2e Tuesday: Guest post!

Welcome to the very first 2e Tuesday at Laughing at Chaos! This is a series I’ve wanted to do for awhile, and just have never gotten around to do. I don’t have any more time or brain power now than before, but I’m jumping in anyway. With a guest post. Because I have no time or brain power right now.

2e Tuesday was originally the brain child of Tiffani over at freeplaylife, back when she wrote more on unschooling. Now she writes more on authentic living and being awesome, and since 2e Tuesday is too good to wither away, I’m running with it. (BTW, I adore her and am jealous of how she has transformed herself the last few years. It takes a lot of brass to change yourself, to do what makes you happy and hang the consequences, to live an authentic life.)

I put a call out on my Facebook page for 2e Tuesday ideas, and got quite a few. However, because of the lack of time and brain power mentioned above, I have done absolutely nothing with those. Well, I read them and oohed and aahhed over the ideas, but that’s about it. I spent the weekend painting kitchen cabinets; between three days of fumes and my current stress level, I’m just barely coming out of that alive. So I asked Kim, a mom who wishes to remain anonymous, if I could repost a comment that she shared on a previous post of mine. She wrote of being twice-exceptional with such a detailed story that I couldn’t let it just live in the comments section. These are her words, her story. And it’s great.
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On Being 2-E (a view from the inside)
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A link Jen posted to an article Re: 2-E inspired (made) me face up to explaining to my new boyfriend, who is rational, functional and has the secret password to “normal” behavior, what this 2-E thing is. Thank goodness we live a time zone apart, so it can sink in. Poor guy!
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Dear Unsuspecting New Boyfriend,

Imagine, if you will, that you are in a Ferrari.  Take a moment to run your hands over the sculpted dashboard, acquaint yourself with the cockpit, adjust the mirrors and settle into the seat that cradles your butt with an iron grip. Seat belt on? Let’s take her for a spin.

Your first destination is Point Zenith, atop the highest peak overlooking a quaint village. There are 26 check points along the way to guide you through the labrynth of village streets. The other cars are lined up at the starting gate, aaaand there’s the flag–GO!

You touch your foot to the pedal and “poof” you’re at Point Zenith. You have no idea how you got there. You look around, and see the other cars snaking their way through the checkpoints. A couple of cars are leading the pack and are approaching checkpoint Delta, several cars are clustered at checkpoint Beta, and the majority of cars are bottlenecked at the first checkpoint, Alpha. A few stragglers are bringing up the rear, and one car is stalled at the starting gate.

The race judge on Zenith tells you to go back and pass all the checkpoints. “Why?” you ask. The reason for checkpoints is to guide the drivers to Point Zenith. You’re already here.

“But, the rules state you must proceed through the checkpoints in order to get to Zenith,” says the judge.

The spirit of the rules is to direct drivers from the starting gate to the desired destination, but rules have become reasons unto themselves. You know that makes no sense. But your arguement goes nowhere with the judge.

So here you sit idling in a magic Ferrari, full tank of gas, that will instantly take you to your second destination, “Luna”, but the judge has told you to go back and pass through all the check points. This particular Ferrari doesn’t operate well in first gear, and as you head back down the hill it sputters and bucks, and occasionally lurches forward nearly causing you to collide with cars heading in your direction. Then it jumps past some check points, requiring you to circle around to hit them. Now the checkpoints are out of order and you have lost track of which ones you still need to visit. Finally, after making sure you’ve got them all at least once, you’re back down at the starting gate.

By now, you’re exhausted, angry and frustrated. Everyone else is either at Zenith or getting there. You touch the gas pedal and “poof” you’re at “Sol” one stop past “Luna.” Oh shit! How did that happen?

This is my life. This is my brain. I don’t know if I can explain to you how I magically know things or can do things.* When I can or do, it feels as if I haven’t earned them and don’t deserve them. On the other hand, when I try to conform and do things the way they “should be done”, I am utterly lost and confused.

Part of me lives in despair, because I’ve never fully known what to do with this fucking Ferrari. And to put sugar in the tank, because I don’t get to Zenith or Luna or Sol the conventional way, or even in a way I completely understand, I can be standing on it and think I’m lost, or can be lost and have no idea how to get unlost, because there are not standard checkpoints when you go my way.

All of this is allegorical, of course, but it’s the best way I know how to describe the confusion that is my life.

The condition I have is called being “Twice Exceptional” usually abbreviated as “2-E”, and because God has a sense of humor, DS has it too. The simplest description is we’re Forest Gumps, lovably clueless with unexpected shots of brilliance.  There is no IQ score for us because part of our brains are Einsteins and other parts are practically dead they’re so dysfunctional. An average IQ is 100 — a standard deviation is 15 points in either direction. If you are two or more standard deviations below 100 you are considered learning disabled. If you are two or more standard deviations above 100 you are considered gifted.

But what if you are three, four or in DS’s case, NINE standard deviations apart from yourself? That’s our world.

Please feel free to ask questions, because this manifests itself daily in our lives.

Love, me

* Post Script

Being the incredibly nice guy he is, Normal Guy never questioned anything. Let me say, what he does effortlessly is equally magical to someone like me, who lives in a fog. His dishes are always washed; clean laundry is impeccably folded and put away. His files are in perfect, labelled order. He ALWAYS runs on time.

As for the Ferrari owners: It’s not that we don’t really know how we get there, but it’s like trying to dissect every move you make on a sprint across rocky terrain. You just instinctively do it — springing off the sides of boulders, grabbing handholds on fallen logs, leaping across streams. It would take someone without ADD to go back and analyze every move, calculate the force, angle, foot placement, grip, velocity, etc. Something, unfortunately, my Ferrari would permanently stall out trying to do.

 

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So, if you have a 2e Tuesday idea, share! If you’re interested in doing a guest post, tell me! If you’ve read my book, leave a review! The “if-then” game is fun!