My Experience with 2e (AHDH+HIGH IQ>145)

2e (ADHD+HIGH IQ) also known as “twice-exceptional” as it is more generally the concurrence of two relatively rare personality disorders or psychological characteristics. In my case it is ADHD and HIGH IQ.

For me, my experience has been one of constant mental warfare. I literally fostered a Warrior’s Mindset somewhat intentionally over the last 15 years, applying mindsets, attitudes, and behaviours which (as I only discovered in the last few months) correlates well with everything I have heard ex-Special Forces guys teach.

This should give you some indication of the severity of the mental warfare. In my case, it is even more severe, because I am very disciplined, determined, motivated, and driven, with a stubborn — near pathological — will to never give up.

There are things I have dedicated 15 years to and still have yet to see the fruits of my labour. Yet I will pursue the objective until I die.

2e (ADHD + HIGH IQ)

2e is a different beast than just ADHD. It manifests slightly differently. For example, ADHD people often have trouble with simple routine tasks, where they tend to lose focus, disengage, and make careless mistakes in tasks they’ve done 100’s of time.

For me, with 2e, those tasks are a blessing. A reprieve. A meditation. Grading dirt (in a yard) for hours while landscaping. Cleaning weapons, folding laundry, routine vehicle inspections and maintenance, practicing martial arts forms, techniques, and drills, dog training, as well as target practice. Any type of repetitive tasks. The simple “non-thinking” tasks are easy because I am hyperfocused on details, and perfection.

The same issue that ADHD people have with disengaging from simple tasks, I have with more sophisticated intellectual tasks. Moving through a single textbook becomes mental warfare (or torture, depending on how you look at it). I prefer to be the combatant, rather than the victim. They quickly lose their novelty and stimulation, even when I genuinely love what I am learning.

(I solved this with a sophisticated Macro-Interleaving approach to maximize hyperfocus without burnout or CNS fatigue.)

Editing research articles, extensive note-taking (which I don’t need per se, but do compulsorily because I am building something with every piece of my research), the rigorous aspect of music production, video editing, mind-numbing mathematical proofs, code debugging, and the like — ESSENTIALLY EDITING IN ALL ITS MENTAL FORMS — is war. The “mundane” of the scholarly world, has beeen a battle while unmedicated.

I thrive in high-stress, complex, stimulating environments. I can design and build (programs, articles, songs, devices, circuits) in a creative frenzy very quickly. The hard part is the rigour afterwards necessary to finish a thing to a professional level (debugging, editing, producing, beta work) is straight Mental Warfare.

Severe enough that I developed all the same mentalities as Special Forces guys just to get through the mental and emotional pain of the task — which I still do every day for a few hours. I can learn and create and do at the highest level, but I cannot finish anything to the level of perfection, and professional standards, that I hold myself to. I have published about 1% of my total work.

