[nostrademons]

I have a life story similar to you up through middle-school - second pick for G&T, bullied heavily, repeated physical abuse from peers, ended up hanging out with losers who were into drugs both in middle & high school. After that it diverges though - I switched to a charter school for high school, went to a top liberal arts college, then worked at a couple startups and had a pretty prestigious position at Google. I've still got some scars from that time, but on paper at least, I did okay.

For me, being separated from the bullies made all the difference in the world. And it wasn't separation as in "hang around only with other smart kids" - my charter school was academically worse than the public school that I left behind, and like I said, I hung around with the stoners, rockers, and drop-outs. But the charter school focused explicitly on building community and accepting people for who they were. In short, it made it a point to address the emotional needs of teenagers that so many public institutions conveniently forget about. That made all the difference in the world.

For you - if you can muster the money or get insurance to pay for it, I'd highly recommend seeing a therapist that works with trauma. This stuff sticks with you a long time, but it doesn't have to define your life.

[kick]

I'm currently not in a position to be able to look up this stuff (making dinner), but Duke has done a lot of research on this stuff under their TIP program that basically everyone in this thread might be interested in: it validates your experiences in numbers as the default for gifted children/adolescents/teenagers when not helped structurally, and provides a reasonable amount of information and resources to try and offset some of their suffering.

There's nothing to really help people who've already experienced it, but seeing the numbers somehow really helped to put it in perspective for me.

It's kind of an epidemic at this point.

[gct]

I was in TIP. Hanging out with smart, kind kids every summer was the highlight of my year. Lotta great memories. Public school...not so much.

[sudosteph]

The TIP programs looked fun, shame they were so pricey. I kept getting the invites, but neither me nor anyone I knew had parents who could throw down for it. I do recall doing an excellent forensic science daytime camp program with the law enforcement training program at the community college though. It was only a couple of days long, but the instructor was great and it was a totally unique experience. Making summer programs more accessible and interesting would probably be a great thing for kids of all ability levels to be honest.

[why_only_15]

I was in TIP and CTY, and I would agree. That was always the best part of the year, and it provided a view into worlds I didn't know existed before. In fifth grade we studied recursion in math and all the kids there were smarter than me. The people were so much more interesting too. Life changing experiences.

[artificialLimbs]

"There's nothing ot really help people who've already experienced it." Exposure therapy. No, don't go trying to get into situations where you get bullied. Re-live your worst experiences in your head over and over again until it gets boring. Make sure you're in a comfortable setting and have some comfort devices nearby (food, a beer, family, etc...) Proven extremely effective in many psychological practices.

[kick]

I was specifically speaking in the context of Duke's programs; there are plenty of ways for people to try and recover from things elsewhere.