r/rs_x • u/LeftHvndLvne Cameron Winter nepo truther • Aug 31 '26
Just bitching Complaining about being a former gifted kid is the most head-in-ass take ever
Perhaps my point of view is colored by my having been ADHD as shit, neglected at home, in special ed math, and corporal punished by multiple teachers as a kid in catholic school. But whenever I hear someone talk about how hard it was being made to feel ✨ special ✨ as a kid only to grow up and become -gasp- normal, I wanna bury my head in sand. Most obnoxious fake-trauma ever like please tell me how hard it was being given too many gold stars and being the goodest noodle lmfao.
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u/DiscussionOwn3670 Aug 31 '26 edited Aug 31 '26
But when they become adults, they actually have to try 😧
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u/CaressMeDownSyndrome Sep 01 '26
As a “former gifted kid”, I understand the sentiment of waking up one day and realizing that it didn’t actually matter at all and in some ways was probably detrimental to my development, but most of the people who talk about it do it with an absurd amount of ego that suggests they learned nothing from what is actually a refreshingly humbling experience.
Realizing that you are no better than anyone else and never were should be an almost comforting experience that takes off some pressure and aligns you with your peers, not a source of shame and depression because wah wah I’m not special anymore
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u/Ill_Crab5065 Sep 01 '26
And what you're supposed to get out of that refreshingly humbling experience, imo, is the realization that if you want an above average result you need to put in above average effort to have a chance. Gifted kid syndrome mindset feels like an absolute refusal to learn that which is entitled and depressing
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u/FatChickThrillerMA Sep 01 '26
Honestly this just recontextualised the sort of shame I had being the archetypal ‘gifted kid in a school of fuck all kids in bumfuck nowhere.’ Like it truly just pieced together my lack of effort + my frustration at not being as good as I clearly internally thought of myself.
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u/One_Lingonberry_9023 Sep 01 '26
Same. Even though I am talking with my therapist about it because that realization hit me hard but at the same time it is soooo refreshing for me. I was always on the "I HAVE TO BE THE MOST (insert x positive adjective here) of (insert x place, hobbie, whatever)" and it was a terrible way of living. It was hard to have friends too because I was always competing. It was exhausting and it actually felt more like a cage. Glad I realized but I am now dealing with the aftermath
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u/ennuimachine Aug 31 '26
As a parent I've come to realize that the gifted program is more for parents than for kids. The gifted program allows parents to feel like their kids are getting a uniquely tailored education and special attention, and that their kid is *actually* smart unlike all those other kids. It keeps them happy and out of private school.
In fact, plenty of kids with normal intelligence get into the gifted program if they are supported at home or just happen to be a little bit ahead developmentally, in a way that won't make a bit of difference once everyone is older.
By the way, giftedness is not a form of neurodivergence – that's a fantasy "former gifted kids" tell themselves to explain why they haven't achieved more and allows them to continue to feel different from everyone else.
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u/expiredlunchables Aug 31 '26 edited Sep 01 '26
I remember seeing a report in the news that there are parents who test prep the shit out of their kids from an early age to ensure they score at the top percentile on the OLSAT or whatever and get admitted to their schools' gifted programs, and finding the parents featured utterly exhausting. They took all their kids' free time to train them into becoming elite test takers, while insisting in front of the cameras that their kids were actually brilliant but suffered from exam nerves. Like, if your kid needs to be coached on how to answer a test meant to measure their natural aptitude, maybe your kid isn't as smart as you think they are (which there is no shame in!)
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u/saltlampfreak Sep 01 '26
in Aus there's a strong culture of that with selective school parents from Asia and the sub continental countries. way intense and the kids get to uni with strong study skills but are noticeably limited in life experience, social experiences, personality growth, sense of self etc.
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u/airencitrine Sep 01 '26
it’s not a lot of my classmates were low income and parents were immigrants so didn’t know about gifted. we were tested on teachers’ recommendation
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u/Jekyllintheboxes Aug 31 '26
To me it's the same as if someone complained about not learning how to do laundry or the dishes because they had house help
Like sure it may be jarring to learn as an adult but thats only because you were a privileged child
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Aug 31 '26
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u/admoda Aug 31 '26
What is the meaningless / unfulfilling thing they are investing in? Just trying to understand the point of view.