My ADHD Symptoms

• Executive Dysfunction — Contrary to normal ADHD, I have an exceptional ability to design complex, rigorous, holistic, high-level plans (training regimens, systems, etc.) its just that I have trouble implementing them. I require systems to keep my mind on the core tasks, rigorous daily regimens and habits, and externalizing executive functioning (with lists and murder boards) to remain orientated in the direction of my target.
• Extreme Short- and Long-Term Time Blindness — I can be in a hyperfocused state while working, watching the clock for 3 hours before an appointment, and still be late. To this day I still misjudge how much time a task will take, or how long it will take me to get ready to leave.
• Intense Internal Restlessness/Need For Stimulation — I don’t show too many external signs of hyperactivity. However, to be fair, I have trained physically for 2-3 hours a day for my whole life in all manner of athletics at a high level. My legs can also shake on command. I essentially use my physical body to its maximum, and have a great deal of self-control so, physical restlessness and hyperactivity could very well be manifested (and thereby masked) by my very active Lifestyle Design.
• Hyperfocus — My natural state. Exclude all else and live the work, day and night, until I burnout. I will forgo going to the bathroom for an hour, tapping my foot in a highly agitated-state (as I am literally doing right now) rather than break my attention for 3 minutes.
• Hyperfocus (CNS) Burnout — Eventually, hyperfocus has its limits.
• Zero-Multitasking Ability — I can think along 6 paths at once with high-linearity (my working memory is fine) but doing two separate tasks at once is a recipe for finishing neither.
• Trouble Task-Switching — It took my YEARS to train myself to switch tasks, just to find balance in my day and my interests. Now I divide my days into three blocks — two separate, distinct work blocks, and one training block, all with a programmed sequence of work. Even now, it takes me 30m-1h to engage myself into the new task.
• Disorganization — This is true especially in my physical environment. However, I always liked Robert M. Persig’s analogy in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance of different types of mechanics: one who has a place for everything, and another who has everything laid all over the place and knows where everything is. (I am the latter.) In my mind I am capable of complex paradoxical thinking, and can think along numerous completely isolated strains of thought simultaneously. Yet while it appears disorganized on the surface, I still feel I have a very high level of organization, it’s just that I am juggling 10,000 variables not the 10 most people are organizing. However, even then, I am probably more disorganized than I see myself. (Just because there is high complexity, does not mean there is low entropy.)
• Emotional Dysregulation — I have excellent self-control (physically, emotionally, mentally over my thoughts in particular and what I am doing) however I believe emotional dysregulation is when you cannot shake a mental-emotional-thought complex. I can hold onto things for years, and they will persist inside of me.
• High-Empathy — Personally, I believe that hypervigilance has a great deal to do with ADHD people reporting high empathy. We notice small cues, and might be naturally more suspicious in nature (or learned that behaviour because of how people often react to us) which makes us better-than-average at decoding other peoples feelings.
• Hypervigilance — I am constantly, pathologically aware of my surroundings. Every noise, I investigate. Every motion. It also makes me good at reading people, detecting micro-expressions, body language cues, and verbal cues, including tone, which I think fixate on until I have solved them.
• Wide Interests — I am currently pursuing four separate careers simultaneously, because they are all equally important to me. I would rather work 16 hours a day — or die in my 50s — than give a single one up.
• Social Isolation — My entire life. ADHD and HIGH IQ also exhibit social isolation as a consequence. In my experience, they don’t add together, they multiple, squaring the base into a parabolic curve of social isolation.
• Relationship Problems & Misunderstanding — yes.
• Mental Storm of Ideas — yes.
• General Disregard For Authority and External Structures — deeply.

High IQ

• I understand things.
• Me smart.

Masking

IQ Tests and ADHD Masking HIGH IQ

The perfect (almost stereotypical) example of masking in my life began when I was around 7-8 years old, in elementary school when I was in Grade 3. In that year we had began working on algebra (solving for x and manipulating equations, which I remember distinctly for whatever reason, probably because that was the first thing that was mildly interesting to me).

There were four of us in my class who were randomly one day brought into a tiny little room of the main hallway of our school, and given a strange test. It was only years later (quite literally about 11-12 years later) when I met another kid who was in there with me, who told me that was an IQ Test.

The entire time we were supposed to be doing this weird test with weird questions, I was constantly rubber-necking around and looking at the man in a suit that was overseeing us do the test. He was sitting directly behind me, just to the right, over my right shoulder. I remember him being rather tall (but I was 7-8 years old … so most adults were tall) and rather thin. I won’t describe his appearance, since so much time has passed I could project anything onto his face. I will say he was slim, most definitely white. I also want to say glasses, and short hair with some grey in it.

I was so concerned with just who the heck this man was, what he was doing here, and what this strange test was. I was even preoccupied with the environment, since this was a little room off the main hallway that we had walked by for four years since we were in kindergarten. None of us had been in here for any reason, so even the room itself was novel. A little dark, with light streaming in through high-ish windows on the eastern wall.

Aside from stolen excursions into this room to take a quick peek without getting caught (since it felt like we were not allowed in this room) the only time I had spent any time in here was because my parents forgot me at school one day. So I was here for hours after school, and, if I remember correctly (I was quite young) I think I spent my time in this room until 7–8 PM.

