are you ready for the latest in research-based [ingroup] demographic stereotypy? this one’s a doozy.
In our clinical practice, adults with IQ scores in and above the superior range have sought evaluation and treatment for chronic difficulties with organizing their work, excessive procrastination, inconsistent effort, excessive forgetfulness, and lack of adequate focus for school and/or employment. They question whether they might have an attention deficit disorder, but often they have been told by educators and clinicians that their superior intelligence precludes their having ADHD.
Typically, these very bright individuals report that they are able to work very effectively on certain tasks in which they have strong personal interest or intense fear of immediate negative consequences if they do not complete the task at once. Yet they are chronically unable to make themselves do many tasks of daily life they recognize as important but do not see as personally interesting at that moment. When provided treatment appropriate for ADHD, these very bright individuals often report significant improvement in their ability to work effectively while their medication is active.
yes. so. how would you like a summary of my educational career?
Clinical interviews with patients in this study indicated that individuals with high IQ who have ADHD may be at increased risk of having recognition and treatment of their ADHD symptoms delayed until relatively late in their educational careers because teachers and parents tend to blame the student’s disappointing academic performance on boredom or laziness, especially as they notice the situational variability of their ADHD symptoms.
Like most others with ADHD, these individuals have a few specific domains in which they have always been able to focus very well, for example, sports, computer games, artistic or musical pursuits, reading self-elected materials. Parents and teachers tend to assume that these very bright persons could focus on any other tasks equally well, if only they chose to do so. These observers do not understand that although ADHD appears to be a problem of insufficient willpower, it is not (Brown, 2005).
Many also reported that they often demonstrated considerable prowess in performing specific tasks in which they had little positive personal interest but did experience considerable fear of immediate negative consequences if they did not complete that particular task by some external deadline. Often subjects described this as a character trait, “I’m just a severe procrastinator” or “I always work best under pressure.”
that’s not all.
In an unpublished study of 103 treatment-seeking adults with IQ 120 or more diagnosed with ADHD, Brown and Quinlan (1999) found that 42% had dropped out of postsecondary schooling at least once, although some did eventually return to complete a degree. Those data together with this present study suggest that individuals with high IQ and ADHD, despite their strong cognitive abilities, may be at significant risk of educational disruption or failure due to ADHD-related impairments of EF.
and now?
Biederman et al. (2006) […] found that adults with ADHD who self-reported elevated levels of EF impairments on the CBS tended to be significantly more impaired on measures of global functioning, had more comorbidities, and held lower current socioeconomic status than did those with or without ADHD who scored below the median on that scale. […]
¯_(ツ)_/¯
So, like, I don’t know how many of you-all this stuff describes, but it was awfully familiar to me and what my life has been like, so I wanted to share it since it’s an actual freaking pattern for us ADHDers who are also “gifted.”
-J
Well. That 40% dropout statistic certainly makes me feel better…
I was gonna put this all in tags but then I realized I had at least a paragraph of rant going on here: The longer I live, the more I realize that mental disorders in highly intelligent people are often labeled as “lazy” or “a personal failing,” or straight-up ignored. Even when the person in question comes up to doctors/parents/teachers/authority figures and says outright, “I think I have a problem and I would like help!”
I’m not saying “oh poor little geniuses boo hoo,” I’m saying that our society has this insidious idea that mental disability can only present itself through decreased intelligence, which leads to people who have serious disabilities but good grades having no help or support throughout their education and sometimes into adulthood as well. I’ve seen it in people with ADHD, I’ve seen it with depression, I’ve really seen it with ASD, I’ve seen it with trauma/ptsd, the list goes on.
Nearly every person I know who was labeled a gifted/talented student in childhood also struggled with a mental disorder that went completely undiagnosed, despite causing severe problems in their life. A good report card is not proof of mental health.
I identify with this far too much for it to be coincidence
This is every fight I had with my father growing up. (Where growing up also includes much of my adulthood.)