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Aug 31 '26
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u/admoda Aug 31 '26
I guess I just don’t understand why that would be meaningless compared to any other skill someone could invest in.
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Aug 31 '26
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u/admoda Aug 31 '26
You just said your original comment is about trying to be smarter than others in a book smart way. Is that not a skill now?
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u/Trailing_Souls Aug 31 '26
it's literally just guys who talk about how they could be in the nfl if they hadn't broken their toe junior year, except instead of high school football they peaked in 6th grade algebra.
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u/chovihani_ Adorer of expulsion Aug 31 '26
Also I read in some 80s psych book once how praising children for inherent qualities and not things that they have worked and put effort toward breeds malignant/manipulative personalities. Interesting take. You can see what happened with men there when we collectively give praise for little to no effort
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u/chovihani_ Adorer of expulsion Aug 31 '26 edited Aug 31 '26
Before droves come out of woodwork to downvote I am from a culture where boys are insanely spoiled and girls are expected to do twice as much for less than half the privileges and no recognition. It is really that distinct. It does also seem to apply to praising things like physical beauty from a very young age, which I watched warp my sisters personality in similar ways for a long time as well
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u/Action_Hank1 Aug 31 '26
I was in a gifted program through school and the main takeaway I had from it upon reflecting back was that I wasn’t taught very good persistence. But then if you’re smart you should just figure that shit out. I don’t get the victim complex of that group.
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u/chovihani_ Adorer of expulsion Aug 31 '26
I relate a lot on the POV. Anytime someone remarks on my intellect I never feel the need to let them know I was called r word on a weekly basis my whole childhood but hey to each their own. Now I’m exoticized in relationships forever take that mom and dad
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u/kallocain-addict Dyfal donc a dyr y garreg Aug 31 '26
i got tested as a kid with a “very superior" or “moderately gifted” top 2% IQ and turned out to be a lifelong NEET. being plugged in socially, having a good family environment, or just simply being at the right place at the right time is far more important than being intelligent in most cases.
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u/MelodicPudding2557 Aug 31 '26
Not to mention, adolescent mental development occurs over the course of years, and a single snapshot doesn't really capture the final outcome. I've grown up with peers who were painfully ordinary children but grew up into exceptionally intelligent and successful people in adulthood.
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u/LeftHvndLvne Cameron Winter nepo truther Aug 31 '26
Yeah its true. I was surrounded by literal constant fighting and chaos at home as a kid and it made me so maladjusted at that age. Nobody understood and I was embarrassed to talk about it too which made everything worse. Luckily that was a long time ago and I'm doing much better in adult life!
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u/AnferneeMason Aug 31 '26
Fake trauma is not bad. Fake trauma is only bad if I’m not involved. But if I’m part of that fake trauma, I’ll defend it
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u/onemillionpigeonz Aug 31 '26
I was just thinking about this earlier and nearly made a post about it. That shit is so stupid. r/Gifted is a sub for losers who peaked in high school
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u/stolenstitch Aug 31 '26
i've always taken all gifted, honors, AP classes and maintained a 4.0 throughout k-12 & college. nothing ever came of it so i never got to feel special about it lol. wish i spent more time having fun and being social instead of depressed. perhaps a blessing in disguise
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u/drinkingteainaforest Sep 01 '26
I was given the gifted label as a kid, and my kid was given the gifted label after some testing at school in 3rd grade. I also work in special education and the gifted conversations make me so angry.
Most gifted programs function to give white, middle class children additional privileges and segregate them away from the low-income children who make up the majority of public school students without calling it segregation. We know this because upper middle class parents fight tooth and nail to get the label. In the most blatant cases, they pay thousands of dollars to get outside testing and then demand segregated classes because an outside psych says their kids need it. The middle class/upper middle class schools in my district have up to a quarter of the student population labelled as gifted. This is a label that is only supposed to apply to 5% of the population.
Higher income schools also offer fully separate classes and pull out programs for gifted students that are vastly more personalized and enriching than the standard curriculum. Kids get more hands on projects, field trips, and assignments personalized to their interests because they're "gifted" when in reality every single kid, gifted or not, would benefit from those curriculum tweaks. The lower income schools don't offer most of these services.
