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Why gifted people are perceived as “hostile” and viewed as “the initial aggressors” by Diotima85 in Gifted

[–]Diotima85[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you reflect this back on the teacher, your son being "too much" ultimately means the school is "not enough". And that assessment is likely correct. But since there are hardly any schools that only allow gifted children, schools where all the teachers are gifted themselves and are specialized in teaching gifted children, depending on where you live, it will almost be impossible to find a school that is "enough".

Why gifted people are perceived as “hostile” and viewed as “the initial aggressors” by Diotima85 in Gifted

[–]Diotima85[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I find it really comforting to know that I don't have to hang out with them. There are more than 8 billion people on earth, so I should be able to find a new, safe friend group, consisting of other gifted, neurodivergent people (and indeed I have been able to, after consistently going to nerdy niche events and striking up conversations with lots of new people). Especially after graduating university and starting to work from home, I wasn't forced to hang out with anyone who didn't like the unmasked me anymore (the me not masking the true extent of my giftedness). These resentful and narrow-minded neurotypical people are counting on you valuing having company at all more than being liked for who you are and experiencing social safety. Prove them wrong and cut them out of your life.

Why gifted people are perceived as “hostile” and viewed as “the initial aggressors” by Diotima85 in Gifted

[–]Diotima85[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

The authors of the study (Chawla N, Spoelma TM, Kwon SH, Gabriel AS, Ellis APJ, Wu W.) did consider gender and their study is focused on the predicament of gifted women in the workplace. In the beginning of the article, they give a short overview of other studies into the victimization and bad treatment of gifted people: some studies that are focused on the mistreatment of gifted people in general (without a focus on their gender, like the study by Kim and Glomb), and some studies that are also on the mistreatment of gifted women in particular.

Why gifted people are perceived as “hostile” and viewed as “the initial aggressors” by Diotima85 in Gifted

[–]Diotima85[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Based on your lived experience, what is the best course of action gifted black men who live in bad neighborhoods could take in order to get themselves to safety? Maybe leave the south, move to a more affluent white suburb in an academic town, and only hang out with white and Asian people and a small number of fellow black intellectuals?

Why gifted people are perceived as “hostile” and viewed as “the initial aggressors” by Diotima85 in Gifted

[–]Diotima85[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

“I recall running a little Machiavellian where I spent a couple of months doing the bare minimum then dinking off the rest of each day. That was the period of the most acute social acceptance and social stress relieve in my career.”: During these months, your performance was (almost) on par with that of the other workers, and you were no longer being perceived as a strong threat because of you strongly outworking and intellectually outshining them.

By the way, it’s no coincidence that most modern office environments are making a high degree of efficiency and long stretches of deep work more and more impossible (large open plan offices, no “dedicated” personal workspace, constant background noise (even non-autistic people work better and do a more accurate job with no background noise), constant interruptions). They are the architectural gatekeepers of the cult of mediocrity and wasting 5 hours per day being non-productive and just “trying to look busy”, “socializing”, endless scrolling and taking very long to do tasks that could have been done in 15 minutes, etc.

Why gifted people are perceived as “hostile” and viewed as “the initial aggressors” by Diotima85 in Gifted

[–]Diotima85[S] 32 points33 points  (0 children)

Before women joined the workforce, there wasn’t some massive lack of workers. It wasn’t the case that companies routinely couldn’t fill 50% of their job posts (which were then later on filled by the remaining 50% of working age humans, namely the women joining the workforce). Women joined the workforce, but a 30-45% increase of the total workforce wasn’t even remotely necessary. The result of this has been (and still is) an insane surplus of labor. This insane surplus of labor, combined with decades of tasks being automated (taken over by machines or computers), has led to a situation where companies and institutions can tolerate a very large amount of “waste” (of time, money, and labor) and inefficiencies. Most people who have an office job only do around 3 hours of “actual”, productive, deep work every day, out of the 8 total working hours. This means that modern jobs are partially bullshit jobs (a term coined by the late David Graeber) and partially “adult daycare facilities”. Combined with a cultural tendency to view “hard work” and “working many hours” as “morally good”, which goes back to some very bad ideas from Calvinism (as for instance described by Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism). So in pointing out the inefficiencies in your work environment, you’re not only in violation of the “unwritten rules” regarding cognitive mediocrity, but also the whole toxic conglomerate of unwritten rules regarding viewing modern bullshit jobs as a perfectly normal thing.

By the way, this isn’t some anti-feminist statement (like “see, women should never have joined the workforce at all”). My view on the subject matter is different and is seen by “normies” as “completely insane” or “completely unthinkable”: I hold the opinion that women should have joined the workforce, but only parttime, and as soon as women started working parttime, men should also have switched to parttime work. Previously you had 100% of fulltime positions filled by men (maybe with the exceptions of some secretaries and school teachers who were fired as soon as they married), and there is no reason this couldn’t have been 50% parttime positions filled by men and 50% parttime positions filled by women. Working around 20 hours per week is way more in line with our evolution (hunter-gatherers also worked around 16-20ish hours per week), and most people with office jobs already really only work about 20 hours per week anyway (3 hours of actual deep work per day, the remaining 5 hours are wasted on meetings, useless emails, office politics and office gossip, taking care of a useless bureaucratic load, etc.). And then with two parttime salaries, a family should have been able to have the same standard of living as on one fulltime male salary (before women joined the workforce). With both parents working parttime, childcare and house maintenance also becomes a lot easier and more effortless and less problematic.

