It’s not coincidental
Exception #1: Gifted
Being gifted is, at heart, a sensory processing disorder. Gifted people process sensory information at a faster rate than the average person.
Exception #2: Sensory Modulation - Combination Over Responsivity / Sensory Seeking
It turns out that not being able to block out specific sound input, being continually distracted by any tags or seams in clothing, etc. is not an act of simply being whiny. When you have a sensory modulation disorder your brain can become overloaded by input that would qualify as normal to anyone else. I am over responsive for all of the senses that do not have to do with where my body is in space. When it come to those things - balance, movement, vision, proprioception - I am sensory seeking. And this ties into my next exception...
Exception #3: Transgender
Proprioception is the sense of oneself. It is the ability to close your eyes and still be able to touch your nose. It also allows you to walk one foot in front of the other while looking straight ahead. It also gives rise to the phenomena known as phantom limb pain with amputees - the brain expects a proprioceptive signal from a limb that isn’t there to send one, causing massive confusion which manifests as searing pain. Proprioceptive information is conveyed to the brain via our muscles and tendons. Those muscles and tendons receive chemical input from hormones - including estrogen and testosterone. When the brain is wired via gender identity to expect the proprioceptive signals with one set of hormones and it receives the opposite set, there is massive confusion which results in dysphoria. The same is true for the actual body map not matching the one expected by the brain.
Exception #4: Lefty
It is well known that lefty’s are wired differently. I could explain more about what this has to do with sensory processing, but I’ll let you fill in the blanks.
The point is that I am 4 things that are rare in society and all roads lead to sensory processing. Of the four, only one confers me any advantage (gifted), one is neutral at best (lefty), one is moderately disadvantageous (sensory modulation), and one is life-threatening without proper treatment (transgender).
The only one that people seem to see in me is the first, being gifted. People assume that this overshadows everything else that came with. That this one advantage means I should never complain. And I should also never be too proud of it, because that wouldn’t be humble. But there are therapies and treatments for sensory modulation and for being transgender. Things that I need to be okay, but that I was denied throughout my life because people refuse to recognize these things as the medical situations that they are. Treatment that, now that I am aware, I can seek out, but mostly at my own personal expense. It is infuriating to me that as gifted and highly educated as I am, I could not access the information that would help me most to live my best life until my childhood and young adult years had already passed me by.
