Wow! This completes rings true to my own experience. I don't actually know my IQ score, but I have had extensive cognitive testing as part of autism assessment and I maxed out several areas of the test. I've always been told I am gifted from a young age, and excel at art and music. I am very sensitive and have some special abilities such as perfect pitch and synaesthesia. I am diagnosed autistic. I hope I don't seem arrogant by including myself in this category.

Sometimes I still feel really sad about how limiting my school experience was. For example, the music department was just terrible, and many of the subjects were too dumbed down to interest me. I wonder what I might have been able to achieve with the right environment and support. I was bullied because I didn't fit in, and I actually started to fail my schoolwork on purpose so that I could at least stop standing out intellectually. I stopped not only speaking up and participating in class, but became selectively mute while at school. I don't think the teachers even noticed because they only saw us for one period a day.

There are many times when I have wanted to pursue an ambition, but was basically bullied until I was forced to drop out. This continues to be an issue for me as an adult, especially in employment. I'm now a solo entrepreneur because working with other people does not work for me, which puts me in a more precarious and vulnerable position economically.

I began struggling with my mental health and dissociating from the age of 8 or 9. I felt very aware of not fitting in, but didn't know exactly why. I forced myself into boxes and surpressed my intelligence and creativity in order not to stand out. It's only recently, after receiving my autism diagnosis, that I have been able to start to understand. Despite my intelligence, I had a kind of blind spot when it came to my deficiencies (which is why they are deficiencies, I guess). I spent years believing there was something terribly wrong with me, so this came as a relief to learn.