early 80s. I was put in an experimental program just like the one that Bart is put in, on the Simpsons. Totally overpowered ego. The times and culture treated accelerated intellect as almost Godlike. The program was called EPIC Educational Program for Individualised Curriculum. 12 kids in a glass goldfish bowl in the school library working at their own pace with teachers manuals and workbooks- self directed learning on any day for as long as you want, any subject you choose. After completing high school 3 years early and set to go to university far too early, because I felt responsible to fix the world’s problems but realised at 14 that I most likely couldn’t do that alone- I decided that the best thing I could do is breed! Typical misdirected ego. So I had a child by 17 and three more soon after. I spent the rest of my life in a monumental struggle for survival as a single parent. I’ve still never found a true peer to date, now aged 54. Usually my closest peers are 30-40 years older but they’re never my developmental peer.
Even worse than being a "gifted kid" is being a "gifted kid" who was never gifted to begin with. Imagine dealing with all of the same issues that come with assuming that identity but never really having the capabilities that the gifted have
how can we know if we were actually gifted, then?
It's even worse when you feel you've lost the one thing you had: your intellect. I spent years sleep-deprived, isolated, high, and borderline insane. Even after a year of getting my health together, I don't feel nearly as intelligent as I used to. "I don't see the point of living now other than to kill time" is what I want to say, but my emotions are so deadened that I can't even feel despairing anymore. I don't think I have these behemoths of cognitive biases holding me back anymore, but at the same time I don't believe I have the raw mettle to actually make it anywhere.
same... fuck, I hate myself.
Same
This. I've lost all confidence in my intellect, especially with the amount of time I spend coping with multiple mental illnesses and physical health. Luckily, I've learned to define myself in ways other than "smart" or "intellectual," though I do still consider myself to be those things to a lesser degree
Dude this scared the shit out of me. I spent a couple years sleep deprived and felt just dumb. I’ve since fixed my sleep and feel just as I used to but damn. Your comment scared the crap out of me.
@@borat1
>couple years sleep-deprived
It's good you cracked down on it. I took it to 9 years. Who knows, maybe after another year or two I'll be back to normal
I was considered a “gifted kid”, my mother held me back in kindergarten because she felt developmentally I was behind. Then I scored a 135 on a IQ test administered by my psychologist at age 8 when being tested for learning disabilities. Long story short, I left high school with a 2.8 gpa… my untreated ADHD was a huge role in this. But I also think the social stigma and my mental health played a role as well. I was always considered highly intelligent by my teachers and peers even if my grades didn’t reflect it. I had teachers who tried their best to just talk me into trying and just studying for once. But the idea of “school” was just so mundane to me and I struggled to motivate myself. I couldn’t rationalize why I’m being told I’m so intelligent yet struggle in school? It wasn’t until recently I finally understood why.
I dreaded parent-teacher confrences because they'd always talk about how I was failing and how "they know he's smart, they know he can do it" but they never wanted to actually help me (I did actually ask for help on many occassions). But, you know, it's not the shitty system. It's the shitty student with adhd that doesn't want to do homework or learn, right?
Good luck on your journey, fellow brain :)
@@kyokoyumi omg EXACTLY! And you too!
My mum did the same. Three years in stead of two. Had me tested when I was 11 but didn’t talk about the results (40 % effort and above the top level)..
Same story here, thank you for sharing. These comments are helping me heal and move forward.
@@dinetk3125 my mom didn’t tell me my results until way later. She told me my dad tried to say I had a bunch of learning disabilities so he could take her away from me. Then I got an iq test and scored extremely well.
I am 55 years old and back in “the day” the educational system just didn’t know what to do with me. We had no STEM programs or IEPs. They tried to move me ahead a grade but I just didn’t integrate with the other kids. I was a “first grader” and “second graders”, although closer to my age, were intimidating, mysterious, and above me. I needed to stay in my lane. Intellectually I could have advanced a grade or two but emotionally and socially I wasn’t that developed.
As discussed, I never developed effective study skills or habits. I never finished college. Technically I finished high school via GED.
My biggest problem is that I’m TERRIFIED to ask for help. I’m teachable/trainable and once I learn something I get really good at it-even if it’s something I don’t necessarily want to do.
My lifelong dream has been to have a mentor to teach me some kind of skill that I can be good at and maintain my independence-but I’ve been afraid to ask and because I’ve been chronically underemployed I’ve been unable to pay for someone to mentor me in any skill. Classes are okay but I’ve always needed one-on-one to really grasp the concept.
I’m now old and should be facing retirement but am still trying to succeed. I expect to be working well into my 70s but at what I don’t know. I’m still not giving up. I hope I’m not being delusional thinking I can still have success.
I would say success can come at any age, though don't discount what you have achieved so far.
Plenty of people would consider themselves a success if they achieved what you have.
You’re not delusional for thinking that!
it’s admirable you’re working so hard, but i promise, people can be very understanding and compassionate if you explain your situation!
Wow, what an inspirational story! You definitely aren't being delusional, your persistence and dedication to your goal even after so long is honestly really impressive. Keep going, we're rooting for you!!
Apprenticeship is something I've wanted also. I had experienced that for a short while doing masonry, but he was quite old and died before I got to learn the very technical skills and the business side of it. Loved it though. Made me feel like I was playing with Legos and Tetris and going to the gym all at the same time.
I started college as a gifted kid in 2016, full scholarship, honors college, soccer star, all the signs of a bright future. By 2018 I was depressed and extremely unmotivated to do well in any of the classes. I had to take some time off and really process what I wanted to do, and how I was going to do it. I had the chance to just walk away from college life debt free, I found a well paying trade job, but I just felt like it wasn't my calling. I had so much unfinished business that I went back and really dedicated myself this time with more maturity and understanding of my strengths and weaknesses. It can still be difficult sometimes, but I'm no where near as overwhelmed as I was originally. These videos from HG were really helpful in understanding why I, as someone who did so well early in life, really struggled with adulthood more than all the "dumb kids" who seemed to barely get by.
Jesus, this is an eye opener. You are right about the study habits. I was one of those dysfunctional gifted kids. I super excelled in all the classes I liked and blew off the others. When I got to college I had no idea how to study. Because I already knew how to do impressive. But it was all I knew how to do. It took getting 2.3 in all three quarters of Spanish and being the only student with a Spanish surname to make me learn to how to study. It took two quarters to get my cumulative back up to over 3.5 after the Spanish classes bombed my cumulative GPA. Then something I've always wondered about... I always put off writing my essays etc... until three days before they were due. Then I would cram. I always passed with over a 3.5. So what would have happened if I would have started on those essays when I should have? I would have gotten 4.0's for sure and known my subject more thoroughly. So you're right, even in the domain of the gifted. I know this because I went to grad school twice. To even get into a good research school's desirable departments requires you be a gifted person. So you can be gifted, but if you plan on doing grad school, they are all going to be gifted. So you better learn to study before then!
I totally feel your story.
The phrase "avoidance is protective"... seeing the avoidance as my mind/ego trying to protect me brought tears.
I'm so lucky to encounter this video while I'm only 19. Thank you for giving me a boost to a better life
same for me, i really hope i can change before i encounter serious failure in my life
@@CeeT_ 18 here, I'm glad I found out about this stuff so young... scary to imagine what would've happened if it wasn't diagnosed until fifty or something
@@hassassinator8858 22 here already feeling like I’ve wasted a good chunk of my life and don’t have anything to show for. In my country men are expected to be married by 25 and get a job at 21. I now understand how I failed in college and why I can’t do what other kids did despite being a topper in high school. I feel determined and more educated than before to take actions to try to fix my life. Hopefully I can do the same. I’ll try to to update this comment with my progress in one year. Hopefully I like Dr K can change my life for the better.🤞
19 here. I'm so glad I found this video at this point of my life. Next falI was going to put myself in a carrier that I'm not sure if I'm going to like but everybody tells me it's the best for me.
Sorry for my English btw
Lol the battle is forever! Look at all the geniuses in life... they struggled their whole life!
As someone who's been told I was gifted as a kid (Idk if I'm truly 'gifted' or not, I never bothered to test myself), I find these to be useful in getting unstuck from the 'gifted' mindset:
1. Things take more time than you think. Gifted kids are used to success coming quickly and easily. Life doesn't work that way. Be PATIENT.
2. Related to the above, learn how to grind - meaning, learn how to work on something consistently for a long time. When you get into the flow of learning and practising, thoughts of whether you're smart or not goes away. You're just focused on the journey, and getting the results through repeated losses and wins.
3. Find joy in learning new things, in GROWING. Gifted kids often have the idea that they can't grow, that they are already at their peak and any movement will just lead to downfall. The reality is, no one is perfect. There's always room for improvement. So let yourself improve. Imagine allowing yourself to be bad at something, and improve over a long time. There is freedom in that.
3. There is more to you than being smart. Are you kind, friendly, have a sense of humour, etc.? Find other qualities of yourself other than intellect. Also try to believe in your inherent value. Being smart does NOT define your worth as a person.
4. Work on not caring what others think of you. People may be born gifted, but the pressure to excel and be good at everything absolutely also comes from external validation/enablement. Stop relying on these for your self-worth. You are ALLOWED to struggle, you are ALLOWED to make mistakes. Some people may be surprised or smug ("you find this hard? Haha I thought you're supposed to be smart!"), fuck those people, they don't know what being gifted is like.
Feel free to add any more points that helped you guys get out of the gifted kid set as well!
Thank you SO much for this!! Genuinely made me tear up, this is so helpful
Screenshot so I can come back to this. Well said indeed.
Number 3 really hit me. The compliments/comments that I really remember for a long time are the ones that have nothing to do with my brain. Even something as simple as being recognised/commended for trying something difficult, regardless of the outcome, can stick with me for ages.
5. The world isn't going to roll out the red carpet for you at every turn just because you're smart. As far as jobs, a company needs to know what you can do for them that's specific to their needs and future vision, so you have to be effective at selling yourself within their context not just "I'm a genius!" As far as personal life, very few people want to be friends with someone that they feel is either rubbing their intellect in everyone's face or doesn't have anything else to them.
