Smoking weed, drinking and trying some other drugs, Weed Girl preferred the pot smoking which she explains “took the edge off of her brain.”

This was the beginning of Weed Girl’s new lifestyle which landed her in jail and rehab several times each.

Sadly, by the time I met her, Weed Girl was pretty convinced that she was just a big screw-up and had forgotten about any of her strengths.

As with with many gifted people who hear the dual messages of “wow, you’re so smart or creative or talented,” along with the “you’re too much too handle” message, Weed Girl never learned how to cope with her own busy mind.

Instead of developing the essential coping skills for managing what I call a “rage to achieve,” many gifted adults grow up doing exactly what Weed Girl learned to do, that is they learn how to “numb and dumb” their passion and sensitivity by smoking pot not just once a day, but all day every day.

Continued in article Weed Girl, by Belinda Housenbold Seiger, PhD, LCSW.

Also see related post: Gifted and Talented, Drugs and Alcohol

gifted adults and substance abuse, drug abuse and sensitivity, HSP and addiction, gifted/talented and drug abuse, highly sensitive people and substance abuse, gifted adults and drugs

Caltech tragedy raises questions

A news story about two Caltech students who died of suicide in the weeks before the recent commencement made me wonder again: Do more gifted people die from suicide? Are high ability people more vulnerable?

The Caltech students who died were senior Jackson Ho-Leung Wang, a mechanical engineering student from Hong Kong, and junior Brian Go, a computer science and applied and computational mathematics major from Maryland.

The Caltech Counseling Center page Depression/Suicide Prevention reports: “In the general U.S. population it is estimated that 2 to 3 percent of men and 4 to 9 percent of women are depressed at any given time.  Suicide is now the second leading cause of death in U.S. college students, and suicide in the young has tripled over the past 45 years.”

Suicide among the creatively gifted

The Hoagies’ Page on Depression and Suicide declares, “Although it is a popular notion that gifted children are at risk for higher rates of depression and suicide than their average, no empirical data supports this belief, except for students who are creatively gifted in the visual arts and writing (see Neihart & Olenchak..). Nor, however, is there good evidence that rates of depression and suicide are significantly lower among populations of gifted children.”

Another expert source notes, “There seems to be a greatly increased rate of depression, manic-depressive illness, and suicide in eminent creative people, writers and artists especially. The incidence of mental illness among creative artists is higher than in the population at large.”

From Creativity, the Arts, and Madness – by Maureen Neihart, Psy.D.

Sylvia Plath

One example of a creatively gifted person who died by suicide was Sylvia Plath [1932 - 1963]. She published her first poem when she was eight and was “Sensitive, intelligent, compelled toward perfection in everything she attempted,” according to the Short Biography on sylviaplath.de.

“She was, on the surface, a model daughter, popular in school, earning straight A’s, winning the best prizes.”

She described one of her suicide attempts in her autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar. “After a period of recovery involving electroshock and psychotherapy Sylvia resumed her pursuit of academic and literary success, graduating from Smith summa cum laude in 1955 and winning a Fulbright scholarship to study at Cambridge, England.”

Psychiatrist Kay Redfield Jamison, who has written books on depression, including her own, says “Plath, like many people with dramatic lives, suffered from severe depression. Teenagers may appreciate Plath because they are experiencing intense moods and emotions for the first time. They are also at the average age for the onset of depression.”

The image is a self-portrait by Sylvia Plath, from the profile page on Sylvia Plath.

Nicholas Hughes

On March 16, 2009, Plath’s son, Nicholas Hughes, an expert in freshwater fish, committed suicide at the age of 47.

A news story reported, “Unlike his sister Frieda, who has dealt with their harrowing family history partly by talking about it and scrutinising it in her writing, her poetry and her art, Dr Hughes had always actively avoided the subject.

“I never heard Nick tell anyone about his parentage,” his friend Joe Saxton said. “He wasn’t embarrassed; it just wasn’t something he wanted to be a feature of him. That’s the irony. He spent his life trying to get away from all this, to find a place where he could be himself. Then the stupid bugger commits suicide and starts it all up again.”

