Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion A plea from a gifted adult.

I'm going to say what I've said before, to others who have posted for similar reasons. I know from experience that being PG can be isolating. It can make you feel different, lonely, and misunderstood. You can't change that, absent finding other PG folks who share your interests, ideals, and personality, and who want to be your friends.

But your emotions (anger, resentment, etc.) toward people who are less intelligent than you are are not something that you're stuck with. You can change your reaction to your environment, and I hope that you will work on doing that, because living in a world full of people you hate must be very depressing. If you address that problem, I think you'll find that life becomes much more tolerable.

You sound SOOO much like my husband ach!
My brother is pg as well; (they both knew each other at the same high school for big brained people, funny enough).
I have a pretty big brain, but tend towards the optimistic - oh that person over there just doesn't understand! I am not pg so I don't really get the MAJOR separation issues but see it a lot when it comes to these two men in my life. As my husband put it just this morning, regarding lack of educational fit and social fit, it can be so psychologically painful that it is equatable to physical pain; so much so that he wouldn't want to burden anyone else with a (detailed!) description (outside of family, of course).
He tells me about this stuff and he has had ok luck finding a few folks to hang with but no one that you would really say is as smart as he is. (Oh, and since he isn't in the sciences, finding jobs that are a good fit... well it is a bit of a challenge, too).

My brother has found a good place too, after much MUCH up and down. He has phd in nuclear physics, completed studies to become an m.d. also, but finally ended up getting a job where he can just do research, design, etc., etc., some bio-something or other job, which sounds like a great fit for him. His wife is adorable and very smart, I don't think pg, but she is gifted and they spend their days speaking different languages together, raising a sweet little girl and doing their own thing, which I think is a good ending/beginning.
Just some thoughts, early 20's is not the end of the road you will more than likely find folks you can 'stand to be around' and who can stand you.

ps, dh is definitely a curmudgeon!

It's at the point where I wish I didn't need people at all, more often than not - I certainly cherish the ones I have who actually enrich my life, such as my best friend and my parents and the handful of professors I've had, but others? It's psychological pain that's almost like chronic physical pain, and dosing oneself up on painkillers, unlike chronic physical pain, isn't the way to go about dealing with it.


I would totally beg you to put me in touch with your brother because I need mentors especially in the sciences, especially people who are profoundly gifted, like I need food, except I have no idea how one would go about a cross-sciences mentorship, since I'm in biology and your brother's a nuclear physicist.

Different languages are awesome. I'm somewhat fluent in Romanian, myself. Any Romanian speakers? Vorbesc romaneste, un pic.

I'm trying to do it real, real subtly (Mom has articulated that if she catches me traveling abroad before the end of undergrad, she will stop supporting me in any way, shape or form) - she knows and appreciates my reasons for wanting to, but she is fiercely paranoid and I've run into a wall trying to figure out why she has this wacky sense of anxiety.

(Neither of my parents are exactly all there, to varying degrees. Did I mention my father is probably going to die in the next 5-10 years, and he's only 60, because his lungs, brain, and bladder are in such crud shape and he's almost entirely disabled, and did I mention my mother is - partially justifiably because her family life as a kid sucked - EXTREMELY anxiety-ridden? They've gone over wills with me and talked life insurance and power of attorney. On top of the darker aspects of being profoundly gifted, I have family issues, and I'm in my early twenties - entirely too young for either parent to keel over, and yet my father will probably die, at the latest, two years after I finish grad school. Whoop-de-friggin'-doo. Although, then again, who DOESN'T have family issues?)

Somehow, doing this only strikes me as 'Deny it and the pain'll go away'. It doesn't seem like it respects the facts.

And I strive to know reality, no matter whether it is as great as unicorn farts or as cruddy as world genocide.

I can definitely find out whether he would be game for that, and will hope to pm you soon (few days) to let you know either way. I owe him a ring anyway!

Here's the thing, though - these things are actually recommended by medicine, barring the midwife, and that's not even really off-the-wall that much. I'm talking about the stuff such as attempting to treat cancer with large doses of vitamins or pumping chelation solutions into your kid to try to 'cure' their autism. That is what I refer to.

Ever heard of natural products chemistry? You'll find that a lot of the stuff we have in medicine comes from nature.


I'm talking more about the unhealthy sort of nut.


And about half of them want to be pharmacists. (I'm the only one who plans to go to graduate school.)

Seriously, next time one of them says 'lol i want 2 go 2 pharm skool' I'm going to tell them 'Fat chance, sucker, you can't even make aspirin'.

I'm glad you're making friends here. Everyone needs a place to feel at home, even if it's only virtual.

Well, that's your interpretation. Personally, I think that resenting ND people for not being as smart as you are is like resenting a dog for not being able to use silverware. It just doesn't make sense. Yes, they are intellectually below your level. No, that doesn't mean that they deserve to be the objects of derision.

If you are PG, you simply can't expect ND people to be the same as you. I get that it can be frustrating trying to communicate with ND people. I have experienced that myself. And I'm not saying that you can simply make your feelings go away. I am saying that you should work on the issues that cause those feelings. Certainly they are related to being PG, but they do not follow inevitably from being PG, and they are not something that you cannot overcome.

I define the problem as being a lack of evidence-based medicine. I'm suspicious of "treatments" that don't fit this description.



I think it might help to look at the larger cultural context.

K-12 students are constantly assailed by messages telling them that College is the route to higher earnings! The news media, educational establishment, and even the political establishment all send this message. Many parents say the same thing (I've even seen it pop up on this board on occasion).

These days, college isn't seen as a place where you go because you're bright and you want to learn stuff. It's seen as a route to earning more money than you would otherwise. Crass, but unfortunately, reality.

You can't really blame people for buying into this message given that it's ubiquitous and apparently true.* You also can't really blame people for not having an IQ as high as yours. They can't change who they are or how they were born.

If you think differently than more than 99% of the population, you need to make a different kind of effort at finding people who think like you. For example, google the Prometheus Society or the Triple Nine society.

Val

*I say apparently because the issue is more subtle than having a BA or not. Talented people tend to earn more because they're better at solving problems, not necessarily because they have a BA. For example, a person who's a really, really good electrician will probably earn more without a BA than he'd earn with a BA if he was, say, a marketing manager of average ability. Someone without a BA who learned programming in the Army might be a better software developer than someone else with a BA who's just average (or above...). It all depends.