If I remember correctly, there was a refridgerator in this room.

It wasn’t until years later that I found out that this was an IQ test, and years after that I learned that IQ tests had to be timed — and that time matters. (Before we proceed, we really should abolish time on formal IQ tests, because it doesn’t matter how fast you process, but if you can process the information, and, even more importantly, how deeply you can process the information.)

While I don’t regret too much in my life, because I genuinely feel everything that has happened to me in my life, has happened for a reason. Everything. (I mean, literally everything. All the pain, suffering, violence, trauma, challenges, setbacks, losses all crafted me into the person that I am.)

With that being said, that IQ test as a child was the only time I could have gotten an accurate reading that I could trust for my true IQ score. I took one later in life around 27, but I got a range of 140-150+ and required further, more thorough testing for an accurate score. Neither are conclusive, and now I simply don’t care anymore. I like what Magnus Carlson said about getting his IQ tested. To paraphrase, because I don’t remember where I heard it:

“Getting my IQ tested is one of the dumbest things I can do. Either I am smarter than I think I am — which does me no good. Or I am less intelligent, which also doesn’t help me.”

For me now, I will let my work speak for itself — either it is brilliant, or it is not. We will see. I write this here not to lament my intellect, creativity, comprehension, cerebrality and innovativeness, but to illustrate clearly how ADHD masks IQ (and vice versa) and to highlight the challenges of diagnosis.

The man who oversaw that IQ test when I was a child could have had no idea that I spent 50% of the time and 50% of my brainpower suspiciously overthinking the whole scenario, rather than answering his strange questions. More curious about the test and questions themselves, than answering them dutifully.

I thought he was a doctor trying to institutionalize me, or some secret service person, or an alien. My mind was everywhere else. I also don’t respond well to authority, nor do I take instructions well unless I am clear on the purpose and value. A lifetime of social rejection and experience of volatile, turbulent, aggressive words and actions beginning when I was a child also has not “maxxed-out” my trusting-humans-stats either (to use my interpretation of Gen Z colloquialisms).

HIGH IQ Masking ADHD

This part is just fascinating to me — I knew that I had ADHD but it never seemed to bother me. I only saw the positive sides, but did not begin to recognize the negatives until I was 28-30 years old. I regard it to this day as a superpower — at least once you have reigned it in, either by building extensive systems to direct it, use it, choosing the right profession, or with medication.

What still fascinates me is that I spent my entire 20s analyzing the problems that I faced in my learning, training, work, progress, interpersonal relationships, and just in my daily habits. As an extensive practice I built an extremely rigorous daily regimen, systems for learning and creativity, habits, and so on.

It turns out (as I found out in 2026 about 15 years after I began this journey) that I had employed about 20+ behavioural therapies used to deal with ADHD:

