You might be interested in the book The Drama of the Gifted Child. Alice Miller is a psychologist who also had nparents, and she explains from her research that children of nparents often have extra reserves of sympathy and being sensitive, because they are trained to anticipate and fulfill their nparents' needs. A whole section is dedicated to the emptiness we feel once we realize that void it creates. (She explains it way better than I do.)
From what I remember, she doesn't go so far as to say that you are more likely to do the things that you list. I think we are more likely to have anxiety and depression as well as numb our feelings (since we didn't have a safe space to share them). But I'd be hesitant to just say it without any research to back it up. I know I'm only one person but I did really well in school, because it was a distraction and it fit into the 'golden child' persona that was expected of me.
From what I can tell they're the same book. Maybe different translations or editions? Most people these days are reading this version but for all I know the text is identical, so I say get your hands on whatever copy is convenient!
> "We can only solve this riddle if we manage to see the parents, too, as insecure children—children who have at last found a weaker creature, in comparison with whom they can now feel very strong. What child has never been laughed at for his fears and been told, “You don’t need to be afraid of a thing like that”? What child will then not feel shamed and despised because he could not assess the danger correctly? And will that little person not take the next opportunity to pass these feelings on to a still smaller child? Such experiences come in all shades and varieties. Common to them all is the sense of strength it gives the adult, who cannot control his or her own fears, to face the weak and helpless child’s fear and be able to control fear in another person.
[...]
Disregard for those who are smaller and weaker is thus the best defense against a breakthrough of one’s own feelings of helplessness: it is an expression of this split-off weakness. The strong person who—because he has experienced it—knows that he, too, carries this weakness within himself does not need to demonstrate his strength through contempt."
https://www.amazon.com/Drama-Gifted-Child-Search-Revised/dp/0465016901
So I guess this is an older, popular book. I also went down some internet rabbit holes, and discovered the author’s son has spoken (after her death) regarding his upbringing. Sounds like to son is saying his author mom was guilty of some of the things that she indicated can be damaging to a child.
For me, my therapist and I decided I have been ruminating too much. This book just hits too close to home for me right now. I think I’m just not ready. But check it out, it might hit real close to home for you too.
I hope to give it a read when I am in a better place.
I read this book The Drama of the Gifted Child. Lots of interesting, very insightful stuff in it. It basically proposes that:
You are born as your true self (duh)
Throughout childhood and adolescence, but mainly childhood, you lose your true self and develop a false self (through school, assimilating into the 'system', etc, I'd say)
The root of most depression and mental health issues is the difference between your true self and false self, or a longing to get your true self back
I think it's accurate, I see lots of people on here talking about how they hate being themselves, including myself at times. Once I realized that it's not "I hate being myself" but "I hate being my false self" it started to make a lot more sense and I felt better. Obviously nobody would enjoy being a false, synthetically instilled version of themselves and would constantly be trying to escape it.
You're definitely not in the wrong--your mother is being a child. If I were you I would focus on your well being and your new family--she's an adult and she has to learn to handle her own feelings.
I also recommend this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Drama-Gifted-Child-Search-Revised/dp/0465016901
It's a great (and short) read for people who have survived childhoods with narcissistic, self-centered and/or emotionally abusive parents. I'm not going to speculate about what your mother's issues might be, but this book might help given how you're feeling.
First of all, my condolences on being a gifted child. It's truly a blessing and a curse, and although your abilities will be an enormous advantage to you in life, you also have a long struggle ahead in dealing with the consequences of being intellectually advanced. A book you should definitely read is Alice Miller's <em>The Drama of the Gifted Child</em>. It can help a great deal in understanding the particular challenges that face someone identified as gifted. Perfectionism, especially, is a demon that can and will absolutely destroy you in academic and professional life if you don't get a handle on it.
Probably only disturbing for people who grew up with an emotionally unstable parent, in that it hit so close to home in terms of how I coped with my life - I had friends read it and they didn't see anything in it that related to them. But when I was first directed to read it by a therapist, I was completely devastated.
Probably only disturbing for people who grew up with an emotionally unstable parent, in that it hit so close to home in terms of how I coped with my life - I had friends read it and they didn't see anything in it that related to them. But when I first read (suggested by a psychiatrist), I was completely devastated.
