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Comment by DaiPlusPlus | Hacker News Reader

> Just how it annoys other people around you

Hah! Yes.

I grew up when ASD and ADHD couldn’t be comorbid diagnoses - and as I wasn’t hyperactive or fidgety, and was considered professorial or studious it was never brought up. Academic problems caused by “not applying oneself” only started around the time I was 15-16, prior to that I just coasted my way through primary and secondary school with high grades.

Growing-up, I think I weirded-out people far more then I annoyed them - hence the primacy of the ASD diagnosis - my last psychologist said he couldn’t tell I was ASD at all until I told him - I think I’m just good at hiding it, but I definitely still have problems.

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It also went unnoticed with me for the longest time. I only noticed the issues when I had finished high school, because before then I could do pretty well just doing all my assignments the night before. It didn't occur to me I had an attention issue because it wasn't like I had a hard time paying attention exactly, I just couldn't be bothered to pay attention to the things I should have been paying attention to. If someone had suggested it to me at 18 I would have thought they were an idiot.

I remember talking to the psychiatrist who diagnosed me the first time:

"So did you fidget in class?"

"Not really, I mostly just got the work done quickly so I could read or talk with friends"

"Okay, so you still weren't actually focusing on the lesson"

"Well no, but the lesson was pointless and boring"

"Do you draw patterns on your teeth with your tongue?"

(Me, currently doing that while he was talking to me) "Uh, yes - how could you tell?"

"It is a common thing for patients with ADHD who don't fidget in obvious ways"

It was around there I starting taking the idea a lot more seriously

Given the ASD and ADHD diagnoses, coupled with the "coasting" through most of school, did you get tested for giftedness?

I've been told it can often be misdiagnosed as either or both of these two

> I've been told it can often be misdiagnosed as either or both of these two

The ASD and ADHD diagnostic criteria are still too broad and imprecise. I welcome DSM-V's changes from discrete Autism conditions to having an actual spectrum - but I feel the same should be done for ADHD because so many of ADHD's diagnostic criteria, even for the "Inattentive type" (let alone the Hyperactive-type) really don't apply to me.

I know a lot of people in real-life in geeky/nerdy fan subcultures and so many of them exhibit those "odd" behavioral traits of ASD - and I've asked them about it and they tell me they got tested for ASD but got an ADHD diagnosis instead - and I don't like that, because the diagnostic criteria for ADHD in the DSM doesn't really cover non-normative social behaviour at all (that's ASD's territory).

In summary: more research is needed!

> The ASD and ADHD diagnostic criteria are still too broad and imprecise.

One analogy has stuck with me. Defining mental disorders is like drawing up the constellations. The individual behavioral traits are the stars, and the constellation’s boundaries are as much a function of the culture who defined them as they are a function of how clustered these stars/traits really are.

And like constellations, those clusters are only observable together from a particular vantage-point (the earth), as soon as you go elsewhere (e.g. Alpha Centauri) the stars are in a totally different place and the constellations, as originally defined, simply don't exist.

Yeah, I spent some time growing up at a huge American international school in South East Asia that had a large G&T program in the elementary school with separate classrooms and teachers and I was in there for English classes only in Grade 4 - I still didn't have a good head for mathematics at that point (heck, I didn't until I repeated the last 2 years of Sixth Form some 10 years later).

I was kicked out of that program when I entered Grade 5: they said I wasn't applying myself in the class (naturally). In Grade 4 the class' "objective" was to write an anthology book (we got them printed and bound and everything!) - at the end of the year my anthology was physically the thinnest compared to the ~7-8 others in the same class (this was Southeast Asia - there's a lot of overachievers with Tiger Moms there, I remember one girl's book was almost an inch thick - I didn't know how that was humanely possible for a 10 year-old...).

When I was in primary and secondary school I did have IQ tests and other cognitive ability tests done by the educational psychologist assigned to me and I had results varying from 125 to 135 - but I don't put too much weight on them. There was an ASD test for face-reading ability that had a question I got wrong because I said there was nothing abnormal about a drawing of a face without eyelashes (what...). What's weird is every time I've taken the GRE (for Masters degree course applications) I've scored 97%+ percentile in the language questions... but only 75%+ in the quant sections - but that's because I keep on missing some quant questions because I run out of time. I know I can apply for extra time but ETS' instructions on their website for getting extra-time are contradictory and confusing.

In secondary-school in the UK for our GCSE qualifications the year-group's subject classes were split into ability groups and I was in the highest ability group in all of the subjects (but that really isn't saying much though). My second sixth-form did have a G&T program but no-one told me about it and I didn't think to apply - I imagine those who were in it had referrals from their feeder-schools whereas I was an individual student coming from a different Sixth Form (I was 18, everyone else around me was 16). I don't think I would have coped with the workload anyway - and I don't know what, exactly, if anything, a G&T program would have helped for A-Levels really - I only know one person who did 5 courses at A-Level and he wasn't in the G&T program.

Call me naive, but I was surprised to learn that G&T programs are still a thing in industry: When I got my first job after uni at Microsoft in Redmond I learned about their semi-secretive "HiPo" ("High-potential") employee program (think: SDEs and PMs who get fast-tracked for Director roles or executive positions beyond). To get in to it your skip-level will inform you in a private meeting, and you can't apply or ask to join (some joke that asking to join it instantly disqualifies you for life - or something).

Well, it's not just about school, G&T programs and A-Levels. If you haven't, I sincerely and whole heartedly recommend you look into it.

Understanding the impact it has on adult life too is both fascinating and revealing.

I sadly can't recommend any English book on it, since all of those I read were recommended by French people, but I really insist; please do look into it :-)

Also, if you haven't already and are still open to seeing a psychologist, try finding one with some (preferably significant) experience with gifted adults :-)

Anyway, I apologize if I come of as too insistant or intrusive; it really is a personal and sensitive subject to me.

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