Giftedness, Existential Depression and Advice for the Gifted - Eggshell Therapy and Coaching
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- Опубліковано 11 вер 2024
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Today we talk to a real expert on the subject of giftedness, Lisa Van Gamert
In this conversation we talked about:
Lisa's definition of giftedness.
What existential depression actually is.
Lisa's nuanced definition of perfectionism and why there can be a healthy, functioning form of perfectionism.
The existential problem of loneliness when you can not find your people and do not feel like you have anyone to lean on.
Career advice for the gifted and why autonomy is key.
In the last part of the conversation, Lisa gave us some really good, concrete advice that you can work on if you are struggling with the label, your identity, or your self-esteem.
I really appreciate Lisa sharing her expertise with us. She is a true expert in this field and it shows! This conversation helped me refine my thinking and learn.
Whether you identify with the label "gifted" or not, I think you could learn something from this.
About Lisa: Lisa grew up in California where she was a real, live gifted student. She’s been a teacher, a school administrator, a homeschooling mom, a paralegal, an Army Intelligence Analyst, and a cheerleader. Not in that order. She’s married to a software developer and has become very used to having her own IT department on call at all times. She lives in Texas, where she plays with Brody, her golden retriever, when she’s not writing about gifted ed at giftedguru.com or creating online courses for teachers at giftedguild.com. Even though she literally wrote the book on perfectionism, she loves the flawed beauty of education and is excited to share with us today.
If this topic speaks to you, you may like the books
Emotional Sensitivity and Intensity: amzn.to/3Hn7lCF
or,
The Gift of Intensity: amzn.to/3BFokP0
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Trigger Warning: This episode may cover sensitive topics including but not limited to suicide, abuse, violence, severe mental illnesses, relationship challenges, sex, drugs, alcohol addiction, psychedelics, and the use of plant medicines. You are advised to refrain from watching or listening to the UA-cam Channel or Podcast if you are likely to be offended or adversely impacted by any of these topics.
Disclaimer: The content provided is for informational purposes only. Please do not consider any of the content clinical or professional advice. None of the content can substitute professional consultation, psychotherapy, diagnosis, or any mental health intervention. Opinions and views expressed by the host and the guests are personal views and they reserve the right to change their opinions. We also cannot guarantee that everything mentioned is factual and completely accurate. Any action you take based on the information in this episode is taken strictly at your own risk. For a full disclaimer, please refer to: www.eggshellth...
I was hit with existential depression several months ago. It lasted at least 2 months before I was able to slowly recover and get back on my feet. Many people have called me smart, talented, or gifted, but this just makes me feel worse everytime I hear these words.
I was told by two teachers that I was gifted. I remember going to a party and getting strange looks as I excitedly began sprouting facts about all these new and helpful things that I had just learn't. I was geniunely excited and thought others would be too. When I realized that they did not suffer from this insatiable curiosity....it killed me inside. I am crying as I type this. I cannot be myself, I have to dumb down. I can never be the excited little curious bubble of energy that I actually am and I just want to be alone.
Yes you can. Find some people like you to hang out with. They're a minority but they exist. I know exactly the moment when your heart drops, you realise they aren't like you. It's suddenly more & more obvious, some people just don't give a st1t to learn more, 0 curiosity. It's like I'm the alien but not believing humans typically aren't interested.
It is a common mistake to try to dumb oneself down in order to meet our need for companionship. This can be both demoralizing and exhausting. It also keeps us from truly connecting with others which is the need we are truly chasing.
Don’t dumb yourself down. Instead try to cultivate patience. Imagine you are a professional runner who wants to enjoy running with your friends who run for fun. You both can enjoy running together but they are going to tire out before you do and that is ok. Once they are tired you need to respect that pushing them to keep running will cause them pain but that denying your need to run will also cause you pain. Let them rest and look for a new partner to run with or enjoy running on your own. Always run at your own pace but be respectful of the limits of others being able to keep up with you.
Look for opportunities for people to get benefits from working hard to keep up with you. I find that when I take on important tasks at work that mean a lot to the people I’m working with that my team is highly motivated to put their all into keeping up with me. Their efforts are rewarding to them and I enjoy the connections I form with them as a result of their efforts to match my pace of thinking.
In social settings I don’t expect people to be motivated to keep up with my pace because that wouldn’t be fun for them. Thus I might target being genuine with people in small bursts that they can enjoy but that is still true to being me.
This can be hard to do if you don’t have satisfying outlets for your intelligence that are not dependent on others. I highly recommend meditation as a way of getting fulfillment out of your intelligence independently. It also help greatly with cultivating patience and patience will help you get more enjoyment out of others.
Regardless, resist the urge to dumb yourself down. That is not the solution and will cause you more problems. Good luck😊
I'm 52.2 years old. I discovered this notion just yesterday and it's quite literally described my whole life experience.