• Meditation — there are the definitive benefits in focus, mindset, mental control, pain tolerance and enhanced/optimized mental faculties that arise from meditation, along with the implied spiritual effects. However, there are also scientifically-validated effects on the CNS, brain function, hormones (lower cortisol, increased dopamine and serotonin etc) which make it perfect for ADHD.
• Timers/Flomodoro — as I had so much going on, I used timers to focus, and to log my hours in everything to ensure that I was putting in enough time in each area to make progress. Also, the majority of my work-life and study-life has been entirely self-directed.
• External Visualization Tools — a “murder board” for my life, goals, projects, study schedule. Even for specific articles, as a tool to work through ideas, and keep track of all the pieces.
• High Protein & Fat Diet — This is true for all athletes, but studies have shown that this type of diet (for people with ADHD) is very useful for more stable hormone levels, blood-glucose, and minimizing spikes and crashes.
• Strict Daily Schedule — Over the years I have developed numerous (200+) schedules, trying to optimize my day for performance. Only recently did I investigate the neuroscience, and found that much of what worked for me was addressing ADHD specifically. [See my full Daily Regimen]
• Using Training (Cardio and Heavy-Lifts) To Trigger Dopamine Before Work — It turns out that much of what worked in my daily regimen (specifically the order or training and work and rest phases) worked because it triggered dopamine, adrenaline, and cortisol that I could direct towards work. (Essentially overcoming brain structure with habits and routines.)
• Eating At The Right Times — For both training and work, time-restricted eating has enormous benefit. The right meals at the right times not only optimizes performance, with ADHD, it can be the difference between performance or non-performance.
• Strict Daily Physical Training — I have trained as an athlete my whole life, but in part because it simply helped with everything. I can learn better, faster, and for longer, think and process and recover better from training daily (which applies to all people, but is especially true with ADHD).
• Habit-Chaining Into Systems — I designed (three) sophisticated daily blocks (that are now based on neuroscience) each composed of numerous habits chained chronologically in a flow that creates a fluid, productive shift between tasks within that block.
• Tangential Task-Switching To High-Jack Dopamine —
• Warrior Mindset Towards Intellectual Tasks — Certain aspects of my intellectual and creative works are the battlefield of ongoing mental warfare. It required the same mindsets, attitudes, techniques, and philosophies used by military and special forces personell to this day.
• Self-Medication — For years I self-medicated with nicotine, then later cannabis. Not on purpose, I just found that I could work for 8-10 hours a day more effectively with these psychoactive/stimulant compounds. It didn’t occur to me that I was treating ADHD, and I didn’t start thinking in terms of neurotransmitters until I started learning the basics of neuroscience.

In addition to these specifics, I had also addressed deeper issues too, less concrete:

• Finding Balance In My Day — I cannot just hyperfocus every day. I still need to eat and train physically, hike with my dogs, handle numerous aspects of work, and juggle normal daily tasks. I had to learn — over years — how too achieve this.
• Learning How To Switch Tasks Effectively — It took me almost 10 years to train myself to do this. I literally thought I was just weak, since nobody else seemed to have this problem.
• Diet — I also dialed in my diet, gravitating towards meats and fats, with minimal carbs (and of those carbs, either white rice which is healthier and better in every way, or bread, then beans, onions, carrots, spinach, and broccoli). It turns out the high-fat and protein is good for ADHD. I just tested and found it worked.
• The Order of My Daily Ritual — Order matters. Especially with ADHD. I tried a thousand permutations and combinations of my daily schedule. There is a right time to eat, train, work, create, relax, and sleep for every person.
• In the end, I diagnosed myself with 2e, and finally went to see a psychiatrist — I always knew I had both ADHD and IQ. I studied psychotic and personality disorders of the DSM5. Eventually I found 2e, and realized for the first time the compounding effects of one on the other. I finally understood the “why” of the challenges that I was experiencing.

Tying It Up

This is the perfect example of exactly how HIGH IQ masks ADHD. I was able to address my problems and solve them in such a way that I was seeing progress — I was improving, solving the challenges one at a time — so I didn’t realize there was a deeper problem. I didn’t realize that the problems that I was trying to solve were beyond my ability to solve with those methods at that time, since they related to the very structure of my brain.

Self-medicating with nicotine, the cannabis, worked very well too. It stimulated dopamine production in a way that was reasonably sustainable. That is, until adverse effects of chronic cannabis use caused their own issues (gradual increases in symptoms associated with anxiety — I could literally feel the down-regulation of GABA receptors — depression, and paranoia would be my assessment) while also exacerbating ADHD symptoms.

Then when I got off cannabis, I couldn’t work at all, for weeks.

In the end, everything that I built with my mind — all the habits, systems, techniques, and daily structure — through pure experience, hypothesis then testing, was HIGH IQ masking ADHD.

High-Functioning ADHD and the Challenges of Diagnosis

In my mind, this specific brand of 2e (ADHD+HIGH IQ) is high-functioning ADHD in practice — or else High IQ with an Executive Disability. Some say that ADHD is a learning disability, but I reject that. To this day, it is a superpower to me. Hypervigilance, empathy, divergent and lateral thinking are all traits that will make me great in my pursuits (from military, to scholarship and engineering).