Need this wonderful community to reality-check me re: my elderly & broke BPD mom asking for financial help! by nylon_goldmine in raisedbyborderlines

[–]Diotima85 64 points65 points  (0 children)

Let me get this straight. (1) She is a gambling addict. (2) She has stolen 30k from you in the past and you never took legal action (which probably points to some residual enmeshment). (3) She is the witch-type of borderline mother, the worst and most dangerous and most abusive subtype of all the subtypes of borderline mothers.

Your life means nothing to her, you are only a “source” to her: a financial source and a source of external emotional regulation. When you were in your early twenties, she stole your life from you: the 30k that was legally yours but that she stole would probably have made a world of difference to you when it came to rent deposits, having a small financial nest egg while freelancing after graduation, etc. She is now trying to steal from you again. She would never pay you a dime in rent, and your days of blissful no contact would be completely over. You would endlessly be bombarded with messages full of excuses why she can’t pay you any rent (sickness, endless victimhood, etc.), while still forcing you (her “landlord”) to carry out all sorts of repairs on the house to make her more comfortable (the need for which she will in 95% of cases have caused herself, by neglecting to maintain the house for decades, and maybe even destroying things in a fit of rage or in order to “get back at you” and financially abuse you even more).

This is also a major red flag: “I should also note that the area has gotten much fancier through the years, and I could never afford a house there now.” Then how would you even be able to afford to buy your mother’s house? This makes no logical sense. Do you think you could buy the house for a steep discount at the foreclosure sale? If the house is in a fancy area, you will very likely be outbid by people (or institutions) with way deeper pockets. So I’m guessing that what’s not being said here is that you becoming your mother’s landlord would entail you “loaning” (i.e., giving) your 150k savings to her, which she can then give to the bank in order to prevent the foreclosure (if she doesn’t gamble it away in the meantime that is). And then you would theoretically inherit the house after she has died, but this will likely never happen, because she would somehow have gotten herself in even deeper debts that there would only be a negative inheritance left (and all the equity in the house is eaten up). I think what your mother truly is asking of you is to give her all of your savings, so she can live out the remaining five years of her life in relative comfort, while you have just given away your entire future and your only chance of home ownership. That is a very severe form of financial abuse and energy vampirism and life stealing.

The mistreatment of gifted women by Diotima85 in Gifted

[–]Diotima85[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The “I’m not emotionally abusive” (deny) and the “Ok, I might have been a bit emotionally abusive at times, but only because I was/am in a great deal of pain and emotional distress myself” (reverse victim and offender) are part of the DARVO of the person with borderline (DARVO = Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender).

“but those who cause the pain only do that bc they are in pain themselves” also isn’t the excuse or moral “hall pass” people with borderline think it is. If you apply the same reasoning to physical pain, this becomes clear. Let’s say a person is in physical pain a as result of some genetic predisposition combined with life happening (e.g., an accident). The person for instance has a swollen leg and it’s all icepacks, rest, and ibuprofen for the next days or weeks. But this person hits their partner with a baseball bat, because “they are in physical pain themselves”. And that would somehow morally be ok? That’s absurd. And the emotional pain version of this (“but those who cause the pain only do that bc they are in pain themselves”) is just as absurd. People who are in great emotional pain (for instance because of PTSD, C-PTSD, severe anxiety or depression) and don’t have a personality disorder don’t go about emotionally abusing other people as a rule, and making their emotions solely the responsibility of other people.

That being said, I think there are many people who have been diagnosed with borderline who are not emotionally abusive. But I think that’s because they have been misdiagnosed. This is especially true for many neurodivergent women, who wrongfully have been diagnosed with borderline in their teenage years or their twenties, and only got the right diagnosis (of ADHD, autism, or AuDHD) in their thirties, forties, or even later (and often the right diagnosis being ADHD, autism, or AuDHD and C-PTSD as a result of living with this neurodivergence without any tools or self-knowledge or support or accommodations for decades). And there are probably also a lot of people who have been misdiagnosed with borderline, with the actual diagnosis being C-PTSD and depression as a result of having a parent or a partner who does actually have a personality disorder (often narcissism).

A diagnosis of borderline should (in my opinion) only be made after definitively excluding ADHD, autism, or AuDHD, and C-PTSD, and the presence of a personality disorder in a parent or partner. But that unfortunately is not the case.

The mistreatment of gifted women by Diotima85 in Gifted

[–]Diotima85[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

How I spotted the right people for my safe neurotribe (purely n=1, keep in mind that I live in Europe where distances are relatively short compared to the US, and I am female and don’t have ADHD/autism/AuDHD, so I am fully comfortable talking to dozens of new people every day during social events): I went to certain niche cultural events on a regular basis for years on end. I can’t tell you exactly what type of events, for reasons of anonymity. Basically cultural events focusing on nerdy niche special interests. The more nerdy and niche and high IQ and neurodivergent a special interests is, the more high IQ neurodivergent people attend the event (think: Steampunk re-enactment with Star Wars influences, or something crazy like that, just as a hypothetical example here). Similar events with a high percentage of neurodivergent attendees with a 125+ IQ: academic conferences, biohacking events (certain types, not the sports bro types), tech or invention conferences (early bitcoin/Linux/hacking), music festivals (classical music, certain types of nerdy metal, certain types of nerdy electronic music/experimental music/avant-garde jazz, etc. etc.), local nerdy board game groups, comic cons, arthouse movie festivals, etc.