U
I really love finding this community… I thought I was alone in being “gifted” and feeling absolutely worthless today
Somewhere along the way the gift was folded back in on its self and started focusing inward.
That "feeling worthless" got me. I feeling It today, and nowadays. But at 28 minutes of this video, I'm seeing a light in the end of the tunel
Yeah, finding a community of likeminded people is great.
That "cognitive empathy" thing really hit home. This kind of thing is precisely why I've struggled with relationships, "feeling what the other person is feeling" is not something I can remember ever having experienced.
You might be a sociopath you should get that checked
Same here the feeling is absent but the way I logically conclude that I should comfort someone always scares me man
@@victorleina2147It can actually be comforting from a slightly different perspective. Examples that people can do something kind for someone even when they don’t “feel it”. Don’t get me wrong, I know exactly what you mean. I feel awful when I do it as well, kinda like I’m not actually being comforting to someone who needs it, cheating them out of what they need. But see? If you feel bad about that than your heart is actually in the right place. To them, all they can see is your actions and not what you feel. The fact that you try despite not being moved might just be the first step, but you don’t have to be scared of yourself and make it the last.
Damn sociopaths. No one feels anything any more. Young kids 20's or younger have no sense of how to read emotions "in the air". It's like they are disabled. Lost a whole sense... Sense of being alive and one with all.
@@ron1836 It's not sociopathy.
This is so 100% true. I spent my 20s frantically doing things I was "supposed to be effortlessly good at" in secret for hours and hours a day just so I could then show I was really good at it and pretend like I didn't put any effort in.
I'm really embarrassed that I did this, but I now understand that I thought my self-worth had to come from people thinking I could just learn things really fast without effort. A lot of therapy has helped me come to terms with doing things I enjoy but am not super good at and then not caring if people saw this side of me.
Haha when I was a teen I got up at 5 am to do my homework, just so I could show up to school and make a show of never taking notes or doing homework in the work periods. All because one time a friend’s mom said “Izzy also never studies and plays all day, how come she has bad grades and you’re on top of the class?” And my family was so proud that I built my identity around that.
When I entered my graduate program I realized everyone struggles with the same things and have the same limitations even though everyone is so smart. It really helped me to get a realistic perspective.
SAAAAMEEE and now i can’t get anything done anymore
@@TumblinWeeds Evil
Wow. This made me realize somethings. I was actually the opposite. I was mediocre in school and watched kids like you surpass me. It constantly made me feel stupid and like I wasn’t good enough so I didn’t try because “well they understand things and get good grades so effortlessly” so clearly I must be dumb. I never saw the other side of things. Those same kids weren’t just excelling effortlessly. They were going above and beyond to maintain the facade of things coming so effortlessly. Behind the scenes they were waking up early, skipping meals, skipping fun activities, spending all their free time studying , reading ahead, ...etc. Not saying there weren’t a small percentage of people that barely try and really do have things come effortlessly, but I’m sure that wasn’t the reality for 90% of the gifted kids . They really were putting in the hard work , but presented it as though they barely tried and just magically excelled. I hate to say it, but it makes me feel better to know I was never really stupid, I just didn’t apply myself.
I've learned to read at the age of 2. I could count to a thousand by 4. Was top of my entire school. Everyone throughout my life always told me how smart i was.
Well, long story short, im 24, still live with my parents. Make BELOW average in my area as a mere QA in a bank.
The agony of knowing you wasted your potential and talent is worse than being untalanted, unskilled, stupid. Because if you're average you have the excuse. If you're gifted and never utilized it... It's torture.
It's with you every second, every minute of your waking hours, all your life.
i bet you usually try to sabotage yourself because you want to be more like the others instead of being at the top and getting praised. probably why you are working that job right now.
You need to find a job where you constantly have to learn new things, that way you can exploit your powers before being bored
@@wanz100 it's the opposite, I'm searching for "the ultimate occupation". Overanalyze stuff and too afraid to commit, to the point where i developed a neurological circuit in my brain that sabotages the stuff i try to do, in an attempt to show my own self that "it's not the thing". Or "too low of an aim. I can't devote myself to this".
At least pat yourself on the back for being self-aware. Better to know what you need to change (or at least aware of the fact that you need to do so) at 24 than 44. Best of luck mate, don’t give up on your dreams.
@DP They are a special case
I was literally talking today with my Coach about how changing seems hard, and how I feel like I have all the ingredients to cook something and the knowledge to do so, but something inside me resists it.
Feels scary seeing this video pop up immediatly after my coaching session lol.
We are in your walls.
I think dr k lives in our walls
That's me. At some point, I've begun to avoid change so much, I'd rather die... like it's a huge ass problem.
youtube listens for keywords on your phone, I was talking about an old meme once and it popped up in my recommended
Wooow he described my experience. I went from not needing help and thinking anyone who doesnt get it, right away must be super stupid, to start struggling myself in college and being ashamed to ask for help, to ultimately growing up emotionally and begin understanding everyone that has ever struggled and finally stop being so isolated and judgemental. It humbled me. I crashed and burned in college but i never gave up because till this day i love learning so i eventually succeeded but when i hit that brick wall it took me years to learn how to learn cuz i was still socially awkward and my ego/identity was in jeopardy so i never asked for help.
Actually struggling with this right now. Delayed using my accommodations bc of shame for years and recently gave in
As I meditated with you, I realized I've hurt so many people that I found it nearly impossible to find compassion for myself. It made me cry. I think I needed that.
Thank you for this and for what you do. You probably get this all the time, but seriously. Your content is changing my life, and I'm sure many others for the better (been watching a LOT of your stuff lately as I walk along this path of sobriety). I cannot thank you enough, and am very grateful. Grateful to you and to who/whatever entity (if there is one) has allowed me to return to 'now'. And I am also grateful to myself for, despite all the horrors I've endured and unleashed, choosing to move in the direction that leads to 'good.' Good for myself and all else.
You probably won't read this, but seriously man, thank you. As a person who has viewed myself as an evil, soul crushing monster of a being for years now, you've returned me to 'now' where I am simply human. You've allowed me to acknowledge consciously that life is not easy. Because it's not. But we're here, and 'it' (life) simply is. And that the future will come. But that we have within us enough strength to continue through whatever darkness may come. Bless you, fam.
Every single gifted kid I knew, myself included, without exception, has ended up having either undiagnosed ADHD or Autism (or both like in my case). I firmly believe that's what it actually is (maybe not for every gifted kid, but, at least anecdotally, the VAST MAJORITY of us). This is why so many gifted kids have trouble in adulthood, because we've been masking our whole lives. It's not even a complex, it's literally undiagnosed neurological differences.
There's a reason I was doing college math in element school: undiagnosed autism. It's absurd to think I was sent to a gifted program instead of a school psychologist.
And I went undiagnosed until just last year (I'm 37 now), because my special interests and hyper focus were on math, science, reading, and the arts (all the subjects you need to excel in school).
And I did fail out of college, one of the top colleges in the US. I passed out of the first two math classes at Harvey Mudd and people thought I was a genius. Then, because I never learned how to study and also had undiagnosed ADHD and Autism, I had SEVERE mental health issues on top of my inability to study. So I flunked out.
The letter they sent me is what saved me. It basically said don't bother trying to get back in, statistically, you'll just flunk out again. That pissed me so off. My spite fueled my motivation to get back in.
I learned how to study on my own. Before, I was like, "my brain just doesn't know how to do chemistry." After learning how to study, I realized I could learn ANY topic if I studied it hardest enougj. I went to the community college, took all the hardest subjecs I failed at Mudd, aced them, then reapplied and got back in to Mudd. It was a slog but I was able to graduate.
I resonate with your experiences and this video so much!
@@Kafka04 ditto
i think this is what it was for me too. the video specifically didn't really resonate with me because i knew i worked my ass off sometimes because i hit walls early on because i probably had those things too. even in uni i didn't find the curriculum or studying inherently challenging, but i stopped going; i never really addressed those neurological things and i was going through some things like burnout and major depression, so i just couldn't get myself to continue.
rather, to clarify, everything was simply fundamentally harder to do due to neurodivergence and other issues
I’ve always been a gifted artist, my earliest memory was of me drawing. The biggest problem for me was thinking that I didn’t need to improve since I believed I didn’t need to. Now I’m dealing with my ADHD and letting go of my ego and I’ve made vast improvements. One must ALWAYS improve.
Honestly, I’ve had a similar experience. I never bothered learning the fundamentals or even basic anatomy because I figured I didn’t need to, I could just feel everything out because I was so gifted. Now I’m really struggling and trying to learn all the stuff I missed out on, lol. Glad to hear you’re not only improving but have learned the importance of doing so!
The only thing that I know, is that I know nothing.
adhd diagnosis is just copium, u dont have a barrier stopping u.
This may not apply to some people but for me, the need to *always* improve can be a bit overbearing at times. While I have seen improvement over time, some days I literally just want to chill and not work on something like sleep or play a casual game. There is a certain grind culture attached to improvement culture that I don't care to engage with (and get no enjoyment from) and one can still improve without feeling pressed for it. Rather improving via curiosity and enjoyment than improving for the sake of improvement itself, and enjoying the times my brain wants to float along after some hard work.
one doesn't have to improve. it's ok to not do anything.
The "one trick pony" thing really got me. I was a gifted kid, I play league and I started one-tricking Lux ~10 years ago. Now, whenever I play another champ, I feel this deep sense of shame because it's so obvious that I'm just embarrassing myself and hurting my team. I should be better than this - but I'm not because I've one-tricked the whole time. So I feel like I NEED to play my main or I let everyone down - and I never get the chance to learn. That's really reminiscent of the whole gifted experience to me. If I'm not "carrying" in the game or in real life, I'm not worth anything. Self worth is entirely based on achievement. And the only way to get through that is to let yourself be bad at stuff, which is horrifying.
I know right, when you are so used to being a front runner in one aspect, then life happens and you have to be an underdog for a persisted period of time, that can be extremely scary.
Take the jump now, or it'll haunt you forever. The shame you feel now for underachieving is nothing compared to the shame you'll feel later on at having "failed at life".
