As one of those 'naturally smart' types, part of the trouble there for me is that everything is easy right up until it isn't. I was well into college before I ever had to actually study or prepare or do second drafts on anything at all to succeed, and for obvious reasons I sucked at it and crashed and burned completely with several subjects before I got any kind of grip on things.
The good news is that addressing this kind of thing is the hot topic in gifted education, and has been for some time. The “I suddenly got very dumb” story’s nigh-universality has been noticed, and they’re working on fixing it.
The bad news is that you may have been too early for that. Well, and also that I’m not sure how effective efforts to address it have actually been.