This, but take it with a grain of salt. She's discussing narcissism as a pathological condition limited to certain individuals but I feel like we all can exhibit those tendencies at some points. She is also working from a strict, almost Freudian, definition of narcissism.
DON'T WORRY CITIZENS!
Alice Miller, "The Drama of the Gifted Child"
> WAHHHHH! BEING SMART IS HARD!
Ta-Nehisi Coates, "Between the World and Me"
>Everyone's a little bit racist
Simone De Beauvoir, "The Ethics of Ambiguity"
>Existentialist navelgazing
Albert Camus, "The Plague"
> More existentialism, but this time people die
Brene Brown, "Daring Greatly"
>What if being some sort of cuck soyboy was actually kinda badass?
Atul Gawande, "Being Mortal"
> Killing them softly, with his loving take on the role of modern medicine in death.
Ali Rivzi, "The Atheist Muslim"
>Being an edgy teenager, but on "difficult" mode
Muhammad Yunus, "A World of Three Zeroes"
>Zero Poverty, Zero Unemployment, and Zero Net Carbon Emissions... also zero sex scenes.
ETA: short, possibly misleading synopses by someone who hasn't read these books.
O H H E L L Y E S T H E R E I S: https://www.amazon.com/Drama-Gifted-Child-Search-Revised/dp/0465016901.
This was was the first book I read after I came to terms with being NPD. This book does not apply to all narcissists, but it is certainly one of the ways narcissism develops. This is a turning point for you, good job and keep it up.
"if I’m not special, I’m worthless and purposeless" is really good insight and something I dealt with a lot too. Feeling like your "normal" has to be "ultra". You're "normal" has to be "special", and anything less feels like death. You have to win at every video game. Your partner has to be the hottest. You have to have the best job/grades, score the most goals/point, have the nicest mind/greatest body! Because you, well you're special!!
It takes a lot of time to learn to drop these expectations, because you don't know how to feel good about yourself without them but paradoxically the weight of them is so much to bear. But once you drop them, tell the world to fuck off, embrace your authentic self even when it means you're nothing special, you will finally find a peaceful existence.
One. The Drama of a Gifted Child by Alice Miller
Two. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Three. The Ethics of Ambiguity by Simone De Beauvoir
Four. The Plague by Albert Camus
Five. Daring Greatly by Brene Brown
Six. Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
Seven. The Atheist Muslim by Ali Rizvi
Eight. A World of Three Zeros by Muhammad Yunus
edit: numbers didn’t show
Hmm. I wonder if there is a cultural element at work here, or I’m confused about the meaning of masochism.
Isn’t finding virtue in pain common in Conscientious / Compulsive individuals? There’s a large body of work on the formation of this personality, and obviously in the Catholic Tradition, suffering is not only pius, but is the Imitation of Christ. On top of that you have athletics, where suffering is again seen as virtuous, soldiering, the same, mountaineering and so on.
The common thread in all of these expressions of devout and worthy suffering as not just being a consequence but a goal, is that there isn’t a sexual element. At the same time, these are all deeply ingrained in an individual, their work culture, sporting psychology, faith. Even when these are taken to extremes - martyrdom, the austerity of the Desert Fathers, monastic life, vows of poverty and chastity, mortification of the body, athletic overtraining, fasting - these experiences are ecstatic but not erotic.
I guess what I’m wondering is where the crossover point to sexuality lies for most people. How are some people passive and timid in their waking life but have violent or self-destructive sexual impulses, and others bold and assertive, or value suffering during daylight hours but have typical sexuality?
You would think if something is a big part of your personality it would be expressed equally strongly in your sexuality, but this seems not to be the case.
The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self https://www.amazon.com/Drama-Gifted-Child-Search-Revised/dp/0465016901
I can still relate.
Mind if I speculate?
Autism is like trauma by a thousand little moments of being unable to exist in the world as expected. ADHD is the inability to sit still and/or quiet your racing mind and often gets you into trouble with authority figures who demand your attention on cue and feel entitled to it until they’re done with it.
I have problems with my father too. I want his approval. This is very common to all humanity, male and female and everything in between. But he did not expect his firstborn to end up being so odd. I masked for a long time, because I was terrified of losing his approval, but I just cant maintain that mask without many more times the effort that an NT would have out into it. I burnt out, and for a while I was very dysfunctional, and only then did I begin seeking diagnosis. But it was all over his head. All he wanted was for me not to embarrass him publicly.
