Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Regions S.E. MA or R.I area - GT/2E resources for adults?

If anyone can recommend some resources for GT/2E/Highly Sensitive Adults in the S.E. MA or RI area, especially with regards to psych counseling (w/o drugs), I'd really appreciate it. I looked online and there are some places, but these seem more geared towards kids rather than adults, and according to the map here, most New England states (despite being the birthplace of public American education!) are NOT GT/2E friendly. I think there is too much time (and money) spent on the cookie-cutter standardized tests rather than really caring about "is our childrens learning."

I don't have money or a job; the economy is awful anyway, and I'm not emotionally healthy enough to go out and get one. Something like retail or fast-food would be far too stressful for the worthless pay I'd receive anyway. But my parents are in enormous debt and cannot afford for me to see any more counselors, since all the ones we've tried were not at all a good match. (Over 20 or so years, that sure adds up to a lot of OOP cash.) In fact, I will soon be 26 and forced to be off my father's insurance plan, and then either default onto state welfare or go on a college plan. The latter, though, would involve going to college, which neither I nor my family can afford whatsoever without some type of assistance. As of right now I would likely be getting ready to transfer from a two-year to a four-year school, but things like the Pell Grant don't cover the full cost of bachelor's-level education, and I myself am feeling far too overwhelmed to even think about going back to school. This, I feel, is a tragedy for someone like me who does have so much potential and could do so much, but has a lot of emotional difficulties holding me back, and finances holding me back further from getting the right kind of help for these emotional difficulties with special attention "paid" to the tremendous amount of gifts I just know I possess. (Which I hope doesn't sound self-aggrandizing or narcissistic.)

I had a look at some of the online sources (like Rocamora School and some faraway-located counselors who do sessions via Skype), but I would prefer a one-on-one, real-world, face-to-face session, physically sitting in front of the therapist, rather than the relative distance that still exists when doing things over the "airwaves" even if there's video involved. They are often very expensive, too, and obviously someone in California isn't going to be able to take state-level insurance from 3,000 miles away.

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance

I would contact Aimee Yermish (you can get her contact info by searching her name in the member list on this board), and explain your situation to her. She can probably refer you to someone relatively local who has experience counseling young gifted adults, since counseling for the gifted is a special area of interest for her, and she is not so far away from you.

Yes, Aimee Yermish is a good suggestion - http://www.davincilearning.org/

There's also the Gifted Resource Center of New England, based in Providence, RI.
http://www.grcne.com/

I know Dr. Lovecky has a waitlist at GRCNE. My son's on the waitlist for a spring appointment. I think the initial appointment is $180 or something but you could always try contacting her and see if she could help in some capacity. I'll warn you that she's tough to get hold of by phone.

I grew up in the SE MA/RI area and live on the North Shore of MA now. I understand completely with your vent. If you notice, I'm taking my son to RI for testing. What does it say? There's not a lot in this area for giftedness.

I also completely sympathize with the finances. I'm an unemployed librarian/archivist/historian and former teacher who's about to homeschool a eg/pg son. And yes, I've got a student loan to pay as well. I feel your pain, believe me.

Another idea - you might want to try contacting URI's Outreach Office (http://www.uri.edu/outreach/database.html); URI's Mental Health Services (http://www.uri.edu/artsci/psy/pcc) or equivalent in Providence or Boston.

I would work enough every year to get enough Social Security quarters of coverage, which is somewhere in the neighborhood of $4,000 a year.

You have to pay into the system through employment to get any benefit.

Excellent point.

Thanks, everyone, for your quick responses! I wasn't too sure about GRCNE, since there's not much on their site referring specifically to adults (of various ages, not just young adults 18-29 or so). I have bookmarked the Da Vinci Learning site as well.

I know this to be a fact; unfortunately, as mentioned above,
My mother, sadly, was forced to abandon the career she loved (teaching elementary school) too soon before she'd paid enough into the system to earn anything back. She has not held a paid job in twenty-plus years (but works way overtime for the whole lot of us without financial compensation), is chronically ill (because of that), and despite her numerous challenges and (literally) non-profit endeavors... doesn't even qualify for SSDI. She is closing in on sixty all too soon, and as if that wasn't difficult enough to face, she is in worse shape physically than her mother, my grandmother, of early nonagenarian age.

Meanwhile, I myself (at the risk of sounding like a spoiled-brat trust-fund kid) haven't worked a day in my life. But retail and fast food are just one sticking point. I also tend to grow VERY apprehensive at the mere thought of wasting my talents in the doldrums of cubicle work or in dull, high-pressured, creativity-cannibalizing academic education. (NB: Among many others -- I'm sure -- Steve Jobs probably felt the same way.)

If you are so anxious and emotionally fragile that you've honestly never been able to work a day in your life because the anxiety is intolerable, apply for SSI without delay.

