I was “academically gifted.” Straight A student until middle school, put in a special “smart kid” class in elementary, and throughout high school breezed through without needing to, or ever learning how, to study properly. It bit me in the ass in college, nearly failed out my first semester.

Parentally, it meant nothing I ever did was good enough (“you’re so smart you’re stupid”), while my sister was cheered on and celebrated for barely making C grades. Led to pretty bad neurosis and a paralyzing obsession with doing things perfectly, which led for a long time to not doing them at all.

Nowadays I’m an IT engineer, consider myself smart enough (though not a genius), and my only real hobbies are reading, music (audiophile on a budget), gaming, and exercising. I occasionally watch anime or movies/TV, but rarely and wouldn’t consider that a hobby. Haven’t really abandoned any them, since they’re the main things I enjoy (except some of the exercise can go to hell, but I need to do it for my health).

Turns out I was “gifted” with mild autism. Go figure. 😅

I wouldn’t have called myself gifted but they definitely thought I was retarded. I was bullied very badly throughout my academic career. So I would just walking in the front and leave out the back. They gave me an IQ test to MAKE sure I was mentally handicapped and found out that I was above average intelligence scoring 128. Not that much but enough for them to call me smart. The bullying never stopped and I dropped out in grade 10.

In the trans community this can manifest in the “gifted kid burnout to trans girl with a praise kink pipeline,” which is where a lot of the Programmer Socks community posts come from.

…I don’t use Arch btw. I’m too scared of mutable OS’s for that.

Feel like I’d be somewhere between. Still have had people who say they think I’m some sort of super-genius. So I guess I’m somehow now an “academically gifted” adult? But I still struggle with some basic parts of my job (like dealing with the stuff on my desk next to me I’ve been ignore for hours to stroll here).

or end up stressed post docs with a lot of discarded hobbies and scientific projects

I was the dumb kid in school so why did I still end up with anxiety?🤷‍♀️

Being bright made me lazy

I didn’t have to put in much effort to get through

I never cared about being top of the class, so I just coasted with minimal effort

I’ll work my arse off when I need to, but outside of that I put in as little as I can get away with

It’s a joke - and academic achievement doesn’t correlate with mental health - that’s a stereotype we would benefit from losing

I’m pretty sure this is something every kid gets told. Ive yet to meet a person who wasnt the gifted kid.

This was written by a doctor making assumptions about people who didn’t become doctors. I grew up in gifted classes all through elementary and high school, and have a challenging and rewarding career. I have a handful of hobbies that I keep up with until I lose interest and find new ones.

This is a stereotype which tries to find people living on the niche extremes to make fun of what the author feels is their inadequacy compared to his own circumstances.

I think a big divide for those that were listed as academically gifted were how their parents treated them.

I was basically “tier 2” gifted in that I was in the gifted programs, AP classes, honors, etc. I was a pretty solid B student and couldn’t just cruise through class and get As, that took some effort.

I have what most people would see as a prestigious career in STEM, I know people that I went to HS with that doctors, researchers, etc. The key difference is that there was way less parental pressure. My parents (and the others I know that are successful) didn’t get rewarded or punished for good grades. It was a more of a what you make of it situation. “You know you can do better than this B if you applied yourself, but we won’t punish you for it”. My parents gave me more freedom as I demonstrated responsibility. I never had video games taken away as a punishment. Never given money for good grades either.

In contrast, all those kids who had their parents up their ass (often out performing me) mostly went nowhere. Burnt out before hitting college, selecting “middle of the road” careers.

I think it boils down to motivation. All those parents suffocating those kids. The kids never build any intrinsic motivation. It’s always driven by fear and reward for them. You need your own motivation to push through the “more challenging” career choices.

I am the former. “You’re so smart, you just don’t apply yourself” is a sentence I have heard my whole damn life.

Can disconfirm. I dive in completely, obsessing over a hobby until I meet my desired skill level, then drop it almost completely and move to the next thing. Some stuff gets rolled into my routine but I stop thinking about it at all, just following whatever skill/method I learned when I was obsessed.

I have also figured out how to use this superpower at work to root cause problems, implement solutions that sustain themselves, and never think about it again.

I do have a long list of hobbies I want to try, but I don’t actually try them until I finish obsessing over the last one.

I think we’d have more doctors.

I don’t think the two categories are disjoint; the doctors also do everything in category one.