A great book to begin with is "Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnoses of Gifted Children..." by Dr. James Webb.
We both struggled with depression, which is not at all unusual for gifted, but I have had serious anxiety issues my whole life. She thinks maybe I could find more lasting relief if I better understood the real root of my symptoms, which she suspects may be more related to being HG than traditional anxiety.
Alyson,
I'm so glad you are here. I think that there is a good chance that your psychologist is correct. When I started posting on a different HG/PG forum, back when DS13 was first diagnosed (and before this one existed) there was a very unactive sections about 'Adult Giftedness.' I know that I've grown to be a much more calm and balanced person during this journey, because I can see that back then, about every 3 months, I make these long venting post about 'who did what to whom' and how miserable it made me. That was 4 years ago - not long on the 'major life change' scale, and about a year ago I realized that I never had that feeling that 'life is soooooo awfullllll' anymore to such a full degree.
Some of that is that I'm no longer under the exquisite stress of watching my son be so misplaced at school. Some of it might be a natural process of maturation. But I really think that getting to know myself as a 'rather unusually gifted person' (who can't spell) and having a place to share the 'small highs and lows' on a daily basis has made so much of the difference.
What is totally gone is the feeling that something mysterious and bad is wrong with me that I'm not like other people. I think a lot of HG women grow up this way, but I recently read Deirdre Lovecky's Different Minds, and she points out that the 'typical' Gifted/ADD girls is able to do well in school by being hypervigelient, and can never be relaxed and confident that she is actually prepared for any academic situation. As I read this I remembered that this was true once I got to Middle School and High School, because things seem to 'jump out of the ether' at me on a regular basis. I'm not sure that I could be clinically diagnosed as ADD, but I do have plenty of gifted +ADD traits, and was constantly teased about being a 'space cadet' as a girl. And things do jump out of nowhere on a regular basis - of course that might be perfectly normal, LOL, and I just mind it more because of my perfectionism (which, to me is more of a lack of having other people around who are comfortable discussing such things as peers - I call it 'lack of reference,' and it's one of our great confusions.
Anyway, I'm now wondering how much growing up a Spacey, Gifted Girl contributed to my being always on guard and worried. I think that teachers in particular were pretty good at communicating their disappointment that a 'bright girl like you doesn't care enough to write in neat handwriting and look up the words I don't know in a dictionary.' Of course to me the correctly spelled words looked as 'funny' as the incorrectly spelled ones. I must have some emotional block about -el words, such as 'modle' or 'model' because they both look terribly wrong to me.
Anyway Alyson - welcome! search 'perfectionism' and and enjoy our years of chewing over this interesting questions!
It's worth a try anyway...
Love and More Love,
Grinity
