I suppose we all like to think we’re special even while we’re trying to fade into the collective. It’s a strange thing I gave up on long ago.

Through Facebook, I somehow ended up reading a bad article on gifted people that resonated, and mentioned the name Francis Heylighen. I’d never been to this site before – Tango something – so I took a look at the main page and it had horoscope information articles on it.

That’s not a good sign for worthwhile information. I realize that there are people that believe in that stuff, but really, one’s accidental geography of birth says more about your life than a vague fortune cookie description of what will happen to you today.

I dug in, though, because the confirmation bias was strong. I found Heylighen’s “Gifted People And Their Problems” and sure enough, I felt a little like I was under a magnifying glass so I continued staring back. After all, just about everyone I know could feel some sort of confirmation bias with the article. Then I dug in further and dug into the citations and found…

I found out that this may be true of me. It’s a bit late to be finding out in my life, but it does explain a lot of things. It’s also a bit uncomfortable because it’s also a bit convenient to have things set out almost as if they had psychoanalyzed me. Yet there it was. It wasn’t really based on IQ either, which is one of the things that has always annoyed me with labels.

I’ve always been motivated by curiosity, not money or kudos, and I don’t know many others like that. The rest fits better than I was comfortable with.

Of course, it doesn’t really mention what to do about it – but what interested me most was the bit about was digging through the citations and finding this:

…Most people don’t know that what is considered normal for the gifted is most often labeled as neurosis in the general population and as a result, the gifted are personally and emotionally vulnerable to a variety of unique relationship difficulties at home, work, school and in the community. 

Since the gifted function with relatively high levels of intensity and sensitivity, when they seek therapy they are frequently misdiagnosed because therapists receive no specialized training in the identification and treatment of persons who have advanced and complex patterns of development. 

Therapeutic assessment of gifted persons with asynchronous development, heightened levels of awareness, energy and emotional response, and an intense level of inner turmoil often results in their developmental transition being mislabeled as a personality or attentional disorder… 

Misdiagnosis of the Gifted by Lynne Azpeitia, M.A. and Mary Rocamora, M.A. (original date of publication and actual publication not found at the time of this writing).

This article has been cited and republished everywhere, yet I’d never seen it before and I’m a skeptic who needed to assure himself about confirmation bias, so I tracked down Lynne Azpeitia and Mary Rocamora. Legitimate.

And yet, there were no answers for me, really. There’s no clear path, there is just an identification of ‘gifted’ which is mildly annoying because so many times I was told something along these lines but it generally was said so that I would solve something for someone. Compliments meant living up to expectations, expectations were not my own, and it was a problem throughout life. Maybe because of the way I grew up I am more comfortable with constructive criticism than compliments.

This all, too, is a great shroud to hide in to make excuses for things, and I wonder how many people hide in it and excuse all sorts of things on it. The quotation above has also been ‘chicken or egged’ as well, and I’m uncertain whether people (as an example) with ADHD or ADD might actually be gifted or not. It’s confusing to consider.

So I don’t know. It seems to me that if you feel gifted and you have more future ahead of you than someone who has seen half a century, it might be worth looking into. For me, it looks more like a terminal diagnosis, attempting to fit into a world that doesn’t quite fit.

Interesting journey, though. Bonus: Francis Heylighen sparked some curiosity, so I’ll be reading more of what he has been writing. It looks interesting, but it will take some time to work through the Principia Cybernetica.