From Ted Hughes death, not Sylvia Plath, tipped son Nicholas into depression, The Australian.

Trying to “get away” from your depression may be a natural impulse, but when it becomes active and enduring denial of depression, it may be deadly.

Sinead O’Connor

Sinead O’Connor realized her ‘demon’ needed medical attention: “I began to have this quiet little voice every now and then – although ‘voice’ is the wrong way to put it. It’s your own thoughts just gone completely skew-whiff: ‘Look at that tree, you might hang yourself on it.’ Until the volume went up so loud that I took myself to hospital.”

From post Sinead O’Connor renews her creativity by dealing with depression.

Unfortunately, there are not always alarms.

A serious issue

In Growing Up Gifted Is Not Easy, Elaine Aron, PhD. writes, “This piece was inspired by an article in The New Yorker titled “Prairie Fire,” about the suicide of a gifted early-adolescent boy. His death came as a complete surprise to everyone who knew him.”

In his article An Overview: Understanding and Assessing Suicide in the Gifted, Andrew S. Mahoney, M.S., L.P.C., L.M.F.T. writes, “When discussing the topic of suicide among the gifted population, one runs into the same divergent, often unexplainable, ambiguity associated with this special population.

“Though there is no conclusive evidence that the gifted are more prone to suicide than the non-gifted (Delisle, 1986), suicide among the gifted is a serious issue.”

Social pressure to achieve

High Sensitivity, existential dread – these may be among the reasons high ability people may be vulnerable to suicide, whether or not at a higher rate. But another reason may be social pressure to achieve.

The article Push to achieve tied to suicide in Asian-American women (CNN) notes, “One study has shown that as young as the fifth grade, Asian-American girls have the highest rate of depression so severe they’ve contemplated suicide… ‘Model minority’ pressure — the pressure some Asian-American families put on children to be high achievers at school and professionally — helps explain the problem.”

Whatever the pressures, whatever the mental health challenges, even people with suicidal depression can be helped. But they need to seek help.

treating depression, developing creativity, suicide and giftedness, depression and creativity

Nick’s universe

In his article The Geek Syndrome, Steve Silberman wrote, “Autism – and its milder cousin Asperger’s syndrome – is surging among the children of Silicon Valley. Are math-and-tech genes to blame?

“Nick is building a universe on his computer. He’s already mapped out his first planet: an anvil-shaped world called Denthaim that is home to gnomes and gods, along with a three-gendered race known as kiman.

“As he tells me about his universe, Nick looks up at the ceiling, humming fragments of a melody over and over. ‘I’m thinking of making magic a form of quantum physics, but I haven’t decided yet, actually,’ he explains.

“The music of his speech is pitched high, alternately poetic and pedantic – as if the soul of an Oxford don has been awkwardly reincarnated in the body of a chubby, rosy-cheeked boy from Silicon Valley. Nick is 11 years old.

Finding a diagnosis

“Nick’s father is a software engineer, and his mother is a computer programmer. They’ve known that Nick was an unusual child for a long time. He’s infatuated with fantasy novels, but he has a hard time reading people.

“Clearly bright and imaginative, he has no friends his own age. His inability to pick up on hidden agendas makes him easy prey to certain cruelties, as when some kids paid him a few dollars to wear a ridiculous outfit to school.

“One therapist suggested that Nick was suffering from an anxiety disorder. Another said he had a speech impediment. Then his mother read a book called Asperger’s Syndrome: A Guide for Parents and Professionals.

“In it, psychologist Tony Attwood describes children who lack basic social and motor skills, seem unable to decode body language and sense the feelings of others, avoid eye contact, and frequently launch into monologues about narrowly defined – and often highly technical – interests.

“Even when very young, these children become obsessed with order, arranging their toys in a regimented fashion on the floor and flying into tantrums when their routines are disturbed.

