I am gifted, but I am also Hinke.

• What do you study?

I study International Land and Water Management, currently doing my internship and thesis to finish my bachelor.

• How would you describe yourself in 3 words?

Sensitive, honest, independent

• What is your passion? What makes you happy?

There are a lot of things I like, am strongly interested in or that speak to my ambitions. But in the end, my passion is other people. The moments when I feel really happy and alive are the moments when I feel a really deep connection with another person. I can really feel happy when I am on my own, but in the end, spending time with people, getting to know them, being able to share our most vulnerable thoughts and feelings and trying to really feel as close to them as I can are the moments I cherish the most.

• What is like to be gifted?

This is a difficult question because I think every gifted person is different, like all people are different. So I think I can only say something about what it is like to be me (as I only have experience with being me) and about how I experience being a person with characteristics of giftedness and share something about that. The way I sometimes explain to others what the inside of my head looks like is to imagine that you have used your computer for a whole day and have opened like a thousand different tabs. I feel like in my mind, there are always a lot of ‘tabs’ open; ongoing thought processes, new ideas or questions that pop up, I’m constantly receiving information form my surroundings (sounds, smells, light etc.) and in contact with others I’m very sensitive to their feelings, emotions, expressions, body language, the sound of their voice. Thinking, thinking, thinking. While at the same time, I experience things very intensely; both the negative as well as the positive. And these negatives and positives can alternate very quickly, the slightest things can cause a storm of feelings and thoughts inside of me. I have heard people say to me often ‘you are too sensitive/intense/dramatic’. At this point in my life, I would remove the ‘too’ and just acknowledge that yes, indeed, I am a sensitive person and this comes along with intensity and maybe sometimes a sense of drama, and that’s okay for me, that’s just the way I am wired.

• How did you find out you were gifted?

Growing up I have always experienced a certain feeling of being ‘different’. From a young age on, I had the feeling that the way I experienced the world was different from the way others around me experienced it. For example, as a child I was very sensitive and I saw so many evil, sad and incomprehensible things happening in the world and around me and I couldn’t let go of these things. I thought about everything, wanted to understand everything and this made me feel ‘lost in a bad world’ from a young age onwards. Although I really liked learning new things, school never gave me a feeling of satisfaction. I always wanted more, different, new things…These ‘struggles’ developed over the years, I felt depressed for many years as a child and teenager and at a certain point hearing and reading about giftedness made me realize ‘Oh, maybe this is why I feel the way I feel’.

• What is a misconception about being gifted?

Oh, this is a question I can write a whole essay about because I feel there are many misconceptions. One of the most common misconceptions is that ‘gifted people have a very high IQ and thus get high marks and incredible academic achievement (without any effort)’. Although of course, some gifted people might, there are many gifted people who struggle at school, university etc. This misconception can be painful, as it causes a stigma and results in feelings of insecurity and failure among many gifted people.

Another misconception is that ‘gifted people are socially incapable’. Personally, this is a misconception I have struggled with a lot, I have doubted my own social skills and preferences for many years. I think gifted people are often quite sensitive, experience the world very intense and often long for deep connection with others. This may result in preferring certain topics of conversations, social settings or particular interests. I think everybody is different and framing someone as ‘awkward, weird, not social’ is a painful misconception that many gifted people may come across.

• Can you share one story only the closest people know about you?

When I was a teenager, probably around 14/15 years old, I went on a holiday to Denmark with my parents and sisters. My sister and I were in a store and bought some stuff. I felt a little awkward and nervous about speaking in English to the cashier. When she asked me if I wanted the receipt I answered ‘No hoor’ quite loud. The cashier looked at me with a weird face and my sister started laughing instantly. I walked away with a red face and only when we were outside of the store, I realized my Dutch ‘hoor’ sounded like a English ‘whore’ to the girl behind the counter.

• If you could change one thing in the world, what would that be?

If I could really do this, I would erase all forms of inequality from the world.

• Who is the most important person to you?

I have thought about this question for a bit and a lot of people have passed my mind and also God (not really a ‘person’ in my opinion). In the end, without wanting to sound arrogant, I think the most important person to me, is me. Without myself I can’t live or experience things. Of course, there are people I love very much, who are very important to me and I would not want to lose them. But I think I am also sort of happy to be myself and all those people that I love I would not have without being me and that’s an important realization.