Gifted: “My mother was ashamed of me

BRIGITTE.de reader Valerie * suffers from her giftedness – her skills make her an outsider.

I rarely talk about it. Because it’s better not to talk about it. When I say: “I am gifted”, most people hear: “I am smarter than you”. As if I wanted to rise above the other, belittle him, teach him and patronize him. In fact, I expect nothing but appreciation for what I know and can do. I want people to listen to me.

My head is a high-performance machine

I’m not smarter per se. But my head is a high-performance machine. When he is working, he runs hot until he has completely penetrated the chosen topic. I keep my mouth shut as long as I have only half knowledge. When I express myself, when I take action, I don’t know everything, but an above-average amount.

The prevailing notions of giftedness are often simple. If I say: “I am highly talented” without holding a professorship in nanotechnology or astrophysics at the same time, my counterpart is disappointed and immediately doubts the truth of my statement. Business economist then? Oh well. At least on the board of one of the top 10 corporations? Neither? Maybe I’m just stacking high. I guess I’m just a woman who would like to be intelligent.

Giftedness is also a feminist issue. To this day, a woman should primarily be pretty and nice, happily motherly and caring, optionally sexy and successful, but still ready to look up to the man in any case. If she has cleverness, it should at best work in secret, cautiously directing the fate of the executive floor or the professionally developing husband. Despite all the achievements of female emancipation:

Intelligence is still perceived by women as irritating to disturbing, ambition as an evil that needs to be moderated.

Hardly anyone knows how diverse gifted people are. There are more than the math geniuses and the musical concert hall fillers. Unfortunately, those very often represent an elitist split, within which one does not want to know anything about giftedness without academic degrees.

On the other hand, only those who were born into an appropriate household can hope for timely support. Recognizing giftedness in a child requires a differentiated perception. Promoting talent at an early age costs money. You also have to be able to afford the financial boost to an extraordinary career.

My mother was ashamed of her strange and funny daughter. My father was caught up in outdated notions that girls are nothing but future wives and mothers. Today I have little more than the diseases that followed my self-exploitative urge to perform.

My father decided that I would take up a nursing profession

Because my father decided it was that way for me, I learned a nursing profession. Over the years I have tried to work my way up, with enormous commitment, unlimited commitment, with a part-time, self-financed business degree with lateral entrances. In no time at all, I was familiar with foreign industries, new jobs, greater responsibility. And I had come to believe that the free economy rewards those who strive for the top. I was teached a lesson.

I found the male trench warfare at work a waste of time. I planned to ignore the warriors and pass them victoriously – not knowing that my bosses would prevent that. In the past there were far fewer female rope teams than there are today. The gender pay gap was standard. Whether the fact that I was an attractive woman contributed to my achievement at all, or rather, to my getting stuck, I cannot say.

Being gifted may sound appealing. For me it’s more of a curse than a blessing.

Giftedness means wasted opportunities, wasted talent, discriminated against ambition and biting inner loneliness. When two gifted people meet, a glowing fireworks display is set off. But what good is an inflamed spirit if only two percent of humanity understands it?

And I ask you not to understand disrespectfully. It is actually grueling never to be able to share your thoughts. It is debilitating to always have to explain yourself. It is depressing to always be alone ahead of the times. It makes you sick to never be able to show what power is in you. Every career is nipped in the bud if superiors fail to recognize their own potential and discipline the zeal that is misunderstood as insubordination. Every relationship withers up when one of the two is the beneficiary of the other’s diverse abilities, but cannot contribute anything of equal value himself.

The price for my giftedness? lonliness

When I show who I am in private, people either feel uncomfortably seen through or they circle me like planets around the sun. There is no exchange on the same level. I’m becoming an outsider. It was not without reason that I tried early on to be like the others. It’s my survival strategy: make myself small, not show what I think, what I know and what I can do. Self-chosen downgrading. But the price is high, because I will always be just a bad copy, far from myself.

I lived five decades without knowing that I was gifted. The confirmation of my suspicions by a specialist has triggered a torrent of tears in me. Looking back, discovering the cause of so many problems is good for you. Realizing how different my life could have been hurts.

* The name is known to the editors

Brigitte

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