Take the jump now.
@@chrisblue4652 name it 'BanLux' or something to that extent as a friendly reminder.
Good idea, @Chris Blue!
Have you considered not playing League?
I am actually getting emotions bubbling up, a sadness from deep, a sense of loss of all those years dealing with this shit. I had to fall and fail hard before I could find the strength to try again. I feel the need to share this with those who suffered due to my struggle. At times it was unbearable.
I had good study habits as a kid, but that's because I loved to read and science became fun for me.
Then middle school hits, and the study habits absolutely left my body.
I managed without it for all of middle and high school, and then college hit and murdered me.
This was exactly me during my school days. I was very invested in math and science that I used to study the books of higher grades until one day I just cant and passed university barely without learning anything and I'm stuck in a dead end job which I hate while my peers who I thought were dumb are killing it in their respective careers.
It murder your ego/expectations not you
This hits me so hard
I feel ya, never studied for anything right up through high school. Just showed up and paid attention. Of course I did better at things that interested me. Once in college, I had to first learn how to study before I could make any headway in my courses. What an eye-opener, I realized what the majority had been going through while I was skating by on natural ability. One side benefit for my life, I resolved to never again look down on people of 'average' intellect. They can possess qualities like perseverance and agreeableness, that intellectuals erronously think they can survive without.
@@watkinssixtyfive7788 I wish I'd read biographies of accomplished scientists (for example,) before the negative patterns set in. It turns out they all worked their tails off, hit rough patches and so on.
As you get older is worse, because you're not a kid anymore and the auto-blame is much stronger. And it just takes to be a bit gifted in order to live what you're telling, you don't need to be a genius. Great video, very accurate, it sounds as if you were talking about myself, which makes me feel less unique (in a good way).
The cognitive empathy part blew my mind. This really explains what I feel/do! I have had such a hard time putting words to it. It feels wrong to say I don't have empathy, but still I don't FEEL the emotions. This is exactly what I do! I use logic!
My therapist in college referred to it as “intellectualization” and said it’s the most common defense mechanism of smart folks (most of the people at the college). I’ve never heard the term “cognitive empathy” before but it’s a reasonable descriptor of the same basic process. It’s a way to keep uncomfortable feelings at arm’s length.
I've often felt emotions strongly but have always struggled to put them into words. I think I grew up intellectualizing my inner state as a way to avoid having to feel negative emotions... This leads me to spiral into whirlwinds of affect and be tossed around in their vague, murky currents. Learning to put names to my emotions has helped me to feel less like I'm drowning in them. It forces me to confront what I'm feeling and why, which then puts me in a better position to be able to handle them. My first impulse is usually still to avoid my emotions, but I try to remind myself that in my experience, acknowledging the emotions lets me move through them and move past them much faster.
I wish I had access to this information in my 20s, or 30s, or even my 40s. I'm now approaching 60 and have learned much of what you teach the hard way. You validate so much of what I've experienced in life and give me tools and perspectives for some things I haven't quite figured out myself. Thank you for all you do!
Dude, I was so broken from the gifted kid college experience. I got in to the honors college, full ride, great music scholarship. But I just felt like I couldn't get stuff done and finish it. I thought I had ADHD. I remember spending 20hrs trying to write a 5 page paper and just being unable to do it. I eventually had a breakdown and went to the counselors who just wanted to treat depression first and wouldn't evaluate me when I asked. I went along with it but quickly just stopped going. That went on for a couple years and I ended up dropping out, then trying to come back a year and a half later, which didn't work. I was in my senior year and decided to just abandon it. I went into tech because I liked computers, and then a couple years later I ended up teaching myself web development and landing a job out I absolutely love, way out earning what I would have been making teaching. But that year I taught myself web dev, it feels like I filled in so many gaps, learned how to learn, and just kind of figured out what I needed to do in my life. And I DID get evaluated after I taught myself and got a job and was pretty damn ADHD, fuck you college counselors.
Same here. The first two years were great, but then suddenly it was almost impossible for me to focus and deliver, specially on the subjects that clearly required a lot of time and technical practice. There were subjects I tried to pass 4 times and I either failed or dropped them. I was even silly enough to repeat a subject I had already passed because I wanted to get a higher grade and I ended up getting the same grade again... Eventually, after trying several times to get on the right track, I just dropped out entirely because I had new responsibilities and the work/study balance did not work for me at all, and it was not worth spending more and more money on it after dragging myself through it for 10 years. COVID was sort the straw that broke the camel's back and there was no going back. I still don't regret the whole experience. I met a lot of great people that I love and appreciate.
That is incredible! I'm glad for you!! I hope I could do the same.
My experience was very similar, recovery has been tough
Two years ago, I stumbled upon this video that made me feel uneasy, and I chose to ignore it. Two years later I am still where I was, grappling with the same uncertainties and the duality of being torn between embracing help and pushing it away. Recently, my constant oscillation between different viewpoints has damaged the trust and respect of someone dear to me.
A recent trip, intended to strengthen our bond, instead brought into sharp focus the stark realization that I am lost, unsure of who I am, and that my reality is disconnected from my lived experiences. My fear, anxiety, self-loathing, and selfish selflessness have been for nothing.
Don't delay any longer. Procrastination only leads to unnecessary pain for ourselves and those around us. The past is immutable, but we can discover our convictions and reclaim our right to life. This stranger has, will be, and is walking the same path as you.
Didn't study almost anything in any school before university, I was doing almost nothing, barely going from year to year at the end of school cause I started to skip days.
Still my abilities kept me on track and I had perfect exams... End up in one of the best technical universities in my country. After first year it was like hitting the wall, amount of material to learn and just feeling I'm nothing special started to overwhelm me. Passed two years struggling and on start of third year I just broke... Too much stress, all the stuff I skipped before, not knowing how to handle learning and just daily stuff that had to be done caused huge depression and huge mental problems. Never finished university I just couldn't cause of panic attacks and emptiness, which took also my long time girlfriend.
Took me like three years to back on track with life, got not bad job which I like. But wasted potential and all the years of pain are still here. Still working on self confidence and taking care of MYSELF is the hardest thing to do for me. Don't be like me kids and teenagers talk to ur family or friends and ask for help. 🙂
I'm a tougher person now, I'm trying to be as good as I can and I want to be happy, I work on it and that makes me feel better. I care way less about other people and what people think its good /important. I'm good with myself. 😉
I usually don’t write comments, since my still gifted brain thinks I’m afraid I’ll fail, but this episode hit home for me.
I was a gifted kid mostly in private school. Add in ADHD being diagnosed at age 8, finding out I have depression in my late teens, and being in a semi-co-dependent family, and I’m a hot mess.
The best way I can describe gifted kids is that we both *know* we need to fix our issues, and even how to fix it, but we remain paralyzed by fear.
I’ve been in and out therapy, and even though I’ve learned about my emotions, if my fiance asks “how are you?”, I respond with what I’m doing, not how I feel.
As another TH-camr put it, you’re a kid with the intelligence of a average adult, but then you’re an adult…with the intelligence of a average adult.
Thanks for the video though!
> my fiance
There's hope for us yet!
Good luck to you 🙏
@@Hemlocker Thank you. I’m going to officially propose this December.
@@Blader445 Hey... I don't know if it's a good place to ask. I have an anxiety disorder and I just started therapy to process my childhood bullies. I think that exacerbated this feeling but I always just felt comforted by my grades.
But I'm sort of facing a lot of anxiety during my freshman year, I don't look at my lectures because I want to hide at home, in my bed and have my anxiety attacks. Going to university gives me panic attacks in the morning. Should I continue to see if it gets better or drop out?
@@pandax5359 Freshman year of college or freshman year of high school?
@@pandax5359 talk to tutors at your educational place. Seek all the help available. Why not?
"No amount of logic creates behavioral change." This is spot on. I can reason out the things I need to do and why, but unfortunately, that doesn't translate to me doing it.
Time stamp?
@@Douglas77755 if I watch it again, I'll try to remember to find it!
Thanks for explaining this. I have blamed myself for my lack of fulfilment of childhood‘ promise’ for fifty years. Too late to change things now, but at least I can go into retirement with that weight lifted.
My teachers were either borderline gleeful at my failure or dropped a ton of guilt on me. That’s something else that needs to change. Just as it is now recognised that children with cognitive or behavioural problems should get help, instead of being left behind, ‘gifted’ kids also need additional support. Society is missing out by letting this group down.
I am a 'gifted' kid in highschool right now, and to be honest I'm kind of glad I found videos like these when I did, as they give a sort of guidance my parents aren't capable of. However, it is immensly scary what growing up on the internet can do to you, as I have observed myself changing over the last few years based on videos and creators that have resonated with me. I couldn't have turned out better, but I feel for others who also grow up on the internet, those who can't as easily differentiate between good and bad faithed people, and or can't find good thoughtful content over more time wasting or even conspiratorial content tend to grow up to become bad or lazy people depending on what kind of bad content they watched.
I have these thoughts myself. I'm 24, so I have grown up with technology largely at my fingertips. My parents were really trusting and didn't really check what us kids were doing, and so I can honestly say I'm lucky to have turned out like I did because so much of my general knowledge of how the world works comes from the internet. I can't tell you if I was just lucky to mostly come across good sources for that, but looking at some of my peers and people on the internet today, that has to be at least part of it 😅
Could you share more of this content? This is the first time I see something of good quality that explain and could really help people in this situation
@@ShinySun-bb1vo you mean the good content I found? And if so, any specific genres of content?
i feel like the cure for gifted kids is to give them harder material to learn compared to everyone else so they learn to study and grind in school to obtain the studying mindset preparing them for college, med school, law school, and other really hard schools to get into instead of just being smart and breezing through grade school not knowing how to study or grind reading books.
Perhaps there needs to be more emphasis on other forms of intelligence in schools. It is more difficult to judge, but if there is more reinforcement (both positive and negative) for other kinds of skills, then there is more reason to develop those skills. Btw, this has to be to the point of affecting progress/success.
