Reclaiming the Self: What Giftedness Means After Identification
- Caitlin Hughes
- Nov 16, 2025
- 6 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
When You Name What Was Always There
I didn’t grow up knowing I was gifted.
I knew I felt things deeply. That I thought about things other kids didn’t. That I was sensitive to injustice, curious about the stars, and endlessly preoccupied with the inner lives of people, systems, and stories. But for most of my life, those traits weren’t seen as strengths. They were quirks. Overreactions. “Too much.”
It wasn’t until I was in my thirties — after already being formally diagnosed as Autistic and ADHD — that I came across the concept of multi-exceptionality. When I completed my giftedness profile in early 2024, something clicked.
It wasn’t just a label — it was a reclamation.
A reconnection with parts of me I’d long abandoned in order to survive.
The Fractured Self Before Naming
Many late-identified gifted adults carry a kind of chronic dissonance. We move through the world sensing there’s something different about how we engage — but without a framework, it gets misnamed. We get called intense, dramatic, difficult, selfish, weird, smart-but-scattered, sensitive-but-rude.
And so we mask.
We fragment.
We split the self into pieces small enough to be palatable.
Before identification, my intellect was often celebrated — but only if I softened it. My creativity dismissed as a distraction. My emotional depth seen as instability. My existential pondering labelled rumination. I felt internally rich but externally incoherent — like all the parts of me were speaking different languages with no interpreter in sight.
The Mirror: A New Kind of Knowing
Receiving a formal identification of giftedness as an adult was more than a relief. It was a profound re-mapping of my internal world. My profile acknowledged not just cognitive giftedness, but also emotional, sensual, and existential forms — the full constellation of what had once felt like “too much.”
What came after was a profound process of integration — the act of bringing coherence to disparate life experiences through identity reframing. For gifted individuals, whose traits often go unmirrored, this can be life-altering.
What the world pathologised — my pattern sensitivity, my overwhelm, my refusal to accept superficial explanations — suddenly made sense. These weren’t failures to cope; they were signs of a different operating system.
Grieving the Lost Years
But identification doesn’t just bring clarity. It brings grief.
Grief for the self that was contorted to fit.
Grief for the unmet potential buried beneath perfectionism, trauma, or invisibility.
This grief is complex. It’s not about regret in the traditional sense. It’s about recognising how much energy was spent surviving in environments that never saw the full picture. Gifted trauma often stems from chronic misattunement and forced adaptation — not just to the neurotypical world, but even to gifted stereotypes that don’t reflect multi-exceptionality.
I had to mourn the child who intellectualised her feelings because no one validated her sensitivity. The teen who turned down the volume on her joy to fit in. The adult who masked so well that even therapists didn’t see what was underneath.
Self-Reclamation as a Lifelong Process
To reclaim the gifted self is not to simply “accept” a label. It’s to radically restructure your inner narrative. To re-story your past through a new lens of compassion. To stop asking “What’s wrong with me?” and begin asking, “What has my nervous system been trying to survive?”
This reclamation is slow, spiralling, and often non-linear. It involves:
Deconstructing internalised narratives: Unlearning the belief that giftedness is only valid when it looks like academic achievement or corporate success.
Making space for underexpressed domains: Especially emotional, sensual, and creative giftedness, which are frequently masked in order to be accepted.
Navigating imposter syndrome: A frequent companion in the post-identification journey, especially for multi-exceptional individuals whose challenges have been misread as incompetence.
Reconnecting with desire: Learning to follow what truly sustains and excites you — rather than what you’ve been taught to pursue for validation.
The Cultural Lens: Why This is So Hard in Australia
In Australia, this reclamation journey comes with additional hurdles. Tall poppy syndrome — the cultural tendency to cut down those who stand out — creates an environment where giftedness is often shamed, dismissed, or erased.
The word “gifted” itself can feel like a provocation.
Even in therapeutic or professional spaces, acknowledging one’s giftedness can be met with discomfort or minimisation. Many late-identified gifted adults carry an inner conflict between the relief of recognition and the fear of seeming arrogant. This conflict is amplified when their giftedness doesn’t look like conventional intelligence — when it’s embodied in intuition, emotional sensitivity, or moral depth.