I hope you will find more and more answers and clarity as you continue on your search 💙
@@ImiatEggshellTherapyCoaching Thank you
Thank you so much for taking the time to produce this content. There were so many comments Lisa made that resonated with me in a way that brought me insight and acceptance. Really empowering information delivered in a straightforward way.
Hello! So glad it is helpful!! Yes, she brougt in both personal and professional experience and delivered her message in a very digestable way :)
@@ImiatEggshellTherapyCoaching The impact of Imi Lo's work on my personal development can't be overstated. Thank you again for doing such important, validating work to help others.
I love how she just explains my son, my brother, my husband and I in one go. We will literally feel like popcorn when a teacher, or manager goes on and on or too much repetition.
Thank you so much fo ryour comment!
Great talk! Very helpful. These connections we make thanks to the worldwide web are really awsome... it's so rare to hear people who really understand all this. And it is really comforting and supporting. Thank you!
Regarding dealing with being hyper critical due to being gifted.
1. It helps to come to terms with identifying with being gifted. When you have not reached confidence with being gifted you can often attribute others actions to a moral failing instead of recognizing that you would likely behave the same way if your brain was not processing greater amounts of information faster. By coming to terms with this being an issue of ability not morality you can better engage in an empathetic manner with others instead of being judgmental of them.
2. Spend time with your weaknesses to humble yourself. It is tempting if you are gifted to lean into your strengths all the time. But no gifted person is gifted in all areas. While it is tempting to avoid our weakness it’s important to experience them to develop humility. Humility is very important for happiness. It decreases our attachment to ego and expands our connection and appreciation for others.
Regarding existential depression. It is often difficult to face this when you lack other gifted people to talk to. This is because people who are not naturally pushed towards difficult existential thoughts due to intelligence either respond dismissively to existential challenges or become overwhelmed hearing about them because they have not built up a tolerance by thinking about them all the time.
To manage existential depression it greatly helps to connect with others who are gifted so that you can face and process existential challenges together.
Thank you SO MUCH for sharing these. I am sure they will be useful to some who read it :)
I’m a skilled drummer and musician/producer in general, and let me tell you, I get hit with a hard wave of existential depression at least once a month. It’s one of the worst, there is no remedy, only accepting it. Sucks even more when your actual life isn’t very fulfilling either.
Creative individuals often have their unique battles, and the wave of existential depression can be quite daunting. You're right; sometimes the only way through it is acceptance.
These feelings don't define your worth or the value of your music. I hope you can continue to create, express, and find meaning in your passion.
Too bad most people are too blinded and or too weak and cowardly to talk about the real problem. We are slaves in a system under the ruling bloodlines. That's where most of our depression comes from. It doesn't matter if you don't know but that's the reason.. you still feel something very wrong.
Time to toss the Bloodlines in the trash and be free. It will resolve 99% of our problems.
Thanks for this one, Imi. I always learn from you. This one was fascinating because I’m only like 2 months into therapy focused on CEN (Childhood Emotional Neglect - from Dr. Jonice Webb) and I’m curious if you know of anyone who has looked into the intersection of CEN and giftedness?
For me, before learning about CEN I saw most of my issues as just related to being gifted and spectrum-y. Learning about how my emotional needs were unmet as a function of just how families work has given me tools to shore up my emotional skills. Juxtaposing this with giftedness starts unpacking some of the existential trauma and aloneness I have lived with.
Lisa mentions a book halfway in but I don’t see what her website or books are in the description. I’d love to learn more about her. Thanks as always! - Geoff
There is a lot of overlap!! Thank you for the suggestion and this topic really is worth digging into.
thanks for recognizing Covid as a mental thing as well.
i started really struggling at that time and turned 36 now, and just took test with my psychologist to realise this week i was actually gifted beyond what i could ever imagin. i believe i am deep in this existential depression piece and will discuss this with them
thanks a lot fot the perspectives
Thank you for sharing your perspective!
It's not whether they're ashamed of their identity that tells the tale but whether they accurately acknowledge it.
I relate to so much of this and just feel like it picked everything I’ve struggled with apart at once. Yet I dont feel like i have these traits as much as I think a gifted kid would have.
Why are most vids on giftedness so depressing? I recently discovered that I am gifted and thought “Wow! Let’s rock this even more”. Sadly, most content on UA-cam takes the gift out of giftedness.
Emotional abuse, rejection and humiliation culminate my experience. It has been extremely painful and lonely. I don’t think I would have identified with it had the content not discussed this in depth. So I understand your sentiment but it has been depressing!
It's a gift in the sense that we didn't bring it on ourselves, it was handed to us.
Appart from being great giftedness is so rare in society that it can be difficult for some to adapt to it. Some call it divergent brains, that can explain some of it.
