There's No Pill For That
November 4, 2015 11:32 AM Subscribe
You are not a crazy genius or an irredeemable asshole or a misfit who's damned for all time. You are just a person. We are all damned in our own little ways. We are all uniquely blessed and uniquely fucked. Welcome to the world.
"Roughly two decades ago, when I was about 10, my therapist ran a whole battery of tests on me because my mother had noticed something was very wrong with me. One of them came up with an exceptionally high IQ, the kind that makes psychiatrists say, "Well, I never!" It was nice to get a diagnosis, but not much changed. There's no pill you can take for that."
Ask Polly Previously (Because you aren't being you, For Richer or Poorer)
"Roughly two decades ago, when I was about 10, my therapist ran a whole battery of tests on me because my mother had noticed something was very wrong with me. One of them came up with an exceptionally high IQ, the kind that makes psychiatrists say, "Well, I never!" It was nice to get a diagnosis, but not much changed. There's no pill you can take for that."
Ask Polly Previously (Because you aren't being you, For Richer or Poorer)
That person must be a regular MeFite!
Initially, I thought, maybe a thin post, but good perspective to be found there.
posted by 2N2222 at 12:01 PM on November 4, 2015
Initially, I thought, maybe a thin post, but good perspective to be found there.
posted by 2N2222 at 12:01 PM on November 4, 2015
But I am nervous about my inability to connect to people, mostly because I don't want my husband to be my one source of support. I like people, I go out and have fun and I'm engaged while it happens, but I find it extremely hard to actually connect. From time to time I become aware of these wonderful, gorgeous, shiny souls who are so very prettily broken, and I desperately want to be their friend.
This line from the letter writer stood out to me with neon lights. It seems so strange and sad to me to equate interesting and attractive potential friends with being prettily broken. I wish Polly had touched on that in her response, because I think it also speaks to putting other people on the same pedestal as the LW--only other people who are as clever but also as broken as me are worthy of connection! And that mindset sends up all manner of red flags to me, about winding up attracted to people who are only going to hurt the LW further.
I don't know; I certainly don't want to befriend perfect people either--which is great, I don't actually know that many. I try to seek out people I want to connect to by looking for people who have had hard times, too--but I look for mended spots, not broken ones. Places where people have had rough spots or crazybrain or baggage that they've developed coping mechanisms for, people who maybe aren't unscarred but have figured out how to get around that.
posted by sciatrix at 12:02 PM on November 4, 2015 [9 favorites]
This line from the letter writer stood out to me with neon lights. It seems so strange and sad to me to equate interesting and attractive potential friends with being prettily broken. I wish Polly had touched on that in her response, because I think it also speaks to putting other people on the same pedestal as the LW--only other people who are as clever but also as broken as me are worthy of connection! And that mindset sends up all manner of red flags to me, about winding up attracted to people who are only going to hurt the LW further.
I don't know; I certainly don't want to befriend perfect people either--which is great, I don't actually know that many. I try to seek out people I want to connect to by looking for people who have had hard times, too--but I look for mended spots, not broken ones. Places where people have had rough spots or crazybrain or baggage that they've developed coping mechanisms for, people who maybe aren't unscarred but have figured out how to get around that.
posted by sciatrix at 12:02 PM on November 4, 2015 [9 favorites]
Shit. This hits home. If anyone needs me, I'll be in the bathroom, hiding in the stall and having a protracted think, and maybe a cry.
posted by SansPoint at 12:22 PM on November 4, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by SansPoint at 12:22 PM on November 4, 2015 [4 favorites]
CTRL-F "bipolar" and no results found.
The person writing the question sure does sound like a mixed bipolar episode to me, down to the description of the screaming-toddler brain. And there are, in fact, pills for that.
I love the advice and I think it's great. Especially in that it's time for OP to disentangle themselves from their identification with an IQ test 20 years ago. But I also can strongly identify with that feeling, and for me, it's really closely linked to bipolar episodes. I assume, though, in all the help they've gotten, that that's been ruled out by now.
posted by fiercecupcake at 12:31 PM on November 4, 2015 [7 favorites]
The person writing the question sure does sound like a mixed bipolar episode to me, down to the description of the screaming-toddler brain. And there are, in fact, pills for that.
I love the advice and I think it's great. Especially in that it's time for OP to disentangle themselves from their identification with an IQ test 20 years ago. But I also can strongly identify with that feeling, and for me, it's really closely linked to bipolar episodes. I assume, though, in all the help they've gotten, that that's been ruled out by now.
posted by fiercecupcake at 12:31 PM on November 4, 2015 [7 favorites]
fiercecupcake Yeah, after a recent episode of the podcast Roadwork with John Roderick, wherein he describes having Bipolar II, my reaction was basically "Holy shit, that's (almost) me." Same with this piece.
God damn it, I gotta bite the bullet and get me a therapists. Why is mental health so expensive in the US, even with insurance?
posted by SansPoint at 12:36 PM on November 4, 2015 [2 favorites]
God damn it, I gotta bite the bullet and get me a therapists. Why is mental health so expensive in the US, even with insurance?
posted by SansPoint at 12:36 PM on November 4, 2015 [2 favorites]
Oh, huh, I'd been wondering where my feels were located today. That article did a great job of finding them and then hitting them hard.
I don't identify fully with the letter writer, but this?
People usually like me, but it's not earned. They like the puppet I've created, the one who knows how to act like a healthy person with a normal brain.
And this?
