Our society is in denial about intelligence. But it also assumes that the intelligent children are smart enough to figure out life entirely on their own, and even overcome ADHD and autism on their own, if necessary.
If school punishes you for delivering your homework or project too late, why doesn't it also award extra points for delivering it ahead of the schedule? This would provide an extra incentive against procrastination.
Sometimes schools have counselors for the kids, but maybe we would need some kind of counselor outside the school. For example to tell you what to do when the school is over. What are e.g. the alternatives to employment, what skills do you need to obtain for that, and how to measure your progress.
Our society is in denial about intelligence. But it also assumes that the intelligent children are smart enough to figure out life entirely on their own, and even overcome ADHD and autism on their own, if necessary.
Yeah i think raw intellect alone can't get you very far if you have a bunch of other disfuncitons added on top
Most burned out gift individuals seem to fall into the "smart enough to know you could do more with your life" but not "smart enough to work things out on your own"
And with neurological disorders being more common amongst the gifted the bar for "working things out on your own" is much higher then normal
every peer i knew from highschool who i considered smarter then average has either burned out in college or managed to get through by lowering their expectations and just doing what regular people do but better which is quite disheartening
raw intellect alone can't get you very far if you have a bunch of other disfuncitons added on top
Law of diminishing returns. If you have lots of X and little Y, adding Y helps, adding more X not so much. Those who have low IQ would benefit from higher IQ. Those who have high IQ would benefit from fixing whatever is their specific problem.
This is not the same as saying that IQ beyond some value does not help. It helps a lot, if everything else is okay -- then you get geniuses with long lists of their inventions in Wikipedia. But if their productivity is blocked e.g. by depression, then it does not make much difference how much of a genius they are.
Most burned out gift individuals seem to fall into the "smart enough to know you could do more with your life" but not "smart enough to work things out on your own"
Yeah, I wish there was a specific service for those. To recognize that e.g. high IQ + ADHD means "could do amazing things with some hand-holding, but will probably do near zero when left on their own".
I think there are some typical traps that people fall into. For example, many people who have high IQ + autism, or high IQ + ADHD, are in strong denial about the latter. Instead, they prefer to interpret their problems with autism or ADHD as inevitable side effects of high intelligence, because that makes a nicer story -- they don't have one good trait and one bad trait; only one good trait with some unfortunate side effects. That of course prevents them from seeking an effective solution for their problem. You can see this in Mensa on in r/gifted every day.
Another trap is that when you find out, the typical response is... to read more books or websites about that. Which is just another way to procrastinate. It would be more useful to collect all the information, put it on one page, which would end with the list of exercises or interventions you should do.
...okay, I asked an AI. Take the following with a grain of salt, but as a first approximation.
These are the things that don't work for highly intelligent people on the autistic spectrum:
You should aim to thrive while working with your neurology, not against it.
High intelligence can cause more successful masking, which leads to the later burnout.
Use external tools: calendars, planning boards, reminders, visual schedules, body doubling. Break tasks into smaller steps. Identify your triggers and e.g. use noise-canceling earphones or white/brown noise, avoid fluorescent lights, etc. De-clutter your workspace; designate specific place for your keys, wallet, phone, etc.
Set specific time blocks for your work (e.g. pomodoro); different block lengths work for different people. it helps to work alongside someone else (even watching them on screen can help). When you get stuck, always think about "what is the next specific step". Write notes and to-do lists. Disable all notifications. Learn to ship imperfect products. If you work from home, you have greater control of the environment (open office is a productivity killer).
...back to my own ideas: I think it is worth figuring out whether your problem is autism only, ADHD only, or both. There are similarities, but also differences; some productivity advice applies to one but not the other. (For example, AI says that autists who don't have ADHD do not benefit from gamification.)
thanks for the help, i had suspicions that i had some sort of neurological disorder and tailored my current attempts at treating my burnout accordingly
my main hypothesis is that i have both ADHD and autism since i have most of the symptoms
here are some of the interventions that i tried in case someone in a similar position might read this comment and find some thing useful:-
1_replacing my rooms led lights with incandescent light and using a warm light filter on all my devices
2_using earplug to have easier time sleeping and focus when studying
3_trying to avoid attending college classes when possible (i live far away from college and suffer from motion sickness and back pain and often have to walk half of the way back home and the other half in a crowded bus, you could probably guess how little i actually get from sitting in those lectures)
4_having some kind of daily to do list that records my progress on routines
5_having a list the mistakes i have made in my life and how to avoid them in the future
6_trying the pomodoro timer
7-having some short term goal to work towards, even a small seemingly pointless thing like learning to solve the rubiks cube or learning to write with your non dominant hand can do wonders to your motivation even if those things a practically useless
i have been doing this for about 2 years now and i can say for sure that 1,2,6,7 have helped with basically no drawbacks
3 is a mixed bag as it initially help with my mental and physical health but also screwed up my college performance which in turn worsen my mental heath
4 works when i am committed so it is good at keeping me from sliding into burnout but not very useful at getting me out of it
5 is a mixed bag, having a constant reminder of your past mistakes can be painful especially if you ever find yourself repeating the same mistake twice but not having it could run the risk of never learning from your mistakes
i should probably make a post about the strategies i tried and which of them work and which didn't
also it is worth noting that this
Another trap is that when you find out, the typical response is... to read more books or websites about that. Which is just another way to procrastinate. It would be more useful to collect all the information, put it on one page, which would end with the list of exercises or interventions you should do.