The thing is that a lot of times teachers doesn't have the time, training, resources or remuneration to give harder materials to those kids.
give them the Sigma grindset LOL
To get gifted kids to grow their other facets at the same time normal kids do they would need to be taking college level classes by 10 or even earlier. As someone who was taking college classes at 15, I don't think just speeding up with more difficult material is the answer. The lesson of how to use and practice using the other tools available needs to happen much earlier than that. I'd say around 3rd grade they need to already be expanding their tools. I remember around 3rd grade I was trying to use other tools to do the work, and was trying to learn how to study, because I knew I would eventually need it. But because I didn't have experience I was slow and sloppy. That got me in trouble with my teachers and parents so I leaned harder on my intellect, never branched back out and all but forgot other methods even exist. I was labeled gifted in 4th grade. I would say that by the time a kid is showing signs of being gifted, they are already heavily leaning on their intelect and need to be given problems designed to not be solvable with intelect alone to train their other skills. What those problems would look like, I don't know, but the gifted programs I was in only reinforced relying even heavier on intelect and logic and did nothing to help round me out, in fact it did quite the opposite.
@@ca-ke9493 This, 100%. Not all jobs use the same kind of intelligence, why should our schooling only train us all one way? We need more learning options before college, so people can find what they're good at at an earlier age and work toward it.
Thanks.
I was a gifted kid. In a way it almost feels like a curse. It did help me develop this huge ego and the worst about having a huge ego is that it drives other people away
And you don't realise what drives people away
To me it straight up is a curse I wish I never had
Fortunately, your ego is not so huge that you can't admit it. The biggest narcissists are the ones that aren't self-aware, so you can for sure get past it with therapy.
It's not even the ego frankly. I've had people simply tell me I think too fast for them and having deep conversations with me feels like their brain is running because I make connections so much easier than them. I found someone who was like me and once we started talking our friends were like "I know you're speaking the same language, but slow down". Our ideas were switching too fast for them. (I just kept getting more excited lol)
My point is, finding friends is hard because your mouth is just telling them your thinking process and they lost you a long time ago
same
"They will critique it."
Oh boy that hit. I'm the worst person to give self-help books too. I torch them in my head because they all feel so disingenuous. I literally can't comprehend how they work on people. However, I have the same issue with therapy. If a therapist tells me I'm having irrational thoughts about myself they've not told me anything new. I just need to know how to stop having them. I knew they were irrational to start with. Plus, mindfulness that is all the rage in therapy literally nearly had me fall into a massive pit of depression. Medications have not made me feel worse then mindfulness and meditation.
It's like I don't know how thoughts are supposed to fix my own brain when my thoughts are what seems to be killing me.
Sounds like mindfulness actually brought up enough nasty stuff for you to feel depressed, so I would say it's working as intended and that "feeling worse" is what you need to tackle. I'm just a rando on Internet and these are my thoughts though.
@@cauthrim4298 I'd guess the same
When you are having the irrational thought. Actively think, "That is not true. Stop lying to me." Step one is slowing momentum. Also. Start your therapy/psychiatrist/psychologist what not with that. Start with, "How do I stop it? " then do the stupid crap they tell you. It will feel stupid, probably. Do it anyway. Then be very transparent with your help, don't hold back that you think it is stupid or that you don't think it will work. But you can start with the above. If you're having a hard time finding help (who isn't?) try to dig into your background for when those thoughts started. There is the possibility that those thoughts didn't originate with you. Best of luck.
Philosophy is the only resource that has actually challenged my biases.
“Stopping thoughts” is like trying to dam up a mount spring with your bare hands. It won’t stop the water, even if you dam it it up, it’ll just burst through to the surface somewhere else.
Two different options I can think of are “Observe Without Judgment”, or maybe “Flag and File.” OWJ is sort of Buddhist in flavor. You look at the thought, accept that you’re having it, but then remind yourself that it’s just a thought, not a Commandment that controls you. Like having that thought doesn’t mean you have to obey it. Then you sort of let it float away when it gets bored without acting on it. “Oh! I’m having one of those irrational thoughts my therapist mentioned. Those happen sometimes. But it’ll pass.”
FaF is seeing the thought, then actively tagging it with a cognitive narrative of your choosing. Like if a balloon with “I’m worthless forever” floated up, you can see it as above. But it’s like writing your own sentences on your own balloon. “This is one of those irrational thoughts. I’m not worthless- I matter to me and my friends and family, even the people I help at work are glad I helped them out in their own momentary way. And I don’t have to be any one way forever. I control the things I do- I can still work to change parts of me I want to change, if I invest some effort into it.” Now the random balloon with the irrational message has some balloons with things you wrote on them next to it. It’s outnumbered.
The part about studying is really spot on & ive known it for a while. I had no reason to study all through 12th grade and for some reason i didn't even bother applying to a fancy university. I applied to ONE school which was close to home, got in, then continued as normal. The entire first year was no different for me than high school. All 100 level classes were still easy, except English 101 and 102 which were required ended up giving me trouble because it felt like a waste of time. The second year was when i started to hit the brick wall because i couldn't just show up and get an A. They started assigning projects which were time consuming. My normal learned procedure of waiting until the day before to write a paper was suddenly impossible but i kept trying it. I even became aware of the need to start working on assignments early but couldn't bring myself to stop procrastinating. Towards the end of the semester i would drive all the way to school then be embarrassed to go to class. I would end up going to the library but i wouldn't even work on my assignments i would just read other things or go to the computer lab. I actually physically witnessed the concept of people who were not as smart to start but "geniuses art hard work" go through and be extremely successful in college.
I ended up withdrawing from class and getting a job at a warehouse then my mom and stepfather kicked me out. Primarily because my stepfather moved out of home at 16 and he only barely tolerated the idea of me living there because i was still in school. Eventually at 26 i had paid off the previous debt and i went back. I graduated cum laude in chemistry but i still dont really consider myself successful, just "comfortable" because i am better off than so many others in society.
According to my parents and many other people I didn't need help. I was smart, a bit shy (later diagnosed ADHD/autism) but too lazy to put in the work. Sometimes when my procrastination caught up with me I'd finish an entire course worth of paperwork in the last few days before the deadline (or after.. you guys know how that works). This would reinforce the belief that it was indeed just laziness. I continued this habit in college. I procrastinated as long as humanly possible but in the end that resulted in burnout after 1 failed study (partly out of my control but did take a hit from that one) and 2 more unfinished ones.
Now I'm 33. One year off from the example in the video but in that exact situation struggling to graduate. I found out it wasn't laziness. Everything seems to be working against you. I couldn't describe it better than the video I'm commenting on.
You have to make the intellect robot punch itself in the face. To kill the ego and all the reinforcement that helped build it. Again and again until it can be built up in a way that it can stop dragging you down. I accepted help only after I got dragged into the doctor's office by my family. Don't know if I'd still be here had that not happened. I thought they couldn't help me. The point of psychological treatment is that only you can help yourself. That realisation has kept me from seeking help myself because I didn't believe I could. But it can help you help yourself. It won't be a perfect solution and it will be hard. But somewhat decent can be good enough until you find something better.
As a closing statement I'll say that life gets lonely when you're just talking to yourself. Find people who will listen and it might help you on a path to recovery. I read a lot of comments in here and I hope you guys find your way out. Hang in there.
One more thing. Ignorance is a bliss. People with higher levels of intelligence and complicated personalities as result find much harder their intellectual and emotional needs met in life because their needs are much higher than average. For example intelligent people very often have much higher expectations of themselves and as result very often find harder to get satisfaction in life.
TLDR: Please do more of these! Everytime I listen to you talk about struggles with being a gifted kid, it's so calming because it's like someone opening up and reading off what happens inside of my brain.
I wish I saw some of this stuff when I was younger because I fell into the exact patterns that you talked about in other videos after my raw intellect and last minute effort wasn't good enough in my senior year of high school where I got my first B+ in English, ruining my unweighted 4.0 even with AP and college credit classes. That, and a gaslighting ex girlfriend shattered my identity. Like you mentioned in this video, my identity was so malleable and I was so easily a target for gaslighting because I based my identity off of what people have told me commonly throughout my life. I did a lot of work to fix that, but I'm still kind of off. I'm finally going back to a cheaper college at 23 because I finally accepted that it's okay that I can't afford my dream school I got into. And I got diagnosed with ADHD after doing a bunch of research and assuming I have it, and the tips on that are helping, but please do more videos on this. It would be a blessing to many of use gifted adults to have something easily laid out to refer to to avoid a lot of harmful patterns and grow in other areas of our lives that we just haven't known how to work on.
I know I'm late, but i think as a gifted kid the solution is to create purposefully uncomfortable situations. I used to have this mindset, but i joined my schools cross country team in 9th grade, which as someone who had never run a day in their life, i was instantly always in situations that i was the worst at. Cross country is something that just didn't come easily and such i learned how to not be embarrassed by having to try more than others. I'm not saying that everyone should join a sport, but purposefully setting kids into things they truly have to work for is extremely beneficial.
I agree with your point on purposefully creating uncomfortable situations. Staying in your head applies to a lot of kids, especially gifted kids. These situations are necessary to pull them out of their heads to face reality. And me personally, I think cross country is perfect for that because I also know what it's like to realize that some things can't be attained with the IQ alone.
It doesn't always work, tho. It depends on how you're raised and what kind of issues you have.
I do that to myself all the time, but it doesn't solve the main issue, cause I'm fine not being the best at something I never did before, my problem is that I *need* to show constant, linear, clear progress in line with how long I've been doing a thing to not feel like I'm stupid, useless and a lost case that should just die. So I'll be fine at first with anything new cause it's new, but as soon as my progress slows down even a bit and I start to not show clear progress every single time I practice it goes downhill.
It's why I just can't seen to hold on to any hobby. Cause I can't do anything casually just for fun. I need to constantly improve towards a clear goal or I feel like shit.
@@hauntedwafflecake play a rhythm game if you enjoy those types of games. Those games usually make you feel improvement for years.
I found out I enjoyed dancing in 10th grade. I kind of suck at it. But I realized most people really aren’t paying attention to me so I do it anyway. I like trying new things. Sometimes I’m good at them. Sometimes I suck but it’s still fun. Not sure if I was great on the study skills thing like he said though - grade school came very easily to me. But I managed to get through a postdoc so I guess I figured it out. I was ok with being a B+ student (at a school for gifted kids) and having a life. Ditto in college.