I like people, I go out and have fun and I'm engaged while it happens, but I find it extremely hard to actually connect. From time to time I become aware of these wonderful, gorgeous, shiny souls who are so very prettily broken, and I desperately want to be their friend. But everyone notices how interesting they are and crowds around them, so I kind of give up and move on.
One of the pernicious lies I absorbed in childhood was that the key to getting people to like me was to be someone else. School in small-town Arkansas is great at lessons like that. And I was "smart" in the way that teachers found delightful and my classmates found alienating.
So I learned to be a chameleon. I took strong social cues from those around me and slowly cobbled together an approach to interacting with people that worked. I became a likable-enough guy.
But it kept me from connecting with people, truly connecting with them, for a long time. And even now, years after I've found a much better balance between my social mask and my inner self, I'm still occasionally tripped up by it.
I wish I had some inspirational ending or speech about how it gets better. But there's no guarantee. I was kind of broken, and broke myself in a different way when I mended myself by spending a long time just watching people and creating a cargo-cult approach to human interaction. So then I spent more time recovering from that.
I will say that one of the best things my parents ever did for me was hide my IQ score from me. As a kid I was a handful, and my kindergarten teacher was terrible at working with me. She finally told my parents that I was anti-social and might be "slow", and that I should be tested. I was my parents' first kid, so they hadn't yet learned how to ignore idiots with parenting advice. I was tested, and scored very high. They never told me that score until I was well into adulthood.
The thought of me having potentially used that one score from when I was 5 as a mis-measure of my life is petrifying.
posted by sgranade at 12:38 PM on November 4, 2015 [9 favorites]
I don't identify fully with the letter writer, but this?
People usually like me, but it's not earned. They like the puppet I've created, the one who knows how to act like a healthy person with a normal brain.
And this?
I like people, I go out and have fun and I'm engaged while it happens, but I find it extremely hard to actually connect. From time to time I become aware of these wonderful, gorgeous, shiny souls who are so very prettily broken, and I desperately want to be their friend. But everyone notices how interesting they are and crowds around them, so I kind of give up and move on.
One of the pernicious lies I absorbed in childhood was that the key to getting people to like me was to be someone else. School in small-town Arkansas is great at lessons like that. And I was "smart" in the way that teachers found delightful and my classmates found alienating.
So I learned to be a chameleon. I took strong social cues from those around me and slowly cobbled together an approach to interacting with people that worked. I became a likable-enough guy.
But it kept me from connecting with people, truly connecting with them, for a long time. And even now, years after I've found a much better balance between my social mask and my inner self, I'm still occasionally tripped up by it.
I wish I had some inspirational ending or speech about how it gets better. But there's no guarantee. I was kind of broken, and broke myself in a different way when I mended myself by spending a long time just watching people and creating a cargo-cult approach to human interaction. So then I spent more time recovering from that.
I will say that one of the best things my parents ever did for me was hide my IQ score from me. As a kid I was a handful, and my kindergarten teacher was terrible at working with me. She finally told my parents that I was anti-social and might be "slow", and that I should be tested. I was my parents' first kid, so they hadn't yet learned how to ignore idiots with parenting advice. I was tested, and scored very high. They never told me that score until I was well into adulthood.
The thought of me having potentially used that one score from when I was 5 as a mis-measure of my life is petrifying.
posted by sgranade at 12:38 PM on November 4, 2015 [9 favorites]
I'm with Polly almost the whole way. But language like "Let's cast aside repeated evidence that people who talk about their high IQs tend to be self-satisfied dingdongs of the highest order" and "Dare to join us here in the real world" isn't really helpful. It tells me that Polly is hearing "I think I'm better than the rest of you" and responding "Actually we're better than you are." It's pointless and mean. Behind all the puffery, the questioner is someone in pain, someone risking vulnerability to ask for help. Which is something to be respected, not snarked at.
Also, related, from a friend's FB feed: The Dreaded G-Word: When Your Child is Asynchronous. The concept of asynchronous development was new to me, but it's a model that makes a lot of sense.
posted by Lyme Drop at 12:43 PM on November 4, 2015 [9 favorites]
Also, related, from a friend's FB feed: The Dreaded G-Word: When Your Child is Asynchronous. The concept of asynchronous development was new to me, but it's a model that makes a lot of sense.
posted by Lyme Drop at 12:43 PM on November 4, 2015 [9 favorites]
Is this gonna be like the time everybody on MeFi self-identified as a "Bright"?
posted by briank at 12:50 PM on November 4, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by briank at 12:50 PM on November 4, 2015 [2 favorites]
Is this gonna be like the time everybody on MeFi self-identified as a "Bright"?
Given that most people are identifying emotionally with the parts of the situation that resonate with them -- being empathetic, in other words -- and I'm the only one who's responded with any claim about a score on an IQ test, I'm gonna go ahead and guess "no".
posted by sgranade at 12:57 PM on November 4, 2015 [4 favorites]
Given that most people are identifying emotionally with the parts of the situation that resonate with them -- being empathetic, in other words -- and I'm the only one who's responded with any claim about a score on an IQ test, I'm gonna go ahead and guess "no".
posted by sgranade at 12:57 PM on November 4, 2015 [4 favorites]
Was there a reason you felt the need to inject that little dose of smug, briank?
posted by sciatrix at 1:03 PM on November 4, 2015 [11 favorites]
posted by sciatrix at 1:03 PM on November 4, 2015 [11 favorites]
sgranade: I missed the "Bright" thread, but I will say that I was selected to be in the Mentally Gifted program, later the Gifted Support program, back when I was in 2nd Grade. (Something which infuriated my 4th Grade teacher to no end.)
