AIBU to find it incredibly frustrating that there are basically no resources in the UK for people like me?

[Maybeasd]

I’m genuinely starting to wonder whether I’m being unreasonable or whether this is just a massive blind spot in the UK.

I’m a woman, adult, functioning perfectly well in life for the most part, but I’m very cognitively able and have always been. I’ve been properly assessed and this a known entity (I was not born nor raised in the UK for context).

The issue is I’m finding that there are only pathways if you’re struggling but not if you’re just curious. I’m not only talking about the NHS, even privately I haven’t been able to find someone who hits the spot.

I’ve looked into:
ND assessments (very binary, very impairment-focused)
talk therapy - after years of it total waste of time and money.

People in the US suggested to find a neuropsychologist but they have eye-watering costs, mostly framed around brain injury or rehab

It’s either you’re ill or you’re fine, stop asking questions.

I’m not looking for validation, labels, or coping strategies.
I’m just trying to understand how my mind works, and it feels like that’s somehow illegitimate unless I’m suffering.

So… AIBU to find this incredibly annoying?

Also, not to shit on your self esteem. It's good you think you're great! I find lots of people don't realise how great they are :)

I was thinking maybe people in the US have "more money than sense" but you have given a much more reasoned and balanced explanation.

That describes me very well too. I have many degrees and postgrad degrees from prestigious universities, skipped years at school, work in an intellectual field, publish regularly with elite university presses, pick up languages easily and speak a number fluently, but no one has ever suggested I was ‘gifted’, and no one I work with would say that about themselves. I come from a large family of lorry drivers, cleaners, bin men, builders, and SAHMs and I’m certainly no more ‘gifted’ than they are. I’m good at a particular kind of learning. And I do struggle with stuff other people find easy to the point that I’m frequently in awe of them.

Exactly! If I say my line of work + full education it would be outing.

Potential doesn’t equate success though. Plenty of gifted people aren’t a success in life. That doesn’t make them any less gifted. Because as a concept, it has sets of guidelines.

How would a field of employment and a university or two you may or may not live anywhere near (and won't have been the only one attending) be at all outing? Unless you're about to tell us you're the PM?

LinkedIn! I’m the only person from my country with all three universities, it’s not rocket science

Still, the field of study or work won't do that. Science, maths, music, etc.

You haven't told us the country, you won't be the only person in the world to have gone to any of those universities.

You're very certain you're very extraordinary but completely vague about what you've done, which to be honest suggests nothing. You could tell us something but you're choosing to tell us nothing.

Good post

I wonder if you would benefit from some ordinary talking therapy OP, to help you make sense of your own identity. Your family background sounds unorthodox, you seem to struggle with social relationships, and as well as carrying the trauma of having a father who is in prison for serious crimes with a diagnosis of ASPD, your husband doesn’t sound as though he’s always very kind or supportive to you. You might be latching onto the “gifted” and “clever” aspects of your identity overly heavily because the rest of your identity and sense of self is rather harder for you to unpick, and a lot more difficult for you to give words or feelings to.

Very wise words @IpsyUpsyDaisyDoos

I've always been pretty multi-talented (did A levels at 16, top 5% population IQ test scores, yadda yadda), but that's one thing. It's not everything, very much not everything.

This thread is making me think of the "moral" of Bertolt Brecht's Caucasian Chalk Circle: the land should go to those that make best of it (it was one of Brecht's most Communist plays). Oer the New Testament parable of the talents.

Gifts and talents are only significant insofar as they are used, productively. And 'giftedness' is not as important as understanding.

I genuinely believe that most (I'd say all but I've met some people who seem to have nothing) people are gifted in some way. Some are incredibly intelligent, some are very empathetic, some have great problem solving skills, some are very artistic and can make anything look beautiful, some are great comforters of people and so on.

Schools/academic institutions make most of us believe that only intelligent people are gifted. It's so not true.

No but the mix of those universities within the UK is unique…. So they’d find me in 3 seconds.

I suspect the OP thinks that most consultants aren't really "gifted" enough to diagnose her.

I think @Maybeasd you need some therapy about how to live beyond and in spite of your fixation on you being cleverer than everyone else, and beng bored by most people.

My grandmother (First Class Hons from Oxford, in the first year women were allowed to take an Oxford degree - exceptional in all sorts of ways) used to say to us when we said we were bored, that being bored was a sign of lack of intelligence ...

I would go for your version too, though! 😂

I wonder whether you'd be happier focusing of the feelings behind this desire to be seen as exceptional, and how to build your self-esteem so it affects your life less. A therapist could help with this.

Very sound advice.

Again, you could still tell us the field but you're choosing to be evasive because what you want is for us to all go "oooh you're right you're so special because your brain works a bit differently to mine" without actually providing us with anything to confirm that you are doing extraordinary things.

Everyone is gifted in some way, shape or form. Intellectual gifts are not better than others. Just be yourself, do what makes you happy and love your life. You don't need validation from strangers on Mumsnet as to your uniqueness, you don't need to fully understand how your brain works (and you never will be able to anyway because NO ONE KNOWS THIS), you just need to do what's right for you.

You clearly believe you have great potential. Go realise it in the way that works for you.

Got it! You're Liz Truss!!

Oh yeah, very special then!

No, I said in the UK the specialism
doesn’t really exist.

I work in data architecture, I’m a client facing consultant.

Your giftedness, as you call it, is not particularly special. I was top in school and university, very clever, would read dictionaries for pleasure, can speak four languages fluently and several more to a lesser extent, can remember what people were wearing, play several instruments, always learning something and wanting to learn more. There are loads of people like me. It doesn’t make me particularly unusual or special. I’m quite clever, but so what? I haven’t been hugely successful in life.

Things to consider- how are your relationships with a partner and friends?
How much do you add to people’s lives? And in what way?
What does success mean to you?
What are your values in life? It seems that you value “cleverness”. Why?
What things bring you joy?
How were your parents towards you as a child?
You seem quite stuck from what you have said - referring back to school, university, etc, when you are mid-30s. How have you grown and changed and developed since then?

These are things to work out with a therapist.

Therapy was the biggest waste of time of money.

never will go again that route again. Yes, there was a chance that she was the wrong therapist.

but I tried again a few weeks ago… and she asked me: “what bothers you?” And she clarified as in stress/ worry. And I said “nothing, nothing at all!” And that was the end of the session

Why didn't you say that what bothers you is the incredibly frustrating lack of resources in the UK for people like you? And take it from there...

To go into therapy, say literally nothing and end it there, seems particularly dim.

My career coach did HBDI testing which really helped me understand how my brain works and what my strengths are. Is this what you are looking for?

That's a very typical response in therapy - nothing bothers you. And yet the evidence of this thread suggests that there's quite a lot that bothers you. There are some very big things that bother you.

But I guess ferreting out what those might be takes self-knowledge and emotional intelligence, and a kind of self-reflective flexibility, and a preparedness to be vulnerable - to stop masking - which you haven't really demonstrated on this thread.

Nothing ever bothers you?

The fact you've posted here suggests that you worry that people won't see you as "gifted" or "special" and you need them to. It seems to bother you that you can't find someone to assess you or explain your brain to you.

People always have worries. Some are worse than others, some seem insignificant but there's ALWAYS something that bothers a person.