Yeah this works very well for me too! It's great.
Being gifted or being pushed too hard by parents is as dangerous. When I was a kid my mother pushed me to be the best in everything, seriously. When I made small mistake I was yelled at, beaten...I had good grades though, but in summary, I was bullied at home and also at school due to my looks, poverty, behavior
Fast forward several years and I'm 27, I don't know what to do in life, I still live at home. I work however and help covering bills, cooking meals, etc. Trying to constantly study something (with more or less success). Signed for CS degree which I will try following and accomplishing. Current economical situation doesn't help either. As I live in Poland, costs of living are high, if I'd have to rent small apartment I'd have to pay 75% of my salary or more. Employers don't want to give raise neither and when I apply for a new job, they will usually ignore my resume mostly because of salary expectations, in short - they expect you to know everything but for intern salary. Unless you emigrate or become top lawyer, programmer, be lucky to be born in wealthy family or meet proper people then you are fucked.
Also, my biggest mistake is i born in poverty.
immigrating doesn't necessary solve problems. Renting in greater London, for instance, will set you back about as much relative to your salary. Renting in a smaller town will be better but there won't be jobs, unless you work remotely. But if you work remotely, you don't need to immigrate...
@@bogdiworksV2was the economic situation better in the UK in the 90s?
“We expect them to give up everything, because that’s what they have to do to change” 😅
This hit me hard! I realized I was struggling in life so I sold everything I own, moved into my car, and have been working to restart my identity. It’s hard to do and I keep hitting barriers that make me feel stuck. Love the content Dr. K, I’ll look into your coaching program.
Dr. K mentions early in the video that gifted kids don't need to study, which I agree with. I do think since No Child Left Behind passed in 2001, it's become easier to get through school without studying in the US, because the education system has been dumbed down to ensure high graduation rates, which are a benchmark used to determine a school's/district's funding for the next year. It's not just gifted kids who are going to college without having any experience studying anymore.
I can't put in words how great it feels to move in terms of accociating myself with the topic of the video from "yep, that's all about me" to "thankfully, some of the points do apply to me, but most of them don't. That means I'm doing something right (finally)". Right now that feeling comes only when I exercise, but I hope that it'll come when I study too, the feeling of "if I don't feel strained or exhausted - that means something's wrong and I didn't put in enough effort". I went with a friend of mine to an English speaking club (where I live English isn't the first language), and before I went there I might have had some kind of an expectation of an outcome, but it already wasn't solidified as much as 2 years ago when I graduated from school and declined the same invitation. When we went there, we kind of spent time with people, played some games, but when I came in I thought that people's connection (as a group) and language level are going both to be far beyond compared to what my skills are. I was tense at first but by the end of gathering I was leaving with a realisation that I didn't even "at least didn't do bad", I actually did good. I was praised by the guy who's around my age (mb few years older) and he asked about how I reached such level at my age. Sadly, I couldn't explain how. Expectation hasn't been fulfilled either, which feels strangely right. It's like "well, I might fail or embarass myself... (and there's a new addition appearing to this) but fuck it at least I'm gonna try and give it my all". I'm going to try to pass the exams for probably the only education that can be useful for me in my towns university and get in next year because 2 years ago I thought that there's no reason to continue to receive education for me (since I already have an occupation that brings me sufficient amount of money) and from my experience on relying on "theory" and "this won't work" if I continue to abstain from action it's only going to be much more miserable for me and I have had enough. To be honest, about the "party" thing never have I felt "pathetic". I just felt like this isn't the kind of community I can enjoy myself with.
Formerly gifted kid with ADHD here. In my 30s and still have to remind myself to adjust my attitude and go along with the "dumber" way sometimes, especially when with other people. But the result is relationships, loved ones, community, and gainful employment. It's worth it, but hard to do in the moment sometimes.
It’s so hard to do. I still struggle with it and I am into my 40’s
its harder to develop those other essential skills and experiences in life as adult to survive when all focus is just everyone pressuring for academic success.. its unfair for a kid... this happens in sports too, supposedly talented kids are ruined exact same way by excess focus and overtraining, preventing forming friendships and other important experiences related to that context. Im sad this aspect in culture is so dominant, coz it has no relation to society in large, ie wrong thing at wront time of life.
I am just shy of 53 years-old, and was tested and labeled as gifted in elementary school. I am 20 minutes into this video lecture and I am losing my mind listening to someone describe a great portion of my life's struggles, and the underlying causes. I'm blown away, also, by the comments I'm reading below this as I write. Never ask for help; I surely don't need it. Cognitive empathy? Absolutely. I don't think I "feel" like other people do except for very rare occasions. Alcohol. Fixed my problems, but created worse ones until I entered recovery. Anti-depressants, hormone therapy, meditation, therapists out the yang, so many jobs left or fired from because I can't relate to my coworkers, on and on... I think I might be "on the spectrum" as a "highly sensitive person". I am so glad to have had this video recommended to me and will like and subscribe for sure!
The thing that has fucked me up the most is my anticipation of the judgement of other people. Because I don't mind being "a fuck up." I'm not thrilled with it, but I know enough to know that isn't all that I am and I'm kind enough towards myself to give myself a break about it. I'm not out here celebrating being a gifted kid turned burn out, but at the same time it isn't the end of the world to me. And I'm alright with it.
But even to this day I'm haunted by even small comments people made in passing. I remember 5 or 6 years ago being at a bowling alley with friends when someone I used to go to high school with stopped by the table and recognized me and asked how I've been, only to follow it up with "I always thought you were one of the smart kids." It isn't something I lose sleep at night over, but obviously it meant something to me if I can remember it. I don't even remember the guy's name but I remember the comment.
The older I got, the more divorced my reality became from the expectations of those around me. And the more that happened, the more it made me want to separate myself from the others. To the point where I just went full-on hermit mode. Obviously those decisions have negative repercussions.
It's just wild to consider the cascade of cause and effect hat led me down the path I chose. I recognize it's far from hopeless and it isn't the end of the world, but god damn was I not prepared for the weight of it all.
Every time Dr. K has a "gifted kids" video, I feel like he's been watching documentary footage from my life to do these talks... it's so helpful to hear a trained person break down some of the "whys" of my life. I feel like some of this topic today is covering in a more detailed way something that I've said about my own life before - I wish that I'd had less "paths forward" available to me in high school, rather than excelling/having an easy time in everything, as that would have helped me choose a fitting career path for myself and buckle down to succeed in college, rather than just flailing and flaming out because I had no direction and no study skills. Ugh... man, I wish I had access to this kind of information back then.
I was put in gifted programs since second grade and man let me tell you- this video AND THE COMMENTS are hitting home. I’m very recently getting into the improvement of my mental health and breaking my barriers, and analyses like this are really motivating. 💖🙏🏾
I just failed my 1st year of uni in engineering after procrastinating all year and a lot of things you said sound very true to me. I watched this video with my dad too and we really could see our relation as him being the advice giver but I keeping rejecting it too.
I’ve seen a lot of stuff on this subject- the gifted kid to burnt out adult pipeline. But I love how this video really went into depth as to why it happens so much.
I am soooo so grateful that my parents did not overly praise my “giftedness.” I have been for a while now, and this video really reinforced that feeling. They focused much more on compassion, empathy, generosity, humility, and honesty. And even though they are very smart, they (mostly) lead by example in what they pride themselves in as well. I remember my dad being happy when he first found out I was gifted, but I nearly never heard my parents brag about my intelligence, and if so, it wasn’t ever in front of other people- my peers, nor my parents’ friends. They rarely compared me to other kids in that regard. But looking back I can see how my teachers’ reactions to my childhood intelligence gave me a little embarrassing ego for a time. I never wanted to make other kids feel bad or anything, but I certainly LOVED to show off whenever I got the chance, and I’d even create opportunities to show off. Not in front of the whole class, but just to the teacher. I’m talking about doing extra work I was never asked to do, just to show my teacher I knew something, as if it would give me extra credit. 😂 But all I wanted was for her to be impressed with me, at 7 years old! 😭 I don’t think I realized that’s why I was doing it at the time, but as soon as I turned that little paper in and she didn’t start singing my praises, I felt so dumb and embarrassed 😂
Anyways, I think my parents’ raising me helped counteract that a lot, and we are a very social family, and I had friends of all ages outside of school, so I didn’t get to maintain that feeling of superiority. Which meant my perceived value and self-confidence never rooted itself in being better than others in any way. That bit of perfectionism was definitely there for a while, but I desired straight A’s far more than my parents ever did, and I grew out of that eventually. And now I love trying new things, even when I’m terrible at them! I’m one of the least athletic people I know, but I’ll happily make a fool of myself because games are fun and I’ll act competitive even when I know I’m gonna lose at pickleball or whatever lol. And SOMETIMES, I even improve a little, but I enjoy myself either way. I’ve also never been afraid to ask questions, and I’m really grateful for that.
I definitely struggled with learning to study though. Admittedly, I’m still horrible at it and dread it and hate it. I never had to until middle school, and I still just didn’t most of the time. Got by with B’s and a couple C’s, which I hated at first. But I just couldn’t apply myself, even when I went to college. Didn’t know why for a long time. But the giftedness + my adhd (undiagnosed until age 25) were definitely the main culprits. Actually, hearing about the “gifted kid to burnt out adult pipeline” began my journey to getting diagnosed with adhd lol! Speaking of which, I’d love a video on the overlap of neurodiverse and gifted people.
I don’t usually like to talk about that fact that I was in a gifted class, for multiple reasons. Partly because it often brings up negative feelings for others (I’d say especially siblings of other gifted kids). And partly because I really do believe that most of what we did in my gifted class, all the other kids could have done. It was almost like Montessori learning. It was largely just hands on and doing more of what we enjoyed. Like we voted on which culture to study each year for social studies, instead of just learning the dates and locations of wars we couldn’t understand in the first place. I think all kids should be learning that way. And so many kids that weren’t there with us had strengths we didn’t have, but they didn’t get praised for those very often. I just think the school system as a whole is pretty imbalanced and messed us all up in different ways. It makes learning a competition in a way that affects our self worth for the rest of our lives sometimes.