He’s not an abusive man. He’s just… cold sometimes. Not that he’s incapable of warmth. He’s reserved. His silence drives me more crazy with anxiety than his overt disapproval. Cuz when he gives me something, I can logically wrestle with it. But he doesn’t give me anything usually, and I can’t read him. When we do interact, on my end it has the complexities of my entire emotional history riding on it, and I don’t know what he’s thinking.
My formative years were years when I had no choice but to metaphorically shove as much as of my being into his mold as would fit and try to saw off or hide the parts that were still sticking out. I did it for him, and I don’t think he even noticed or appreciated what I doing to try and avoid embarrassing him. If he did notice, his reaction in general sucks. But this is who he is and that’s all I get from him.
I like this book.
brave of you to share that. i've been through biohacking cycles (using nootropics; never with benzos or anything addictive) to make difficult situations more bearable. where i found most success, however, was by facing the root of those problems head-on. that's the deeper invitation for real progress.
let's be honest: many benzo threads including yours are about getting the permission to continue doing it, dancing the delicate waltz between relief and addiction. you know it is a dangerous game which is why you don't play it alone; you tap into the community.
i did not suggest exposure therapy but i suppose that is one avenue.
give this book a chance if you want to start healing instead of putting band-aids on wounds: https://www.amazon.com/Drama-Gifted-Child-Search-Revised/dp/0465016901 then circle back after you read at least one third of it.
cheers and good luck.
>Is there a relationship between being overly praised or categorized as "gifted" as a child and future perfectionism/anxiety?
Yes, there is! It's theorized that it becomes part of the identity.
https://www.amazon.com/Drama-Gifted-Child-Search-Revised/dp/0465016901
There is a book that speaks to this, it’s called The drama of the gifted child by Alice Miller. It’s a short read: https://www.amazon.com/Drama-Gifted-Child-Search-Revised/dp/0465016901
Funny thing about dreams, is that dreams can dance you around the bush. But one has to be brave enough to look inside the bush. It takes a lot of courage to discover ambiguous pain and go willfully towards and trough it. I believe this is what shadow work is, look there where you least want to look.
Seems like you are fascinated by shadow and shadow work could be beneficial. A great intro to shadow work by diamond net: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZ90jN2R9n8
I listened the following audiobooks and I found them remarkably helpful to discover repressed / forgotten aspects of childhood, which were hidden from awareness.
Alice Miller - The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self
This is the best book ever written (to my knowledge) about parenting and psychology generally. You absolutely owe it to your child to read it.
https://www.amazon.com/Drama-Gifted-Child-Search-Revised/dp/0465016901
dont be deterred by the title, this book is amazing:
https://www.amazon.com/Drama-Gifted-Child-Search-Revised/dp/0465016901
Yes, suicidal tendencies did increase over time when confronting the C-PTSD, but this made me more reckless in taking on the challenges that came with confronting everything such as boarding an airplane and working for a multinational company. I did not care about life, so I took on the biggest challenges I could find in order to reprogram my brain. I can even hop on rollercoasters nowadays. That was how my suicidal tendencies worked in my favor.
Emotional flashbacks were truly horrible. I relived one when being yelled at, when being disagreed with, and many more, I was also triggered everyday, the entire day. What I did was reason my emotions at the time where I was in physical pain or something else that made me realize that I was in an emotional flashback, such as noticing sad emotions on a happy day. This is when I started to look for the triggers that caused this flashback, narrow them down, and find the appropriate cause (in the case of yelling, this was my primary caregiver blaming me for the death of my parents if I were not to behave perfectly). When narrowed down, I started to proof myself that this flashback belonged in the past and that in the present, I can take perfect care of people /that yell at me by telling them to lower their voice or tell them to get lost, whatever is appropriate.
About a week ago I went to visit Phantasialand, which is something I would have been unable to do before recovering from C-PTSD, and I hopped on the Talocan (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEmHHqBrnQM). A year ago, I was being puked at by my ex as she drank too much, took good care of her and got dumped months after, whilst being blamed (and most importantly: taking the blame) for this incident, while all she did was participate in a crappy drinking contest in an attempt to proof herself. I felt guilty for her behavior for months in a row. I was unable to assert myself and I was even unable to reach out for help, I was in much too deep. I could not even ask for a day off because I was so horribly anxious and I could not ever imagine going to a theme park, let alone board such thing. But nowadays I can. To get back to emotional flashbacks: when I was in a water attraction I was getting water in my face. This would usually trigger me severely, because I was sensitive to touch due to obvious reasons. This time... I wasn't triggered. This was yet another confirmation that my C-PTSD is gone.