My mind is able to understand all problems — those I face, those I choose, and those I have within — and develop complex systems, approaches, and habits for addressing them. Even my daily schedule looks like ADHD, but because I have a great deal of self-control, resilience, determination, will and tenacity, I can hold it together fairly well on the surface.

Even while inside myself, and in the work, nothing is clicking: there is a lack of engagement on a literal neurochemical. The engine is running, but there is a problem with the transmission, which is not able to translate the power from the engine into forward motion and momentum.

I knew that I had ADHD and HIGH IQ, but it took me — ME, with complete access to all the data of my personal experience — 15 years to realize that they effect one another and create something new.

Consequences Of 2e

In the little research that I actually have done so far on 2e (ADHD+HIGH IQ) there are a few that stand out as being accurate for me:

• Intense Social Isolation — My whole life. Isolated from family, as much as anyone else. I haven’t had true friends (that I would die for) since junior high, and probably, high school.
• Emotional Sensitivity & Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria — I believe that hyper-empathy and hyper vigilance make you more acutely aware of rejection, the emotions of others, and especially changing emotions in others. When I was younger, rejection bothered me a lot more. After 30 years of social isolation, including rejection by my family, I care far less what other people think.
• Imposter Syndrome — It is a challenge for me to see myself as I am. I have very high-level skills and knowledge, but because it is hard to finish things, it is easy for me to overlook them. Moreover, because I am geared towards the ideal of “perfect” it is easy to undervalue what I am capable of.
• Unrealized Potential — While I will fight this one tooth and nail, the objective part of me says: absolutely. If I hadn’t have had to swim with an anchor tied to my foot, I would be further along. Period. It is a testament to my will, tenacity, and determination that I am where I am, and still hanging on. Moreover, I have an absolute knowing that I can learn/accomplish certain things, while there is another part of me just not able to engage. It was infuriating.
• Shame & Guilt — Shame and guilt are the natural byproducts of not being able to finish what you set your mind to, especially when you achieved the level you sought, but only carried the ball 90% of the way to the endzone. Not living up to my own standards is the source of most of my guilt and shame.
• Tendency Towards Anxiety & Depression — after all of these issues, is there any wonder that anxiety and depression are on the table? Not to me. However, I have never really suffered from either, except on very mild degrees (probably). The mental warfare certainly takes its toll however. It is a great thief of joy when you know tomorrow will be the exact same.

Intense Social Isolation

I have experienced intense social isolation for my whole life. The concurrence of ADHD and HIGH IQ are compounding factors, which have made it more severe than if I had one or the other to the degree that I do.

Funnily enough, my search for understanding the reason’s behind my lifelong social-isolation was also masked as well (both by ADHD and by HIGH IQ). When I was a kid, I couldn’t understand why it was hard for me to relate to people. I had friends, but I never really felt truly close to them. Never like we had anything real in common. There was always a wall.

Even with my friends in high-school (largely a continuation of the friend group I had in junior-high which was the one time I really felt true comradery — that and with my teammates in athletics) I didn’t talk much. I can talk peoples’ ears off if I have the mind, and feel comfortable, and acknowledged. Yet even then I would choose silence often enough.

I remember times sitting there in silence for hours while they chatted about random stuff. I mostly just listened. I truly loved those guys (and still do, their memory at least) yet we were never the same.

When I got older I attributed it to intellect, knowledge, and differing interests. This was after high-school when I began to find out who I was, what I wanted to do with my life, what my interests, skills, and passions are, and — in point of fact — my Life Purpose.

Yet this is also where my extreme social isolation began. I lost contact with my friends (intentionally on my side.) I never went to parties, bars, or clubs in my twenties. Maybe twice in my 20s did I go to a social gathering. (I never liked them in high school. Not my scene. I preferred hanging out with a few close friends, and would be perfectly content if that was the socialization I experienced for the rest of my life.)

The further that I go on my path in the sciences (physics, math, compsci, engineering, astrophysics) as well as in the humanities (history and mythology), the martial arts (military, judo, muay thai, wrestling, jiujitsu) the more rarified my perspective seems to become. In some ways, connection is easier, because I just like people. But in other ways, deep connection seems to be less common.