“As teenagers, they’re prone to getting into trouble with teachers and other figures of authority, partly because the subtle cues that define societal hierarchies are invisible to them.

Contined in The Geek Syndrome, by Steve Silberman, WIRED magazine.

Blinded by the brilliance

A speech-language pathologist, and nationally known expert on Asperger’s syndrome and high-functioning autism, Timothy Kowalski notes there’s a classic warning in the field that goes “Don’t be blinded by the brilliance.”

He explains, “Because a lot of parents may perceive their six-year-old holding quantum physics discussions and can tell you everything about the celestial bodies, but they absolutely have no friendships whatsoever. They become blinded by that child’s ability to be so brilliant in that one particular area, but fail to see the whole picture..”

From article: Timothy Kowalski, MA on Asperger’s Disorder.
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Asperger’s disorder, autistic children, autistic students, learning differences

Elyn Saks’ private demons

The photo is Oxford scholar, Yale law student, and USC legal professor Elyn Saks, who revealed in her memoir some of the “horrors and demons of schizophrenia,” as described in the article A secret life of madness, by John M. Glionna (Los Angeles Times), who writes that “she wrestled with uncouth visions, violent commands and suicidal impulses..

“In her worst moments, the TV made fun of her, ashtrays danced and walls collapsed. She believed she was single-handedly responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. The brains of close associates were taken over by aliens.”

A common gene

A National Institute of Mental Health study last year found “Most people inherit a version of a gene that optimizes their brain’s thinking circuitry, yet also appears to increase risk for schizophrenia.

“Three fourths of subjects studied had at least one copy of the [gene] version that results in more efficient filtering of information processed by the brain’s executive hub, the prefrontal cortex.

“However, the same version was also more prevalent among people who developed schizophrenia, a severe mental illness marked by delusions, hallucinations and impaired emotion that affects one percent of the population.”

From article Common gene version optimizes thinking — but with a possible downside.

An excess of patterns

In his Frontal Cortex blog post about this study, Intelligence and Insanity, Jonah Lehrer [author of Proust Was A Neuroscientist] comments, “This actually makes sense. The human brain is a pattern-making machine. We imagine causality and see intentionality everywhere. Schizophrenics suffer from an excess of patterns. (A delusion is just the perception of a pattern that doesn’t actually exist.) So it’s entirely plausible that the same gene that endows with us the machinery to detect patterns (this involves the prefrontal cortex) is also involved with the machinery underlying madness.”

Lehrer also quotes G.K. Chesterton: “The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.”

Schizotypal personalities and creativity

According to a related news article, “New research on individuals with schizotypal personalities – people characterized by odd behavior and language but who are not psychotic or schizophrenic – offers the first neurological evidence that they are more creative than either normal or fully schizophrenic individuals, and rely more heavily on the right sides of their brains than the general population to access their creativity.

“Psychologists believe that a number of famous creative luminaries, including Vincent Van Gogh, Albert Einstein, Emily Dickinson and Isaac Newton, had schizotypal personalities.”

From Odd Behavior And Creativity May Go Hand-in-hand.

Fortunately, schizophrenia can be managed far more effectively now.

Oliver Sacks, M.D. (author of Awakenings and Musicophilia) has written that Elyn Saks’ memoir, The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey through Madness, “showed how, with medication, sensitive support (and, in Professor Saks’s case, psychoanalysis), a deeply schizophrenic person can achieve a life full of creative work and love and friendships.”
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creativity and madness, schizophrenia and creativity, genius brain, Elyn Saks book

Claire Danes on moving past perfectionism

“My therapist gives me permission to accept that I’m human.”

Actor Claire Danes also explained in an interview that, as a kid, she “was on this whole perfection trip. And that’s just totally boring. And arrogant!…

“I finally realized after years of therapy.. that you can encourage yourself to move further in a nurturing way.”

Taking care to “encourage yourself to move further” is, of course, something that people typically choose to manage on their own, but a counselor or therapist can help us do it more fully and effectively.