So, draw your own conclusions there.
posted by SansPoint at 1:03 PM on November 4, 2015
So, draw your own conclusions there.
posted by SansPoint at 1:03 PM on November 4, 2015
Is this gonna be like the time everybody on MeFi self-identified as a "Bright"?
Well, as a highly sensitive synesthete, I....
posted by todayandtomorrow at 1:10 PM on November 4, 2015 [1 favorite]
Well, as a highly sensitive synesthete, I....
posted by todayandtomorrow at 1:10 PM on November 4, 2015 [1 favorite]
Oh man, that Bright thread. That's basically classic Mefi by now.
posted by josher71 at 1:13 PM on November 4, 2015
posted by josher71 at 1:13 PM on November 4, 2015
There are a lot of pills for that. Some of them ain't legal though.
posted by atoxyl at 1:14 PM on November 4, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by atoxyl at 1:14 PM on November 4, 2015 [2 favorites]
Okay, where is this "Bright" thread? A casual search reveals nothing but the fact that people call all kinds of things bright on metafilter.
I mean, I surmise that this is not going to be like that thread, but I'm curious now. It has the feel of long-ago metafilter - perhaps we as a site should forgive ourselves?
posted by Frowner at 1:19 PM on November 4, 2015 [3 favorites]
I mean, I surmise that this is not going to be like that thread, but I'm curious now. It has the feel of long-ago metafilter - perhaps we as a site should forgive ourselves?
posted by Frowner at 1:19 PM on November 4, 2015 [3 favorites]
Here is the 2003 thread about Dawkins' "Bright" thing. This thread isn't really about that thread, though, so maybe folks can just sort of go read it if they want and otherwise let this sorta meta side-conversation drop.
posted by cortex at 1:21 PM on November 4, 2015 [8 favorites]
posted by cortex at 1:21 PM on November 4, 2015 [8 favorites]
I mean, I surmise that this is not going to be like that thread, but I'm curious now.
I took it as a shorthand for "geez, is everyone going to call themselves a Special Snowflake Who's Really Intelligent and Disconnected?" Which is pretty fuckin' insulting and a great way to shut down the conversation.
posted by sgranade at 1:30 PM on November 4, 2015 [11 favorites]
I took it as a shorthand for "geez, is everyone going to call themselves a Special Snowflake Who's Really Intelligent and Disconnected?" Which is pretty fuckin' insulting and a great way to shut down the conversation.
posted by sgranade at 1:30 PM on November 4, 2015 [11 favorites]
I don't think Polly's portrayal of this as a universal thing, equivalent to really hating a job or being bored at work, is at all accurate. I've had the "race car" brain (I still do, sometimes, although thank God it's gotten better as I've gotten older)
I had a similar thing, got better as I got older. i do think sPolly's right to try to get the guy to move away from "high IQ made me do it" though. Reading this piece made me cringe a bit, I had similar tests done with similar results at a similar age to the letter writer. Was similarly aimless for a lot of years. Through high school and some of university I thought a similar thing was the problem. But, as it turns out, the fact you score as having a high aptitude in tests means nothing when you're lazy, unfocused and impatient! Having a high IQ doesn't mean you won't have to put in work, and yeah, sitting down, studying, and working through it sucks just as bad for everyone else, too.
posted by Hoopo at 1:36 PM on November 4, 2015 [4 favorites]
I had a similar thing, got better as I got older. i do think sPolly's right to try to get the guy to move away from "high IQ made me do it" though. Reading this piece made me cringe a bit, I had similar tests done with similar results at a similar age to the letter writer. Was similarly aimless for a lot of years. Through high school and some of university I thought a similar thing was the problem. But, as it turns out, the fact you score as having a high aptitude in tests means nothing when you're lazy, unfocused and impatient! Having a high IQ doesn't mean you won't have to put in work, and yeah, sitting down, studying, and working through it sucks just as bad for everyone else, too.
posted by Hoopo at 1:36 PM on November 4, 2015 [4 favorites]
Put me down as someone who did gifted programs all the way through school, found this letter borderline insufferable, and didn't relate to it at all. Maybe I would have when I was 13, which seems like the age at which "I'm so much smarter than everyone, so no one can ever understand me, waaah" peaks.
I still often feel difficult to understand, but that has nothing to do with any IQ test. Being out of sync with people isn't the same as being smart!
posted by millipede at 1:37 PM on November 4, 2015 [3 favorites]
I still often feel difficult to understand, but that has nothing to do with any IQ test. Being out of sync with people isn't the same as being smart!
posted by millipede at 1:37 PM on November 4, 2015 [3 favorites]
I need to re-read this later, as it sounds like someone bought their own hype and I (admittedly) have great difficulty indentifying with that.
posted by Dark Messiah at 1:43 PM on November 4, 2015
posted by Dark Messiah at 1:43 PM on November 4, 2015
Isn't it easy to feed an insatiable brain now? Don't we all continue browsing even while defecating, if not while copulating?
posted by Segundus at 1:45 PM on November 4, 2015
posted by Segundus at 1:45 PM on November 4, 2015
Specifically, this part:
People usually like me, but it's not earned. They like the puppet I've created, the one who knows how to act like a healthy person with a normal brain.
I used to think like this. Then I got over myself and realised that I was inferring a lot; people aren't paying nearly as much attention as you may think -- or deeply hope.
posted by Dark Messiah at 1:45 PM on November 4, 2015 [7 favorites]
People usually like me, but it's not earned. They like the puppet I've created, the one who knows how to act like a healthy person with a normal brain.
