Gifted Awareness Blog Tour - Giftedness as an Adult

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The Problems of Getting Stuck

A year ago, I attended the First International Conference on Gifted Adults.  I attended mostly because it was close by and because, well, I am a gifted adult.  I didn't expect to spend most of the conference crying.  And I want to apologize to the presenters for any discomfort I caused them.  You see, rather than follow the stages of adult giftedness that they outlined, I have periodically become stuck in a stage that I feel I should have already mastered.

I have searched my computer and the Internet in vain for a list of the stages of adult giftedness.  But I can recall some of my "stuck" times.  One of them came early.  When I graduated from college, I had just completed teacher certification and was ready to start teaching somewhere.  Only, that was a time of a massive oversupply of teachers.  It was very difficult for a newly minted teacher to find a job, so I took a job as a secretary.  STUCK doing something I really didn't want to do and which kept me from moving forward in my chosen field.  This was a time when I was "supposed" to be establishing myself in my chosen field and working toward competency.  I eventually found a job as an assistant teacher in a private school - not much money, but at least, a foot in the door.  Only then, we moved.

Feeling that perhaps I would be more employable with more background, I returned to college for a master's degree in education.  And I did, in fact, find a job teaching.  And then, we moved again - this time for just one year.  I eventually found a job, but it was only part time and I had to quit when we moved back.  This happened not only once, but a couple of times, following my husband's career moves.  STUCK and thwarted in establishing competency. 

Meanwhile, I went back to school again, this time for a master's degree in computer science - I had doubts about teaching and thought maybe I would be better as a computer person.  I got a job as a computer support person.

And then came my second major "STUCK" time.  I wanted children, but had trouble getting pregnant.  This was "supposed" to be the time for generative production, but it wasn't happening.

Seven years later, I eventually did have a baby, with a second one two years after that, but for those seven years, I felt STUCK and unable to progress as a person.

There have been other major STUCK times in my life: again, due to moving, losing and quitting jobs, changing fields of work entirely, and not being able to get a job in my chosen field, most recently due to age and massive cutbacks in education.  So I haven't exactly followed the standard trajectory of gifted adult development.  And, being STUCK is a critical stage of adult giftedness, in my experience.  It isn't like Dabrowski's positive disintegration and then moving to a higher level of development; it is almost the exact opposite.  I was ready to take on new challenges, but there seemed to be massive barriers in my way, barriers not of my own making, but rather external barriers.

Perhaps all of this is boringly normal, but it is one thing I think the conference didn't really address.  Is the experience of gifted adults significantly different from average adults when they are prevented from progressing through life's developmental stages, due to various factors?  Does Imposter Syndrome and self-doubt take over more than it should?  What are the mental health issues that need to be addressed with gifted adults who cannot, for whatever reason, go forward with life? 

And, there is one other issue that needs its own paragraph - multi-potentiality.  I have been fairly good at just about all of the things I have tried.  In some cases, I feel my STUCK times have been exacerbated by my ability to switch to a different field entirely.  Rather than continuing to develop as a teacher, I switched to computer science.  Rather than sticking with computer science, I studied biochemistry.  Rather than sticking to biochemistry, I returned to education.  Someone at the conference mentioned that he was told early on to be "a jack of all trades and a master of ONE" - an obvious change to the standard aphorism.  I wish I had been told that, but I doubt if my younger self would have listened.  Is it good advice?  I don't know.  I don't regret my diverse career paths.  I regret my lack of sufficient competence in any of them.  I wish I had had more guidance through the STUCK times.

Source of Anxiety

It occurs to me that one source of anxiety for me lately is the overwhelming number of things that I am interested in. With the constant availability of the Internet, with the huge availability of the library, though inter-library loans, with the face to face Meet-Ups on a seemingly endless variety of interests, with all the Facebook friends and interest pages, with the magazines and newspapers that I get, with the long list of emails that I need or want to read, I am simply overwhelmed with stuff. If I were like my husband and narrowly focused on only a few areas of interest, even then I would be inundated with information. But I consider myself to be a generalist. It is one of the reasons why I have stuck with teaching. It allows me to be interested in a wide variety of things.

But recently, I have become more and more aware that it also causes me anxiety. I just can't keep up with the constant barrage of things that I want to read and the things I want to do. I actually have more time now than I have had in earlier years of my life - I am not working on a university degree, the kids are grown, I am not working full time. But that also means that I can develop new interests as well - I have started going to Meet-Ups for playing board games and for speaking German. Last summer, I started making jewelry. This past fall I started writing songs. Since I moved here I have been trying to attend regularly the World Affairs Discussion Group at our local branch library, where I am confronted continually with my lack of knowledge about history, economics, and international policy. And I want to remedy that lack of knowledge.

Perhaps this acknowledgement can explain some of the reasons that students know so little about the world these days. There is simply too much to know; too much to be interested in; too much to do. It is much easier to just focus on the easy things - the latest video game; the antics of pop stars; the latest songs. These things are straight-forward and do not require complicated understanding. Let someone else know the complicated stuff; there is too much for me to know - and by the time I learn about it, it will have changed, anyway.

I suppose other people have come to this realization already - so, again, I am confronted with the question of why should I care? Maybe I should just relax and give up even pretending to be a generalist - but which of my interests should I give up?

Not Young, Gifted, Bored, but Young, Gifted, Lazy

I was reading about a book with the title of Young, Gifted, and Bored by David George.  As I typically do (and I suspect a lot of people do, when they see a book with such a title), I thought of myself, in relation to the title.  When I was young, would I have described myself as Young, Gifted, and Bored?  I was certainly young and gifted, but I am not sure that the description "bored" would have fit me as well.

