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A decade and an additional diagnosis of autism later, I’m still exploring what this means for me, what it is, what it isn’t, and how to manage it. By that point, my sister, her children, and both my parents had received their own ADHD diagnoses. At 41, when all the sleepless nights and midnight feedings were over and I could no longer blame my hormones for my continuing difficulties, I sought an explanation for why life was still so completely unmanageable. There I was, expecting a child alongside 20-somethings. I finally felt ready for a child at age 39, when most of my friends already had tweens or teens of their own. I worked hard to achieve a relatively normal life, despite all the detours and potholes on this long and winding road.
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Life becomes a series of “could-have-beens.” 2e, ADHD, and Autism
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And, while an average person may eventually reach their full potential, a twice exceptional person can often envision exceptional potential without the ability to reach it. However, a 2e individual may have to work twice as hard to do “basic” tasks. To a teacher or to an employer, there may seem to be no difference. In time, I learned to appear average.īut appearing average and being average are very different things. Though I expected to excel academically, I continued to fall short of my own expectations. My strengths helped me both compensate for my deficits and hide them, as I believed my struggles were character flaws that should remain secret. That was my experience growing up 2e – I was identified as gifted, but not yet diagnosed with ADHD and autism. This can be terrible for self-esteem, and lead to anxiety, distress, and other challenges that can follow children into adulthood. It looks like we aren’t trying hard enough, when, actually, we’re often trying even harder than our peers. Our strengths can sometimes compensate for our deficits, making it less apparent that we’re struggling, even to ourselves. The far opposites of twice exceptionality explain why so many often regard 2e children as lazy or disinterested. In fact, it has proven extremely difficult to convince teachers, school administrators, and employers - even with documentation of various diagnoses - that 2e people like us are deserving of accommodations.
At the same time, we struggle daily with things that “normal” people do with ease: Sustaining attention and effort.
There are areas in which we excel, which led to our identification as gifted at a young age. We have high IQs, but also ADHD and/or autism. Since my introduction to the term, I’ve learned that every member of my extended family, myself included, is twice exceptional. Twice exceptional children are the ones on both ends of the curve at the same time: gifted, but also challenged. When a child is disabled, they are also an exception, landing closer to the other end of the curve. When a child is labeled ‘gifted,’ they are an exception, landing on the far end of the bell curve. I associated the word “exceptional” with excellence, so this woman must have claimed to have the most excellent child of them all.Īs it turns out, “exceptional” in this context merely means an exception to the norm. The first time I heard a mother identify her child as twice exceptional (2e), I thought she was being arrogant.