Crushing Tall PoppiesOn Being Gifted: Growing My Wings
“Wings are not only for birds; they are also for minds. Human potential stops at some point somewhere beyond infinity.” ~Toller Cranston
Somewhere back in my early childhood, I can remember being a little girl, sprouting the wings of my potential of who I was meant to become. Wings of a wild imagination,
But, in my world at that time, I was a little girl growing wings which boded a being who would never fit in and be accepted. My wings were not appreciated for where they would have taken me—a place where I needed to grow to, to fly to, but also a place I soon learned was not conventional enough or acceptable for many. And so my wings of my potential were clipped—I fell in line, I conformed, and I worked myself into the mold of a more normal being with less disquieting ways.
As parents, we have dreams and goals for our children which determine how we guide and nurture them as they grow. We envision a life of happiness and fulfillment and success for our sons and daughters. Sometimes our visions for our children may go against our child’s natural and innate destiny. Intentionally and often not intentionally, we corrupt their paths, and our children learn to bend into who we, their parents, believe they should become. For better or for worse?
Yes, it can be for worse. I know. I’ve spent most of my adult life with wings clipped of good intentions. I cry for the little girl I was, the woman I should have become, and I grieve the hardest for the gifted being I never knew I was until now.
I’m finally growing the wings of my giftedness.
“The wings of transformation are born of patience and struggle” ~Janet S. Dickens
This transformation, this growth into my giftedness is both painful and exhilarating. Sometimes this growth can be so emotionally distressing, I determinedly have to battle the urge and not return to my past where I more comfortably blended in, and life was simple—when I was un-gifted. I know all too well I have been going through the dark night of my soul. And dark it does become. But after the darkness comes the light, and I’m growing into my giftedness.
I’ve learned that with this transformation, this growth into my giftedness, the mountains are higher, but the valleys are oh so much lower. As I trudge up those mountains and inevitably plunge down the other side, I am growing my wings of my giftedness.
“You’ve got to jump off the cliff all the time and build your wings on the way down.” ~Ray Bradbury
This growth into my giftedness, this life transformation, my positive disintegration takes every ounce of courage and blind faith I can muster as I jump off
“Until you spread your wings, you’ll have no idea how far you can fly.” ~Napoleon Bonaparte
Dedicated with love to Kim, Chris, Jeannie, Audrey, Ellen and Katie <3
Decoding* not deciding.
I also forgot to add that that I have been diagnosed with a host of conditions such as autism, ADHD, chronic tics, clinical depression, anhedonia, and anxiety. Due to this, my thinking patterns and ideas often heavily deviate from the norm, and this is by far the most distressing part about being “gifted” – the struggle to find people who share my values and worldview. It is quite pessimistic and does not exactly leave people with a warm and fuzzy feeling in their stomach, so even as my social skills have massively improved over the years and have enabled me to be relatively successful with girls and creating rapport in general, I am perennially unable to strike up legitimate relationships based on shared values and not just meeting my fickle emotional needs. I do not see myself as smarter than anyone else; in fact, I often see other people as more insightful than myself and attempt to learn from their good qualities. I think it comes from a different way of seeing the world, which is not a veiled way of saying I’m superior… I swear.
Anyway, I have been at my wits’ end for way too long now. I have been dealing with an existential depression for almost a year now, and its presence has alienated those close to me and created an even larger gulf between me and my community at large. No one likes someone who says that life is meaningless, humans are biological robots, we should stop reproducing since existence is not worth the suffering, and that school is a method for weeding out dysfunctional anti-authoritarians rather than a place where work ethic, critical thinking and content mastery are rewarded with high marks. Every time I bring up some obscure philosopher or author in conversation in order to connect them to the topic or enrich the discussion, I never seem to get taken seriously or find someone who even knows what I am talking about. I don’t even do that to “flex” my knowledge or anything like that, but I feel like I come off as a know-it-all. I have essentially alienated myself from almost everyone who previously liked me due to this, and I can count the number of people I’ve met who actually understand what I am talking about and can create a dialogue with me based on that on one hand. I do not want to be a melancholy person anymore, but I fear that it may be something that I was cursed with.