I do find it hard to believe that you could pull off that kind of an academic performance but not be able to handle washing glassware in a lab somewhere, but you know your situation better than I do. If you really are emotionally crippled by your anxiety and depression, and you can't get help from VR, (It sounds like you had a terribly unprofessional VR counselor - I hope you complained to a supervisor!) then the SSI and its attendant Medicaid might help you through until appropriate counseling can help you get back on your feet.

It might be helpful to reframe how you are looking at entry-level work, though: instead of thinking of it as somehow beneath you, or as sucking away your creativity, you can look at it as being in service to your eventual goals, allowing you to gain experiences that will help you as a writer, or even just provide you with motivation to build a business or finish a book so you can get out of there. There's no honest work that is beneath anybody, no matter what their IQ, and work, even menial, routine work, if you think about it in the right way, can provide a sense of concrete accomplishment that can be really really helpful in dealing with depression and anxiety.

I do get SSI but the bare minimum, whatever that is, because my academic performance was taken into account. The fact that I did complete a college degree, not only complete but pass with flying colors, put some questions into the mindsets of the Social Security office. They only look at what's on paper, not the enormous stress involved to get to that point. After all, if that were the case they'd be handing out paychecks to every college kid who ever pulled an all-nighter or drank gallons of espresso to get through grad school.

It's likely I wouldn't get hired anywhere but fast-food or retail with an associate's (rather than a bachelor's), let alone one in liberal arts. I have an uncle who worked at a fast-food place while between jobs (he himself has a PhD), and said he quit the day he got assigned restroom duty. No one, regardless of education level, wants to pick up dirty T.P. or empty the sanitary napkins container or scrub up after someone who just emptied their whole dinner into the can out the back-door exit.

As stated above, I can't do math either, and can't for the life of me get the learning curve involved in cash registers and discount barcodes and the assembly-line rush of the checkout aisle. People are impatient, and they can't/don't afford the time for a nervous or new kid to learn the system, because their milk is about to spoil, or their newly bought designer handbag ticking fast on its way to last season's style... (Trust me, I've seen people who do this -- and lots of them -- and boy do I feel sorry for the poor schlub behind the counter. I know if that was me I'd tell the customer to take a chill pill and wait a couple minutes while I process the order. Or go to Gimbel's, their choice.)

I understand what you're saying about the "beneath-you" mentality. I'd rather go to a trade school or skills-enrichment series and learn by doing than by sitting in a 2 1/2 hour seminar taking notes and writing research papers. From which all I ever learned was how to write a research paper. Would I say that prepared me for the workforce? Not unless my career was in academia, building my career off of research papers, or I was the next Kate Turabian and building my own guidelines for how to write them... But my parents are sort of disappointed that I would take "the lazy way out," which I don't see as being lazy at all.

I'm convinced my learning style doesn't meet well with sedentary note-taking and the traditional (primarily American?) degree-in-sequence model that the majority does whether they're suited for it or not. I believe this is the FUD model of compulsory education...

I'm also a big-time Luddite, or at least I'd like to be. I thought of building my writing portfolio by maybe working as a freelancer or a journalist, but I'm wary of things like Facebook and Twitter, and even my threadbare-budget local-yokel town paper is expanding into social media. Another thing people do is blog on their own or write for staffed publications like Huffington Post or Slate (or whatever the smaller versions of these are). Much to my chagrin, I even look to my left and see "The Davidson Institute is on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube!" Which goes along with the modern mantra of "Even your grandma is on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube!" (And her little cat, too!)

It's become a minimum requirement to have an e-mail address, which I do but don't; mine is one of those disposable G-Mail addresses I use just for signing up on forums and never check again. Never mind a regularly accessed address, much less a regularly accessed Facebook or Twitter or whatever these things are, all of which are becoming more and more of a requirement nowadays, as even journalism moves far beyond the standard six o' clock Brinkley broadcast and even beyond the 24/7 TV outlets into a 24/7 conversation with the viewers via the Internet.

Sometimes I think I'm a grouchy, elderly pre-industrial time traveler who pulled a Scott Bakula into the reluctant Millennial incarnation I am today.

I don't believe that this is accurate. JonLaw can correct me here if I am wrong, but as far as I know, once you are deemed eligible for SSI, the only factor in determining your benefit amount is your income and assets. A lot of people are shocked to find that the maximum benefit is less than $700/month, though.

You had expressed concern over losing your health insurance. You should be relieved to know that your Medicaid will continue as long as you are receiving SSI. It's not the greatest insurance in the wold, but it is significantly better than most lower-income working people have access to.

I really hope you can find a counselor who can work with you to help you get to a point where you can be employable. You might find that what is holding you back is not as insurmountable as you think it is.

Good luck.

There are sometimes state programs that piggy-back on federal SSI. That's the only way to get over $670 or whatever it is now. It just went up a little. I don't know how Mass. works with respect to the piggyback.

SSI also has deductions if you are received free housing/support. That knocks off a third and you get down into the $400s.

And, since it's welfare, you can't have over $2000 in the bank or you lose the SSI. You can, however, own a single vehicle and the house that you live in.