Accepting My Disability As a 2E Gifted AuDHDer

Exceptional in this context simply means a person who exists as two exceptions to the norm, in my case, being gifted and disabled (re: my ADHD & autistic).

Life as a twice-exceptional kid was like living in extremes that occasionally collaborated beautifully but mostly pulled me in wildly opposing directions. I could feel the speed of the giftedness stopped dead in its tracks by processing issues and confusion.

Losing the thread of brilliance that made my mind feel like it was racing towards something magical. I never quite managed to stay invested and interested enough to execute the brilliance I felt within myself, often leaving me feeling lazy or like I was faking it. Like I could see the potential but couldn’t manage to build what I needed to get there and like it only existed inside my brain. I could never quite articulate it to others the way it masterfully expressed itself visually in my head.

It’s been a lifetime of feeling superbly misunderstood and frustrated by that fact. Those of us with high IQs and ADHD and/or autism have areas where we excel, which makes people feel our competence but then deeply struggle with daily things that neurotypicals don’t.

For instance, when people see us having difficulty sustaining attention and effort, see our poor time management, organization struggles, executive dysfunction, planning, and prioritizing problems, they perceive these as personal failings and not as part of our disability.

Difficulty Being Seen As Disabled

I often find it difficult for people to truly understand how deeply I’m disabled by my autism and ADHD because of how competent my giftedness makes me. It’s often made me feel exceptionally lonely. The extremes of twice exceptionalism are why we are perceived as indifferent or lazy.

We have strengths that can counteract our deficits making those deficits feel less apparent to those on the outside looking in. But for us, existing in the bodies? We are struggling, but we’ve internalized the messaging and tell ourselves we aren’t trying hard enough when our reality is often that we’re expending so much more energy than our peers and having a lot less to show for it.

I am learning within myself to accept that I am disabled and I have limits and I’m not just constantly failing at being a human I’m just failing at being neurotypical. I spent too long pushing myself past all reasonable limits to try and do it all but that isn’t in the cards for me. Everything is more tiring as an autistic ADHD-er, I need more rest than neurotypical people. I can’t keep all of those balls in the air at once something is going to drop and usually for me that looks like a big ugly burnout.

Accepting My Disability

Accepting that we are infact disabled is a huge part of this journey. For most of our lives we pushed through because we were told we should be able to. Accepting our limits can be a really weird exercise in overcoming perfectionism and noticing the ways you have spent your whole life setting wildly unrealistic standards for yourself.

It can be really difficult to accept and some people might even reflect that it seems like you’re “giving in” on your life or future. I don’t at all see it that way though, I think that refusing to accept the reality of our disability is what kept me stuck. Trying to be something I’m not and constantly feeling like I’m failing is what kept me stuck.