I used to think like this. Then I got over myself and realised that I was inferring a lot; people aren't paying nearly as much attention as you may think -- or deeply hope.
posted by Dark Messiah at 1:45 PM on November 4, 2015 [7 favorites]
Hoopo You're not wrong, but let me tell you: after a lifetime of being able to get by with no work at all, like actually getting Bs and As in classes you slept through, going from that to hard work is, well, hard.
posted by SansPoint at 2:17 PM on November 4, 2015 [8 favorites]
posted by SansPoint at 2:17 PM on November 4, 2015 [8 favorites]
I really wish this person had taken me aside in my 20s.
posted by lumpenprole at 2:35 PM on November 4, 2015
posted by lumpenprole at 2:35 PM on November 4, 2015
I saw a whole lot of self-loathing and self-torture in the letter. She's someone who is miserable in her head. If anything, she is using questionable metrics like IQ as a sort of lifeline - "at least this test tells me I'm smart" as a sort of mitigation for the constant self-negativity, but which is spoiled and followed up with "but it's the cause of my problems." She's trying to hold onto something, and clearly it's not working.
So when comments (from Polly and here) are calling her "insufferable", that she needs to "get over [her]self", that she's not nearly as special or genius as she thinks she is, etc. -- I feel like it's not only missing the point, but actively damaging the letter writer.
"I... I need help... I think my brain is killing me..." "YOU'RE NOT THAT SPECIAL, CHRIST."
It just feels so callous and cruel.
posted by naju at 2:36 PM on November 4, 2015 [16 favorites]
So when comments (from Polly and here) are calling her "insufferable", that she needs to "get over [her]self", that she's not nearly as special or genius as she thinks she is, etc. -- I feel like it's not only missing the point, but actively damaging the letter writer.
"I... I need help... I think my brain is killing me..." "YOU'RE NOT THAT SPECIAL, CHRIST."
It just feels so callous and cruel.
posted by naju at 2:36 PM on November 4, 2015 [16 favorites]
There are some good points here, but I kinda hate this. I feel like using a tough-love "buck up" approach on someone who had psychotic depression in the past and now has a low-wage job and who doesn't sound neurotypical to me (which is, yes, an actual thing, and if you think ADHD is a special-snowflake card, I don't know what to tell you) and probably genuinely struggles with boredom and feels like a mass of failed potential is... not the kindest thing. Good on Polly for not having to do low-wage work any more and having a fulfilling job writing from home, though. Like, I think she's really stuck on the "I'm just too smart" idea and is very invested in picking it apart, but what I read is "my brain won't be quiet and doesn't like my life."
posted by thetortoise at 2:38 PM on November 4, 2015 [15 favorites]
posted by thetortoise at 2:38 PM on November 4, 2015 [15 favorites]
going from that to hard work is, well, hard.
It is hard but it's also necessary. There's no getting around it.
posted by Hoopo at 2:41 PM on November 4, 2015
It is hard but it's also necessary. There's no getting around it.
posted by Hoopo at 2:41 PM on November 4, 2015
going from that to hard work is, well, hard.
I think the question about smarts and work has to be "what happens to [a particular person] to keep them from the kind of hard work that you need to turn raw smarts into either a career or a life-sustaining passion".
I'm willing to take this LW seriously and say that yes, maybe having a giant braaaaaaiiiinnn is part of their problem. It seems like as a society we oscillate between saying "no, no one is actually smarter than others, thinking you're smarter based on test and grades and ability to do math or read Spinoza is just vanity" and "yes smarter people are smarter they are successes in tech and business and have PhDs when they're twenty or maybe they're cool fantasy hackers or something and either way they have more money than you". There's no way to say "yes, if you have a thinky mind, you may well end up different from many people in certain predictable ways; this is not the same as being better, nor does being able to read Spinoza automatically mean that your opinion on baking or public policy is especially valuable".
Now, onward to the personal! I actually had this big conversation with a good friend the other night about which I feel rather bad. The good friend is in fact unusually intelligent. She spent a lot of time talking about how isolated she felt and how other people were frustrating to her. And the thing is, while there was a little bit of "I am so smart, not like the Others" in her conversation, I've known her for a while and she's dead right that she reads and analyzes in more interesting ways and much more rapidly than most people, and she has more intellectual curiousity, and telling her that she's just misunderstanding other people and should learn to stop wanting to have peers to talk about [abstruse philosophy and historiography that I'm not quite smart enough for but about which she cares passionately] because that's just vanity....that doesn't really address her problem. I spent a bit of the evening being all "the one constant here is you and your conviction that you are So Different" and looking back, I think that was a mistake. She is different. I'm a fairly brightly lit bulb in the great chandelier of my friend group, and I'm just not in her league, particularly in terms of argumentation.
What could have gone or could go differently for her, so that she could manage her personal life and find people who are Different Like Her? What happened in her early life that made it so that she can't seem to find and keep those people easily? I can speculate based on knowing her, but I can't seem to fix it.
It's not that having a giant braaaaaaiiiinnn condemns you to solitary brilliance, but there are particular ways in which the giant-brained tend to go astray, and that can be very painful.
posted by Frowner at 2:58 PM on November 4, 2015 [18 favorites]
I think the question about smarts and work has to be "what happens to [a particular person] to keep them from the kind of hard work that you need to turn raw smarts into either a career or a life-sustaining passion".