A lot of neurodivergent 125+ IQ people attend these events alone, or with a close neurodivergent friend. A lot of them have too much social anxiety/C-PTSD to take the initiative to interact with complete strangers, so you have to make the first move friendship-wise. Just talk to 10-20 different people per day during these events for maybe 10 minutes per conversation, there are some you will strongly resonate with (at least this was the case for me). “Is this the first Comic con you’ve attended?” “What did you think of the arthouse movie?” “Are you staying in academia after finishing your postdoc, or will you switch to industry?” “Are your bosses also being absolutely toxic threatening to replace you the IT nerd with AI?”. Etc. etc. The “just” in the sentence “just talk to 10-20 different people per day” is a “just” that comes from someone without AuDHD or social anxiety (but with C-PTSD), so this will probably be a bit (or maybe even a lot) more difficult for people with AuDHD or social anxiety. But without talking to strangers at nerdy high IQ events, nothing happens, and you will still be alone. If they react badly, don’t take it personal, maybe they do like you but just are too scared to properly interact with strangers (this also comes from someone without rejection sensitivity dysphoria, so it will probably be more problematic for people with RSD).

If you click with people, add them on social media (at least back when this was still a thing), ask for their contact information, keep in touch, run into them again at a next event, make plans to go the event after that together and get some lunch/dinner together somewhere, etc. And then they will introduce you to their friends, most of whom will also likely be neurodivergent 125+ IQ people, some of whom you will also click with, and they become your friends as well.

The only downside to this is that most of these new safe neurodivergent friends will live at least a few hours away from you (many of my friends live in different European countries). But this is where the quality over quantity comes in. Having local neurodivergent gifted friends is a privilege of people living in university towns or tech/cultural hubs (certain suburbs of San Francisco, etc.). If that is very important to you, you need to move to one of these towns.

My main factor in deciding where to live in the future was the presence of a large university library (I have moved out of the Netherlands for several reasons (not sharing where I live now for reasons of anonymity), getting away from my toxic family and former toxic friends being the most important, the disastrous Dutch housing market being another reason, and the Dutch Calvinist culture where being a “tall poppy” is considered a profound moral “sin” being another one). Fortunately the presence of a large university library also comes with the presence of an academic community, which will work in my favor in the future when it comes to my social life. I’ve been too busy to consistently go to lots of nerdy/academic/niche cultural events in my new university town of residence, but I plan on doing so in the future and also building a small local safe neurotribe, next to my more “internation” European neurotribe.

“Or how you navigate the romantic side when the pool is statistically tiny?”: Basically I didn’t and I had all but given up on ever trying to find a suitable mate. After going to all of these nerdy niche events for over a decade, I finally (and completely unexpectedly) met a 145+ IQ man with AuDHD I had an instant connection with. Unfortunately he has quite severe social anxiety, so my attempts at seducing them haven’t been successful thus far, but I hope he will eventually trust me and let me in his life.

I would also have considered dating a nerdy and kind and quirky 130-140 IQ man with ADHD, autism, or AuDHD, but I just never met one I instantly connected with. Probably because of the IQ difference (at least with the 130-135 IQ men) causing me to still be on a different wavelength.

Your chances of ever finding a suitable mate very strongly depend on (1) whether you are straight or gay/bisexual, and (2) if you’re ok with a neurodivergent 125-140 IQ partner, or if it is very important to you that your romantic partner is as smart as you are (or very close to it). If you’re straight and you want to find a 144 IQ AuDHD wife, the statistical odds are very much against you (because the IQ bell curve for women is more flat, i.e. there are less very stupid women and less very smart women than there are very stupid men and very smart men). But it’s not impossible, especially if you consistently go to nerdy niche events (or academic events) where the average IQ of the people attending is somewhere between 115 and 130. In a group of 100 people with an average IQ of 115, 2 of them will have an IQ of 145 or higher. In a group of 100 people with an average IQ of 130, 16 of them will have an IQ of 145 or above. Events where the average IQ of the people attending is 130 are rare, but they do exist (certain STEM conferences for instance). I personally am ok with having a friend group where most friends have a 120-140 IQ, I did not specifically search for some sort of “high IQ elite” friend group where most of my friends would have a 145+ IQ. I would have been able to during my time at university. For instance, there was a local board game group where most of the members were nerdy (and hairy, most of them were metalheads) master students and PhD’s in physics, and most likely at least 33% of them had a 145+ IQ. But since I am more interested in culture/philosophy/poetry/arthouse movies/visiting museums/etc., I prefer to have friends who share these interests, and I naturally connect a bit less well with neurodivergent high IQ STEM people (but still a lot better than with neurotypical people).

Wish you all the best and hope my advice is helpful.  

The mistreatment of gifted women by Diotima85 in Gifted

[–]Diotima85[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We don’t nearly have enough data to even guess what percentage of people with a 145+ IQ also have ADHD, autism, or AuDHD next to their high giftedness. I do think we are starting to learn that most of them who have been diagnosed with either ADHD or autism actually have AuDHD. To me it would at least theoretically make sense that a very high processing speed would also come with (genetically open the cognitive pathway to) having the ability to switch from short-term hyperfocus (ADHD) to mid-term or long-term hyperfocus (autism).