As background, I have to explain that I attended a two room school for elementary school.  Upstairs was Mrs. Jones, Elsie Jones, to be precise, with the Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd graders.  I don't remember much of her class, except that a couple of us were allowed to work in a small art room on the north side of the classroom, that had an even smaller walk-in art closet on the east side.  I remember eating paste.  So maybe, I was bored.  But my mother tells me that Mrs. Jones had me read to kids when she needed to keep me busy.

I do remember the downstairs class better.  Mrs. Morse, Marie Morse, if I remember correctly, taught the 3rd and 4th graders.  Our 3rd grade class consisted of 9 girls and 1 boy.  The next class up had 9 boys and 1 girl.  There wasn't such a concept of differentiation at the time, but I think my teachers did what they could.  They realized that I was very smart, but there weren't many outside resources available to help me much.

Personality-wise, I was a very agreeable child.  The third of four children in my family, I was often the peacemaker.  I felt uncomfortable when there was conflict around, so I did my young-self best to avoid conflict.  What I learned was not boredom, but rather self-doubt.  Everyone else seemed fine, so I should be fine, too.  I also learned to be lazy.  Why should I work hard at something, since it came relatively easy to me?  I was one of those seemingly all-around gifted children, who could pretty much do anything that I tried.  There were a few things I wasn't particularly interested in - I couldn't see the reason behind throwing a ball back and forth and calling it playing catch, for instance, but, in general, I did what I was told, especially at school.  It never occurred to me that I was learning to be lazy. 

My fifth grade year was spent in a different school with a fabulous teacher.  I can't remember learning to work hard there either, but the class was so interesting, it didn't much matter.  It was my sixth grade year that was the problem.  This was long before the concept of middle schools, but the number of children had exceeded the capacity of the local elementary school, so the 6th graders were sent off to the junior high school.  By then, I had learned that everything was pretty easy and I didn't have to work very hard to learn anything in school, but I also didn't have as fascinating teachers.  And, then, indeed, boredom did set in. 

My point in all of this history, though, is that, yes, boredom was eventually a problem.  But an even bigger problem, for me at least, was that I had already learned two important things:  I was good at most things that I tried without working very hard at them and that working hard at something (which other kids had to do) meant that you weren't very good at it. 

For me, it took until college, before I found out that you were really supposed to learn how to work hard at something, so that you could master it.  I discovered that I wasn't very good at memorization, but I had no tools to help myself learn how to cope with the necessity to memorize a lot of information.  I had learned that I was good at most things without really working hard, so if these now were things that I had to work hard to learn, then I must not be as smart as I was always led to believe I was.  I floundered, especially in classes that really did require hard work.

Since then, I have had several university courses and jobs where I had to work incredibly hard to do well.  I can work hard and I have mastered some of the strategies of learning, when the work is difficult.  But I wish I had had to work hard much earlier in my life.  I think it would have made me more confident in myself.  And I think it would have prevented some of the effects of Impostor Syndrome:  I must really not be as smart as I thought, since I actually have to work hard to get this. 

Why do I think it would have served me better to learn, while still young, that hard work at something doesn't mean that you are bad at it?  I look especially to my daughters.  The older one is a gymnast.  Through her gymnastics, she learned a LOT about challenging yourself, about goal setting, about trying difficult things and eventually mastering them.  She is much more able than I to work through difficulties without giving up.  Both kids were in academic settings where they, in spite of being exceptionally gifted, had to work at learning.  The younger one was a swimmer, and participated in quite a few sports.  I think the fact that they were in an exceptionally difficult high school helped them learn what I didn't learn until college:  skills to use when learning is difficult.  And, the personal attitude that, if things are difficult, that doesn't mean that you have finally reached too far for your abilities; it just means that you have to put in some additional effort. 

International Conference on Gifted Adults

I suppose I shouldn't write about this at all, because it was actually a fabulous conference. But I spent most of the day there crying. And it wasn't because I suddenly realized that I was gifted and that all of my strange idiosyncrasies could be attributed to that. No, I have known for a long time that I was gifted. Ever since I was tested while I was in elementary school and later when I went to full time gifted classes.

No, the reason I was crying is mostly because, in spite of it all, or perhaps because of it all, I feel like such a failure. Here, I was supposed to be in the self-actualizing stage or maybe one of the other stages that made each life stage seem like a new adventure. And I feel stuck back in trying to figure out who I am and what I want to do with my life. I have been a secretary, a teacher, a grad student, a computer scientist, a teacher (again), a biology researcher, a teacher (again), a grad student (again), a computer support scientist, a biochemist, and finally a teacher again. And maybe not in all that order. But I haven't lived up to any of the expectations I had of myself when I was young. I don't feel successful in any of my careers.

And, now I am unemployed, overeducated, old. I feel like I have a lot to contribute, but no one seems to want my contributions. I even had to work HARD to give away my children's book collection - 1112 books, that I finally managed to find a home for.

Unemployment and job seeking is painful. Each new rejection says you aren't wanted. And, though I can understand the reasons - my skills aren't exactly what they need and they have a huge number of people to choose from - rejection still hurts. Every time.

And this is the stage of my life when I am supposed to have figured it all out and feel that I am fulfilling my true self.

I certainly hope this isn't my true destiny. I don't like spending most of the day crying.