I'm willing to take this LW seriously and say that yes, maybe having a giant braaaaaaiiiinnn is part of their problem. It seems like as a society we oscillate between saying "no, no one is actually smarter than others, thinking you're smarter based on test and grades and ability to do math or read Spinoza is just vanity" and "yes smarter people are smarter they are successes in tech and business and have PhDs when they're twenty or maybe they're cool fantasy hackers or something and either way they have more money than you". There's no way to say "yes, if you have a thinky mind, you may well end up different from many people in certain predictable ways; this is not the same as being better, nor does being able to read Spinoza automatically mean that your opinion on baking or public policy is especially valuable".
Now, onward to the personal! I actually had this big conversation with a good friend the other night about which I feel rather bad. The good friend is in fact unusually intelligent. She spent a lot of time talking about how isolated she felt and how other people were frustrating to her. And the thing is, while there was a little bit of "I am so smart, not like the Others" in her conversation, I've known her for a while and she's dead right that she reads and analyzes in more interesting ways and much more rapidly than most people, and she has more intellectual curiousity, and telling her that she's just misunderstanding other people and should learn to stop wanting to have peers to talk about [abstruse philosophy and historiography that I'm not quite smart enough for but about which she cares passionately] because that's just vanity....that doesn't really address her problem. I spent a bit of the evening being all "the one constant here is you and your conviction that you are So Different" and looking back, I think that was a mistake. She is different. I'm a fairly brightly lit bulb in the great chandelier of my friend group, and I'm just not in her league, particularly in terms of argumentation.
What could have gone or could go differently for her, so that she could manage her personal life and find people who are Different Like Her? What happened in her early life that made it so that she can't seem to find and keep those people easily? I can speculate based on knowing her, but I can't seem to fix it.
It's not that having a giant braaaaaaiiiinnn condemns you to solitary brilliance, but there are particular ways in which the giant-brained tend to go astray, and that can be very painful.
posted by Frowner at 2:58 PM on November 4, 2015 [18 favorites]
To get deeper into this, I think naju is right that the "I'm so special" self-concept is one we hold onto when nothing else is working and we feel like we're failing. And getting someone to let go of that before letting go of the internal pain doesn't work, in my experience, and can even be harmful. Saying "oh, you're not that special" to someone who hates themselves is not going to have the effect you want.
I held onto the "special" self-concept during my worst, most depressed years, and didn't let go of it entirely until the past few years, when I found myself loved by a compassionate person, doing work that I found meaningful, and getting the help I actually needed. In other words, when I didn't need it any more. The thought that "I am an ordinary person doing ordinary things, one of billions in the world" makes me very happy now, much happier than "I am a special genius" ever did. But I had to get there myself, and I was only able to when in a better-supported place.
posted by thetortoise at 3:03 PM on November 4, 2015 [13 favorites]
I held onto the "special" self-concept during my worst, most depressed years, and didn't let go of it entirely until the past few years, when I found myself loved by a compassionate person, doing work that I found meaningful, and getting the help I actually needed. In other words, when I didn't need it any more. The thought that "I am an ordinary person doing ordinary things, one of billions in the world" makes me very happy now, much happier than "I am a special genius" ever did. But I had to get there myself, and I was only able to when in a better-supported place.
posted by thetortoise at 3:03 PM on November 4, 2015 [13 favorites]
I have a good friend who's going through a manic episode right now and I love her to death but she's being very frustrating, especially about being bored even while she's doing like three different things, and this just pinged alllllll those bells. I mean, I get intensely frustrated sometimes by a lot of things, and I think beyond a certain point, IQ is not actually a gift. (Especially if your calling is not to be a physicist or something like that.) But this friend and I are both in that boat, and I have zero trouble finding more than enough to keep me occupied mentally, and I'm the one who isn't bipolar. If anything, my trouble is that I want to do more than I have time and brain to do. And that bit about feeling tempted to self-medicate with narcotics but knowing they won't be able to stop? I hope they can get the help they need somewhere else. I think there are lots of people who're "smart" enough that it hurts more than it helps, but I don't think it's particularly common to be simultaneously profoundly depressed by this and also buzzing so hard that one of your immediate thoughts of how to deal with that is opiates.
posted by Sequence at 3:07 PM on November 4, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Sequence at 3:07 PM on November 4, 2015 [2 favorites]
I think that's exactly right, thetortoise, also speaking from my own issues and journey. Contrary to having to be taken down a peg (I do that MORE than enough already, myself - thanks, analytical/overthinking brain!), I'm recently learning that I have a mental block. Simply put, my brain is rigged in such a way as to not accept love, from myself or anyone else. There are childhood experiences which led my brain to get into such patterns, and it wasn't even clear to me I was doing it. But I simply could not take in energy and warmth directed at me from other people. I feared it. I would just block it. And you need that stuff to survive and be healthy. You need friends, family (extended/makeshift family counts), and support. And you have to be vulnerable enough to realize you need it, and then you have to be willing to take it into your broken self and use it as fuel. If you don't, then this really bad stuff happens within your brain - which, if you're like the letter writer, is hyperactively ruminating and second-guessing and eating itself.