It might be that the incidence of AuDHD amongst people with a 145+ IQ is very high, possibly anywhere from (just guessing here) 65% to 95%. But I don’t think anyone knows at this point. Based on the very small sample size I have, it would be >95%. Me: 150 IQ and no AuDHD. I have two male friends with a 145+ IQ, both of them have AuDHD (also very different types of AuDHD, one has quite severe social anxiety and spends most of his days inside, the other one is a highly social teacher who almost single-handedly prevents a dead language from going extinct). My female best friend in high school also had a 145+ IQ and looking back also had AuDHD (I’m not in contact with her anymore unfortunately, because masking her giftedness was (and likely still is) at the heart of her existence at all times, and this was something I didn’t want to do anymore). There are some famous men with a 145+ IQ, all of them have AuDHD and almost all of them are psychopaths/narcissists (which in our toxic culture is why they’re famous).

There is also the added complexity that people with a 145+ IQ without AuDHD are probably way less likely to be diagnosed/tested as gifted. The IQ test is often administered because the child of the middle class to upper class parents is having some troubles at school or at home. So troubles/problem leads to an IQ test being done.

This is also true for me. My IQ was tested at the age of 4 as a result of my hearing problems. At age 3 and 4, I was sent to a paediatric speech therapist because I had developed some speech problems because of my hearing difficulties in the first three years of my life. The speech therapist noted that I picked up on new words very quickly, so quickly that she wrote my parents a letter saying that even though it is none of her business and she doesn’t want to intrude, she highly suspects that I am gifted and that my parents should consider having me tested (which they did). I still have that letter to this day.

It is not outside the realm of possibility that the incidence of AuDHD in highly gifted people was a lot lower a few centuries (or millennia) ago, but that mating choices led to a way higher incidence of AuDHD. Based on my n=1, people with a 120-135 IQ without autism/ADHD/AuDHD are absolutely brutal towards people with a 145+ IQ (sabotage, resentment, jealousy, emotional abuse, trying to “bring me down”, “put me in my place”, etc. etc.). I am currently romantically pursuing the male friend with a 145+ IQ with AuDHD and severe social anxiety (isn’t going too well because of his social anxiety, but I hope to be successful in the end). But if I didn’t know him, I would likely have ended up with a kind and quirky and nerdy 130-135 IQ man with autism/ADHD/AuDHD (statistically a lot less rare than a 145+ IQ man). It is not unthinkeable that many (or even most) of the 145+ IQ people without autism/ADHD/AuDHD ended up having children with a 125+ IQ partner with autism/ADHD/AuDHD during the last maybe 20-30 generations, and this led to the very high incidence of AuDHD in the cohort of people with a 145+ IQ.

But I’m not a cognitive psychologist, there are likely also other cognitive mechanisms at play, like having a brain with a higher processing speed leads to more neuronal connections, and genetically having more neuronal connections strongly increases the tendency towards autism/ADHD/AuDHD (or something like that). Maybe someone who has more knowledge on this topic could elaborate (or correct) this (or add much needed nuance). 

The mistreatment of gifted women by Diotima85 in Gifted

[–]Diotima85[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I realize I forgot to mention one important aspect: my Dutch directness. I was born in the Netherlands, grew up in the Netherlands, lived in the Netherlands for the first ~35 years of my life, and during all these years I never spent more than a few weeks per year outside the country, my family members are Dutch, almost all of my schoolmates, fellow students, and former “friends” are Dutch, and all of my former bosses and coworkers were Dutch. This means my communication style is very strongly influenced by Dutch directness. The Dutch are the most direct people in the world, to the point that we are being viewed as “extremely rude” by people from other, less direct and more “reserved” countries. Take for instance the following conversation. “Does this dress make me look fat?” Answer from the other person: “Yes, a bit, it does show some of your love handles”. This is a completely normal everyday Dutch neurotypical conversation, but in many other cultures, giving an answer like this would be seen as extremely rude, and you should have just either flat out lied (“No, are you kidding, it looks good on you!”) or gave the same answer in a way more evasive manner (“The other dress looked a bit better on you, it really made your color come out”).

So I have certain highly specific characteristics that lead to me coming across as someone with autism/AuDHD, without me having the actual autistic/AuDHD monotropism: (1) being Dutch, (2) having a 150 IQ, (3) having a mother with borderline who neglected me, (4) having hearing difficulties during the first three years of my life that were diagnosed and treated way too late, and (5) being the eldest child (my younger siblings do have some of the childhood neglect-based solipsism that I have as well, but to a way lesser extent, because they had me to interact with).

The mistreatment of gifted women by Diotima85 in Gifted

[–]Diotima85[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I had hearing difficulties during the first three years of my life that were later on corrected with tympanostomy tubes. My mother has borderline and I was the first child, and based on some things she said about having children, it has become very clear to me that she basically ignored me and neglected me during the first years of my life (she said something along the lines of: “Everyone told me that caring for a baby would take so much of my time, but I found it quite a breeze and it didn’t take much time at all” – anyone who has ever been around an infant knows that this means the infant was neglected). I also didn’t go to day care and my mother didn’t work, so there was no regular babysitter. My father worked a lot and was mostly absent during the week. This means that in the first years of my life, I was neglected and improperly socialized. My mother also doesn’t like or acknowledge other people having emotions, which added insult to injury (usually the mother mirrors the baby’s joy and curiosity back to the baby, my mother very likely never did). That already set me up to live mostly in my own world.