Any advice or scathing criticism would be greatly appreciated.
Andrew,
Your gifted struggles are real and common—-you are not alone. One of my sons had the same social and emotional struggles and then just came out and said, “I f**king hate people.” I get it. I’m finding it extremely difficult to connect with people also, especially those who have a narrow or inflexible world view. And I absolutely cannot get along with anyone who is not empathetic or emotionally mature.
I recently joined a secret Facebook from the organization, InterGifted. You might want to look into it.
My last suggestion to you, and it’s the most critical one: please, please discuss your concerns and feelings with your parents, a trusted teacher or other trusted adult. Although your feelings are not unusual, they can be helped with therapy. Talk to your parents about finding a mental health professional who specializes in gifted individuals—there is no need to suffer simply because you are gifted.
Talk to your parents or teachers, seek out an experienced mental health professional, and practice self-care —meditation, exercise and other methods of self care.
If you need more support or resources, please don’t hesitate to write back!
Take care, Andrew! And remember, there are many upsides to giftedness! ❤️
Thank you for the thoughtful reply. I guess I will respond in order to what you wrote:
How do I find these people? I recently deposited to enroll at the University of Alabama on a full-tuition scholarship, and while I am grateful, I recoiled and am now freaking out about possibly going to a school with a cookie-cutter education. To be honest, when I look at highly ranked schools and their academic programs, I get excited. The research they publish, the variety in majors, the unique coursework… it doesn’t seem to exist outside of these schools. Alabama’s curriculum looks like the one at my community college for the most part; even the 400 and 500-level courses don’t seem particularly specific or differentiated from the others. I’ve been seriously thinking about taking a gap year because of this and reapplying, as I essentially bungled my applications and will always wonder “what could’ve been” if I applied to my dream schools with better extracurricular activities and a clear directive.
I don’t know… it just seems to me like I’ll be stuck with a bunch of dumb kids and kids who are good at school, but not genuine intellectuals who are there to learn. Honestly, I hate my choices. I hate the education that the school I chose seems to offer, and I made decision under duress with no one but myself to blame. I hate school and don’t care about my grades, but at the same time I want to take advantage of a top school’s educational opportunities. How sick is that? I severely underestimated how much I wanted to go to a prestigious school. Now I will almost certainly have to pay the price (on a SCHOLARSHIP…) by attending a school with second-rate opportunities and courses which make me yawn. I honestly don’t know what is wrong with me. I wish I could’ve gotten into WashU or Claremont McKenna. I don’t want to settle.
Anyway, my parents know about this. They aren’t particularly supportive of my view, and I don’t expect them to be supportive of a son who feels shafted by the fact that he has to settle for a scholarship at a flagship state university in their Honors College. I am honestly not excited to start in the fall. Another year of taking dreary gen-Ed’s and trying to get into parties so I can numb my pain and regret through hedonism. I feel like my entire life would be changed if I were to attend a school like Harvard, WashU, or Amherst. I’m obviously in a depressive mood right now, but if one looks at it rationally, I doubt it would be hard to argue with the notion that I would be better served at a challenging institution with brilliant peers rather than a normal university in a small cohort of kids who are good at school. I desperately want to try and delineate whether the kids at elite colleges are good at following orders or are legitimate geniuses, even though there’s no possible way to do that other than through reputation and word-of-mouth about a particular school’s student body.
I can’t even do this anymore. For twelve years I have been able to walk into a classroom, listen to a teacher drone on for an hour, and get an A on the exam. The reason my grades were so shaky revolved around whether or not I had the patience to hand in homework, participate in class, do papers, projects, presentations and get the assignments in on time. It’s a fucking travesty (pardon my French) that I have barely been challenged, but the worst thing is that my performance was the only thing standing in the way of me being able to experience an engaging academic environment. If my executive functioning skills were better and my motivation was higher, who knows where I would be right now.