So that's my advice to the letter writer. It sounds abstract and new age, but there it is. You need to find a way to recognize that you need love. Then you need to find a way to accept that love and let it heal you.
posted by naju at 3:13 PM on November 4, 2015 [10 favorites]
So that's my advice to the letter writer. It sounds abstract and new age, but there it is. You need to find a way to recognize that you need love. Then you need to find a way to accept that love and let it heal you.
posted by naju at 3:13 PM on November 4, 2015 [10 favorites]
I should clarify: I found the article hard to read, but I do understand the author clearly is trying to resolve some serious problems. The manner in which they put their struggle forward was off-putting, but the author also has no idea what internal reading voice others use when consuming the article. I am likely projecting a fair bit. Regardless of my thoughts on tone, I appreciate being prompted to think.
posted by Dark Messiah at 3:14 PM on November 4, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Dark Messiah at 3:14 PM on November 4, 2015 [1 favorite]
> the "I'm so special" self-concept is one we hold onto when nothing else is working and we feel like we're failing
not directly on point, but in the same realm that struck me from DFW in The End of the Tour[pdf]
not directly on point, but in the same realm that struck me from DFW in The End of the Tour[pdf]
It may be what in the old days was known as a spiritual crisis. Feeling as though every axiom of your life turned out to be false, and there was actually nothing, and you were nothing, and it was all a delusion. And that you were better than everyone else because you saw that it was a delusion, and yet you were worse because you can't fucking function.posted by morganw at 3:30 PM on November 4, 2015 [4 favorites]
> the "I'm so special" self-concept is one we hold onto when nothing else is working and we feel like we're failing
not directly on point, but in the same realm that struck me from DFW in The End of the Tour[pdf]
It may be what in the old days was known as a spiritual crisis. Feeling as though every axiom of your life turned out to be false, and there was actually nothing, and you were nothing, and it was all a delusion. And that you were better than everyone else because you saw that it was a delusion, and yet you were worse because you can't fucking function.
Totally getting into metametacommentary from the original piece at this point, but this made me think about one more thing I want to say: that internal voice, the one that says "I'm so special; I'm better than this; doesn't anyone else see all the bullshit" can be counterproductive and lead to a self-regarding spiral of analysis when you're depressed, but I believe it does have a valuable function in minds not caught in a depressive spiral. It's the thing that allows people to push on when they sense something damaging and oppressive about their immediate circumstances, the kindling of social movements and change. When the outside world tells you you are worth just what it says, and your inner voice says, "no, I can sense there's more, and something tells me you are lying," that is important. The trick is in turning that capacity outward, to seeing that there are others feeling the same as you, but that usually isn't possible when caught in depression.
posted by thetortoise at 3:48 PM on November 4, 2015 [5 favorites]
not directly on point, but in the same realm that struck me from DFW in The End of the Tour[pdf]
It may be what in the old days was known as a spiritual crisis. Feeling as though every axiom of your life turned out to be false, and there was actually nothing, and you were nothing, and it was all a delusion. And that you were better than everyone else because you saw that it was a delusion, and yet you were worse because you can't fucking function.
Totally getting into metametacommentary from the original piece at this point, but this made me think about one more thing I want to say: that internal voice, the one that says "I'm so special; I'm better than this; doesn't anyone else see all the bullshit" can be counterproductive and lead to a self-regarding spiral of analysis when you're depressed, but I believe it does have a valuable function in minds not caught in a depressive spiral. It's the thing that allows people to push on when they sense something damaging and oppressive about their immediate circumstances, the kindling of social movements and change. When the outside world tells you you are worth just what it says, and your inner voice says, "no, I can sense there's more, and something tells me you are lying," that is important. The trick is in turning that capacity outward, to seeing that there are others feeling the same as you, but that usually isn't possible when caught in depression.
posted by thetortoise at 3:48 PM on November 4, 2015 [5 favorites]
The questioner in the link is definitely suffering, and need of help and comfort. This is a far cry from twee "I'm an introvert" special snowflake listicles, and thus we do not need to treat it like such. If we need to be harsh to them, we should only do it purposefully in a tough love, "Get up, take up your bed, and walk" sort of way if it will inspire them to change their worldview and seek improvement. The problem with tough love is that usually it browbeats people instead of allowing them to see their true potential to change. But I think it still has its place, if it encourages them.
posted by Apocryphon at 4:28 PM on November 4, 2015
posted by Apocryphon at 4:28 PM on November 4, 2015
This person sounds a lot like she's on the autism spectrum somewhere, which is rarely diagnosed in girls but is extremely common in gifted girls. This could explain her feelings of disconnection from everyone, her feeling that she just *can't* connect— as well as her self-loathing for not understanding what makes her different and her difficulties with achievement. It can also account for her sense that she's faking her personality: autistic girls often don't get diagnosed if they have high IQs because they are absolutely great at mimicking socially appropriate behavior, but it is exhausting for them.
It also responds extremely poorly to "tough love"— just like addictions and other compulsive behaviors. Tough love is the *problem* in these behaviors; adding more self hate and shame makes them worse, not better.
She definitely needs a complete psychiatric evaluation— whatever the diagnosis is, she's obviously suffering and could benefit from cognitive therapy at the very least to stop the self-hate spiral and start putting that obsessive angst to more productive use.
I have to say, I always think I will like this column and she says some good stuff, but God, why isn't there an editor to cut her responses at least in half, perhaps more?
posted by Maias at 7:28 PM on November 4, 2015 [12 favorites]
It also responds extremely poorly to "tough love"— just like addictions and other compulsive behaviors. Tough love is the *problem* in these behaviors; adding more self hate and shame makes them worse, not better.
She definitely needs a complete psychiatric evaluation— whatever the diagnosis is, she's obviously suffering and could benefit from cognitive therapy at the very least to stop the self-hate spiral and start putting that obsessive angst to more productive use.