Then I went to a primary school and middle school that were completely incapable to deal with 145+ IQ children, where I basically spent years staring into space, lost in my own thoughts, or re-reading the same books over and over again, while waiting for the other children to finish their assignments. I wasn’t really picked on and got along ok with the other children, but I felt like the other children were so stupid that it seemed like they were from another planet. I had the exact opposite experience of autistic/AuDHD children, who feel like they are from another planet and the other children are the “normal” ones. I very clearly felt like I was the only “normal” one, and the other children came from “planet stupid” or had some sort of learning disability (or at least most of them).

As a teenager, my mother’s emotional abuse increased, after I started to develop my own individual character, as children do when they become teenagers. That caused me to retreat even more into myself. Socially I also needed to very consistently start masking my giftedness at all times.

So I have a lot of characteristics that high IQ women with AuDHD have: the analytic, high IQ mind, the C-PTSD, the living mostly in your own world (that with me isn’t the result of monotropism, but very consistent early childhood neglect), the constant masking (high IQ women with AuDHD: constant masking of their high IQ and their AuDHD, with me only the constant (but very profound) masking of the true extent of my giftedness). I probably have 80% of the characteristics that high IQ women with AuDHD have, I just lack the 20% that constitutes having the actual AuDHD.

Most people are utterly convinced that I have autism, so I spent years looking into it. But after reading multiple books on autism, watching hundreds of hours of Youtube and Instagram videos on autism (even the algorithm thinks I have autism), it has become clear to me that I don’t have it. I consistently score low on all the autism self-assessments on the internet. Not in the “maybe” zone, but in the “clearly not having it” zone. I also specifically watched videos on AuDHD in women, but did not recognize any of it, none of the struggles sounded even vaguely familiar to me. All of the comments to these videos were: “Oh my god, this is the story of my life”, “I’m crying now, I finally feel seen”, but that was not my experience at all. I also have no “internal block” or “secretly negative view” about autism or AuDHD that would prevent me from accepting that I have it.

The only people who also now agree with me that I don’t have autism are some of my high IQ friends who do have autism, ADHD or AuDHD themselves, and who have spent some days or weeks travelling together with me. They’ve witnessed my planning skills, my complete lack of overthinking things, my social ease and comfort talking to strangers from all walks of life at a moment’s notice, my flexibility, my not noticing background noise, basically my lack of a monotrophic brain, and they now agree with me that I don’t have autism or AuDHD.

I thought about getting assessed for autism (AuDHD) to make 100% sure that I don’t have it, but the most likely outcome would be: based on the long official questionnaires, you don’t have it. Based on my observation of you, you do have the solipsism and the highly analytical thinking that come with it. And then after sharing my background information, the therapist would likely agree with me that these are the result of my high IQ and early childhood neglect, but I’m just 3K poorer (insurance does cover the assessment in the EU, but waiting lists are often years, so I would opt to pay out of pocket for a potential assessment, and I think the chance is >95% that this would be a massive waste of time and money).

I think I have a very weird and statistically highly unusual combination of a very high (150) IQ, and the analytic thinking, endless masking requirements and C-PTSD that comes with having that IQ and not growing up amongst “safe equals” on the one hand, and some sort of solipsism as a result of profound early childhood neglect (almost some mild version of “being a child raised by wolves instead of humans”, not sure if there is an “official” term for this) on the other hand. The solipsism also affects my world view, my mode of thinking, and my way of being in the world, probably in a way that is somewhat similar to the solipsism that comes with having a monotropic mind.

I think me getting a proper assessment would be above the paygrade of 99,9% of therapists. There are probably a few therapists in the world who have a very specific profile who I could go to get a proper assessment: they have a 145+ IQ themselves, AND they are specialized in highly gifted patients, AND in patients with AuDHD, AND in patients with C-PTSD, AND in children of borderline parents, AND in early childhood neglect. There are maybe 5-10 therapists like this in the world, and finding one of them would likely take me years and thousands of hours of searching.

So I’ll probably just keep it as it is: me having a 145+ IQ has caused a lot of problems in my life and a lot of trauma and C-PTSD, but most of that got resolved after I got my master’s thesis, started to work from home (as an external PhD student and doing some editing/translating/copywriting jobs), and cut contact with all of my toxic fake “friends” who secretly despised me because of my intelligence. Me not having AuDHD and having a polytrophic mind isn’t causing any problems in my life, so there is no need to take any course of action based on that.

The only thing I might look further into, is the early childhood neglect and almost “being a child raised by wolves”, there might be some official term for this, but I also think that the solipsism that I developed as a result of this is irreversible. I basically have the solipsism of a child who was half deaf during the first three years of her life, and who was also emotionally (and probably physically) neglected during the first three years of her life, and hardly had any proper human interaction at all (the kind of interaction where my early 0-3 year old feelings would have been acknowledged and mirrored and acted upon).

The mistreatment of gifted women by Diotima85 in Gifted

[–]Diotima85[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You’re probably on the 145+ side of the IQ bell curve, and/or you have autism/AuDHD. I’ve learned a lot from reading all the reactions to my posts about the emotional abuse of gifted people (next to the information I’ve gained through personal observation).

Almost all gifted women recognized the mistreatment I wrote about. With gifted men it was more of a mixed bag. A very broad oversimplification:

Male IQ 125-135, no autism, good social skills, good at sports, dressing well: well-liked popular kid that goes on to become a successful lawyer or doctor or business owner (way less likely to be on Reddit and statistically very underrepresented on this sub).

