Today we're going to talk about the seven reasons why the gifted feel lonely. If you are a person High Intellectual Potential It will help you identify where the feeling of loneliness you may feel comes from. This is especially because of the eight reasons I will mention that negative thoughts and depressive states are more present in the gifted who have been detected. And above all stay well until the end because I have a solution to offer you.
My name is Paul and my high potential was detected more than ten years ago now. On Connect The Dots I share what I learned to help the little new ones to accept.
NB: This article is the transcript of the video above
Before we start, I wanted to tell you that I grouped together the seven reasons why the gifted feel alone around 3 types of loneliness. Finally, I categorized them as three types of loneliness.
The loneliness of the gifted
The first category is what I called loneliness. It comes after difficulties in creating social and friendly relations.
The social difficulties of the gifted
So one of the first reasons is social difficulties.
We don't understand how others work. We are in the greatest misunderstanding of the social and societal rules in the world. For example, I still today have a lot of trouble sometimes understanding the implicit rules of how friendship works, how the relational rules of society work. It makes me sometimes look a little disturbing or a little different because I don't think what is accepted or not based on my degree of relationship with the person. That is to say that sometimes you can be very close and yet I stand away because I misjudged the thing. Or, on the contrary, we are not particularly close people and I will go too far from the relationship. So it's stupid.
Actually, what's really happening is that I don't understand how it works. I cannot understand how social relations work.
Overadaptation in zebra
The second cause of solitude in the gifted is over-adaptation.
The gifted one is aware of the social difficulties that we have just mentioned. To try to counter them he sets up a facade personality, a kind of social mask that is called the false self. It's kind of like a fake personality everyone has. This is the basis for politeness and how to behave in society. For example, if you're in a job interview, I'm sure of myself when I say you're not 100% honest and 100% true with the person who makes you spend the interview. You put this (professional) character on a facade. But so you're not too honest.
It's very important to put it on sometimes because it makes it possible to succeed certain moments of life (including the interview of hiring). The problem is that the gifted one serves a lot because otherwise he has a lot of trouble in his relationships. He wears too much his fake self and he completely loses contact with his real personality (which is called the real self). The others appreciate our false self but finally they don't like our real self because it's hidden deep inside ourselves. So our real self (our true ourselves) is alone. We're alone even if we can be surrounded. It is a facade personality that is surrounded. Our real life is ours alone.
Impulsiveness in HIP
The third cause of solitude among the gifted: impulsivity. Sometimes you can be cruelly tactless and/or too impulsive. Personally I tend to prefer a truth that hurts that a lie that does good, and unfortunately I tend to think that it is the same for everyone. Sometimes when I want to give advice and be nice actually I tend to be hyper cash and say all the things that could be improved. Except that actually the people I'm talking to don't necessarily want to hear my advice.
Above all, I realized that sometimes I tended to turn around the pot when I wanted to say something and that I was not understood. So now I'm going even further into the pile I'm going to say the very cash thing to make sure the message is over. It doesn't help much. I think this impulsiveness is also linked to our passional side. We are impulsive in our desires and needs. We need everything, right now because when we do something and we want it, we do it with passion. It has to take us completely. This impulsiveness, you will know, is a major obstacle in our social relations and it widens its sense of loneliness.
The solitude among others of the gifted
We now move on to loneliness among others, which is actually a loneliness experience: loneliness that is inner. You feel alone in the middle of everyone else.
The feeling of the gifted shift
It comes in particular from a feeling of lag (this is the following reason for solitude in the gifted). This feeling of lag is quite normal because the High Intellectual Potential represents 2.5% of the population. That's one in 40 people. It's normal when you're a zebra, that you're alone in the face of 39 other neurotypical people, that you feel different. We are the minority population, and it is normal for the minority population to feel different from the majority population.
In order to possibly have less sense of a difference, one would have to go to a place where one becomes the majority population (e.g. in associations for gifted or Mensa or things like that). There we could feel normal and less out of step because it is we who would represent the bulk of the mass. For example, all the feedback you make me feel normal.
At first when I started this blog and the YouTube channel It was a one-way relationship because I didn't have a lot of feedback yet. I felt alone. Now I have less this feeling of loneliness because I'm exchanging a lot with people who are like me. I don't have that feeling of time difference because I realize I'm not alone. So little advice: don't hesitate to leave comments, I feel like people are responding anyway and it's too cool to create a community, that you feel less alone.
Intellectual loneliness in the High Intellectual Potential
Another reason for the solitude of the gifted is intellectual loneliness. In fact we are not stimulated by the same things as others. We don't have the same occupations, the same desires, the same needs. The result of these different tastes (finally his different desires) makes one feel lonely because one does not find anyone who wants to do the same activities as us. We need to do things very deep, we really like to go very deeply. We don't do things superficially. This intellectual loneliness (in the sense that one is intellectually stimulated by different things) makes one feel alone.
The solitude chosen by the zebra
Finally, the third category of loneliness is the chosen loneliness. It comes in particular from a need to isolate. It's a loneliness that we choose ourselves. She's voluntary and it's something pretty positive.
The rest of the hypersensitive gifted
The first reason for this is rest. Actually, our brains are doing all 24 hours a day. In addition to that, since we are hypersensitive persons, we capture plenty of information and external stimulations. The result is that our brains explode after a while. You have to learn to rest so you can digest all this information and get better. Our brain is overexcited. You have to learn to undress it a little from time to time and put it down. This rest for hypersensitive It takes more time, too. We need more regular and longer rest periods.
The creativity of HIP
Finally, another reason for choosing loneliness (and that is the last reason why the gifted feel alone) is creativity.
My creative part is very important to me. It's the same with many gifted people. I need this little creative part, to let her live regularly and do something creative to make me feel good. I'm better off when I'm alone. It could be creating this blog: it does me a lot of good. It takes a little rest because there is creativity. You have to create videos, articles, think about how it works... I love doing this! It can be free time to give free rein to my imagination and my tree thought. I'm a little lonely, I'm thinking of a lot of things and it's a lot of good for me. These creative times alone are very important to me. That's why I'm lonely. I need it. If I don't do them, I'm not good. But they have to.
I really stress that these moments of chosen solitude (whether for rest or for creativity) are very important moments for the balance of the gifted. I can't spend group moments and moments with lots of people around me all the time. I can't. I'm blowing up. I need time to die.
HIP and relationship difficulties
The relationshipal difficulties of HIP Several points are not explained:
- Solitude They often feel solitude imposed because of social difficulties, a feeling of isolation despite the presence of others due to a feeling of difference, and choose solitude for rest and creativity.
- ‘Failed self-sufficiency and adaptation' they often adopt a ‘false self-indulgence' to integrate. So they tend to fight against impulsivity in relationships, making them less "true".
- Analytical approach to emotions They have an analytical approach to emotions, which can be seen as demanding in relationships.
- Search for authenticity and depth : they seek authenticity and depth in relationships, requiring intellectual and emotional stimulation.
- Sensitivity and unique perceptiontheir sensitivity, deep thinking and aversion to superficial interactions can lead to social challenges and a sense of isolation.
If you have recognized yourself in these points, please do not hesitate to sign up for my free mini training (above) in which we will talk about how to make its High Intellectual Potential His greatest asset. I'll tell you soon!
