Comment on Thats fair
AngrySquirrel@lemm.ee 3 days agoI mean, he didn’t say smarter, he said a better brain. I would also love a better brain, which to me would not mean an increase in intelligence. On paper, I’m allegedly well into the gifted territory of he IQ scale, but my developmental and learning disabilities, especially my poor executive functioning have led to me working fast food…
shneancy@lemmy.world 2 days ago
ayyy twice exceptional high five, how are the unfinished projects going? it’s a strange life to be both allegedly gifted and also have a learning disability, your whole life you get told how much potential you have, but you can only reliably pull off being kinda average
but i digress, yeah that’s a fair point. i guess i assumed when they said “better brain” they meant “better brain power”. i too would like a brain that can perhaps manage to do things when i want it to do things, instead of only doing things when they become emergencies
AngrySquirrel@lemm.ee 2 days ago
Honestly, I have been way too warn out, stressed out, burned out, tired, depressed, and busy to really have any projects going. It feels like I pretty much just sleep, work, and doom scroll on my phone. A lot of that though is from trying to deal with the results of trying to have an SO (never again) and trying to do homesteading while trying to pursue her dreams with her.
Yeah, it definitely is a strange experience being “Gifted and Talented Learning Disabled” as the school system labeled me. The school system didn’t know what to do with me. It was certainly weird being partly mainstreamed (a mix of SPED and mainstream classes [including honors classes]).
I would genuinely prefer to have an average IQ, or even slightly below average, if it ment I didn’t also have the disabilities I currently have. I literally had physics books as bed time stories as a kid. yet when it came to the end of high school; I was discouraged from applying to a 4 year university (despite my grades), because of my disabilities and and discouraged from going into STEM. The rest of my extended family all have advanced degrees and impressive career and there there is me, who can’t even function well enough to live on my own.
shneancy@lemmy.world 2 days ago
huh, that is- strange, it sounds almost as if knowing “from the start” about being twice exceptional fucked you up more than being oblivious. very few know about my IQ, and i only got tested at 18, same with adhd where i had my first suspicions at university and started trying to get diagnosed after it. what you’re describing sounds like a deeply confusing child/teenagehood. it sounds like you were kind of taught to feel helpless and doubt yourself
and oh man, i hope that the spark to do silly projects captures you again soon :( they’re so fun, best of luck <3
AngrySquirrel@lemm.ee 1 day ago
I don’t think I would have been able to avoid any diagnosis as a kid. It was noticed that I was different in preschool (both mby the preschool and others, including my parents). The school system flagged me as being different in kindergarten and in first grade started testing me and providing some special classes such as speech end classes on emotions. I also received OT later on in elementary school and had a Teacher’s aid assigned to me for a few years. I also don’t think I would have done well at all without extra supports, but I don’t think all of them were necessary or helpful and some, especially combined with being partly mainstreamed were more harmful, especially given that my main difficulties were with social interactions. My official diagnosis were not the only reason for my experience though. My brother shares my main two official diagnosis (ADHD and Dyslexia). My brother never had to ride a short bus and he attended the same schools as the neighbor kids throughout his schooling. It was also just assumed hat he would go to a 4 year university and he was assisted in applying schools and had is tuition, board, and living expenses all paid for by my parents for undergrad and grad school. I had to work part time while going to community college.
I have other diagnosis such as Dysgraphia and the public charter SPED school I was sent to for a couple years also “diagnosed” me with “Executive Functioning Disorder”, but there was always this understanding that there was more that was not officially diagnosed. I am honestly surprised that I didn’t get officially diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Condition such as Asperger’s or PDD-NOS (Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified) as a child, nor was I ever tested. I started suspecting Asperger’s when I was in my early-mid teens and the last psychiatrist that I was taken to towards the end of highschool said that he thought I have Asperger’s and should be assessed, but my mom shot that down immediately. I brought it up to her another time and she said, “that’s ridiculous, you have no trouble talking”, which apart from the fact that that was specifically not a criteria for Asperger’s, I actually did have and still do have some trouble with speech to the point that I even had speech therapy as a kid.
I think of the main reasons I didn’t get an Autism type diagnosis is because at that time it was only Autism or ADHD, you could not officially have both. They seemed to want to try to medicate me to normalcy. I was put on every ADHD med that existed at the time, at one point or other. When I was switched to a new ADHD med it tended to be raised til it was either maxed out for what could be prescribed for my size/age or raised till the side effects were too much and then backed off, rather than titrated to effect. I didn’t even get taken off the ADHD meds when I was “dangerously underweight” in middle school due to an unrelated chronic medical condition that at the time my pediatricians were still struggling to figure out.
Yes. Very much so.
It also didn’t help that I was raised to basically view disabilities as shameful and othering. I learned that I needed to do my best to hid as many of my issues as I could and to be deeply ashamed of my issues. To be clear, a lot of that was from merciless bullying that started in 3rd grade. My mom also would do things like chastising me for taking too long to tie me shoes and threatening to throw out my shoes and buy me Velcro shoes (which she threatened well into highschool , but never actually did). No wonder I have been depressed since part way through elementary school and have been suicidal since middle school.
Yes, in many regards, especially from my Mom’s sister (this post is already way too long to cover her). I was also taught to do things for myself and to be rather capable in some some aspects though. My dad is very much of the view of letting someone do for themselves.
My apologies for the long rambling posting. I guess I just needed to vent. I worked about 12 hours today.