If you grew up being called “gifted,” “smart,” or “full of potential” while also forgetting assignments, zoning out, getting bored, procrastinating until the last possible second, or wondering why things that seemed easy for everyone else felt weirdly hard... this episode is probably for you. We’re talking about growing up gifted with ADHD, and all the contradictions that come with it. Doing really well in some areas and completely falling apart in others. Being told you’re capable of more. Getting bored. Overthinking everything. Perfectionism. Executive dysfunction. Burnout. And the deeply irritating experience of hearing some version of, “But you’re so smart.” We also get into how ADHD can get missed when a kid is academically successful, what happens when intelligence starts covering for struggles, and what it can feel like to reach adulthood and realize that maybe you weren’t lazy, careless, or “not applying yourself” after all. Basically: gifted kid meets ADHD brain. Everyone has opinions. The brain has 47 tabs open.
This episode, we’re talking about what it was like growing up “gifted” while also having ADHD.
For both of us, that meant a weird mix of being told we were smart, capable, and full of potential while also struggling with things like focus, boredom, procrastination, organization, perfectionism, and actually finishing the thing we definitely started with excellent intentions.
We get into the contradiction of doing really well in some areas while completely falling apart in others, and how being academically successful can sometimes hide ADHD rather than rule it out.
We also talk about the messages gifted kids tend to absorb early: that being smart is supposed to make things easy, that struggling means you aren’t trying hard enough, and that if you just “applied yourself,” everything would magically click into place.
Spoiler: brains are more complicated than that.
In this episode, we talk about:
And, naturally, several side quests occur along the way because this is 2 Distractible Doctors and we do have a brand to maintain.