Also, on a final note, judging from your post this book might come in handy for you: https://www.amazon.com/Drama-Gifted-Child-Search-Revised/dp/0465016901
Baa, baa, black sheep. Don't bleach your wool or join the wolves like others posting in this thread are suggesting.
Instead, realize that you are a shepherd.
I don't have an answer for you. I am as broken as any other such person in your predicament. However, I have found solace in understanding.
To that end, in this very subreddit a couple of days ago there was a decent discussion on this topic: Existential Depression in Gifted Children and Adults
As well, these resources have helped me understand my childhood and how to cope as an adult. I hope they serve you well.
http://talentdevelop.com/resources.html
http://www.educationaloptions.com
http://www.santafecoach.com/gchallenges.htm
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/suffer-the-children/201206/the-drama-the-gifted-child
http://www.amazon.com/The-Drama-Gifted-Child-Revised/dp/0465016901
I connect to your experiences.
You might find this book useful as a starting place: http://www.amazon.com/Drama-Gifted-Child-Search-Revised/dp/0465016901
Most people really don't understand what intellectual prowess looks like at a young age.
Ex.:
These resources have helped me understand my childhood and how to cope as an adult. I hope they serve you and your child well.
http://talentdevelop.com/resources.html
http://www.educationaloptions.com
http://www.santafecoach.com/gchallenges.htm
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/suffer-the-children/201206/the-drama-the-gifted-child
http://www.amazon.com/The-Drama-Gifted-Child-Revised/dp/0465016901
Awesome, let me(us) know how it goes for you! I began to notice results after about 1-2 weeks of doing it every other day. It's way harder to focus just on your breathing than you initially would think. Slowing down my brain, especially for anxiety, is a struggle worth pursuing! Just keep at it!
This book is a great read, and it talks about the process of how our parents bestow traits onto us, good and bad and how the "gifted" child is able to rise above the challenges, or "gifts" inherent within their upbringing.
It's easily one of the best books I've ever bought, it really helped put things into perspective for me, and while it doesn't focus on marijuana, it does talk a bit about substance abuse, and how the true path(s) to recovery stem from an honest and thoughtful engagement with your past.
There is the genetic side of inheritance, as well as the environmental side which you mentioned, as my Mother still frets for my saftey over the smallest threats. If something goes wrong, the first thing she does is overact to make sure I'm ok, and I'm 25 now, live on my own, and have graduated from college, at this point, it's ludicrous to treat me that way. If I say I don't feel well the script is generally, Are you going to throw up? Do you need X, Y or Z? And while the love is there, and I appreciate the sentiment, it's a negative way to engage with my feelings because it trains me to enter panic mode at the drop of a hat. In my head I go, omg am I going to throw up? Do I need any of those things, and I immediately feel worse. People who don't feel well don't need to be reminded of all the negative aspects of it, they need help creating a stable platform!!
I think the genetic inheritance and the environmental training compound with one another. This book helped me understand the dichotomous relationship of the Nature/Nature paradigm, the nature of my anxiety, and how all of that fits together. With meditation on top of growing up a bit, and reading this book, I've done a lot better with anxiety. It's now been over 4 months since I've had any sort of panic attacks or quantifiable anxiety, and I only stopped smoking 40 days ago. I think that training myself to not enter panic mode at the drop of a hat, and acknowledging that dynamic in the first place were crucial components for building more positive behaviors.
Good luck with the journey, it gets easier, and maybe just having a new book to read can help you keep your mind off of anxiety inducing thoughts!
Anything by Alice Miller. For example: "The Drama of the Gifted Child"
Sex addition is still an addiction.
For your own sake please seek professional help.
Hating your self and your past actions won't do any good.
But taking responsibility IN THE FUTURE is in your control.
Here's a few simple steps to get you STARTED.
Seek counseling for your rape trauma first and foremost. Maybe a school counselor? Planned parenthood might have free counseling as well. Look for local rape crisis centers and they might be able to help you.
Read this book, The Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller