Twice Exceptional Students

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I was reading an article on them because I find the topic extremely interesting. I always thought I was one but was scared to say it. I was put in the gifted program when I was young and nowadays I show a lot of symptoms for a lot of different neurological disorders (i.e. Asperger's is my most prominent one), but because I'm in the gifted program any concerns I have are brushed to the side. I'm just a gifted kid, that's all. However, when I look at the other students in the gifted program, they're all extremely popular and don't struggle in and out of school. I do manage to get straight A's, but I have an extremely difficult time staying focused and I shutdown a lot when too many people start talking. I'm also very socially isolated and get too involved in my special interests, but my mother is determined that this is because I'm gifted.

I'm considering approaching the high performance teacher on this because my concerns are growing. I never realized how restless I was in class until I had teachers physically grab me and tell me to stop moving. I didn't realize that shutting down wasn't normal until I got scolded for not responding during chemistry. All my peers are going out and making friends and I'm stuck in my room with my extensive knowledge on the history of England and watching old films, and it's making me feel very, very alone.

My question for you all is whether or not you were in the same situation, whether it be giftedness covering up your disabilities, vice versa, or an equal mixture of both so you were deemed normal. It's getting more and more stressful to me as high school goes on.

I was never actually classified as a twice exceptional student in school because I wasn't actually diagnosed with anything, but looking back I almost certainly was one. I am now diagnosed with ASD and dyspraxia.

I was classified as gifted when I was in Kindergarten and got moved up to first grade, where my teacher insisted that I had some kind of mental problems but back then Asperger's was a new diagnosis and not usually applied to biological females. For the most part I did really well in school, but I went through periods where I had trouble (I was a straight D student for about a year because I wouldn't turn any of my assignments in) that got attributed to me not being challenged enough. I also didn't really have a lot of friends and was a very quiet child to the point where some people didn't know if I spoke.

In my case, my giftedness covered up my disabilities pretty well until grad school. When I started grad school the stress got to me and the proverbial s**t finally hit the fan. I always had been considered shy and quirky up until then, but it sort of became obvious that I have legitimate problems.

If you are having problems, then it may be worth approaching a teacher or counselor about it to see if you can get some kind of help.

I lucked out with teachers at multiple schools recognizing my strenghts and weaknesses and helping me accordingly.

This is a very interesting question!
in my case I didn't go to a special program. That is because here in Brazil education is not exactly good and there are no programs for gifted children (actually no identification of gifted children either).
but I am clearly highly gifted. That is not me saying but all the teachers I always had and adults and family and everyone. A teacher with more than 30 years of teaching said she never found a kid as intelligent as me. Well, I guess that is considerable.
in kindergarten they wanted to skip me some grades as I could read and such, but ended up deciding it was not a good idea because I would be with older kids. I think they did it right as it would be much worse to make friends as I would be much behind emotionally and socially. Plus I know a girl that skipped one grade and is a complete outcast and also has psychological problems. So no, thanks. Specially for an autistic kid, it could compromise their social ability development.
I wish sooo much I could have gone to a special program. I loved learning but school was sooo easy and not motivating. I received an academic scholarship in one of the best schools in my country (and very expensive) but it was still very easy to me. I wanted to learn so much but I didn't. I feel like I waste my potential.
I studied in an engineering program thing that could be said to be gifted program because the most intelligent kids from all over went to study there. I quit before the end of the year, That is because I faced similar things as you, I had trouble organizing stuff I needed to study (executive function), I faced huge anxiety and demand avoidance, I was socially isolated and felt really sad and not motivated. So I quit. I didn't know I had aspergers. My advice: go straight to a psychologist! School and college can be hell if you struggle with those things and you can receive help. I didn't quit because I couldn't do it, but rather because I was facing aspie struggles. So I could have done everything differently.
I do think giftedness covers aspergers. No one would have referred me to a diagnosis because "oh she is so bright, she doesn't have any impairments" pfff. But it does happen. Also I could learn social things using intellect and if I wasn't gifted I think I would be tons more clueless. But no, giftedness do not make the struggles go away, in fact you get frustrated for underachieving.
go straight to a psychologist!

Sort of. I was in special needs units for a long time, and not really doing much of anything there because I was considered low functioning and had lots and lots of trouble with words - reading & writing as well as talking and listening (and I scored very low on the iq tests they gave me). I was considered very very slow, and not that educable for a long time. Until secondary school actually, because I had a verbal jump around 13-ish so I could sort of express myself and my ideas better. And, now I'm at uni and geting 1:1s. I don't really find the concept of gifted useful, and it's certainly not something I would apply to myself. But I have certain - and probably will forever - had people underestimate my abilities a lot because I appear stereotypically 'LF' autistic (lots of stiming, much echolailia, I lose language when I'm stressed which makes me more lf). Also, when I'm giving presentations in uni I've had people tell me, oh I must be really high functioning.

I mean, depending on how you define functioning I'm either low or high, or mid, depending on the situation and my stress levels. So, I don't really think it's useful either.

But you should probably bring it up to your teachers, and your parents, and pretty much any one who might be able to help you. Even if you don't get a diagnosis, people might do some rearranging of your life and your day to help you feel less stressed, and perform better in areas you're struggling with.

I wasn't diagnosed until my mid-twenties despite showing extremely obvious symptoms and having fairly frequent meltdowns in school. They were too determined to write me off as a bratty gifted kid to give me help. I don't think that my giftedness covered up my disabilities, but everyone else sure did! They were too cruel and narrow-minded to see it or care. If I got diagnosed with anything, they'd have lost their favorite bullying target.

That's basically the same problem I'm in. Half my teachers hate me because I'm too unfocused and flighty while the other half likes me because I'm intelligent. When I was in fourth grade my teacher actually tried putting me in a group designed for kids who had emotional and social issues, but my mother didn't accept because that would mean that I "had problems." I was insulted myself, but now that I think about it, my teacher was onto something.

I was identified as having ADHD and reading difficulties when I was 6 or 7 by a psychiatrist and a private neuro psych eval. The psychologist doing the eval also noted that my really high IQ and academic potential scores were probably not accurate and that they most likely underestimate my potential. When he was giving me a reading test, he was so shocked at how slow I was that he didn't believe it and so he gave me another version of the same test again the next day. He finally believed it when I scored the same on both of them. I went to a private school at the time and they refused to give me any special help because they just saw me as an average to slightly above average student. I homeschooled from half of third grade through eighth grade.

High school was when the nightmare began. The school simply did not understand that I could possibly be anything besides a really bright student.Trying to get the accommodations that I needed and then getting them implemented was next to impossible at times. Something's stand out in particular. One teacher didn't understand what it meant to have a "reduced distraction environment" no matter how many times my mom explained that talking with other staff members while we were doing desk work, was really distracting. Getting extended time also got difficult. Having any sort of predictability in the school day? Forget about it. One staff member who ended up controlling a lot of aspects of my accommodations thought that I was trying to get away with unfair advantages and that somebody (meaning her) needed to stop me. It did not matter that I was shown to have slow reading and processing speeds on 4 neuropsych evals, that I was diagnosed with AS, ADHD, and anxiety, and that I could actually complete my work if I was given enough time. I did have a handful of great teachers who did understand and gave me what I needed. But overall it was getting bad. So bad that the second half of my senior year, we fought with the school to allow me to complete the year with a home bound program.

Now in college, all of those problems are gone and it was been really good so far. Accommodations are private and the teacher does not even have to know why you need them.

It's so frustrating that you're either grouped into either learning disabled, average, or gifted. There's nothing out there for both. I want to be with gifted students. They are my academic and intellectual peers, yet my learning disabilities make it difficult for me to keep up with the workload. It can be embarrassing to be unable to spell, to be unable to effectively take notes in class, to have my words come out in class in an incoherent jumble, and to admit to my classmates (especially those in my honors classes) that I came to college with no AP credits and that I sometimes have to use a screen reader to be able to read the textbook. One of my pet peeves has became having to hear the words "But you're so smart!"