I have to say, I always think I will like this column and she says some good stuff, but God, why isn't there an editor to cut her responses at least in half, perhaps more?
posted by Maias at 7:28 PM on November 4, 2015 [12 favorites]
This is is one of those posts where, it seems, the MeFi comments were almost more helpful and intriguing than the actual article (letter) itself. I've known for years that MeFi has many highly intelligent and articulate folks here, but this post confirmed it even more effectively. Suffering some of the very same problems that the letter-writer goes through, I can relate. But the comments here added an erudition and sense of closure that the letter writer (and Polly-whomever) did not. Thanks, you guys.
posted by Seekerofsplendor at 7:42 PM on November 4, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Seekerofsplendor at 7:42 PM on November 4, 2015 [2 favorites]
Yeah, the "tough love" thing probably makes for better copy for a columnist who has to engage readers than it makes for good advice for someone who is in that position and sincerely believes all those things about themselves and their life.
So what would be a helpful thing to say, assuming the columnist's "diagnosis" was correct?
"I hear what you're saying. I don't think that your current assessment of your problems, their origin, and their lack of any possible solution is correct. I don't think that your current understanding of yourself is necessarily accurate. I think you're going to need good therapy and an open heart and mind to find your way to another understanding from which things can get better for you. I have some ideas what that new understanding might be, but I can't dictate that to you, it's something you have to find yourself when you're ready to find it."
Something like that?
I don't know. It's a tough thing to figure out.
posted by edheil at 8:21 PM on November 4, 2015 [1 favorite]
So what would be a helpful thing to say, assuming the columnist's "diagnosis" was correct?
"I hear what you're saying. I don't think that your current assessment of your problems, their origin, and their lack of any possible solution is correct. I don't think that your current understanding of yourself is necessarily accurate. I think you're going to need good therapy and an open heart and mind to find your way to another understanding from which things can get better for you. I have some ideas what that new understanding might be, but I can't dictate that to you, it's something you have to find yourself when you're ready to find it."
Something like that?
I don't know. It's a tough thing to figure out.
posted by edheil at 8:21 PM on November 4, 2015 [1 favorite]
So, it's midnight and I've spent the entire week managing issues around my very "bright" 9 year old and his complete inability to make friends or sometimes actually deal with people in any kind of a reasonable way. When he was younger I always said "well, he'll make a great adult if we can just get him to that point" but the older he gets the more certain I am that we're actually staring down a long dark tunnel of trying and failing to manage his intellectual and mental-health needs, while he tunes out academia as "too easy" and interacting with people as "too hard". Let me tell you, hell is having a nine year old boy lean on your shoulder and weep because he doesn't have any friends and he so very desperately wants them. Just one. Just one friend.
Honestly, neither the letter writer OR the advice makes me feel much better about our future, here. Sure, we'll keep plugging away - therapists, interventions, social stories, books, movies, YouTube videos, pills, testing, more pills, outdoor play, video games, low casein diets - but OH GOD what I would give up in order to just find a way for my kid to feel normal, and like he fits in. And I know that whatever I would give is pale and puny next to what he would give. He told me this week "why couldn't my legs not work, instead of my brain?"
There's no pill for that, either.
posted by anastasiav at 9:10 PM on November 4, 2015 [11 favorites]
Honestly, neither the letter writer OR the advice makes me feel much better about our future, here. Sure, we'll keep plugging away - therapists, interventions, social stories, books, movies, YouTube videos, pills, testing, more pills, outdoor play, video games, low casein diets - but OH GOD what I would give up in order to just find a way for my kid to feel normal, and like he fits in. And I know that whatever I would give is pale and puny next to what he would give. He told me this week "why couldn't my legs not work, instead of my brain?"
There's no pill for that, either.
posted by anastasiav at 9:10 PM on November 4, 2015 [11 favorites]
I don't think the high intelligence is the behind most of those problems, but that feeling of desperately shoving information into your brain to avoid boredom is really familiar. And the high when lots of little pieces of information all connect into one.
posted by raeka at 2:09 AM on November 5, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by raeka at 2:09 AM on November 5, 2015 [3 favorites]
Apart from an already existing anti-intellectual strain in many cultures – and I mean picking on the nerd in school is cliché but it got that way somehow – the letter quote: “The universe gave me a Bugatti Veyron and stuck me in rush-hour traffic” seems to lay it down pretty well. It’s entirely possible someone has missed their potential. And this happens even with people who have proven potential, and now feel like they’re missing everything else.
Although common, it’s a strange thing, Polly’s reaction. I’ve done some amazing things in my life. And I’ve hung out with people who’ve done some pretty amazing things. A buddy of mine had a problem similar to the writer here a while back. And got pretty much the same reaction. Few people believe any quality someone says about themselves, even when proven. But you know, people told him everyone can work hard, everyone is athletic, my kids play soccer and they’re athletic, you’re just like everyone else, blah blah blah. But you know, he had a great story, not real high profile (martial arts community, some press coverage, 1 silver medal), but there’s no doubt of his quality as someone who can perform.
And yet, people don’t want to hear about it. ‘Just because you climbed Everest or won a medal in the Olympics or went through special forces doesn’t mean you’re special.’ Well, then why doesn’t everyone do it?
And that’s the thing, there’s a difference between ‘special’ and ‘exclusive’ or haughty, aloof, whatever. This woman can be special without needing to connect on that level. Because even if you are special, everyone’s story is interesting. And everyone is worth knowing. And there’s no “coulda” because yesterday is over. Who you could have been is long, long gone and you can never ever tell what might have happened. You have autism, you have cancer, you have a mental illness, it's what is. What could have been isn't a life worth living.
You can only be here now, working with what you do have. And she does have something to work with.
Her story, for example, is one of overcoming difficulty with mental illness and functioning in society. That’s something that shows her mental resources. There are people who can’t do that an break down who are very gifted in other ways. So what she needs to do is learn how to connect with other people on that level.
