Catching you up (8)

(Selections from October, 2008)

I don't like having a therapist. It feels like a betrayal -- to enter in this relationship now when I've spent so many years having talk therapy with myself. At least with myself there's no inner critic noting every small yawn, every sweep of the hand, every pursed lip and gently raised eyebrow.

How is it that I can pay such acute attention to the thoughts and emotions of other people but so effectively shut out myself?

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I have no friends again.

I actually started caring about others. More fool me, because my new goal of paying attention to how I feel is at odds with how horrible I feel when someone who was so chatty and friendly and eager to share things with me hasn't said a word to me in two weeks … coinciding with, I might add (for everyone else with paranoid tendencies out there) the exact few days when I realised how much I liked her as a friend. An extraordinary self-admission for someone usually so empty.

What does a normal person do when they feel this gutted?

I've not had friends for a very long time. It's getting ridiculously hard to trust other people when at the very point I feel most fragile, I'm dropped. Literally.

And so the hypersensitivity is back. Constant itching, swollen glands, stuffed nose, faint headaches. People become suddenly oh-so-annoying. Noticing the slightest exclusion. Judging everything I say (unfortunately, not before I actually say it). I already feel beaten; but for my own pride I could stop beating myself, as well.

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Quickly, before I lose it:

Sometimes the things we need (And need to learn) are far simpler than the things we were searching for.

"Recognise me."

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Although the actual sessions aren't nearly as productive as the provocation they serve, I have not lost hope that therapy can help me. Yesterday we were meant to talk about giftedness, and I thought we wasted the entire time looking at my art and talking about people, creativity, and career.

I've been 'very, very smart' all of my life, shuffled into special classes, participating in enrichment activities, etc. It didn't occurred to me until yesterday to give that label a second thought until my therapist asked me to.

I'm ashamed to admit that I'm also party to the stereotypes one adopts as they grow up, being gifted. That is -- Giftedness all about IQ and percentiles on the tests they make you take every year to validate: Yes, YOU are still gifted! … as though it were something that might go away any year.

As it turns out, though, being gifted doesn't mean being in the 99th percentile at all. It means:


      Early childhood intellectual milestones and behaviours
      General personality
      Degree of intrinsic motivation
      Inner drive for continued independent learning


So, the restlessness and inadequacy and frustration I feel constantly has nothing to do with being mentally ill and everything to do with the fact that I really, truly am made… differently. The latter two definitions on that list were shocking for me to read, as I, like many people, have fallen under the spell that to be gifted means to be highly specialised like a master composer or a fact-spewing calculator on a gameshow.

But ironically, bringing in my artwork as a defiance to a talk in 'giftedness' really had more to do with being gifted than I expected.

That no one ever considered telling me I was special because of the four things on that list, rather than my test scores, is not surprising. I have always known I was "smart", always depended on my ability to learn whatever I wanted quickly and consistently, but never really considered myself to be "gifted". I don't get perfect grades; I can't be bothered to do work if it doesn't motivate me.  Apparently, these things are hallmarks of giftedness.

I suppose to a stranger reading this it must sound a bit boastful and exploitive. How could someone so "gifted" have so little idea about her own abilities? But that's the point, really. I've been called "stupid" much more often than "smart" by brutal and uncaring people, including my father. When I do explore my potential, when I do share what I can achieve, people respond and retaliate in fear and loathing, not delight. No wonder I find it so hard to hand my artwork over to the gallery. No wonder I lack such confidence in asserting my intuitions at work.

It is hard to feel gifted rather than shameful and guilty when you cannot even manage to keep the kitchen clean. But if acknowledging and celebrating this part of me is the lift I need out of this mess, what right does anyone have to judge, least of all me, my biggest judge of all?

Read on the NHS Choices blog.