How did this man describe me with a 99% accuracy, even I could not be this accurate when depicting myself to others.
Thank you, very much, for these videos brother.
You are helping more people than you could imagine
The cognitive empathy part really was a huge realization for me. I feel a lot of this gifted kid stuff hasn’t applied to me, as I have always had a huge motivation and fear of failure. I can really recognize the presence of cognitive empathy as a substitute to emotional empathy in my life.
I wish there was more representation for gifted kids who did bad in school due to pressure, disinterest, or mental/emotional related reasons. Sometimes I feel out of place because I decided to do bad in school. I gave up on it because everyone tied my identity to it when I did good, and I felt a strange sense of contempt when I did bad, but I remained intelligent far beyond my years at the time (now, it feels like I've regressed, partially because of piled-on trauma and stress), reading at a high school/college level in 4th grade, helping adults with things that their own similarly-intelligent adult friends couldn't figure out, figuring things out quickly, implementing solutions very quickly, and being included in intricate adult convos while still being very young. Whenever I *did* try in school, I could catch up even if I was months behind, but it always left me feeling much worse in the end.
Come to think of it, I gravitated towards being around older people because my peers would become alienated by me more often than not (Something I still don't have an answer for today, and I'm certain it wasn't me being weird), leading to me being kicked out of friend groups and developing trust issues with people around my age.
Also, treatment of teachers in school when I didn't live up to my prescribed identity of "smart kid" made me develop an emotional disdain for teachers in general (getting called out in front of the entire class because "you should be able to do this" still hits to this day lol), so anything I learn nowadays I have to teach myself, and it's been a struggle to approach the idea of going to college. Graduating from high school was a huge breath of fresh air for me, school went from a haven where I could learn a bunch of cool stuff to what felt like an emotional ball-and-chain.
I'm only at the mid point of the video but pretty much everything thus far is applicable to me. All the ego/intellect stuff, growing as a gifted kid, skipping on developing identity, etc.
Even as I am listening through the topic, I am experiencing the same thoughts Dr. K is describing. It feels so ironic that I feel like a special case of a gifted kid because at multiple points in my life, I grew up with trauma and without my parents' protection and it messed my emotional mind up so much up until today, I can't help but feel like nothing is going to work for me.
The help seeking/rejecting part is so fricking relatable because of this. I automatically, almost unconsciously reject so much help because I can't help but think nothing's gonna work and my only lifeline today is that I hope I can figure out the best for me in the future.
The hardest part for me rn (23F) is that I was told for so long, you’re gifted, you’re different, you’re smarter than everyone, etc. that when I started struggling or even got to middle school (diff gifted program than elementary school due to school district change), I was told I might not qualify or my IQ is not high enough and then I was consistently surrounded by “genius level” IQ gifted kids and compared to them when I didn’t perform. Or shamed for not learning/operating like a neurotypical person. So it just felt like no matter what I excelled in or succeeded in and the little changes that I was able to manage, were not deemed enough and therefore not praised, thus not being reinforced and not remaining consistent. And if the change stopped being consistent, then the cycle restarted. Going for an evaluation for ADHD later today, or just any evaluation to figure out if there is something I had learned to mask/cope with as a kid, or if there is anything I can be offered as an option or opportunity to function better in my adult life.
I was considered a "gifted kid" throughout all my years in elementary, but I kept going with the mindset that I'm just as smart as everyone else if not less, since I really underplayed my intellect. It's helped me a lot in the long run, but hurt me in terms of my self esteem
I am gifted and autistic (diagnosed at 20, now 21). I got in first place at my state’s Federal University in the most disputed major (Medicine) while studying just 2 months before my country’s SAT-equivalent.
Aaaand I’ve failed twice ever since. Lol. Med school is tough and, same as the profession, demands an amount of effort that I’m simply not used to making on a daily basis. My obvious answers were avoidance and procrastination. I’m ever more aware of my shortcomings though, and I hope that next semester will be different. I don’t mind failing a subject again, I just want to stop sabotaging myself and start getting used to the amount of effort (and subsequent suffering) that comes with living an adult life with responsibilities.
This video was great btw. Having such an inquisitive and stubborn brain, it’s nice to hear some facts about giftedness from someone other than my psychologist. Watching this just 2 days ago made me realize that I really gotta let go of the “life should be easy for me” mentality. And for that I thank you deeply.
Hi Dr K, I've been following you and lurking for a while, but only yesterday have I started to kinda binge-watch your stuff... and I've struck freaking gold.
As an ex-gifted kid, I have learnt far more in a couple of videos of yours than after years of reading and watching other material on the topic. I never had the tools to get it right back when I was a kid, so I was set up to fail. I was constantly underchallenged at school, so I coasted. To make matters worse, I grew up in a dysfunctional household where I was abused and emotionally neglected. Nobody instillled discipline in me or taught me anything on time management or how to study. Now that I'm doing my master's I'm paying a high price for this. All my life I've felt that I'm inadequate or a loser, which I used to compensate with delusions of grandeur and addictions. I've been starting to fear that maybe I'm doomed to fail.
Now I know what this is all about. You being an ex-gifted kid as well, I get the feeling that you understand me in an uncanny way and that I can finally turn my life around. That I can stop being so hard on myself and accept myself for who I am. That it's possible to enjoy life and at the same time make great progress in whatever I set my mind to. I'm in awe of your work and, what's more, of the person I see in you. I think you're nothing short of amazing. I feel deeply indebted to you. What a world this would be with more people with your empathy.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Much love to you and everyone watching this.
if you got your bachelors, you're not doing too bad tbh.
Most people would draw the line of failure at not completing high school or a 4 year degreee.
@@sp123 I agree. The thing is that I've always disregarded my achievements, telling to myself they were "the least I should've done". As I used to say, every win was a tie. Only after I had a phone call with a close friend a couple weeks ago did I realise how wrong I was and started gaining a more realistic perspective on this.
@@manuelriveros2911 you have to understand that success is more generational than anything else. Most people who are doing better than you probably had parents who set them up to succeed from the beginning. Everyone wants to talk about hard work, but fail to mention that most doctors come from families with doctors, most pro athletes come from families with pro athletes, etc.
I was told years ago that it takes two generations to form a career and the older I get the more I realize its more true for successful people than not.
@@sp123 Interesting. I come from Argentina. My mum was he first one in the family to attend university. She's an attorney. As for me, I won a full scholarship for my bachelor's in Italy. I was the only in the family to emigrate and have been living in Europe since mid 2014. I have only realised thanks to my friend and my therapist (and Dr K and you) that I've been close to making the best out of my situation, all things considered. It was never enough, nothing was ever enough. I'll never forget when my psychiatrist at that time told me that he was amazed I was this normal (I was 19, now I'm 31). That many people would have been far more damaged in that household and that showed how strong I am mentally. I shouldn't forget that I've come a long way and that I always can make it better. People like you guys help more than you may think. Thanks a lot for your encouragement and support. Appreciate it, I really do.
@@manuelriveros2911 society is gaslighting a lot of us and we don't know it
This describes me to a t, on how I've experienced life so far. Through Highschool was easy, then college came alone, where I failed pretty quickly due to just a lack of ability to study how I was told to just do, as explained in this vod. I've finally made the step to start college again, but am still afraid of failing and wasting the time and money on it. I don't know if it'll work out, but the biggest issue I've had is not knowing how to explain the issue without sounding super egotistical and/or narcissistic. It's always just "I just want someone to properly understand the issue I experience on a daily basis" as I think that a person can't help as they don't understand, as they will probably tell me the same as everyone else has before them. I find this video more as a reference to give someone to try to get the help I think I need. (I'd like to add, that a thought popped into my head as I finished typing this. It isn't help I need, its understanding that I desire. Plenty of people probably understand the issue I experience, but for me to get by it I feel it needs to be someone close to me in some way or another.) I bet that rant is just a logical part of my brain being like "okay time to think this out".
This one did hit home for me. I’ll be using those tools in the future for sure. Thank you so much for having created this platform and giving so much support to so many people.
Same here. As someone who can't afford a psychologist / therapist, I'm very grateful for this video.
I was also born 'gifted'. In elementary i didnt do any of my homework but would ace all my tests and assignments. Then i hit the wall in 7th grade due to my mom's depression (this affected my mental health a lot and now im considering trying to get a diagnosis for persistent depressive disorder). in middle school i would start relatively high and decline in grades as I developed an addiction to video games and youtube. I thought that i could go on like i did in elementary, but instead became negligent of school and my own body. It felt like everybody had been lying to me about myself. Like i was never smart, but they told me that so i could fall into this dark place. at that point, my only identity was 'the golden child'. always kind, empathetic, intelligent, perfect... now i were nothing. Im in high school now, studying art and architecture and im doing decent at school. Ive given up on getting As everytime. im happy to get a B or C. No matter how my parents hate it, I wont care anymore. that the only way I can live now
this video hits home hard. Because of my "giftedness" life is incredibly hard. I think my autism also influences it, but the main thing is that i can see how things will turn out, better than other people. I generally don't talk much about this, because I don't wanna sound like I brag, or make other people uncomfortable because they struggle with things I find second nature. I don't have friends around me, they all are working and far away from me. I am in a university degree that I was coaxed by my family, stayed because i found it easy, and gave me time to work on myself and my hobbies instead. Now things are hard and I don't have neither the organizational skills or the time to invest in nothing in my life.
@@gabrielfoleiss I am still fighting, I guess. I do everything badly. I think a lot about what i can do. I try to stay away from social media(the only I use is youtube) and electronics as much as I can to find time to think about a way out. I stay on this shitty degree. I try to go to events and find people. Even though I hate change, I try as much as I can to put healthy changes in my life. Even though I would like to do things in a better way, i still do them badly. my motto is "doing the best in preparation for my deathbed". The day I die , at least I can get peace by knowing that I did something. That is the sole thought that gives me some solace.
