Was I 2E? Or was I given a false "gifted" label in school?

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Now that you share your experience in more depth i can't relate much at all, my experience was almost the opposite (outside of the bullying and the above average standardized test scores). However my condolences.

I was often picked on, ostracized and infantilized by both kids and adults, but i think that has to do with irregularities caused by autism, not the fact that I could memorize information quicker than other kids for tests or anything. Being tall for my age with broad shoulders probably helped me escape the most aggressive forms of bullying that could've happened, but i was still a loner in the corner for most of my schooling years. If anything i think some kids found it cool that I wound never talk, but then would suddenly answer a problem that no one else in the class had any clue what the answer was, it didn't help me socially though it just gained me an annoying reputation.

It is quite obvious now that the 2E label was correct. Normal people wouldn't post as much as you just did.

It costs a lot of money to teach 2E students.
If they made a mistake they would have seen that and pulled you out and returned you to mainstream education.

It is too early to tell whether or not the benefits of your 2E education outweighed the issues it caused.
It can take a long time for some us to accept that we are different and move on. Acceptance is hard.
But, if you don't accept yourself, you won't allow others to either.

I was lucky not to be bullied. My brother wouldn't let me alone and I learned how to defend myself.
I learned that while a jab to the face gets someone's attention, landing a right how sends a message to back off!
I learned that teachers would look the other way if a small student required no assistance in handling bullies.

No, quick memorization is something that gets attention. I learned early on to hide that ability.
My wife forbid me from looking at any of the books she bought before she read them.
I can flip through pages and absorb a lot of the content!

I used to visit web sites to help folks and tell them the content that they missed even though I'd never been there before!

Warning: Possible trigger (bullying) in post below.

Not to hijack the thread, but I did want to explain the level of bullying I went through.

When I was bullied during jr. high and high school (mid to late 80s), it was not a small group of bullies. That town has a bad reputation for being similar to a caste system. I was looked at much like an untouchable, the lowest in that system. I could defend myself one on one and even if there were a few. However it was often ten on one or more. My so-called friends would sell me out to escape their bullies. Bullies attempted sexual assault on me on more than one occasion. I started carrying weapons (blackjacks, homemade brass knuckles, chains with padlocks, etc.) on me at school because I had to. (I knew where there was a loaded .38 revolver in an fellow bullied student’s locker. This was before school shootings became common. It was a dangerous place and he felt the need for it.) The teachers and administration played into the bullying. They would not help me, but would punish me for asking for help instead. This situation only stopped because my family decided to move to a much smaller town. I was verbally bullied there, but that was much easier to deal with.

It took me decades to undo the rage I felt over the bullies. They got away without punishment. I truly hate that town and always will. There are no innocents there. I am not alone in my thinking. There are other survivors I have met who feel the same way. They too have C-PTSD from it. It never heals, no matter the length of time that has passed.

How can I accept myself knowing t I was too weak to prevent what happened to me? I cannot love myself, so I do not expect anyone else to either. the damage cannot be undone.

Sorry for the above dark post, I needed to explain how bad it got for me.

The 2E label had nothing to do with folks treating you badly in the past or how folks interact with you today.
They were going to see you were different with or without the label.

Fortunately, I think you are smart enough to eventually figure it out. A therapist may help.
If we thought you were a lost cause we wouldn't have bothered posting.

Your real question is one of identity. Imagine that you are a zebra. You keep asking “am I REALLY a black horse with some white stripes (that don’t really count) or REALLY a white horse with some black stripes (that don’t really count).” But what you REALLY are is a Zebra. All your stripes REALLY count.

The test (or subtest) scores where you are in high 90s percentile are REALLY you. Those are your areas of giftedness. The other tests or subtests that are not as high are REALLY yours too. Those are your “specific areas of challenge”. 2E means “twice exceptional” one part of you, the Gifted part, is exceptionally above average. One part of you is exceptionally below average. 1E + 1E = 2E. It doesn’t really matter if the tests were IQ tests or some other kind of test. Percentile, by definition is where your score fits among all the people who took the test. If 500 people took the test and only 3 of them got 80 out of 100 or higher then the people who got 80s are 99th or 98th percentile. Another way to look at it is if all the people who took the test stood on a football field based on score where would you stand. And how many other would be standing with you. How many (percentage wise) would be to your left, and how many to your right. If there are more to your left than right you are REALLY above average. More to your right than your left you are REALLY below the average score. High 90s (percentile) mean there are REALLY a whole lot more people on your left than on your right. It doesn’t matter if it is an IQ test or not.

In my case: my working memory and rote processing are below average and some of my other subtest scores are high 90th percentile. One was 99.9th because I got full marks.

It could be a fluke or an error in the testing or something else, however two of my three kids (both my sons) have the exact same subtest score spread. So it might be genetic.

Unlike the vast majority on this thread I wasn't an academic high achiever. No skipping grades for me. I was hampered by major deficits in EF that resulted in a significant gap between the quality of my thoughts and what appeared on paper.

This is a 'Do what I say, not what I do' comment for the OP. Ditch the obsession about your intelligence. Be a caring and kind person who does his/her best to help those who've been less fortunate in the genetic lottery of life.

Last edited by firemonkey on 03 Aug 2024, 2:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The reason why I post as much as I did is because I become hyperfixated on things, I can't shift my attention for hours at a time (which I'm actually trying to fix as it ruined my life in the past). I literally spent months programming something that simulated a normal distribution in numbers and then looking at the numbers for hours over a period of weeks just for satisfaction (and only stopped once i realized that the numbers weren't 100% realistic towards what they would be in real life). Even on regular school assignments that i didnt have much interest in I'd add way too much detail to my writing because of the level i fixate on things at one time. That doesn't necessarily mean I'm gifted. Dont get me wrong I know im not normal, I have autism and i suspect some degree of OCD as well, the original question was whether I'd be 2E, as in gifted, along with disabled, i was focused on that one thing. Because me being 2E would mean that other 2E people would have similar issues that i could keep in mind for the future. Basically I was trying to see if there was a distinction between the label "2E" (and yes i consider labels important as they help when searching for forums and explaining to other people that give me a hard time) vs just autism with a strong working memory and fluid reasoning ability, not 2E and normal. I think my point was misunderstood.

There's even typical autistic people who'd write a lot, given they don't have language/writing impairments, if it's something they have any level of interest in, just due to a fixation on details.

Last edited by J.J. on 03 Aug 2024, 2:06 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I agree with you in that I'm looking for an identity, but sometimes it's necessary to use labels/identities to most accurately communicate to others who dont understand or to look on Google for a support group or forum, in the shortest way possible, so that there aren't misunderstandings. Id actually argue that saying "zebra" is more like saying "2E", while saying "black and white horse" is like saying "disabled with area X that's far below average and Area Y that's far above average", due to the fact that the former is more concise. However I'll put the subject to rest, you guys collectively were very helpful (aside from countless people trying to express their concern by my post) so at this point I actually forgot I asked and was just reading life stories out of interest (reddit on the other hand constantly went off topic and/or didn't give any support to their answers).

As for your sons (assuming one of their disabilities happens to be autism, but even if not they likely have some autistic genetics if you have autism), I know that matrix reasoning is often far above FSIQ in autistic people. One study I've read shows that autistic people score an average of 30 percentile points higher on matrix reasoning vs full scale IQ, while in neurotypicals there isn't a significant difference. However the working memory also being high is interesting as that usually is lower (outside of prodigies and savants, as supposedly the majority of them are autistic).

Last edited by J.J. on 03 Aug 2024, 2:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I was going to ask if you called the police but I realized that they don't always take things seriously either.

I'm sorry that's actually screwed. Honestly the way your bullies acted in school reminds me of my brother, who not only bullied me, beating me over almost nothing and groping me on multiple occasions to piss me off aside from harassing me at school and with his friends, but bullied kids at school too (possibly in the same way but im not sure as we weren't in the same grade, he did get expelled from summer camp for touching another boy), so i literally lived with a school bully everyday. So I think I can relate to an extent.

Luckily I dont think he's as sh***y of a person now now that he's an adult, it seems like he's matured but idk as I dont live with him anymore.

Well if you want to be technical I had an obsession over IQ test scores in general not only mine, not only have I spent months researching WAIS-IV but I literally programmed a made up world of 1 million WAIS-IV results just to stare at the made up numbers in a normal distribution. Sorry bud, the obsession isnt leaving, not saying that because I refuse but because I've never been able to successfully overcome an obsession without something related to that obsession not meeting what I expect.

You guys parroting "stop worrying about it" isnt helping i promise, I'm fully aware that I have very weird interests sometimes (and always have, many as ridiculous as this), I dont know what to do about it. I realize now that you're saying that to help but it's going to take a lot more than you guys repeating that, I would probably need genuine therapy (of some type). However, that isnt even the primary reason I made this post, even if the level of detail I added gives it away.

Also im already f****d in the genetic lottery, i hate being autistic, im mentally ill, and i'm literally dumb in many ways (the smart areas dont compensate for those), not sure why you think I have wonderful genes just because I was a good test taker at school

It was not my intention to upset you. I apologise for doing so.

It's okay man, and I still agree with your main point i do need to stop thinking about stupid things, i just haven't figured out what to do about it and it gets annoying when every post tells me to do something that's a part of something I've spent a couple of years trying to change about myself but to no avail. It's so weird how my thoughts are more independent than I am.

I honestly wish there was a way to delete the original post (I cant find the delete option) but i meant to do so yesterday. I can't even edit the post anymore.

^ See - viewtopic.php?t=419618#p9473502

Which post would you like deleted?

I would like the original post (very first post I made with the original question) deleted. Would you help me do that as a moderator? I'll know that I cant delete it next time, sorry I'm new to the site (i made my account a year ago but never really used it)

Last edited by J.J. on 03 Aug 2024, 3:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

You come across as a much younger version of me. I have ASD(Asperger's),schizoaffective/schizophrenia, social anxiety, very probable dyspraxia,impaired executive functioning, and bullying related trauma. That goes with several physical issues- Barrett's oesophagus,atrial fibrillation,premature osteoporosis,low vit d. lymphoedema, rheumatoid arthritis,and reduced mobility. I suck at most things, but do reasonably well at high range IQ tests (2x 160+ scores, 9x 150+, 22x140+)

That's interesting, apparently one of my great-grandfathers had schizophrenia and it's possible a few of his traits made it to me as well. Although during his generation autism was considered "childhood-onset schizophrenia" and I have a couple of more recent relatives who suffered from autism, so i dont know if it was true schizophrenia or just autism.

Last edited by J.J. on 03 Aug 2024, 4:00 pm, edited 2 times in total.