And many highly talented people may experience self-limiting traits like perfectionism, or anxiety and other mood disorders, which can be managed better with the help of a psychotherapist.

Making sense of our intensities

But counseling is not just about dealing with disorder.

Educational consultant Annemarie Roeper, Ed.D. notes “Gifted people see life in the most brilliant colors and are capable of the greatest joy and the greatest desperation. They try to build all this into a functioning Self….

“Making sense of themselves and feeling fulfilled are often the forces that lead toward seeking counseling.”

Continued in article Learning to befriend our demons.
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gifted talented characteristics, gifted adults, psychology of giftedness, counseling for high ability

“Psychologists believe that a number of famous creative luminaries, including Vincent Van Gogh, Albert Einstein, Emily Dickinson and Isaac Newton, had schizotypal personalities.”

That quote comes from the ScienceDaily article Odd Behavior And Creativity May Go Hand-in-hand, which explains, “Often viewed as a hindrance, having a quirky or socially awkward approach to life may be the key to becoming a great artist, composer or inventor.

“New research on individuals with schizotypal personalities – people characterized by odd behavior and language but who are not psychotic or schizophrenic – offers the first neurological evidence that they are more creative than either normal or fully schizophrenic individuals, and rely more heavily on the right sides of their brains than the general population to access their creativity.”

This research is also described in the book A Beginner’s Guide to Immortality: Extraordinary People, Alien Brains, and Quantum Resurrection, by Clifford A. Pickover.

Also see more articles on mental health and neuroscience.
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schizotypal creativity, eccentrics, gifted books, creative personality type

In his article Is There A Little Rain Man In Each Of Us?, Darold Treffert, MD asks if it is possible “to tap and use those still existent, but less frequently used, capacities and circuits, with some of their savant-like characteristics, in those of us more wedded to left brain capacity and higher level memory?”

He is convinced there is that possibility, and cites several examples of “acquired savants” – “previously non-disabled persons who after some injury or disease begin to demonstrate some, until then, dormant savant characteristics and capacities.

In one case “musical genius appeared at age 3 following meningitis.” Another person showed “behavioral traits and abilities that emerged at age 9 following a bullet wound to the left hemisphere, leaving him paralyzed on the right side, mute and deaf but with some special mechanical abilities and other savant skills.

And in another case, “Alonzo’s sculpting talent emerged following a head injury as a young child.”

The image is from Dr. Treffert’s book Extraordinary People : Understanding Savant Syndrome.

See more articles related to Neuroscience.
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exceptional abilities, savant book, gifted adult books, genius brain

“Much madness is divinest sense”
Emily Dickinson

[Photo: Tom Hulce as Mozart in Amadeus (1984)]

A new look at Tourette’s

What is labeled mental disorder may really be an asset.

In her article “Wild Child,” Joanne Barrie Lynn, whose son has been diagnosed with Tourette’s and autism, notes that some researchers “believe there is evidence Mozart was a classic example of someone with Tourette ‘personality.’

She adds, “Touretters will sometimes incorporate their predilection for obsession and compulsion into their life success path.”

[More quotes on page: learning differences 2]

She is co-author with her husband George of the book Genius! Nurturing the Spirit of the Wild, Odd, and Oppositional Child. A major concept of theirs is that children can be “Attention Different” – rather than having a disorder or deficit. In their experience, say the authors, “These tendencies are the source of their brilliance, and their most problematic behavior.”

Bipolar – living more deeply

Psychiatrist Kay Redfield Jamison,MD., has commented about experiencing manic-depressive illness [bipolar disorder] as something positive:

“I honestly believe that as a result of it I have felt more things, more deeply; had more experiences, more intensely; loved more, and have been more loved; laughed more often for having cried more often; appreciated more the springs, for all the winters.”