I cannot understand how a gifted person don't feel bad about all the rejection, the judjement, the frustration, the envy that others have, the difficulty to fit in! Where have you lived? In a gifted community?
@@bicho.cosmicoA lot of realization for me came in hindsight. I thought I was doing just fine until I realized, holy crap, I wasn't
Thanks so much for the discussion, really insightful.
pleasure!
The subject reflected in the title starts around 20 minutes in, if that's what you're here for.
Thank you.
thank you for stopping by
Do you know of where there may be any groups to connect with other gifted people? (especially creative ones?)
Not sure. I only know Intergifted for online communities and probably Mensa for in person meetings. But to me IQ is not gifted though they overlap a bit
Just because a counselor is gifted doesn't mean they don't admit they are. I would say it's really important to match up in that way.
@@ImiatEggshellTherapyCoaching "exactly".. as in you agree that the intelligence of the counselor should be near that of the client?
i didn't say i haven't found a "match". that's personal stuff and i don't typically go there in comments.
i mean that it's important to match up in that way for everyone. one needs to be within about one standard deviation of whoever one chooses. because if someone meant to mentor or guide you doesn't have 1st hand experience in a huge element of your existence on earth, they just aren't going to get it like someone who does.
@@legalfictionnaturalfact3969 I am sorry that I have misunderstood you! I get it now.
@@ImiatEggshellTherapyCoaching hey, if folks like us haven't learned to handle being misunderstood with humor, what *have* we learned, amirite? ;)
“I’m really alone here”. Oof. Familiar
Right?! The impact of such well chosen words, spoken with such personally applicable context... hits differently.
Gifted and sensitive and traumatized since inception. How do you emerge from that?
I also have traumas and I somatize everything. Spirituality helps a great deal to me. I can recomend reading "A Course In Miracles" to me it's like it was written for gifted people.
@@chokysenge Ah! thank you so much for taking the time to write this comment. I remember starting to do the Course in Miracles and I saw a difference very quickly. I abandoned it since my ex took the book back but I will continue. Thank you for the reminder.
Perfect!
Thanks for this.
19:57 It’s normal for ‘head hunters’ to identify and develop potential assets. However, living in a sane and functional society is about not using people like one uses objects, but putting resources to good use. Speaking about perfectionism, idealism… you might find such a gifted person who, on top of a large heap of various types of trauma, has also, moral traumas, so trying to use them for sometimes ethically debatable ends and in ethically shady ways only makes things worse for them. I saw in the description that Lisa has worked (or works) as an Army Intelligence Analyst. I’m not gifted, but I have a vivid imagination, so I would have been very interested in finding out if there are any circumstances in which different values clash. For example, would the military submit any such potential ‘assets’ to assessments/ tests and gruesome boot camp training unbeknownst to them. (I have moral qualms, so you can tell I’m not that intelligent 😄).
Many thanks, again.
You bring up some important points about the ethical use of individuals' talents and skills, especially in roles like military intelligence...
Your questions and moral qualms show your thoughtfulness and conscientiousness. Thank you for engaging in this discussion!
Could the amount of chemicals and hormones releasd in certain situations be hereditary.
what happens when you're gifted in comparison to the gifted though
That's still gifted. There are different levels of gifted.
Why is the audio cut/edited when she starts to mention Stanford-Binet at 17m45s?
I can’t recall. I don’t believe it was intentional but I may go back and check!
What do you do when you cant find the answers
It’s not sth I can answer on a UA-cam comment! But maybe many things just don’t have a distinctive ‘answer’ and we need to find and define it for ourselves ..
27:17 Of course, this is extremely unhealthy, if nothing else because the person won’t learn anything. But, as Lisa said, there are jobs in which mistakes are extremely costly, therefore any tolerance for mistakes is/should be a criminal offence. I have my theory that, if excellence were cultivated in all areas of human activity, this world would be a much better place. I’m not saying OCD or borderline-OCD, just very high standards coupled with cultivated conscientiousness on solid moral grounds. (I know I’m stupidly idealistic- and PROUD of it, too).
Speaking of ‘borderline’… Is it just me or there’s a tendency to reframe BPD as ‘excitability’ and ‘intensity’ but without, actually, de-pathologising a specific behavioural presentation which would warrant a careful consideration for a differential diagnosis- if only psychologists were less enamoured with the DSM and more… well… intelligent?
“Giftedness is just a neutral trait, like anything else”. Yeah, let’s completely ignore the blatantly obvious fact that the single most important trait which differentiates humans from chimps and every other animal/creature on earth (which “we” ruthlessly dominate) is our INTELLIGENCE. But yeah, oh, just an arbitrary, inconsequential trait.
If only 99% of the edutainment material about “giftedness” wasn’t so full of crap and the cheap, insultingly unconvincing social niceties which should be left for the neurotypicals.
I respect your opinion :)