I mean, Polly writes “welcome to the world” but it’s in a derisive way. You don’t welcome people by saying “you’re no better than the rest of us” but saying “we’re all different, and that’s what makes us all worth knowing.”
Not everyone is fucked up. There are people who are living very humdrum, mundane lives where they’ve never jumped out of a perfectly good airplane or had amazing experiences, but that’s not what defines someone’s worth.
Connectedness is. No one is separate from humanity. No matter how great or small, we are all human in infinite variety. No story is the same, you are, in fact, a beautiful special snowflake, in the same way that no two other snowflakes are the same. Everyone has different experiences and it’s only their perspective, the life as it is lived, not judged, that’s worthwhile.
Only way to learn that is to experience it for yourself and listen to it from others. We share. Humans. That’s what makes us great. Not the intensity of what we do, or the extremity of what traits we have inside, but the variety of perspective. What it’s like behind the eyes of a genius, behind the eyes of a warrior, behind the eyes of an Inuit fisherman or suburban housewife missing a leg or any of the vastness of identity we forget is so wonderful because it’s everywhere.
Like snowflakes in a snowstorm. Like stars in the sky. It is an unaccountable journey taking place inside and outside of us all. And we’re all part of it all in a very unique and special way.
We need only learn how to truly look and listen. And it's doing that changes us and that journey, not what we carry with us.
Welcome to the world.
posted by Smedleyman at 10:16 AM on November 5, 2015 [8 favorites]
Although common, it’s a strange thing, Polly’s reaction. I’ve done some amazing things in my life. And I’ve hung out with people who’ve done some pretty amazing things. A buddy of mine had a problem similar to the writer here a while back. And got pretty much the same reaction. Few people believe any quality someone says about themselves, even when proven. But you know, people told him everyone can work hard, everyone is athletic, my kids play soccer and they’re athletic, you’re just like everyone else, blah blah blah. But you know, he had a great story, not real high profile (martial arts community, some press coverage, 1 silver medal), but there’s no doubt of his quality as someone who can perform.
And yet, people don’t want to hear about it. ‘Just because you climbed Everest or won a medal in the Olympics or went through special forces doesn’t mean you’re special.’ Well, then why doesn’t everyone do it?
And that’s the thing, there’s a difference between ‘special’ and ‘exclusive’ or haughty, aloof, whatever. This woman can be special without needing to connect on that level. Because even if you are special, everyone’s story is interesting. And everyone is worth knowing. And there’s no “coulda” because yesterday is over. Who you could have been is long, long gone and you can never ever tell what might have happened. You have autism, you have cancer, you have a mental illness, it's what is. What could have been isn't a life worth living.
You can only be here now, working with what you do have. And she does have something to work with.
Her story, for example, is one of overcoming difficulty with mental illness and functioning in society. That’s something that shows her mental resources. There are people who can’t do that an break down who are very gifted in other ways. So what she needs to do is learn how to connect with other people on that level.
I mean, Polly writes “welcome to the world” but it’s in a derisive way. You don’t welcome people by saying “you’re no better than the rest of us” but saying “we’re all different, and that’s what makes us all worth knowing.”
Not everyone is fucked up. There are people who are living very humdrum, mundane lives where they’ve never jumped out of a perfectly good airplane or had amazing experiences, but that’s not what defines someone’s worth.
Connectedness is. No one is separate from humanity. No matter how great or small, we are all human in infinite variety. No story is the same, you are, in fact, a beautiful special snowflake, in the same way that no two other snowflakes are the same. Everyone has different experiences and it’s only their perspective, the life as it is lived, not judged, that’s worthwhile.
Only way to learn that is to experience it for yourself and listen to it from others. We share. Humans. That’s what makes us great. Not the intensity of what we do, or the extremity of what traits we have inside, but the variety of perspective. What it’s like behind the eyes of a genius, behind the eyes of a warrior, behind the eyes of an Inuit fisherman or suburban housewife missing a leg or any of the vastness of identity we forget is so wonderful because it’s everywhere.
Like snowflakes in a snowstorm. Like stars in the sky. It is an unaccountable journey taking place inside and outside of us all. And we’re all part of it all in a very unique and special way.
We need only learn how to truly look and listen. And it's doing that changes us and that journey, not what we carry with us.
Welcome to the world.
posted by Smedleyman at 10:16 AM on November 5, 2015 [8 favorites]
the first question I came away with was "did my partner write this letter?"
The second was, "if I send my partner this letter, will we end up in a shitstorm of an AskMe?"
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:26 AM on November 6, 2015
The second was, "if I send my partner this letter, will we end up in a shitstorm of an AskMe?"
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:26 AM on November 6, 2015
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But one of this person's weird quirks is a brain that absolutely demands to be fed all the time and, while I also don't think that's correlated with "intelligence" (whatever that even means), I don't think Polly's portrayal of this as a universal thing, equivalent to really hating a job or being bored at work, is at all accurate. I've had the "race car" brain (I still do, sometimes, although thank God it's gotten better as I've gotten older) and it's awful and so, so hard to manage. Sometimes if there's no enough stimulus you just start destroying things, yourself or your relationships with other people, not because they're failing or because you're unhappy but just because you're so desperate for new stimulus. For me it's correlated with depression some of the time, but it's definitely not the same, and it's distinct from the anxiety and other neuroses. It really does feel like having a screaming toddler strapped to you.
In all other respects, though, a very nice article.
posted by WidgetAlley at 11:55 AM on November 4, 2015 [19 favorites]