Went to college classes when I was 10. Dropped out of high school. Last IQ test I ever took, I had a score of 121.
I know I’ve discussed this to death, but someone asked for a single, comprehensive post. So:
No-platforming people gives them a much, much bigger platform. And violently preventing a talk from occurring means that the ideas will reach thousands of times as many ears. While their talk would be one among a hundred poorly-attended talks on one of a thousand college campuses, a backlash against the talk will make headlines everywhere and get people curious. If the backlash escalates to violence – and lately, it often has, the protestors successfully boost the opinion they’re protesting to overwhelming national attention and sympathy.
(Google searches for Milo Yiannopoulos; the first spike is the violence in Berkeley; the second spike the pederasty videos surfacing). The violence in Berkeley increased interest in Milo tenfold at least.
The direct immediate effect of ‘no platforming’ someone is giving them a huge national platform and favorable press coverage. The single biggest favor you can do someone abhorrent and attention-seeking is to violently protest their talks.
The most commonly offered justification of preventing people from delivering talks is that the ideas do not merit any discussion and should be prevented from getting any. When I present the above evidence to supporters of shutting down talks, by violence if necessary, they sometimes say that it’s really about the talks being prevented on campus, where students are vulnerable. It does not seem to me that moving talks from ‘on a campus in a lecture hall, advertised in advance so people can avoid them, surrounded by a skeptical audience’ to ‘on national television with a sympathetic audience’ is an improvement. Another explanation sometimes offered is that it’s about making other people aware that they should fear for their lives if they voice those opinions. Aside from being a morally abhorrent thing to strive for, I don’t think that works either; all the people who bought The Bell Curve clearly learned the wrong lesson, and people in general like feeling that they’re standing up to coercion and intimidation and violence.
It’s convenient when something you think is morally wrong turns out to also be spectacularly ineffective and a really terrible means to its intended end. I think that’s part of why lots of proponents of getting speeches cancelled don’t trust the arguments that they shouldn’t be doing it; they’re hearing those arguments from people who are like ‘your goals are bad and I want to thwart you in achieving them and also your methods won’t achieve your goals so you should stop for your own sake’. Of course they find that unconvincing! And yet. I don’t agree with suppressing speech as a goal and I also think the evidence is overwhelming that when you try it you fail spectacularly. I think it’d be very courageous of people who support or are open to suppressing speech to say “I think this would be justified if it worked, but it doesn’t work”. I really hope some of them do.
I will never forgive them for cutting out this scene.
Tumblr app doesn’t show this gif set but I already know what it is. No need to hesitate to reblog.
And he did this just before a road trip, stuck in the car with his parents asking what he was thinking.
The look of utter defiance Dudley gives Vernon as he steps over the fence though
And how he does it really slowly as well as if to say “What you gonna do about it huh?”
The phone rings. It was an absurd wedding gift from his father in-law, and one which much to Harry’s surprise, had actually worked when he’d plugged it into the landline. Arthur had taken to phoning him on it, just for the pure novelty of the thing—though how they’d managed to get a BT engineer out to the Burrow without causing an incident, Harry doesn’t know. He’s not sure he wants to.
“Hello?”
“Uhm,, is this…is this the Potter residence?”
There’s a beat of silence as Harry adjusts the receiver against his ear, not quite sure he’s heard who he thinks he has. “…Dudley?”
“Yea…uhm, Harry?”
“Dudley.” Harry repeats numbly, turning to look at Ginny who is looking at him expectantly, eyebrows raised. “Uh…Christ, Dudley, hi how did…how did you find this number?”
There’s another beat of silence and the crackle of static that might have been a sigh or simply just the line breaking up. “Hi, sorry I know you probably…sorry this was stupid. I uh, I put your name in the computer and this was the only thing that came up.”
“Oh.” Harry breathes, still trying to recover his equilibrium. Ten minutes ago he’d been using his wand to clear away dinner, he’d been getting ready to sit down and read through some reports before putting the kids to bed, and now somehow, he’s talking to his muggle cousin who he hasn’t seen since… “How, how are you?”