You are not alone and, your problems are mostly related to disconnect between your inner drive and path you forced to tread. This is sure way to get depressed. Life with out purpose and emotional and intellectual satisfaction is nothing but very slow and painful dying.
I swear we're living the same life... The great thing is that you're still trying... Even though you don't like those efforts, they're still efforts... Somewhere last year I stopped trying... Dark times... Didn't realize I did till November... Till this day I'm still trying to fix my relationship with effort... Every effort I make needs an internal motivational speech... I hate it here
I could be wrong but I think prolonged periods of working on things which does not resonate with you leads to low levels of dopamine and over time it makes everything difficult and pointless even thing which before were giving you satisfaction.
Everyone is autistic nowadays🙄
I really resonated with this video and the interview you did last video. I didn't even realize at the time but you're completely right, succeeding at something you aren't good at actually brings you joy. I didn't care much when I got into a top uni in my state, but when I was trying to make a rap beat and made something that didn't sound completely trash I started getting super hyped.
Personally, it took having a massive ego death over the period of ending high school and starting college for me to finally start looking inward and trying to change. Granted, I think most of the change I go through is fueled cognitively, my willingness to change and try new things was spurred by an intense emotional response. Also, the Help Seeking and Help Rejecting portion REALLY hit me. I still find myself doing this, and I'm fortunate that I have a small group of people put up with it and actually show me that they did think of this, or they did think of that, and that the advice they're giving is actually good. What a great lecture.
This is describing my life!!! Labeled gifted by 2nd Grade and out in a program called P.A.L. from 2nd-6th, I then entered into Honors level classes from 7th-12th. I also had undiagnosed Bipolar Disorder, C-PTSD, Generalized Anxiety and trauma-induced ADHD to contend with. In doing trauma work I can identify a lot of my learned behaviors as coping mechanisms, but I knew I was considered “overly sensitive” before the age of 5. I kept wondering if something traumatic happened before that age that I just can’t remember, but this makes total sense. I feel deeper than most people and have an inability to regulate my emotions. I also identify with most things coming easily but have a weakness in one subject. Mine was math. From long division in the 3rd Grade with a bad teacher on, I struggled with and feared math. It didn’t help I had a dad who could lean over my shoulder and easily identify what I had done wrong with an algebra problem I’d been working in for a half an hour. Lots of 😭. I ended up staying in Honors math through the 11th grade where I stopped with Pre-Calc. I didn’t need a math credit my Senior year and I sure as hell wasn’t going to put myself through an AP Calc class for nothing! I never learned how to do a proof In Geometry, Physics was a joke, yet I somehow managed to pass these classes with a C. I was an A, sometimes B student otherwise. I just managed to fake my way through it somehow. I also credit being in the Honors Classes with other “smart kids” being the reason I passed at all. In my small school Honors students were basically the same 25 out of 92 in the same classes together. If I had been in the “regular” classes with kids who didn’t strive as hard as I did to help me along, I would have failed. I will also say, the shame gap is real with me.
Update : Learned my Bipolar was a misdiagnosis and I have been an undiagnosed high functioning autistic since childhood…
@@mercymonroe83 you live and you learn! I hope you’re doing well now :)
that's where I think a lot of this comes from. I don't think we naturally go towards only what's easy, I think we go there to numb ourselves... that was how it was for me anyway
So I've gone through all you've said. I had actually due to traumatic experiences of failing a lot realized myself that I needed to let go of my identity. And I did it and it hurt like hell. I think it was kinda traumatic. But whatever, it was for the better as I did indeed pull my life together. But now I feel stuck again. I got through university and now I have a stable job. But I feel stuck again. I have a small group of friends, one I hang out with virtually every week, I go to the gym, and I play video games. That is all I do outside of work. Some part of me feels satisfied by this, but another part of me feels like I am letting my life go and not doing anything and I'll regret it. But I don't do anything. I can't ever seem to feel satisfied. Or well I can't seem to feel like I am enough. It's all a mess and I don't know what to do.
I think that I count as a gifted kid, and everything I've ever had came in ease for me. School was a breeze before highschool (which I am in now), I was even able to learn English almost fluently with a bit of help from my grandmother. But these last two years, since I was 14-15, it all came crushing down. This is setting me in a state of deep depression I think, and it is hard to say that it's hard for me now. And I don't want to get help so my parents won't worry about me, but I know that I need it.
hello, six month later if im allowed asking how is your life? im in your position right now. im 13 and havent been to school for half a year because depression. i just found out that im what society calls "Gifted kid" and my life havent been worse.
Things have changed a lot. I was under a lot of stress at the time I found this video as well, which had my condition even worse. I didn't speak to anyone about it, which was a giant mistake. With a lot of this stress off of me and being away from a few people, my mental health improved a lot. My social situation not so much. I hope your's will improve as well! If you aren't doing so already I'd encourage you to both talk about all that you feel right now with someone that you trust, or even seek professional help if you think it's what you prefer. Sending all the love and hope to you!
Me "fixing" my problems:
1. spend 12 hours a day consuming information for years at a time
2. form my own conclusion which I trust because it made it :)
3. go to therapy because all the information said so
4. present my conclusion to my therapist while internally knowing that it is wrong but not knowing how to talk about the problem any other way
5. therapist agrees because the information I present to them is tailored around my conclusion
6. feel dissatisfied with the help and continue to form my own conclusions but now I feel more alienated
7. end therapy, isolate myself because that is all that is familiar to me and feel even more certain that only I can help myself
8. realize that I need help and do it all again
I feel like if I ever go to therapy, I'm gonna end up the same way. Hyperintellectualize may through the conversation and not recei ve any real help because I'm afraid of what I'll find
@@tmnic6971 I think you are probably right about that. I still think it is worth going to therapy with the awareness that you are hyper intellectualizing in mind.
After finding this community a few months ago I feel like I have grown more than I ever did in therapy. I know that eventually I will hit the end of the line with youtube videos and streams, though. I actually started therapy again this week and first session I dumped my conclusions and such lol.
I see it as me getting most of my help from this community but I might as well get therapy at the same time. If the day ever comes that Dr. K videos stop helping me it will be really nice to have a therapist there that already knows you. Plus I think with the recent breakthroughs I have had from these videos, I am way more aware of what my mind is trying to do when it comes to staying in control and protecting itself.
@@TheSonicSpud yea I'm definitely open to getting therapy in the future. Reading your comment helped me realize that I would probably come to therapy with a conclusion already formed and it wouldn't help me so if I ever do go to therapy, I would try to come in without any pre-conceived notions of what therapy is supposed to be like
@@tmnic6971 Smart strategy. If you can afford the price or have insurance I think it's worth trying it to form your own opinion. Good luck!
Why do people fall down? It's so they can get back up again.
Normally when people have problems, they usually talk about them with friends or any close ones. Therapy tend to be a last solution, unfortunately, most therapies don't give any significant result and may even end up with you having medications prescribed for something that could in reality be solved differently. You would probably like therapy sessions to be like how it's portrayed in the manwha "Dr. Frost", unfortunately, fiction is fiction and reality is reality, people are usually motivated by money rather than the solution. It could be a good for you to read Dr. Frost and then reflect on what you consider your own problems and the solutions towards them, as the great Captain Jack Sparrow once said, the problem isn't the problem, the problem is your attitude towards the problem.
I feel like I lucked out, and between my parents and some good support, I ended up leveling up my Wisdom almost as much as my Intelligence, so I kind of managed to figure out how to work around the issues I had with studying habits and whatnot. I also feel like I'm JUST smart enough that schooling mostly came too easy, but also not so smart that I didn't ever encounter situations where I had to be like "Ok, I'll have to actually buckle down and put some work into this." Like, I think I'm not actually gifted level, just well above average.
same here
Figured out that by myself in my late 30s and oh boy, what a difference it makes.
I feel like I started out as a gifted kid, but then didn't develop cognitively fast as the others later on. So it all is even now. I'm average but used to stand out. Weird but ig I'm glad. The change is drastic tho. I used to have problems with friendships and was pretty lonely, now it's not that big of an issue anymore. (sorry for my bad English)
Same bro
I have figured out a lot of these things on my own and the further I went into this video, the more you hit every nail on the head. I am speechless and I'm writing this as I'm about 1/4 into the video. Couldn't have been more grateful for finding this channel. Thank you for everything you are, if you ever get to see this comment.
Thank you so much for this.
The medititation session at the end made me cry. Not a sad cry; but a grateful cry. It was the first time I felt like I have the strength needed to confront the hurt that I've been scared of for so long. My fear is like a curtain wrapped around me and your lessons help open my mind and loosen it. Thank you for this enlightment and for helping me and so many others.
I was a gifted kid, turns out I'm autistic. I have the above-average intelligence but as I grew older, the social disability became more marked.
I actually have learned to deal with this challenges with two key phrases:
"Embrace the feeling of being uncomfortable" If you get used to the feeling of being uncomfortable, new experiences won't be as daunting anymore. You start embracing being bad at things and learn to acknowledge that being bad at things doesn't imminently make you a bad person.
"You are not that important" what I mean by that is nobody cares if you were a gifted kid. Nobody cares if you need longer to study, literally everyone is on their trip and way to busy with themselves.
"being bad at things doesn't imminently make you a bad person", you know why it's hard for gifted kids to do that? Because if they embrace that, that also means the opposite is true as well: being good at something naturally doesn't imminently make them a good person.
I feel like no good ever came from thinking “I’m smart.” Nobody will deny that it’s good to feel capable, but that capacity always comes from practice (in some form or another). Granted, some people *are* smarter than others, but nobody wins their first game of Go, especially against a strong opponent.
Rather than pacifying yourself by thinking “I’m smart,” actively strive to become capable. When you succeed, then it will mean you weren’t so dumb as to preclude success-and that’s all the “smarts” you actually need, anyways.
Remaining teachable is key.... Along with doing (taking action) instead of thinking
I disagree. One of the best things I did was start owning my intelligence. Most of my life I've been a high IQ square peg being malleted into a normal IQ round hole. And one day I got tired of it and started telling normal IQ people to buzz off.
