Autism

They can also be both. Successful career, but forever haunted by a fear of inadequacy that just won't go away.

I am the former. "You're so smart, you just don't apply yourself" is a sentence I have heard my whole damn life.

why not both? I'm a formerly "gifted" child who is now an anxious adult with dozens of abandoned hobbies and unfinished projects. I'm also a doctor.

I was considered gifted. I was raised by parents who never showed me any affection, so I excelled in school because being praised by teachers was the only way for me to receive positive attention from a caregiver figure. I ended up crashing after high school and had to do the long, arduous work of treating my deep-seated psychological trauma. I ended up developing an autoimmune disease when I turned 18, likely from the chronic stress, but it's infinitely better than constantly ruminating about how nobody will ever love me unless I get an A++ in every class. I am suffering decidedly less these days.

or end up stressed post docs with a lot of discarded hobbies and scientific projects

Oh, can definitely confirm. Also ADHD is often misdiagnosed by school faculty as "gifted but not reaching potential."

I was "academically gifted." Straight A student until middle school, put in a special "smart kid" class in elementary, and throughout high school breezed through without needing to, or ever learning how, to study properly. It bit me in the ass in college, nearly failed out my first semester.

Parentally, it meant nothing I ever did was good enough ("you're so smart you're stupid"), while my sister was cheered on and celebrated for barely making B and C grades. Led to pretty bad neurosis and a paralyzing obsession with doing things perfectly, which led for a long time to not doing them at all.

Nowadays I'm an IT engineer, consider myself smart enough (though not a genius), and my only real hobbies are reading, music (audiophile on a budget), gaming, and exercising. I occasionally watch anime or movies/TV, but rarely and wouldn't consider that a hobby. Haven't really abandoned any them, since they're the main things I enjoy (except some of the exercise can go to hell, but I need to do it for my health).

Turns out I was "gifted" with mild autism. Go figure. 😅

I see an anti-correlation amoung the ~20 PhDs I trained over the years. I now only accept B students after a careful interview.

My biggest problem with Med students is how they lie, manipulate and game the system. Is this really who we want treating us or disease?

The most autistic professional I've ever encountered was an anesthesiologist. He explained in an excited monotone every detail about how anesthesia works before a surgery I was scheduled to have. I cracked some dumb dad joke about counting backwards from 10 I think and he stood up and said "you're not taking this seriously, I'll return" and left. He eventually came back and asked if I was ready to continue. The nurse said "Yeah, he's serious".

It’s a joke. I can see how both types exist, but they are like extremes on a spectrum, and most are between these two

This was written by a doctor making assumptions about people who didn't become doctors. I grew up in gifted classes all through elementary and high school, and have a challenging and rewarding career. I have a handful of hobbies that I keep up with until I lose interest and find new ones.

This is a stereotype which tries to find people living on the niche extremes to make fun of what the author feels is their inadequacy compared to his own circumstances.

I think a big divide for those that were listed as academically gifted were how their parents treated them.

I was basically "tier 2" gifted in that I was in the gifted programs, AP classes, honors, etc. I was a pretty solid B student and couldn't just cruise through class and get As, that took some effort.

I have what most people would see as a prestigious career in STEM, I know people that I went to HS with that doctors, researchers, etc. The key difference is that there was way less parental pressure. My parents (and the others I know that are successful) didn't get rewarded or punished for good grades. It was a more of a what you make of it situation. "You know you can do better than this B if you applied yourself, but we won't punish you for it". My parents gave me more freedom as I demonstrated responsibility. I never had video games taken away as a punishment. Never given money for good grades either.

In contrast, all those kids who had their parents up their ass (often out performing me) mostly went nowhere. Burnt out before hitting college, selecting "middle of the road" careers.

I think it boils down to motivation. All those parents suffocating those kids. The kids never build any intrinsic motivation. It's always driven by fear and reward for them. You need your own motivation to push through the "more challenging" career choices.

The Japanese rap duo Creepy Nuts made a song about this. It’s in Japanese but the YouTube video has English subtitles so you can at least read what they’re basically saying. It’s called “To Us Former Prodigies.” I’m still waiting for iOS 26 to roll out the advertised “translate lyrics” feature (it’s there but can’t be tapped), but in the meantime a bunch of these modern Japanese songs have official English translations on YouTube.

https://youtu.be/_dAzUOzWvrk

I feel like it’s a song about me, written by guys who probably couldn’t communicate directly with me (nor I with them). Though supposedly if we’re both wearing AirPods we can understand each other? Not sure if that’s real or just more smoke and mirrors from Apple, seems to be a common theme with them the last couple years.

Feel like I'd be somewhere between. Still have had people who say they think I'm some sort of super-genius. So I guess I'm somehow now an "academically gifted" adult? But I still struggle with some basic parts of my job (like dealing with the stuff on my desk next to me I've been ignore for hours to stroll here).

In the trans community this can manifest in the "gifted kid burnout to trans girl with a praise kink pipeline," which is where a lot of the Programmer Socks community posts come from.

...I don't use Arch btw. I'm too scared of mutable OS's for that.

hobbies aren't abandoned, just done in cycles as there isn't enough time for them all all of the time

I don't go crazy over mistakes, but they do bother me quite a bit

solidly in between, I'd say

I got upset earlier today because some of my friends were better at sodokus than me. I'm supposed to be the smart socially inept one. Don't take my smarts away. ;_;

I think we’d have more doctors.

I was the dumb kid in school so why did I still end up with anxiety?🤷‍♀️

Well this describes me to a tee.

Can disconfirm. I dive in completely, obsessing over a hobby until I meet my desired skill level, then drop it almost completely and move to the next thing. Some stuff gets rolled into my routine but I stop thinking about it at all, just following whatever skill/method I learned when I was obsessed.

I have also figured out how to use this superpower at work to root cause problems, implement solutions that sustain themselves, and never think about it again.

I do have a long list of hobbies I want to try, but I don’t actually try them until I finish obsessing over the last one.

I wish I was a doctor...

It's just stereotypically BS

I'm an engineer, no doctorate. My wife is the flip side going for PhD now.

I was and now am both. Confirmed

It’s a joke - and academic achievement doesn’t correlate with mental health - that’s a stereotype we would benefit from losing

I'm pretty sure this is something every kid gets told. Ive yet to meet a person who wasnt the gifted kid.

Good news, though, is that this disjoint between your capability and your self-perception of your own potential and your dissatisfaction with the life that you are leading will eventually resolve itself somewhere in your mid-40s.

The next 20 years of your life after that have a very good opportunity to get substantially better.

If you are in your 30s and going through it right now, like myself, then just know there are brighter days like a decade away, stay the course and keep doing the work.

Well, I wasn't a doctor, but I was a programmer well on my way to becoming upper-middle class, maybe even Capital instead of Labor.

But, for reasons probably largely unrelated to how neurotypical I may (or may not) be, that's been "on hold" for some years and I'm not sure I'll be able to get back "on track".

I doubt that's a useful datapoint, and I probably shouldn't even post this.

yes. spot on.

Fuck.

"Hey look buddy, I'm an engineer. That means I solve problems."