“Good, yea” Dudley replies, seeming to rally, “You?”
“Yea, uh, doing well…”
The conversation lasts maybe a half hour, faltering and awkward. But they’re going for a coffee at the end of the week and Harry supposes…that’s…that’s a thing that is happening.
*
“Harry…”
Harry turns and looks up, and looks up some more at the looming figure blocking out the light.
“Dudley,” he says, standing up and hoping the pang of something awful doesn’t show on his face. For a moment he thought he’d been looking at Vernon. “It’s good to see you.”
Dudley gives him a look that says he clearly knows Harry is lying, but is thankful for being humored. “You too, you’re looking good…”
They pass the first few minutes with awkward pleasantries and even more awkward silences. But it’s…nice would be too strong a word, but it’s not bad either. He even manages to get a smile out of him when he calls him Big D, the other man shaking his head with a self depreciating eye roll.
“Dad died,” Dudley says after a while, and Harry feels an icy hot flash go down his spine, curdling in his gut.
“Oh,” he says, not quite sure how he’s supposed to feel about that, “I’m sorry to hear that.”
Dudley snorts into his coffee. “Somehow I doubt it.” and it’s not accusing, but Harry still can’t help but feel like he should defend himself. The words they locked me in a cupboard are on the cusp of his tongue but Dudley gets there before him. “There’s a lot of things…looking back…lot of things…” and it’s not an apology, not really. “Took me a long time to realize certain things weren’t right…too long.”
Harry nods at that, because yes, it had also taken him a long time too to understand the full of extent of what had gone on in 4 Privet Drive. He still doesn’t like tight spaces.
“You realize things though, when you have kids,” Dudley carries on, shaking his head, “Like they’re just kids, how can you do that to a kid? They need you for everything.”
And Harry can relate to that too. Lily is three and Ginny is pregnant again and James already has an alarming alacrity for finding trouble and with or without magic Harry doesn’t have enough hands to deal with it all. But he loves it, and he loves them, and the thought of anyone ever treating his children the way he remembers his first eleven years of life is enough to make the electric lights over their head flicker.
“You’ve got kids?”
“Two,” Harry says, “third one on the way. You?”
“Nice. Just the one, so far.” He hands over his phone, the image of a bright young girl with dark skin and tight ringlet curls staring back at him from the grasp of Dudley’s arms. “Effie.” He smiles ruefully at Harry’s obvious surprise. “Dad wasn’t too happy about that either.”
“She’s gorgeous.” Harry says, handing the phone back and pulling out his own wallet to reveal the moving pictures inside.
Dudley flinches a bit at that, but he guffaws broadly when he spies James. “Cor, he don’t half look like you. No glasses though.”
“No,” Harry says, pushing his own glasses back up his nose. “He’s got his mother’s eyes, thankfully.”
“Actually, Harry, there was something I was hoping we could…talk about.”
And ah, there it is. “What about?”
“It’s…it’s about Effie…”
And when he’s done talking Harry just wants to lean back and laugh and laugh and laugh, because of course Vernon Dudley’s granddaughter is a witch, of course she is. But he doesn’t, because Dudley is doing the one thing he can think of to try and help his child, and Harry can’t fault him for that.
*
They keep in touch after that. Christmas cards, postcards—gifts for the kids on birthdays. The year Effie turns eleven—the same as James—Harry drops a casually long thought out text into the familial void.
“Diagon A this weekend, if you’re up for it?”
The text comes back quickly, a little too quickly for the way Dudders pecks at his phone whenever Harry has seen him typing. “Snds gd, 1st pint on u 😉 – Big D 🍺🍺🍺👌👍”
It’ll be painfully awkward, it always is. But it’s something.
of course im familiar with the seven deadly sins!! the munchies, super pissed , naps, thinking yr hot shit, thinking your friend is hot shit and being mad about it, capitalism, and big sexy
just moving along like everyone else 