And frankly, it was the best thing...because high IQ people have life strategies that are definitively superior to the life strategies of normal IQ people, and this is evidenced by the fact that there is a positive correlation between intelligence and virtually every positive life outcome, and a negative correlation between intelligence and virtually every negative life outcome. Intelligent people have superior life strategies! The evidence strongly suggests this.
The only problem is that society is set up for the normal IQ people, sees their overly-emotive way of navigating life to be the "normal" and "well adjusted" way, and so tries to force high IQ people into that strategy. Contrary to Dr. K's claims, there is a negative correlation between emotional problems like alexithymia and intelligence, and positive correlation between empathy and intelligence. He's just wrong in the idea that high IQ brings about these problems, and so is society.
The issue is society trying to force high IQ people into an average IQ life strategy. High IQ people, having superior life strategies, need to lean MORE into their intelligence, not less, and stop catering to what average IQ people are doing, because they're just wrong about everything.
When I finally started doing this: telling normal IQ people they're wrong and I'm not going to listen to them...my life drastically improved. Yup, it's rough having to figure out everything myself, as I can't lean on anyone else. It's lonely sometimes too. Yup! That's true. But my income doubled, my mental health drastically improved, I'm way more independent, and I'm far more useful to myself and others.
TL;DR: High IQ people need to stop trying to adjust themselves to the flawed life strategies of normal IQ people. Instead, claim your independence, figure it all out yourself, and stop listening to your intellectual inferiors and their overly-emotive way of navigating life. All the evidence suggests that you're right, they're wrong, and they have way more emotional problems then you do.
@@saintsword23 *than you do. Is English your native language?
Would you please give an example of a "high IQ life strategy" as distinct from a "normal IQ life strategy"? A strong example seems rhetorically necessary, since what you've said could just as easily reflect an embittered and antisocial narcissist's copium as it could a very stable genius' wise insight--about which (purely statistically speaking) I should be somewhat skeptical.
@@alexandersanchez9138 I will if you agree to engage me seriously rather than finding petty typos and calling me a narcissist. This isn't narcissism, it's the result of going through three decades thinking I was the problem until I laid out the facts. The fact is that BY DEFINITION, high IQ people are cognitively superior to average IQ people. As a result, they come out better in virtually every measurement of life outcomes. That's just a fact.
Here's another fact: Dr. K is completely wrong about the issues high IQ people face. A quick search of the academic literature reveals that there is a significant negative correlation between intelligence and alexithymia (source at the end), and alexithymia is his own example.
"Narcissism" is always the first charge intelligent people get hit with when recognizing the gulf between them and normal people. But just look at the facts. I thought I was the problem for 30 years until I just looked at facts. Normal people are the ones with bruised egos about this issue, not the intelligent.
I'll eagerly engage further upon agreement of more civilized behavior going forward.
Reference
Connolly HL, Young AW, Lewis GJ. Consistent evidence of a link between Alexithymia and general intelligence. Cogn Emot. 2020 Dec;34(8):1621-1631. doi: 10.1080/02699931.2020.1789850.
@@saintsword23 My bad, friend. I merely intended to provide some constructive criticism which I earnestly expected you to receive with humility, grace, and appreciation since all people (including high IQ people) make mistakes; I certainly didn't want you to feel disrespected or even attacked over a silly typo or a rhetorical blunder (however glaring or ubiquitous).
Let it be known, hereby and henceforth, that I, Alexander Sanchez, shall engage santsworld23 with all of the respect, civility, and dignity befitting this hallowed forum--and this profoundly serious and consequential topic! I apologize for my previous transgressions and assure you that they WILL NOT be repeated at any point in our subsequent correspondence. I look forward, with eager anticipation, to a brighter future for us both if only you choose to accept my apology and my word at its face.
Nice. With that out of the way, I maintain my request for an example of:
1) A decision problem that occurs in life,
2) A policy that is "normal IQ"
3) A policy that is "high IQ"
4) An argument that the "high IQ" strategy is superior to the "normal IQ" one.
I feel like supplying such an example will greatly improve the rhetorical structure of your argument by grounding your claims and ameliorating their a priori potentially nebulous/impredicative character.
For the record, I am not currently challenging--nor have I challenged at any point in the past--your claim that Dr. K is wrong about alexithymia and IQ. In my estimation, even raising the issue now would be premature as I still have yet to grok your concept of "life strategies".
This video hit harder as in ”fuuuck i do this so much” than anything else I’ve ever listened to on youtube!
Super insightful, thanks Dr K!
I wouldn't call myself "gifted", but I've always been one of the "smart kids" at school and I relate so much to rejecting help, for like a month I'd ask chatgpt for help and then rage quit when it forgot half of the variables I told it to account for lol
Wow, this is really contextuallizing for me why I am the way I am... I was a gifted kid who grew up with a lot of traumatic situations and a mother who was abusive on every level. THe lack of emotional connection and nurturing I grew up with caused me to have to depend quite a bit on my intellect to get through. Here I am at 46, still longing and learning about my emotions and others. I have lived my life through mental constructs, creating and believing in what made sense and what would protect me from a volatile mother. Letting go of her and the rest of my family has allowed me to step back from the constructs and see what my life is, what life is... and I am griefstricken for all that has been lost. I've been cleaning buildings for over 25 years, alone. I have one good friend who is deeply mentally ill and often isolated/dissociated. I do have 2 great kids, but they have their own lives, thank god. As one crappy, child molesting uncle put it, "You had so much potential," while shaking his head. The odds were stacked against me. I realize I'm not done, but many days I really struggle to go on.
I think my parents (mainly my mom) thought I was gifted. They took notice to my neighbor's son's tract of being good at math and then going to school to become an engineer. So they saw how I was good at math and science, and pounded it into my head that I needed to become an engineer before I even knew what they did for a living. My entire college career was a struggle due to the inability to study. I graduate and struggle finding a job because I'd beat myself up for having a 2.5 GPA. Eventually I find a good engineering job and move about 300 miles from my parents and family and it's been that way for about 20 years now. Fast forward to now...my parents neighbor's son (who is probably 48 now) moved BACK into his elderly parents house next to my parents, and is retired. He does nothing and goes nowhere and buys nothing. Has like no friends (except online gaming friends). He only plays video games and that's it. Buying a case of motor oil for his 10,000 mile 4th Gen 4Runner is "a lot of money" to him.
I feel so scammed when I think about it because my parents emulated that guy's career path for me without even knowing what engineering was about, let knowing without know that there is a certain population of engineers that save 95% of their income and have no life at all in order of having this goal of retiring before age 50 to do nothing more than sit at home.
He’s a dumb engineer if he doesn’t know how to use his income to build more income.
@@millieh3179 Well said.
My relative is a retired, and wealthy Engineer. He's got a busy family life, and hobbies that stimulate his mind, and keep him active. It's all about personality, and effort. 👍
I can relate to this so strongly... I grew up in poverty and messed up family. Despite my family not being able to afford math textbooks, I have somehow picked up mathematics quickly and effortlessly without studying at home. I even got sent to a math competition where I scored 3rd place in my region without doing any serious work. I was emotionally stunted, still am to some degree, so all I had was my strong math and science grades, that is all that kept me from feeling like complete loser at school.
At age of 16 I have been struck by a combination of unfortunate events, and due to lack of support, not being able to ask anyone for help, my grades suffered. The material taught got more complex, it was not possible for me to just figure it out on my own. My attendance rate was about 30%, I barely passed high school.
I went to some shit university to study non-stem subject as a way of escaping my family. At least there I tried, I really tried to fix my poor work ethic and graduated with very high grade, but that degree is not going to get me anywhere. It was just 3 years of a pleasure island, escape from shit reality. But of course nothing is free, so now I am paying the price of essentially wasting 3 years of my life.
Now I'm trying my best to work hard every day and learn programming in my spare time. I believe this is my last chance to make some use of my 'intellect'. However it is getting hard to believe that you are gifted or intelligent when you are working a minimum wage dead end job at 24.
Hang in there. You will get to your destination! Little steps forward foot by foot.
Hey BW 24 is still very young & I'm glad you have been able to have that experience at university! Clearly you have the know-how and will to get somewhere, and you showed it in college. If you go at it and put the time and effort in, you can be a make a living as a programmer or something else soon!! (I'm 24 too, and more and more I realise how little experience I have and how much I still can learn from others)
Which country you are from?
Totally not gifted, but everything still applies to me too. Everyone has one thing, he likes most or is just better at than all the other things. You don't need to start with an unbalanced attribute distribution to become a one-trick pony and/or a master procrastinator.
Was looking for the "not gifted but still applies" comment and wasn't disappointed 😂 I think for some people it simply comes from the general fear of making failures that may or may not have been drilled in in some form or another early on
@@Methylglyoxal Yep, it's hard to overcome botcher anxiety. Became a software developer in the end...
I think my experience growing up through school was not having to try or put effort into anything. Teachers and family praised me , and I believe that definitely led to an ego being built. When it got to my middle and high school years, I didn't study instead during the lectures I would do the work before it finished as well as the hw. I remember in middle school me and my friend would do all our work during class early and then leave the class to play chess in the library or tech lab (our tech teacher made us a 3d printed chess set). Going into high school rather than do my work in class I started to procrastinate and going into my junior and senior years I stopped going to classes. Even now in college I get and understand things easier than my peers but rather than knowing more than them im behind simply because I don't invest any time into even looking at material instead I just wing tests and assignments. Maybe not pertaining to this video my motivation to do stuff has crashed where I know what I want to do to improve myself but I just procrastinate.
Watching this, I'm glad that I was a very sickly gifted kid. I missed A LOT of school and had to teach myself from books and by testing myself. My mom had severe long-term mental illness and my dad had to work long hours, so it was all on me. I didn't want to let them down--it would have made everything worse. I was also very worried and lonely as a child, which probably helped me be more conscientious. I wonder if girls and boys have different experiences with giftedness. I wanted to care for my mom, for example, and I felt I needed to make her proud to help her be healthy.
Oh my god, this is so sad. Sounds like you had to go through parentification, i.d. had to be a parent for your actual parents. I was a sickly gifted girl, too