Sincerely,
A depressed entitled angsty teenager
Andrew,
I get it, I do. I have a 19-year old who going through nearly the same thing.
As much as I sincerely want to, I regret that I don’t and can’t have all the right answers for you, but I did do some research because I know there are colleges which are turning the way they educate their students upside down because they have realized a cookie-cutter education is not an optimal educational method.
An example is Olin College for those majoring in Engineering.
Here’s another article about college searches for exceptionally and profoundly gifted students: “When Seeking a Great College Fit, Gifted Students Have Additional Considerations”
I also reached out to a friend who founded and is the director of an online high school for gifted teens to see if he has any suggestions for you.
Please hang in there–I’m still searching and trying to find some answers for you!
~~Celi
Thanks so much for your thoughtful reply.
God, I want to go to a prestigious school. I don’t know… I just feel like I deserve it. It’s such an entitled sentiment and I understand that I am as not qualified as the students there, but it just seems that at some of these schools there are courses which call my name (there is a course called Intro to Pain and Suffering at Brown, and a 5 PM – 12 AM class at UPenn about Existential Despair!) and at some schools, people who care about more than grades and internships (not UPenn…). I am vaguely aware that this is a bad case of the “grass-is-greener” effect, but if I’m going to experience a similarly stifling education, student body and debt load at most schools, I might as well try for the prestigious one (heck, my parents wanted me to take out $25,000 in loans even if I got a full ride.). I feel like an ungrateful jerk while I say this, but I genuinely want more out of my college experience than little-to-no debt, parties, clubs, internships and volunteering opportunities, sports, and a major I like. No… I want to be challenged and engaged without having to deal with the rigid constraints of traditional education.
Are there any college majors which are known to grade based on mostly tests and not assignments that you can Google all the answers to? Just curious.
I’m pretty sure anyone who looks at what I have written will be absolutely nauseated. I apologize for my insufferable desires if they cause anyone to believe that I am entitled.
Hey Andrew,
I don’t know a whole lot about different colleges and what they have to offer or how they grade, but one thing I do know from personal experience, there can be different paths that can get you the education you want at the college you want.
I’ll tell you a personal, sort of humiliating story–putting it out in public, too.
When I graduated from high school, I wanted so badly to go to Loyola University in New Orleans, but my parents refused. They forced me to go to Crappy University. and I hated it; I also nearly flunked out because I didn’t want to be there– a stupid mistake, I know. Then I had to go to Crappy U. #2 in my home town, but I was still determined to go to Loyola University. I brought my grades up within one semester and my parents reluctantly let me go to Loyola from which I graduated with honors. Twelve years later, I went back to graduate school for a completely different career and guess where? Crappy U. #2 which was no longer crappy but had become a well-known research university. The moral of the story is: there are many different ways and paths to get what you want.
I tell my own sons the same thing using my initially-dismal college experience as an example. You have a long life ahead of you and there is more than one way to skin a cat. Remember–there are different paths that can get one to where they want to go. I was once told also there is always a back door if the front door won’t let you in.
We all dream big and want the best for ourselves–why not? It’s not entitled, it’s called ambition. Go for it!
Andrew
You have options. I’ve worked with many hundreds of young adults who have found a wide variety of nontraditional paths that have led to high-level accomplishments, including in higher education. Exploring these options would probably require an extensive conversation. If you’re interested, please contact me at beachhi at cruzio dot com and write “Wanting ideas” in the subject line. I’m hoping to hear from you.
– Wes
I did reach out to a friend of mine who specializes in counseling gifted individuals. Here are their (quoted) suggestions for you:
1. He needs to speak with a therapist, which will help with his depression, uncertainty, and worries, but also help him feel more comfortable with his college decision.