[More on page: depression 4]

Asperger

The book Genius! also notes, “Autistic writer Temple Grandin suggests that people with Asperger Syndrome have a kind of creativity suited to their tendency to think in pictures. “They are not good at following conventional rules to get to their results, but are powerfully visionary and will get new ideas as feeling-images.

Grandin “profiles Albert Einstein as someone with Asperger, recounting that he developed the theory of relativity from a vision he saw while pondering the relationship between mass and energy.”

[More quotes on the page learning differences]

Misdiagnosis

Professor Kathleen Noble, PhD, points out in our interview that “Gifted people are by no means disorder-free. We know there is a strong correlation between creativity and depression; creativity and mania…”

But giftedness and exceptional ability can often lead to misdiagnosis as psychological disorder – as noted in the book Misdiagnosis And Dual Diagnoses – “Many of our brightest, most creative, most independent thinking children and adults are being incorrectly diagnosed as having behavioral, emotional, or mental disorders.

“They are then given medication and/or counseling to change their way of being so that they will be more acceptable within the school, the family, or the neighborhood, or so that they will be more content with themselves and their situation.”

See related article: Mis-Diagnosis and Dual Diagnosis of Gifted Children: Gifted and LD, ADHD, OCD, Oppositional Defiant Disorder – By James T. Webb, Ph.D.

[See more on Dysfunction / disorder]

Neurotics: a mine of social treasure

Psychologist Kazimierz Dabrowski commented in an interview, “Almost 97 percent of the highly creative suffer from different kinds of overexcitabilities.. and psychoneuroses. So, neurotics are a mine of social treasure. If their emotionality, talents, interests, and sensitivity were discovered at an early age, society and science would profit.”

[More on the page Dabrowski / advanced development
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gifted books, psychotherapy for gifted, creativity and madness, misdiagnosis of gifted adults

Elyn Saks: defying the predictions

Elyn Saks is a college valedictorian, Oxford scholar, Yale law student, USC legal professor – and a person with schizophrenia.

The university press release “USC law professor battles schizophrenia” declares, “However ironic, the life of Saks’ mind has been her salvation. Even as her brain attacks her with fear and hallucinations, it also provides the source of her greatest pride and stability — her work…

“Since her arrival at USC in 1989, she has been among the school’s most productive and respected scholarly writers.”

Schizophrenia affects three million Americans, and is “a form of psychotic disorder or psychosis, which means it interferes with a person’s ability to interpret reality. People with schizophrenia develop a marked change in their thinking, perceptions and behavior as evidenced by the presence of a combination of symptoms: hallucinations, delusions or false beliefs, disorganized speech, disorganized behavior, apathy and social withdrawal.

“No two cases of schizophrenia are identical; one person may have experience one or two of these symptoms, while another may experience many.” [Definition from SchizophreniaDigest.com]

The article A secret life of madness discusses her new book The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey through Madness, and notes that Elyn Saks “has defied the prediction of a doctor who once said she would never lead an independent life. She has even flourished, thanks to a strict regimen of medication and talk therapy.

Dashing the myths

“Now she wants to dash the myths surrounding an illness that affects 3 million Americans: Schizophrenics aren’t all emotionally out of touch, shouting and swiping at gremlins, shut away in hospitals.

“Like the story of fellow schizophrenic John Forbes Nash, the Nobel Prize-winning economist and mathematician whose life was portrayed in the book and film “A Beautiful Mind,” Saks’ life illustrates not only the stresses mental illness places on personal and professional relationships but also how they can be overcome.”

“Ironically, the more I accepted I had a mental illness, the less the illness defined me — at which point the riptide set me free,” she says.

Enhanced creativity

In her article Creativity, the Arts, and Madness, Maureen Neihart, Psy.D. writes, “It appears that the potential for creativity is enhanced by the cognitive changes that occur within some mental states. We don’t as yet understand the chemical and anatomical pathways responsible for the cognitive changes that take place during creative and manic states.

“Artists’ reflections and observations about themselves and their work suggest that they have a very high tolerance for irrationality or deviance. In life, creation and destruction are closely related.”

