I was gifted enough to eventually figure out I was a dumb ass.

"Gifted" programs are so fucked up.

They separate kids out for being "smart", put them on a pedestal, endlessly gas them up with wildly unrealistic expectations and then only teach them how to be good students at the expense of all social development.

All these kids go into the world thinking that being good at math or memorization is 95% of what it takes to be successful when in reality it's like 10% intellect and 90% social ability.

The worst part is that these kids usually aren't even extra smart, they just have more involved parents.

It always ends up that the kid with infinite potential lives up to none of it and has a massive ego complex because they got gaslit into believing their parents pipedreams were realistic and that it's their fault for not living up to them.

Edit: It's really funny all the former gifted kids are taking this as a personal attack.

...yeah jocks getting life-changing injuries in their school years is actually pretty comparable to "gifted kids" getting traumatized by this shithole version of America

not funny ha-ha so much as what the fuck is wrong with americans, why are they like this to their kids

In my case the "gift" was undiagnosed neurodivergence and that seems to be the case for a lot of people.

Meh...

I was successful in science/engineering for about 25 years before I burned out. I did make it, I'm just tired.

Is it really about explaining why they're not more successful? Personally being "burnt out" was more of a realization that I don't even want that kind of success, I just want to get as far away from the way my life was in highschool as possible.

Yeah, my "gift" was undiagnosed ADHD which has made life absolutely miserable to navigate once I left the extremely structured environment of school.

My gifted program (late 90s) literally consisted of:

• playing Oregon Trail
• playing Carmen Sandiego
• making a puzzle
• making and presenting an invention ~
• drawing pretty designs with a compass without knowing the actual math behind it ~
• making a didgeridoo and a rain stick

~ these classes were literally in a closet which was a part time “gifted” room.

What I wished they’d taught:

• how to study
• how to manage your time
• how and why to set goals for yourself
• how to start new habits
• how to be persistent

Oh I made it, I make more than a lot of my peers in highschool, not all of them, but I make a good wage. But I fucking hate the dev industry man. I was unemployed for 3 months and I got so much done. Agile methodology sucks the soul out of me, I don't have anything left for my personal projects. It's micromanagement incarnate. Oh you had two bad dev cycles in a row? Guess it's time for a PIP. Oh you had to step away for an errand a few times this dev cycle? Let's not make it a habit, even though all your work is done. Oh you have mutiple 2 hour meetings to attend and we still label you as having full capacity meaning you have to figure out how to do 8 days of dev work in almost half that time. I'm so fucking tired of it.

What do you mean I can't get by with the bare minimum effort anymore? That's all I really learned! That was my real gift!

Yep, burnout and depression can hit everyone and anyone.

"I was good at math until they added letters"

"I used to get straight A's"

"I was gifted untill they realised I was neuro divergent"

Bro you're dumb now. Why should anyone care that you were above average as a literal child.

Plot twist: You're gifted but don't get recognized so you just sit in gen-pop, acing tests after taking naps in class.. pissing off every teacher you encounter.

You then achieve penultimate success in all facets of life, personal and professional.

You start over for the challenge and end up even more successful.

Then you get diagnosed with cancer.

Or something. Totally not my story, nope.

Don't overlook the journey looking for the destination, folks. You're only robbing yourself of the one universal asset: Time.

Be burned out is more like trying to run a life long marathon at 125%, it works find in the start but at some point the body needs to recover.

There's a lot of comments in here addressing the social skill reduction, as if those kids in gifted programs (hello, fellow former gifted kids) didn't still socialize with their peers in just about every other aspect.

Even the kids in 'charter school programs' here were just separated from a group of 400 to a group of 50 or so kids for half or so of the day and then the rest of the stuff they attended classes with the other 350 kids. Even if they were completely separated off, they still have peers (admittedly, also 'gifted' peers).

Ignoring that portion, and you've still got the fact that you MUST challenge a child while developing. If I didn't get put in the 'gifted' track, I'd have goofed off even more and paid even less attention. NONE of my peers had their parents doing their homework (like some commentera have put), we just finally had homework we couldn't do on our own on the bus ride home. If you don't challenge a child's mind, they can't grow. And people who think every kid learns at the same pace, and that learning slower than the pace your brain can handle has no negative side effects, have no idea what they're talking about and should look into child development as a focus of psychology and come back to this comment thread.

It's true and like 80% of people on Reddit and Lemmy think they're gifted kids who just were too lazy/neurotic/something or other to properly use their natural talent or intelligence.

Lazy intellectuals™

After 40 years and 3 months of testing I finally discovered everything wrong with me is because I have ADHD.

So yeah, if it wasn't from my injured mind I could have been someone lol

THANK YOU. You were over-praised by well intentioned but misguided educators.

No doubt. No doubt in my mind... I bet I could do a book report right over them mountains!

I wasn't told I was gifted, though I was told I was "Smart but undisciplined/lazy" by my dad all the time. Who seemed more angry that I was undisciplined than proud that I was smart.

Turns out I am just autistic. And while I'm smart about random but highly specific things I had (and arguably still have) no attention or patience for stuff outside my hyper fixations.

Also I interview terribly. Every job search has taken ages, but once I get a job I always end up making my bosses very happy with my performance.

I have a fairly middle of the road job for where I live miraculously but that's probably because the lady who hired me was very pregnant and on her way out to maternity leave and wanted to be done looking for a new admin assistant. I'm definitely underemployed though.

Obviously yeah, my injury is addiction. Any further questions

Either you are called lazy for being chill despite knowing how much potential you could show to please yourself and others, or you could be pushing yourself to burnout and despair to please yourself and others.

That and "I totally would have gone to grad school, had [situation] not happened"

Fr though I totally would've gone to grad school had I not been disowned. Ignore that my sister also decided not to go last minute

Ouch that's a lot of damage.