Why being gifted and neurodivergent (or 2e) isn't "the best of both worlds”.

My whole life I’ve been wondering: "If I'm so smart, why is basic stuff so hard?" (like, all the shit adults have to do. Ugh.)

I have enough evidence to suggest that I’m intelligent.  Academic success. Business success. Career success. Published author.

I’m good at solving complex problems, and seeing strategic patterns.

But ask me what’s for dinner and I might (honestly) cry.

For most of my life, this dichotomy was maddening, leading me to believe that either I’d a) fooled everyone around me and wasn’t so smart after all or b) I was missing some critical thing that would make everything easier.

Neither was true (imagine if I knew about the critical thing? I’d be a gazillionaire!).

What I was actually experiencing was the high-performer’s paradox.

When you're gifted AND neurodivergent (also known as 2e, or twice exceptional):

• your high intelligence doesn't eliminate your neurodivergent support needs, it just masks them better and creates more shame around asking for accommodations

• you develop elaborate compensation strategies that work brilliantly, until they don't (oh haiiii perimenopause).When the cognitive load becomes unsustainable, you burn out.

• you've been compensating so effectively, no one realizes you're struggling. They just see the results, not the three-times-more effort it took to produce them.

  
  

The combo of “leader” and “gifted” sounds great but in reality, you often experience analysis paralysis from seeing too many possibilities. This looks like "overthinking" but it's actually cognitive abundance creating decision paralysis.

The executive function debt accumulates silently and the gap between your cognitive capacity and your executive function creates constant friction.

You’re constantly masking fatigue that others don't see and it’s EXHAUSTING.

You feel shame about needing basic support and are constantly trying to figure out why if you're so capable in complex domains, why do you need help with things that seem simple? (Spoiler: because executive function and strategic intelligence are different systems.)

The imposter syndrome on steroids is CONSTANT.

Your brain isn't broken. It's complex.

Complex systems require a different kind of support and when you find it, you stop wasting enormous energy compensating for executive function gaps and you build external scaffolding that works.

You access your full strategic capacity, not just what's left after you've exhausted yourself managing basics.

You build sustainable systems without shame because you finally understand that needing support isn't a weakness.

You learn to work WITH your cognitive intensity, not against it.

If you want to explore what it might look like to finally stop fighting yourself, you need to get honest (first with self, then with someone else, preferably a professional) about what is hard, what you’ve tried and what is just not working.

Some reflection questions:

1. What are three things I routinely think “should” be easier?

2. What challenges would I be most embarrassed about if others found out?

3. When I read other people’ stories around being gifted and neurodivergent, what brings me the most relief when I realise “Oh, wow, it’s not just me who feels this way!”?

1. 

   Image credit: Kathy Higgins Lee