Are you gifted or hypersensitive? I did this article today because many people ask themselves the question (and ask me). At the same time it's completely normal because it's not always super obvious. So we're going to see today the differences between hypersensitivity and being High Intellectual Potential.
My name is Paul and my high potential was detected more than ten years ago now. And today I share on Connect The Dots what I've learned to help the little new ones.
NB: This article is the transcript of the video above
Statistics on hypersensitivity and High Intellectual Potential
Before we go further, I wanted to give you a little bit of information so we could know what we're talking about. Hypersensitive people represent 15 to 20% of the population. This is an estimate because it has never been scientifically proven. It is estimated that 15 to 20% of the population.
Concerning the gifted2.5% of the population according to the statistics HIP. It's more or less an estimate. In fact, it comes from the fact that we said that intellectual quotients (IQ) were distributed according to the normal Gauss curve. The gifted category represents 2.5% of the population. So it can be more, it can be less.
Whether it's hypersensitivity or gifted, it's really a deal. We said it was so much, but we're not sure. Now I will try to give you quickly the differences between hypersensitivity and being gifted (which I can also sometimes call the gift, it's the fact of being gifted, gifted).
Evidence that you are hypersensitive
A hypersensitive person should be seen a little like an antenna that captures both internal and external stimulation. This means that it is a large sensor (we have a large sensor, a large receiver) and all the stimulations (whether inside or outside) are captured and recorded. While being gifted is "just" a great intelligence, having an intellectual quotient of more than 130.
Now to differentiate them, I'll give you some elements.
The hypersensitive person has overwhelming emotions
So the hypersensitive person first has overwhelming emotions. She has emotions a little like a roller coaster, roller coaster, roller coaster. It has ups and downs all the time, sometimes several times in the day, several times in the same hour. It can go from a very high to a very low in no time. It is her emotions that tend to govern her. He is a very emotional person and others do not necessarily understand why he is so emotional.
In fact, since it captures some internal simulations more than others, it captures them than others do. Sometimes she will feel sadness or joy or another emotion, while others do not get it. That's why you can sometimes say people who are hypersensitive that they are people who cry all the time, who are too sad, too happy, who are "too much" in fact. They are "too much" everything. It comes from there, because their antenna captures more inner emotions, more inner stimulations.
Hypersensitive people have a high sensitivity to others: empathy
Then we have what I have and grouped under the name of "sensitivity to others". In fact it's empathyAnd even hyperempathy! We tend to understand what others feel and even feel. Moreover, it has been scientifically proven (that people who are hypersensitive physically feel the emotions of others). They passed hypersensitive people through MRIs and showed them pictures of people who had emotions. And physically the hypersensitive people had certain areas of the brain that are active. This proved that they felt the same emotions as others. It also allows to be very gifted (in the end more or less gifted) in communication because one tends to really see what the other feels, to read between the lines. So it can still be useful that empathy.
Hypersensitive people have sensory hypersensitivity
And third characteristic of hypersensitives: the 5 senses that are hyper-stimulated. It is a bit of external hypersensitivity, sensory, which will sometimes be called as hyperaesthesia. In fact our five senses (view, smell, taste, hearing and touch) are very sensitive. So that doesn't mean we hear better or anything. We don't have superpowers. Rather, it means that we are quickly disturbed by small smells, small sensations or small things that will not necessarily bother others. It could be a clothing label, for example. Everyone will feel it but in some people (hypersensitive) it will be completely unmanageable. It's going to scratch, it's going to be very important.
I have a lot of trouble with the seams of my socks. If they're in a bad position I'm having trouble walking. I have to take off the shoe, put the sock back on and everything, a real mess. Some smells or brightness that can very quickly dazzle. In fact, these external stimulations are captured and can be experienced as painful.
Evidence that you are HIP
Then we move on to the gifted side. So there's plenty to recognize it but I tried to group them into three categories.
The gifted have a sense of lag
First, there is the feeling of lag. In fact this feeling of lag comes from the fact that we tend to love the same things as others we have different tastes (finally different interests and passions) because we like to be stimulated intellectually. This makes it difficult to make friends especially when you're younger because you don't like the same things as others. And in parallel the gifted also has a great difficulty in understanding social relations because he has a Cartesian mind with a certain logic that he applies. And sometimes friendly relationships go through this logic. So that makes the HIP Don't really understand how it works.
It's the same for love relationships in high potential. The zebra is a little lost. This sense of difference (which is related to what I just mentioned) makes the gifted one tend to put on a social mask that is called false self. It's kind of like a fake personality and it allows him to integrate better. But then others don't really know him because the gifted "lith" a little bit.
The High Intellectual Potential is creative
The second point is creativity. This creativity is linked to two things. First, the fact that gifted people may tend to use their right brain more (which is more creative) and also the fact that they have a treelike thought (or diverging depending on the person being asked). This tree thinking makes the gifted think of a lot of things very quickly, all the time. And since he thinks of a lot of things he tends to find new ideas, and ideas that are creative. It is this really continuous thought that goes to the bottom more the fact than the HIP is very straight brain that makes him creative.
This creativity must also be expressed. That is, if possible, we should try to find jobs (or passions, occupations) that have this creative aspect. Me this is what I really like about this blog because I create videos, create articles, create a site, create a system. I love it. There is this notion of creating. I'm not saying you have to be a painter, but you have to have a creative aspect.
The HIP have extra-lucidity
And finallyExtra-lucidity. It is not Madame Irma, but rather the fact that the gifted understands the world and sees it as it is. The HIP lost the naive look of the child, he loses it very young this naive look of child, and he sees the world as it is. That's a pretty clean feature of the gifted. It gives people who are very land-to-earth, who can sometimes be cash and impulsive because they don't go by 30 detours what. They run into the pile and tend to see things as they are. So to say them as they are.
Then again, be careful. There I made hyper-simplifications. There are plenty of other signs, but it's not possible to talk about it in a single video. It was really to give you some differences. So hypersensitivity is very based on emotion, whether it is internal emotions of external emotions, our five senses, and the emotions of others. While the gifted one is rather in his head. That is, he thinks, he looks at things, he analyses things.
Can we be gifted and hypersensitive?
So now little question: are the gifted, or at least all the gifted, hypersensitive? Or is the hypersensitive his gifted? So there's a big problem... is we don't know. Researchers and psychologists who talk about it all have different theories. What is certain is that since there is more hypersensitive than overly sensitive, some hypersensitive people are not HIP. On the other hand, are all the gifted, or just some of the gifted, hypersensitive? We don't know that.
For example, Jeanne Siaud-Facchin who tends to say that all the gifted are hypersensitive and that this is part of the characteristics of the gifted. Other, for example Cathy Assenheim, say that only one in five gifted is also hypersensitive. So is that zero? Is it all? Is that something in the middle? We don't know yet. I'll let you have a little bit of your opinion on the matter, depending on your own feelings. That's the idea I tried to represent there with those circles. Is the area in the middle (people who are and are overly gifted and hypersensitive) larger or smaller? We don't know.
Pass your hypersensitivity test and test HIP free
If you want to go a little further in the search for your hypersensitivity and your gift, know that I'm making you live and if you want to
- one hypersensitivity test or
- one test to see if you're gifted.
Just go on one or the other of these items. See you!