Nationwide, under 4 percent of students in the lowest income percentile are identified as gifted, compared with 20 percent of those in the top income percentile. (Link to data: Gifted Identification Across the Distribution of Family Income). The majority of intelligent low income kids aren't labelled as gifted, and the few that are don't even get offered the same programs. This is segregation and separate but equal education with the "gifted" label as justification.
It drives me insane that none of the adult former gifted kids on the internet EVER acknowledge this deep inequality in the system. Instead, they see themselves as an oppressed group set up to fail because they were held to high expectations and told they were smart. I think gifted PARENTS often do their kids a disservice by telling them they're extra special and destined for greatness when they're actually just reasonably bright middle class kids. The system itself is absolutely set up to privelege them.
Don't even get me started on when the former gifted compare themselves to children in special education services. Children in special education services face significant stigma and missed opportunities because of their disabilities. They drop out at higher rates, are suspended at higher rates, are incarcerated at higher rates, experience drug addiction at higher rates. I work at an elementary school, and I see the significant impact to student's sense of self by 4th and 5th grade. I wish every former gifted kid could be dropped into a fifth-grade class with a learning disability for one week. Really imagine sitting in a class where every other child is reading chapter books and you can't even read Frog and Toad. Imagine have ADHD and getting snapped at and scolded literally dozens of times a day because your body can't physically sit still or focus, and now you're completely behind. Imagine feeling that way for years and years and years, the majority of your childhood. It's awful and "gifted" adults who try to make the special education comparison to earn oppression points are insufferable.
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u/Wise-Memory-9757 Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26
No one talks about learning disability trauma fr! Just remember that those precious geniuses will NEVER have the swag that we got from ADHD + math disability combo <3
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u/ApeBlender Sep 01 '26
Agreed. Seems like the theme with a lot of them is no actual intrinsic motivation. Maybe they just did it for praise and when they grew up and lost that they ✨burnt out✨. I always did well in school because it made me feel like a horse working on a farm. I still have no idea how to react when people tell me "good job" it just feels awkward
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u/redeugene99 Sep 01 '26
I think it's mostly people who are smart and have unmedicated ADHD. You can get far in childhood like that but at some point in adulthood, you're gonna struggle and often struggle hard
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u/No-Insurance4631 Sep 01 '26
if you’re in a context where you don’t have to try you need to remove yourself from that context
just find ways to live life on hard mode until u find something you actually want to do
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u/Capital_Fee2891 Sep 05 '26
I disagree, maybe elevating it to 'trauma' is indeed a reach, but viewed simply as an experience (the experience of being gassed up by adults, sheltered from the reality that they are not in fact special and better than everyone else) that they identify as having some undesirable consequences later in life, it's a perfectly valid thing to complain about, although I think they are really trying to find people with similar experiences they can understand theirs better through rather than just 'complain'. You mention getting beaten in school, experiencing neglect to paint yourself here as the more traumatised person who has the authority to dismiss less serious kinds of trauma. I'm sure you know there are plenty of people who would dismiss your own claims to trauma on the basis of those experiences cause they've had it even worse
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u/Full-Campaign784 Sep 01 '26
yeahhhh exactly i feel somewhat similarly bc i was only in "gifted" classes up until middle school and always hated school
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u/NoahFencze Sep 01 '26
I think there is also the factor of being intelligent =/= successful, practical, motivated, opportunistic, good at networking, etc.
Many high intelligence people end up mentally ill and/or isolated. I believe being too intelligent can make you neurotic and/or insufferable.
In a setting where the goals are straightforward and one is constantly observed, it is easy to recognize these people as higher intelligence. But as soon as they lose structure they fall apart. Many do have the mental abilities, but they lack motivation and direction. Being good at everything during early development will prevent you from developing any perseverance or work ethic. So as soon as that is necessary in life it’s over.
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u/WarmAffirmations Sep 01 '26
I passed the “gifted test” but I was gifted enough to know it was weird and told my parents I didn’t want to be in the program lol.
FWIW I was also an emotionally neglected ADHD catholic school kid. Had normal math class tho.
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u/screensaversealions2 Aug 31 '26
the r/gifted sub is very funny and frustrating and sad, they all act like some persecuted minority because they tested highly as kids, and also so many seem to think they're the only ones in the world who are curious or wonder about 'deep' stuff. lots of "boo hoo, i'm so smart i can't even interact with normies because my mind works on a different level"