The connection to overactive empathy is interesting and, in my mind, valid. That's what teacher-, parent-, boss-pleasing is all about, right? Being highly attuned, even overly attuned, to others' feelings, needs and expectations, and making their happiness your own personal goal, even at the expense of your own well being? It's a pathological empathy or unhealthy selflessness.
The problem is compounded if your own feelings and needs are roundly dismissed by others as too whiny, arrogant, weird, negative, exaggerated, intense, inexplicable, etc. It's hard to put your own social and emotional needs first when everything in your environment is telling you they're abnormal--when you do not see your own interests, ideas, priorities or concerns mirrored in those around you.
What are my gifted weirdo needs at work? To not be idle (which may require giving me more work or harder work than others). To be encouraged, or even just allowed, to think critically, look beyond immediate, superficial causes and effects, CARE about things, like quality and outcomes, and aim high. To not have my thoughts and feelings dismissed with condescending, mediocrity-normalizing comments like "at least it pays the bills, right?" or "a lot of people would be happy to be bored at work." As that healthy selfishness article says, to feel safe to occasionally assert the totality of my being (like the part that would rather read philosophy at lunch than attend the mandatory-fun event where all the women are enthusiastically discussing hair and nails). But I'm being whiny, arrogant and negative...
There seems to be a sort of gifted Catch-22 in that what many gifted people ache for more than anything is freedom to be and use those parts of themselves that society tells them are invalid or even shameful. Resisting the crush of mediocrity may require exercising more healthy selfishness than I've been allowing myself and losing some of the guilt and the shame.