Therapy as Integration, Not Repair
What I’ve learned — both as a therapist and a client — is that gifted adults don’t need fixing. We need remembering.
Therapy, when done well, is not about reining in intensity. It’s about giving it somewhere to land.
It’s about helping clients reclaim the parts of themselves they buried to survive — their wild thoughts, their unspeakable grief, their intense joys. It’s about offering relational safety so they can unmask without losing themselves in the process.
Gifted therapy isn’t a process of containment.
It’s a sacred practice of integration.
Beyond Individual Healing: Systemic Implications
This is not just a personal journey. It’s political.
When giftedness goes unnamed — especially in those who are also Autistic, ADHD, queer, disabled, or otherwise marginalised — it reinforces systems of erasure. It upholds the myth that intelligence is linear, testable, and neutral. It denies the reality that many forms of giftedness are suppressed by capitalism, colonialism, gender norms, and ableism.
Reclaiming giftedness isn’t about elitism. It’s about justice. It’s about naming the ways brilliance survives under pressure — and creating conditions where it can thrive without apology.
Final Thoughts
To discover you are gifted — late, layered, and lived — is not just to understand your mind. It is to come home to it.
To no longer pathologise your sensitivities.To honour the constellations within.
To reclaim a life that was always yours — but never mirrored back.
Identification is not the end.
It’s the invitation to begin again,
this time in your own language.
Want to Learn More? Listen to Divergent Dialogues Podcast!
Listen to Episode #17 Co-occurrence Series - Giftedness with Jennifer Harvey Sallin InterGifted
In this episode, Teena and Caitlin discuss giftedness with Jennifer Harvey Sallin founding director of InterGifted. We explore the inspiration behind a unique model of giftedness, highlighting its diverse manifestations and the significance of recognising giftedness as a form of neurodivergence. This conversation sheds light on the importance of self-understanding and mental health for individuals who are gifted. We delve into the nuanced discussion on the co-occurrence of giftedness with other neurodivergences, such as Autism and ADHD, and uncover strategies to ensure giftedness is acknowledged within neurodiversity-affirming discourse. We also touch on the cultural aspects of giftedness and address the specific support needs of gifted individuals. Don't miss this enlightening discussion that challenges conventional views and advocates for a more inclusive understanding of giftedness.
In this deeply resonant conversation, we explore how Gifted identity is shaped through mirroring, the profound importance of safe, attuned relationships, and the nuanced challenges of living as neurodivergent individuals in a world built for sameness. Together, we reflect on the journey of self-acceptance, the role of humour and play as relational tools, and the healing power of co-created spaces that honour difference. We dive into existential perfectionism and the ongoing dance between the pathology paradigm and the neurodiversity paradigm. This episode is a grounded, compassionate invitation to embrace your full self—with curiosity, courage, and community.
Key Themes Explored:
Authenticity & relational safety: how feeling seen supports nervous system regulation and deeper self-understanding.
Self-acceptance journeys: reframing the need for external validation and embracing curiosity when building connections across neurotypes.
Emotional safety for gifted folks: unpacking internalised shame and societal expectations, and finding joy in interests.
Humour as both shield and bridge: playfulness as a tool for navigating uncertain social terrain.
Living biculturally: straddling the pathology paradigm and neurodiversity paradigm as clinicians with lived experience.
In this episode, we’re joined by Sheldon Gay for a thoughtful conversation about Black neurodivergent experiences, giftedness, identity, and intersectionality.
Together, we explore how systems like education and mental health can misunderstand or overlook neurodivergent people, particularly when race and culture intersect with neurodivergence. Sheldon shares reflections from his own journey as a late-identified gifted Black man, including how bias, assumptions, and systemic barriers can shape who gets recognised, supported, or misunderstood.
We also talk about:
The impact of being misread in school and mental health systems
Masking, code-switching, and navigating safety
Why curiosity and genuine listening matter
The importance of understanding intersectional lived experiences
Setting boundaries in spaces not designed for your identity or neurotype
This conversation invites us to slow down, stay curious, and reflect on how we can create spaces where all neurodivergent people are truly seen in their full humanity.
Comments