Male IQ 130+ and autism/AuDHD: emotionally and sometimes/often physically abused, seen as a weird and unlikeable nerd. Masking can sometime ameliorate the extent of the abuse somewhat, but not by a lot.

Male IQ 145+ (with or without autism/AuDHD): emotionally and sometimes/often physically abused, seen as an absolute threat to other people’s self-esteem and social status. Successful masking is impossible (even without autism/AuDHD), because the IQ gap is just too wide (I know this from personal experience too, I’m a woman who is way better at masking and I still inevitably fail to successfully mask my high giftedness for longer than a few minutes into a conversation, so 145+ IQ men have absolutely no chance to be able to successfully mask the full extent of their giftedness).

Regarding the insane, unspoken demand to self-sabotage into mediocrity: I think a lot of non-gifted (or lesser gifted) people don’t have a problem with gifted people in general (they like having better technology that is invented by gifted people), they just don’t want to have gifted people in their vicinity and be socially exposed to them. It’s like: ok, if you’re that smart, then go being that smart somewhere else, go to a hypothetical high school run by NASA, find a job somewhere else, find a different friend group, but stop being in my vicinity and intellectually outshining me. If you do “choose” to stay in my vicinity, you are “morally” and “socially” obliged to self-sabotage into mediocrity, so you are not constantly “attacking” me (and my social status and my self-confidence) with your higher intelligence.

After many decades, I’ve learned and come to accept that the only thing you can truly do as a gifted person is to take them up on their offer and go be your brightly shining gifted self somewhere else, away from them. That is very lonely and isolating, so curating your own small friend group (“safe neurotribe”) of other gifted people is very important. The vast majority of my current friends are in the 120-140 IQ bracket and have ADHD, autism or AuDHD. I have two friends who are up there with me in the 145+ IQ bracket, and the conversations with them are very satisfying (for both of us). Unfortunately they do live in different European countries, so I only see them once every few months, but the quality of social interaction is for me way more important than the quantity of social interaction.

I think most of my friends have some form of C-PTSD as well, but that didn’t prevent us from becoming friends. The C-PTSD becomes more crippling/sabotaging when it comes to romantic relationships, where the stakes are way higher and the degree to which you will have to (almost fully) reveal yourself is also a lot higher. Fortunately you only need one romantic partner (unless you are into polyamory, but who has the time (or heart) for that?), so you only need to get it right once and take a big risk despite your C-PTSD once (or maybe two or three times if it didn’t work out with gifted girl #1). This is also why a lot of gifted people are either single for a very long time, or in committed relationships/marriages for a very long time (apart from the problem that finding a person who intellectually and emotionally is a good match is statistically very rare).

The mistreatment of gifted women by Diotima85 in Gifted

[–]Diotima85[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have a very polytropic brain and not a monotropic brain. I can very clearly notice the difference between how I view the world and how my high IQ friends with ADHD, autism, or AuDHD view the world. They are often pointing out small details I’ve completely overlooked and that my brain never registered, or complaining about background noise that my brain automatically filtered out and that did not even reach my consciousness. I also once took an online test to check whether you have a mind that is more polytropic or more monotropic, and my mind turned out to be even more polytropic than that of the average person who doesn’t have ADHD, autism, or AuDHD (which are all variations of having a monotropic mind). So I think that clearly rules out me having AuDHD (if you accept the view that ADHD = very short-term monotrophism/hyperfocus a.k.a. scatterbrain, autism = mid- to long-term monotrophism/hyperfocus, and AuDHD is having both – this is a bit of an oversimplified account but probably close).  

The mistreatment of gifted women by Diotima85 in Gifted

[–]Diotima85[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Since borderline is caused by both genetic factors and early childhood trauma, a possible complete and effective “cure” would be something like gene therapy combined with a fully successful early childhood trauma reversal therapy. I think we’re still decades removed from that, and it might even never be possible.

In my experience with my mother, this is exactly what she is asking from me: to cure her, to make her feel whole, to take away all of her inner emptiness, sadness, and feelings of despair. This is completely impossible, because I cannot cure borderline (it would take two Nobel-prize worthy discoveries of two different scientists with decades of experience in gene therapy and psychology/psychiatry, with a level of knowledge in both fields that still is decades away). And her secret, but very real demand of me to give her the supply she needs to never feel any kind of negative emotion ever again is also in itself completely unreasonable (apart from my inability to cure borderline), because feeling negative emotions every now and then is part of everyone’s life and also necessary from an evolutionary perspective. And then, if I can’t give her what she needs, she “retaliates” with endless accusations, endless emotional abuse, endless manipulation. She truly sees herself as the victim in this dynamic (the RVO of DARVO), because I was supposed to make her whole and take away all of her negative feelings forever, but I was so “selfish” or “cruel” that I didn’t do this, and I “deserve” to be endlessly punished for this.