pretty much happened to me, i read over a dozen self help books and i can say for sure that most of them were a waste of time on the first read, only becoming useful on the second read when i actually began writing down what i learned and applying it
thankfully i can read very quickly often finishing 2 to 3 books a month so i hardly lost any time on this mistake
Not sure if this might be helpful -- I asked an AI how to tell the difference between "smart, autistic, and ADHD" and "smart, autistic, but no ADHD", and it gave me the following:
There are similarities between the two, because both autism and ADHD involve some executive dysfunction; social avoidance/exhaustion looks similar to ADHD avoidance; autistic burnout looks similar to ADHD inattention; being tired from masking looks similar to ADHD lack of focus; and high intelligence can mask both through compensation.
The differences:
Suppose that you need to read a boring technical book to understand something that is very important for you. Could you read it? (Autism only: if it is perfectly clear why the books is important, and you have a lot of time, and a quiet room only for yourself: yes. ADHD: sorry, after 10 minutes you will drop the book and go research something else.)
Do you lose hours of time without noticing? (Autism only: only when engaged with something interested. ADHD: yes, all the time.)
If you have a clear task, proper environment, and interest; can you start doing the task? (Autism only: usually yes. ADHD: probably no.)
Do you make major decisions on impulse -- such as buy something expensive, quit your job, start a new project, start driving too fast -- and then wonder "why did I do this"? (Autism only: no. ADHD: often.)
...I found this interesting, because I was operating under assumption that I have both autism and ADHD, but now it seems more like autism only. (Then again, this is AI, they like to hallucinate.)
Intelligence spans all levels of meta. A gifted person can learn study strategies in college even if they never needed them in high school, precisely because they are gifted.
Someone failing for financial/health/family reasons is another matter, and it's a tragedy that you're very noble for wanting to fix.
let me tell you my story, a story you have probably heard some version of already
a little kid shows great promise at school, they understand subjects very quickly and answers all of the teachers questions, they are told by their parents, teachers and some friends that they are "smart" and "special"
the kid internalizes those words believing themselves to be "gifted" and above mere mortals, which along side their natural inclination towards learning drives them to reading about sciency stuff, initially to boost their image as the "smart kid" but over time the kid starts to actually enjoy those things and it becomes an obsession of theirs
the kid starts having dreams about building a lab and invent stuff which they share with their friends and family, which is met by a either annoyance or a lukewarm response of unenthusiastic support
the kid relies on their raw intellect to pass the tests, often procrastinating to the last week or day before the exam to study and never learning any study strategies and spending most of their time either reading stuff they like or daydreaming about the future instead of making friends and picking up useful skills
now the kid in question isn't a von neumann level intellect so predictably this doesn't carry them very far, in high school their scores drop significantly but of course they rationalize it as school being too boring for their gifted mind, which isn't entirely wrong but technicality won't spare them from reality
and then college happens and all that procrastination and daydreaming catches up to them
with practically no study strategies and their smoldering resentment towards the painfully boring education system the kid predictably starts to fail
slowly at first going from 90% to 80% then 70% and nearly failing multiple classes
not wanting their failure to be known they hide their grades when they can and make up excuses when they can't often avoiding friends and family in a desperate attempt to protect their identity as the "smart kid" from uncomfortable questions
eventually their failure becomes obvious and they stop trying to hide it, but instead of being met with disappointment they are met with something even more painful
nobody really cared
nobody really expected anything from them, they either lost hope somewhere down the line or just didn't care from the start
looking back, aside from a few vague words of encouragement to study more the kids parents never really supported the kids dreams, they didn't buy them books or chemistry kits or anything of the sort, they didn't sign them up for special lessons or try to put them in a non shitty school with competent staff and a working lab
the kid thought it was because they couldn't, but now looking back at it it was clear that they just didn't care enough to try, because to them the kids dream to build a lab and invent stuff was just that, a dream that they would grow out of
and they would just get a regular job and get married and have kids and amount to nothing more
now the kid with little to no social skills, no job and barely any friends is for the first time met the prospect of becoming another failed prodigy
another potential man, except the only person who believed in their potential was themselves
maybe the kid would finally "grow up" and except their fate as the next potential man
maybe they would somehow persevere and actually amount to something
or maybe they would cling on to their inner child out of sheer spite
the end result is wasted potential, even if the kid somehow pulls through it would be at the cost of a large chunk of their youth
how many potential men and women are out there in this world? how many are made everyday? how many hopes and dreams are crushed, how many childhoods are cut short, how many flowers fail to blossom?
the kid in that story got off easy, they still have a future but would likely have to spend the reminder of their youth collecting money for their future less mentally flexible self to pursue their dreams, likely filling their brain with a bunch of not-interesting-stuff that they would desperately try to delete once they are financially stable enough to fully devoting their brain to what they actually want
but what about the third world country kid who despite their gifts never even got a chance to start?
the ones who are born at the wrong time in the wrong country to wrong family in the wrong culture?
or the ones who were burnt out by the meat grinder of an education system that most countries have?
how much better would the world be if we went around collecting these lost prodigies and giving them a chance?
if i ever pulled through this mess i vow to pull some of those prodigies up to their feet and give them a fighting chance
and i hope others would too
assuming we don't all die that is