They said I have a learning disability. They also said I'm intellectually gifted.

In 2017, I was struggling at university. Again.
After months of psychology clinics and assessments,
I received a late diagnosis of ADHD.
I also learnt that my IQ is in the top percentile of the population,
a rate that sits behind a decimal point.
This contradicted everything I was conditioned to believe in.

I haven't talked about giftedness in the years since then until now.
My managers never knew,
never mentioned in school nor job hunting.
I felt like a fraud.

My life is marked by how a smart person does NOT look like.
Studying struggles.
Mediocre grades.
Expulsion.

So what's going on?
The psychologists noted that I was slow in simple questions but excelled in complex ones.
Stimulation fuels my brain, it struggles to process boring.
Combine that with giftedness?

Standard paces are painfully slow.
Slept through half my classes,
Spaced out in the other half.
The education system says I'm basic.

I don't fit in.
After years of self-discovery, I've come to embrace this.
People like me, we don't belong in production lines.
We can't be pushed through pre-paved success pathways.
But that's ok. I've learnt that
people like me, we're the ones that pave them. :')

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Originally written for a LinkedIn Post