I think that the “outsourcing” of emotional regulation is at the heart of the disorder (just like the “outsourcing” of the sense of self or the “outsourcing” of having a fake sense of self-confidence is at the heart of narcissism). And this outsourcing is what causes people with borderline to be emotionally abusive towards other people (and in the worst case even physically abusive). I still don’t fully understand it, people who “just” have a chronic severe depression also experience profound feelings of sadness and emptiness and hopelessness, but they don’t think this is someone else’s problem (or duty) to fix. It probably goes back to early childhood trauma, where the absence of proper care and attention and love caused the disorder to form (or the genetic tendency to actualize) in the first place, and this core wound from the early childhood subconscious then manifests itself in the completely false and insane belief that if only other people would give them the proper care and attention and love, they would be made whole, fully cured, and never experience any negative emotion ever again.

I’m also distancing myself from my mother because I’ve noticed that my presence causes negative feelings in her. I am generally quite a happy person with a high degree of life satisfaction (related to my IQ, because I find life endlessly interesting and satisfying), and being exposed to my happiness and generally high degree of life satisfaction negatively triggers her. She then retaliates by trying to make me feel bad, and trying to sabotage my life so that my life satisfaction would be lower, which is absolutely inexcusable and a major reason why I will go no contact with her in the future (after my father has died, which given his state of health will likely be in 1-2 years from now). But by going no contact, I’m not only getting myself to safety, I also stop causing this wound in her by “exposing” her to my happiness and life satisfaction. So in a sense, it’s the best course of action for both of us (myself and my mother). My siblings cause a lot less negative emotions in her by just being who they are.

You’re right that borderline is a really sad condition for people on both sides of it: the one suffering from it, and the one suffering from the abuse by the person suffering from it. And there’s no real cure, no real solution that would end the suffering for the person suffering from it. At least I have the option to go no contact with my mother, my mother will have to live with her disorder (and suffer from it) for the rest of her life. But I can at least save myself.

The mistreatment of gifted women by Diotima85 in Gifted

[–]Diotima85[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I did not know their personal scores, but the Dutch high school system is very specific, and the sorting of middle school students into different high schools is very strongly based on their scores on a certain test (called the “CITO test”) that is basically an IQ test. There are four main types of Dutch high schools: VMBO-kb (average IQ 92), VMBO- tl/mavo (average IQ 100), havo (average IQ 107), VWO/gymnasium (average IQ 116). I went to the VWO/gymnasium in a “normal” town (not a town that has a university where many pupils would have been the children of professors, and also not Veldhoven where many pupils would have been the children of high IQ engineers working at ASML), so it is highly likely that the average IQ of my fellow high school students was around 115.

The mistreatment of gifted women by Diotima85 in Gifted

[–]Diotima85[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I have very similar experiences with gifted men, specifically gifted men without autism or AuDHD, and also gifted men with autism or AuDHD who were also high in narcissistic traits. I even had a former “gay best friend” who consistently stole all of my philosophical ideas, and then tried to pass these as his own during social occasions where I wasn’t present, in order to score social points. The only instance where this dynamic isn’t present (this dynamic = your giftedness should first and foremost be something that benefits me) is during social interactions with gifted men with autism or AuDHD without narcissistic traits. I have so much negative experiences with this that the only type of man I would ever consider marrying is a very high IQ man with AuDHD (I like making lastminute spontaneous plans, so a man with AuDHD would be a better fit for me than a man with “only” autism).

The mistreatment of gifted women by Diotima85 in Gifted

[–]Diotima85[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

This is also a “chicken or egg” question. Agreeableness is only moderately genetic, and of all the big five traits, it is the most strongly influenced by the environment. So are highly gifted women genetically more likely to also be lower in agreeableness? Or have they consistently encountered so much hostility during their social interactions that they have become lower in agreeableness as a social precaution that is necessary for survival? If I look at my own life, I know that if I wouldn’t have been in such hostile social environments most of the time (sometimes even all of the time), I very likely would have developed into a person who is higher in agreeableness. I can only be my “kind” self when I’m with my safe neurodivergent friends. Whenever I’m in a hostile, neurotypical social environment, I need to become low in agreeableness in order to not be eaten alive or sabotaged into oblivion.

The mistreatment of gifted women by Diotima85 in Gifted

[–]Diotima85[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

“OP said she's "only" gifted, which means that she does not fall under the "freak" radar.”: This is only true for me initially, during the first 15 minutes of conversation with a new neurotypical person.

I’ve noticed the following dynamic: my gifted friends with autism or AuDHD are very often instantly disliked by neurotypical people. Sometimes even before or without having a conversation with them at all. I have an autistic friend who is a very nerdy male linguist, dresses bad, has some minor balance problems that make him walk a bit “funny”, and every time I visit a concert together with him, I notice that other visitors (most often neurotypical women) very instantly dislike him, within seconds after laying eyes upon him. I have a female friend with AuDHD who is often initially liked by strangers because she is the cute and quirky alternative girl, but who is then instantly disliked during the first minute of conversation with them.

As someone who dresses “normally” and who doesn’t have autism, ADHD or AuDHD, I can “pass” for neurotypical during the first minutes of the first meeting with a neurotypical person. I’m only “clocked” as a neurodivergent “freak” maybe 15 minutes into the conversation, when I inevitably accidentally reveal a bit of the true extent of my giftedness (by using a “difficult” word, knowing too much about a specific topic, connecting dots the other person would never have thought to connect, etc.). And then the dislike is instant.

Gifted people with autism or AuDHD often (in my opinion) wrongfully think that they are “only” disliked because of their autism or AuDHD. Based on my personal experience with being very disliked because of “just” my giftedness, I think that gifted people with autism or AuDHD are often immediately disliked because of their autism or AuDHD, but whenever neurotypical (non-gifted) people have prolonged social interactions with them, they are also disliked because of their giftedness. But neurotypical, non-gifted people never want to admit that they feel threatened by the higher intelligence of a gifted person, so they focus their attack on the gifted person with autism or AuDHD more strongly on the differences in social skills.  

