I was also a gifted kid and I think it’s complicated bc not everyone had equal access to those opportunities - I see it more of something I’m grateful for than proud of. It’s easy to test into those programs as a kid and harder to actualize that potential as an adult. I’m more proud of what I did with the opportunity than the fact that I received it.

14

I never understood how people got picked and why I wasn’t in the gifted program. I believed I was the smartest person in the whole school. Looking back I know exactly why and it’s cause I couldn’t read until middle school🫨

2

eh, no disrespect towards you in particular OP, but I think most people tend to reflexively side-eye others who embrace the idea that they as individuals are inherently superior to the majority of the population in some fashion. and I think that reflex makes sense imo that sense of superiority is especially silly in the context of someone who’s already a grown adult yet continues to stake their ego on having been perceived as especially intelligent or academically-advanced in childhood

2

As a “gifted kid” who skipped two grades, my self esteem is shit because I feel like I could’ve skipped three. Even if, by an objective metric, you’re gifted, some of us just don’t know how to be good at things, so the standards just get higher and higher until, naturally, you slip, then it feels like the world is crumbling down

1