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I was bullied and misunderstood a lot when I was young, for a handful of reasons. I also 'enjoyed' periods of popularity when other kids found my personality quirky, and I began to develop physically (boobs, another one of those is it a gift or disadvantage things).

Recently, I have been learning about different types of giftedness and how it can influence our development as children. The most recent term that I have come across is double gifted, meaning that a person has a high IQ but also a learning disability. One can make the other one go unnoticed.

I was always quick to finish assignments, would go all in and above on some, and on others, I couldn't focus and wouldn't hand them in. My spelling and grammar has always been atrocious, but my writing never lacked creativity. I always heard "You are so smart!" "Wow, you must be an old soul, you are wise beyond your years" but also "if she only tried harder she would be doing great", or "you are so lazy, you don't even have to try to do well, so why don't you just do it?". "Things are not even hard for you are they? You just don't care!"

Those types of comments have helped to give me all kinds of feelings of guilt and inadequacy. To some people, I have more than I deserve, and to others, I am a lazy loser. The messaging was mixed and confusing.

Only later in my life, at 30 years old, did I begin treatment for ADHD. It has helped me to understand a lot of the issues I experienced academically. I have always loved to learn, I was just easily distracted and bored with some of the work. I also struggled with spelling and the actual pronunciation of words due to my learning challenges. People still laugh at me for the way that I speak, often incorrectly, and it used to really embarrass me. Now I take it as an opportunity to learn the correct way, and I try to slow down.

Anyways, the research being done on giftedness, as well as diagnoses like ADHD, are helping me and hopefully others understand the different layers of intelligence, ability, and social understanding. I hope to see this brought into classrooms so that kids of all genders are noticed and helped early on in their lives.

When you know you are different... you know, and having all the other kids pointing it out is a quick recipe to induce further mental health concerns quite early in life. I look forward to seeing a more informed generation of adults as the research continues!

www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/experimentations/202111/one-...

#ADHDInGirls #doublegifted #newresearch #Continue to learn #LearningDisability #ADHD #anxiety #MentalHealth #Guilt #Bullying