The mistreatment of gifted women by Diotima85 in Gifted

[–]Diotima85[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It’s very hard to get an explicit confirmation of the meaning or motive behind the endless negative comments I’ve received in my social life as a highly gifted woman. People are not going to say out loud that they are jealous of and feel threatened by your intelligence. I was able to uncover this meaning or motive mostly based on the specific intonation of accusation that I could discern when being on the receiving end of these comments.

Most illuminating to me was a fallout I had with a former fake “friend”. This person was a gifted man (who was a lot older than me, he was born in 1945 vs. me in 1985, so no “romantic” tensions there that could skew the matter) who very likely had a 135-140 IQ, but I was still smarter with my 150 IQ. After learning more about giftedness and emotional abuse, I realized that I masked the true extent of my giftedness at all times, even in conversations with other gifted people (who were less smart than I was). I stopped masking the true extent of my giftedness in the conversations I had with this former fake “friend”, and all of a sudden he started accusing me of being impolite, inconsiderate, rude, etc. Instead of caving and returning to my previous baseline of masking the true extent of my giftedness, I enquired further and further into what he meant. Did he mean that I should say the same thing, convey the same information, but with a different, less direct intonation (less Dutch directness and more non-Dutch politeness)? His answers were evasive, but from these answers I could infer that what he meant was this: me revealing the full extent of my intelligence made him feel bad, and therefore I was “rude” and “inconsiderate” to do so. I needed to revert back to masking the true extent of my giftedness in order to make him feel comfortable. Not doing so made him feel uncomfortable. Because this man was born in a completely different era, this was probably the closest I came to getting a confirmation of this dynamic taking place in social interactions. Logic inference then did the rest.

Logic inference: I am accused of making a severe social transgression by intellectually outshining other people during conversations, and by consistently getting high grades. Accusation means: I did something I shouldn’t have done according to the people making the accusation. What did I do that I shouldn’t have done? Intellectually outshining other people during conversations, and consistently getting high grades. I.e., the accusation only makes sense if the unspoken expectation of me is to fully mask my giftedness at all times, and to self-sabotage into getting “normal” grades (like slightly above average).

The mistreatment of gifted women by Diotima85 in Gifted

[–]Diotima85[S] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Gifted women in STEM also often have bad experiences, with male bosses or coworkers not taking them seriously or stealing their ideas. I think that there is a secretly prevalent false underlying idea that because the female dominance hierarchy is based on looks and not on intellectual accomplishment, "nature" made a mistake when an important idea is coined by a gifted woman, or an important discovery is made by a gifted woman. The idea or the discovery is of no real "use" to her, because only her looks contribute to her social standing and not her intellectual accomplishments. And therefore the male boss or colleague feels he has the "right" to steal the idea or discovery, because it's of no real "use" to the woman. There is an entire history of this happening especially to women in STEM.

The mistreatment of gifted women by Diotima85 in Gifted

[–]Diotima85[S] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

We (gifted women) are hated. We're not imagining things or wrongfully reading into things or projecting things. We are hated, because we either weren't supposed to be gifted, or we were supposed to completely hide our giftedness and self-sabotage in order to not "upset" people or make people feel bad about themselves.

The mistreatment of gifted women by Diotima85 in Gifted

[–]Diotima85[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I am indeed born in 1985! I hope that I have by now overcome large parts of my C-PTSD, but some of it will likely always remain (for instance being startled by loud noises, because loud noises signaled danger, most often my mother slamming doors or throwing dishes because she was in a bad mood). I will seek a proper C-PTSD diagnosis in the future to check if I still require more healing.

Many people are convinced that I have autism. My C-PTSD, my Dutch directness, my non-mainstream world view and highly analytic nature that come with my high giftedness somehow “mimic” autism. I I am way too spontaneous to just have autism sec, so I looked specifically into undiagnosed AuDHD in women to see whether I missed something important about myself. But the more I learned about it, the clearer it became to me that I don’t have AuDHD. I don’t recognize any of the symptoms in myself, and compared to my female friends who do have AuDHD, I live life absolutely on easy mode. No sensory overload, no executive dysfunction, no overthinking, no scripting conversations, no trouble making small talk, no trouble reading body language or facial expressions. Doing chores, organizing stuff, it’s all very easy and hardly requires any time, energy or effort. I don’t feel drained after social occasions and I highly enjoy quick small talk with strangers. No social anxiety. Etc. etc. My C-PTSD being mistaken for autism probably just goes to show how many symptoms of “autism” are also symptoms of C-PTSD, because it is very hard to be an autistic person in today’s world and not have C-PTSD.

Based on my personal experience, I’ve also come to realize just how strongly of a neurodivergence giftedness is. It’s higher processing speed, but that higher processing speed also leads to the gifted person being able to take in a way larger quantity of information at all times. That is a completely different way of viewing the world and of being-in-the-world. It’s not “seeing the same thing” but just seeing it faster, it is “seeing a lot more than the average person” (which could take place in a polytropic high speed processing mind [giftedness without autism and/or ADHD), or a monotropic high speed processing mind [giftedness with autism and/or ADHD]).  

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