2. Once he gets to Alabama, he may find others similar to him. Lots of very bright students from all over the country receive scholarships there because they want to build up their honors program. He also could pursue counseling while he is there to help him make future decisions.
3. If he is really unhappy at Alabama, he always could transfer. But any of these decisions should be made with the support of family, advisors, and counselors who understand his situation.
I wish all the best for you, Andrew!
Hi Céli,
I am a 17 year-old male from New York State who has recently stumbled upon your work, and I have to say that I find it extremely relatable and comforting. All my life I have been considered “gifted” – I was deciding words at eighteen months old, doing two-digit multiplication by four, had a law school reading level in eighth grade, and recently scored a 34 on my ACT with little prep on five hours of sleep. All this potential I was supposed to have meant that I had high expectations heaped on by my family, peers and teachers, and especially as I live in an upper-middle class environment where making six figures out of college was the norm for many of my relatives. Nevertheless, I have repeatedly underachieved and disappointed many, and it is excruciating watching myself fade farther into mediocrity. Despite testing at a 145 verbal I.Q. and in the mid 130s overall, I got a C- in English last semester, and got rejected from many of the universities I applied to due to my lackluster transcript. I honestly do not believe I was built for the modern Western world, and I abhor neoliberal capitalist doctrine and do not think that laboring for someone else’s benefit while I depend on a wage to survive is a humane way to live.
Hi Andrew,
I can see you have strong sense of self and your situation which is good but can sometimes be too much realization, and then the negative emotions set in. Giftedness can suck sometimes and all those reasons why it does commonly occur among gifted individuals. Believe me, I understand! I too, at 61-years old, often want to give my giftedness back to wherever it came.
Yet, I work hard to focus on the advantages and upsides of giftedness. Yes, they do exist.
It seems much of your frustration comes from academic expectations. Unfortunately, giftedness and academic achievement have been erroneously linked. Being gifted has no relation to academic achievement.
Gifted individuals can excel in school and they can fail in school—they can flounder because our traditional school system uses a hard-and-fast, lock-step methodology to educate a large group of students at the same time and at the same level in the most efficient manner. This system “fails” many, many students because every student has different educational needs. You are not underachieving, our school system is underachieving and is failing to educate way too many of our students. This old cliche is appropriate here: “It’s not you, it’s them.”
I’m reading a book right now called “The Gifted Adult: A Revolutionary Guide for Liberating Everyday Genius” by Mary-Elaine Jacobsen. I’d recommend you check this book out—it’s fascinating and has given me a better, more positive outlook on my own giftedness.
I’m going to hop over to your other comment and address it now. ~~Celi
I ate too much candy and deactivated my giftedness. Also is there Tinder for grannies?
Yay! Congratulations to you! 🙂
Thank you so much, Toby! ❤️
I’m not gifted, but my dog is. He can read, write, and even play piano! He also can speak fluent English, Spanish, and French! My dog goes to school with me, and he’s in the classes above me. He always gets straight A’s. He has skipped 4 grades. Unfortunately, he gets picked on for his talent. Kids always tease him, telling him to go back to the puppy mill. Celi, can you give me some advice on how to stick up for my dog? He would really appreciate my intervention. My dog’s name is Gregory. He’s a very kind dog, and, due to his asynchronous development, he doesn’t develop in dog years, but in human ones. He is currently 12 years old. Please help me save my dog!
-Anonymous
Sure! Check out my resources page and maybe applying the human tips I give will help your dog, Gregory!
Good luck with that! 😊
Wow you just described me. In such passionate and evocative language. That is the exact journey I am going through and yes it is plenty dark but there is also light plenty of light and it is worth it, as George Eliot said “ To be what I might have been.”
Cheryl,
“To be what I might have been.” It’s what keeps us all moving forward, right? <3
There’s no stopping you now, Celi! You are on fire!!
Except when I plunge down the other side of those tall mountains, Paula! <3