> However. I feel constantly discriminated against and treated like I am stupider than I am. And when people listen to me talk, they get incredibly threatened.

> However. I feel constantly discriminated against and treated like I am stupider than I am. And when people listen to me talk, they get incredibly threatened. It has taken me years to understand that being around me and listening to me talk, reason and analyze is THREATENING to people. I have had situations where, even after a few meetings where I felt I was just “talking about how things are” the other person left HATING me. Have those people actually told you this, or is it a conclusion you came to on your own? I ask because your comment pattern-matches quite strongly for me to "mildly autistic person who doesn't realize they're constantly making failed status plays". Here are a few lines that stood out --- > I can write dozens of pages of highly analytical and technical text without making mistakes in real time. I can speed read complex texts and memorize them with a high degree of precision. From the “language” perspective I feel highly gifted and unusual. "I'm highly gifted and unusual" is much stronger than "I'm a good technical writer." > It’s like being Usain Bolt except your sprinting lane has an obstacle course in it while everyone else gets to run in a normal lane. As before, but even worse. Usain Bolt is the fastest sprinter in the world. He's quite literally one in eight billion. You are not. > I have taught myself advanced skills and switched careers multiple times without the required degrees. Worked at the top companies in the world with PhDs and others. Having worked with PhDs is not impressive in itself. There are thousands of college sophomores who can say the same. There are workplaces that carry some serious cachet (though bringing them up unprompted will burn most of it), but vague references to "top companies" won't cut it, and makes me think it's less "fellow at Microsoft Research" and more "software engineer at Microsoft". Which is a fine thing to be - but also a perfectly normal thing to be. --- If your coworkers are getting the same vibe I am, then they're treating you like you're stupider than you really are because you come off as someone who wants to be seen as smarter than they really are. They're annoyed, not threatened.