... would your DD like to be understood? Would she like to know why she feels what she feels? Sometimes knowing why we feel what we feel can set us partially free. We feel what we feel - there is no right or wrong to it.
Sorry not so helpful here.
But wishing you and your family well.
This is where the Living with Intensity book would come in and be very helpful imo.
I actually HAVE a copy of the book now, which is bound to be more helpful than... well, than not having it. LOL.
Yes, I
have begun sharing more information with my DD about my own experiences as an adolescent. I'd been reluctant to do that, primarily because-- um, how to say... some of my choices for 'coping' were highly.. er...
maladaptive. I didn't want to feel like I was giving her tacit PERMISSION for those things. Sort of how former potheads don't necessarily want to SHARE that with their own teens, if you KWIM.
But it was a real epiphany for DD to hear that
I also felt 'out of place and out of tune' at least to some degree with ANY peer group-- until graduate school, really.
I related intellectually to those 4-10 years older than myself, and at the same time, to fit in with those people SOCIALLY, I had to lay low and/or pretend to be older than I really was. to this day, many of my friends still assume that I am four to five years older than I actually am. (Well, if they see me in person they assume that I look VERY young for my age, which I do, but not THAT young...)
I have shared experiences that
keep me out of sync with my age mates. And I'm in my forties.
I'm the
queen of self-handicapping. Seriously, if there's a method, I've used it at some point. I did it not because I was a
perfectionist in the classic sense, and certainly not to the extent that DD feels that internal pressure, but because I had such awful self-esteem and the ONLY thing that I had was "I'm smart." I couldn't
bear the chance of gaining evidence to the contrary-- so I'd rather engineer failure and live the dream.
At some point in my undergraduate years, I
finally seemed to get comfortable in my own skin somehow and it just stopped.
Has DD heard messages from us that have exacerbated the problem? Undoubtedly. But not intentionally or overtly, by any stretch. More because of her personality and motivational style, and because of lack of sufficient challenge in her educational placement, coupled with us being TOO aware of "how not to praise" a child who is HG+. So we've
always praised effort, strong work ethic, etc. NOT NOT NOT 'results' and definitely not innate ABILITY. Nobody has EVER said to her "I'm so proud of your A+ grades."
What we
have said, however, is things like "Just do your best." Under an appropriate academic challenge, that is a fine statement and a supportive and helpful one... but in the absense of a real challenge, that becomes... "My best is 100%/perfection. Ergo, if I don't earn perfect marks, I have not done MY BEST." This is only exacerbated when assessments are the type she's been used to over the past few years, where a single dumb-bunny moment (and hey-- we all have them, yes?) can cost her dearly in terms of her class grade... oh, and she can SEE IT HAPPEN IN REAL TIME-- IMMEDIATE FEEDBACK. Besides, what about those things that don't really require pulling out all the stops mentally? What about that? Should she still "do her best" in the ludicrous test prep course that all students
must participate in for NCLB high stakes testing preparation? It hardly requires that.
Does that make sense?
I've also shared some of my personal experiences with imposter syndrome with her. I think this relates to not having a true peer group, in some respects. You habituate to that sense of "hiding" in groups of people in order to gain social acceptance, and eventually one internalizes that. It becomes something you take for granted, and assume MUST be true at all times, even as an adult among genuine peers. I know I did. Totally my own crack-pot theory, that; I have no idea if anyone reputable has connected those two things.
