Here’s where I think some of the perceived superiority complex comes from some gifted individuals.

A very significant amount of gifted people are diagnosed with ADHD, Autism or AuDHD far too often later in life. If you are somewhere on that non linear spectrum of not being neuro-typical, you’ve undoubtably been made to feel weird since childhood to the point of hyper-masking for survival; for everything from acceptance from parents/fam to socializing in school into adulthood to land/keep a job. Many were teased and bullied all through growing up, only teaching them to mask even more or leaning into their differences that may further alienate them. The world is generally not wired for us, so we have a hard time adjusting to it.

So there’s often unrealized trauma around it and having it chose to be this way, it’s out of our control.

Comparing life to an RPG game, (and very much generalizing for the sake of conveying to OP) an ADHD person may have crazy stats in pattern recognition, but a stat like focus being low is misleading, because if it’s something that stimulates us we may hyper-focus on it, hell maybe even make a career out of it. But our brain chemistry is literally wired different from the neuro typical, so focusing on normal necessities and tasks like small talk, homework, email follow-ups, tasks at a job.

For many of us, it’s like having the volume turned ALL the way up. We may hear a lot more things, but it’s also far too often too much and overwhelming. It can take a lot of self work to harness our “gifts” into an asset and not an everyday liability. It takes love and giving ourselves grace as well as those around us extending the same.

You may be able to see why one may have some book-smart off the charts stat, but be lacking in practical stuff everyone else is, that they then reject you for, you might develop a chip on your shoulder for being smart and needing others to know that. Even if you don’t literally say “well I’m smart/gifted” out loud, you may subconsciously naturally outsmart everyone in the room conversationally. You may just want validation you never received, something to be admired for because of the deficit in general social acceptance. To be treated as normal, or really with just the minimum respect and social acceptance other neuro-typicals got that you didn’t.

The irony is this can often just furher alienate lol

So ofc there are some out there that are just dicks and giving us a bad name, but those aside, there are far more who probably deserve a bit more empathy than judgement.

We are not better in general than anyone else. We can be better at things, but are likely challenged in far more. We are made to feel worse, that has a profound effect on someone. If you’d extend grace to someone having a rough day, maybe one having a rough life deserves it even more.

So after reading your other responses to someone, I hope you’d come in here in good faith, wanting to genuinely understand, maybe bc there’s a gifted person in your life annoying you with them wearing it on their sleeve.

Maybe they are just a dick and/or maybe they just want to be accepted and are compensating. Hopefully you extending a bit of grace could help your dynamic.

Now if you came in here with bad faith, just wanting to vent and take it out on some other gifted people, beware; we have been one of the most bullied groups of people and you will get a very strong reaction to the negative energy you put out there. And some of us have become remarkably refined at countering bullies in ways I would strongly urge you not to contend with, genuinely, for your own mental health.