Dr. Neihart adds, “Many artists report that their motivation for engaging in their creative endeavors is to work through, release, or better understand their own destructive urges.”

That is also a theme of my interview with Stephen A. Diamond, PhD.

John Nash: taking delusions seriously

Sylvia Nasar, in her bio of John Forbes Nash, Jr. – A Beautiful Mind – notes some aspects of his deviant but creatively productive thinking: “In almost everything he did – from game theory to geometry — he thumbed his nose at the received wisdom, current fashions, established methods… almost always worked alone, in his head, usually walking, often whistling Bach. …

“When he focused on some new puzzle, he saw dimensions that people who really knew the subject (he never did) initially dismissed as naive or wrong-headed. Even as a student, his indifference to others’ skepticism, doubt, and ridicule was awesome.”

[The photo is Russell Crowe as Nash in the movie A Beautiful Mind.]

In the prologue, she writes about how Nash thought about his delusions: “How could you,” began Mackey, “how could you, a mathematician, a man devoted to reason and logical proof… how could you believe that extraterrestrials are sending you messages? How could you believe that you are being recruited by aliens from outer space to save the world?”

“Nash looked up at last and fixed Mackey with an unblinking stare as cool and dispassionate as that of any bird or snake. “Because,” Nash said slowly in his soft, reasonable southern drawl, as if talking to himself, “the ideas I had about supernatural beings came to me the same way that my mathematical ideas did. So I took them seriously.”

Philip K. Dick: a mind on fire

Another exceptionally talented person with mental health challenges was writer Philip K. Dick (1928-1982). Films based on his novels include Blade Runner, Minority Report, and A Scanner Darkly.

His official site biography notes, “In his late teens, Dick later recalled, he was diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia – a label that terrified him. Other psychotherapists and psychiatrists in later years would offer other diagnoses, including the one that Dick was quite sane.”

A biopic of Dick is being developed by his daughters and a major screenwriter, according to a news article (The future keepers, by Geoff Boucher, Los Angeles Times, September 15, 2007) and it will “intertwine Dick’s life story with scenes from his final and unfinished novel, “The Owl in Daylight.”

“The basic premise: An alien culture that cannot hear sound comes to Earth and inserts a bio-chip into the brain of a composer to funnel the experience of music to their society for the first time — but the fellow they pick is a hack writer of B movie scores, and the aliens hunger for a richer experience than his talent can deliver. Then the bio-chip begins to push and inspire him to new heights of creativity, but it also begins to scorch his mind.

“He’s making this fantastic music, but the rub is he’s burning his brain out,” his daughter Isa Dick Hackett said. “In many ways it really is my father’s story. He couldn’t not write — he had these experiences he had to write about — but it was all at a tremendous cost to him.”

But this great novelist lived at a time before the benefits of current medications and other treatment, and the increasing neuroscientific understanding of current research on mental disorders.

Related Talent Development Resources pages:
Dysfunction / disorder
Mental health articles
Mental health books
Mental Health bookmarks
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creativity and madness, misdiagnosis of gifted adults, genius brain, schizophrenia book

“Academic intelligence has little to do with emotional life…
people with high IQs can be stunningly poor pilots of their private lives.”Daniel Goleman in his book Emotional Intelligence.

In her article Emotional Intelligence of the Gifted, Joanna Fletcher notes that Goleman gives examples of high IQ people “who are not achieving the heights they were destined for.”

But she thinks “his observation that people with high IQ may have low emotional intelligence and therefore lower success is flawed. For starters, he defines success largely in social terms, a narrow band of achievement that gifted people may or may not choose to pursue….”

People who are gifted and talented, with that ability to “discern more complexity” and perhaps also introverted or highly sensitive, may often get labeled by others as “strange,” “weird,” “loner,” “snooty,” “ADD” or suffering from various other mental disorders….

Continued on Talent Development Resources
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outliers, misdiagnosis of gifted adults, high sensitivity personality, gifted adults characteristics