I guess this is my reflection on the topic above.

As I am new to this site and to this topic of giftedness. I am still exploring it for myself, hence do not know alot about my own giftedness. (Although I am aware of some things ie artistic talent. )As you can imagine, I have been reading voracioiusly, since I was told late last year by a fellow psychologist, that I am gifted and she recommended that I joined Mensa. I was really not agreeable to doing that, it seemed to be just too much. To be honest, I nearly threw up when she said that to my husband, as I thought I had been doing such a good job of "being normal". 

I did feel that some of the things that I was doing was craziness ie the sensitivity, which has always been viewed as negative in my family and something that i have been trying to get rid of for a long time(unsuccessfully I might add). I also very high energy levels/insaitable curiousity and I easily exhaust others around me( I thought I would " grow out of it'). Although since discovering this "giftedness" particularily the sensitiviities(dabrowski) ,has really been very very helpful. Its also explained various comments people in my life have said to me about how I seem to appear to them, that always confused me. For instance,when I was managing an interdisciplinary team in an emergency dept, at a major hospital the staff said "I was so calm, they would need to take a pulse", there was alot of consensus about this(I work in emergency departments as a social workerand I am a registered psychologist aswell), but then I am also a complete scatterbrain, am very intuitive, cry easily at RSPCA ads on TV…..etc…

Anyway, rambling on a bit there…but….the normality issue…its really difficult to see the difference I think…as I can't see myself in relation to others…only in a limited way.I guess also I like to think of normality as a continuum, and we fit somewhere along that line, vs its a black/white distinction, which is an artificial concept developed, so that we can measure human performance and hence it is limited and not necessarily a reflection of the complexities of reality, but more an approximation.Interestingly enough, when studying psychology I was fortunate enough to conduct intelligence tests on a range of children at all ends of the spectrum, several years ago. It was fascinating to discover how diverse we all are, and how different strengths, irrespective of measureable intelligence, can lead to happiness and fulfilment……..:)