Friday Free For All - Too Smart for My Own Good

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Sometimes . . .

I just want to scream.

I had this great idea about Hip-Hop and Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs that I hoped to write about today, but I think that's a subject for another time. I'm still confused and reeling about the whole PD thing and I'm still trying to make sense of the mess that is my life. I want to understand why I feel the way I feel so that maybe I can begin to feel better, or at least differently. At the best of times I am still very lonely, and at the worst - completely and utterly lost in the world. I've been looking to psychology for the answers but I feel like I get nothing but contradictions. The science of the mind is not a precise one and yet it seems that the Bible of the field is used to both define and negate each individual affliction. We are told that the DSM VI is "just a guide" while it feels like we are pigeonholed into this or that disorder found within.

When I did not have health insurance I chose to act as though there was nothing wrong with my brain. My problems became "that thing I don't have". What else could I do? The cost of acknowledging the problem was staggering. After several months of therapy and medicinal compliance, I've come back to that way of thinking - sort of. It is a fact that I think, feel, and act differently from the accepted norm. At times this difference is more noticeable than at others, but it is always there. I move from tableaux to tableaux, all like a game in a child's coloring book. "Find which one is different" is the unspoken instruction, and in each scene, I am the one to be found and circled. I am not the same, of that I am certain. What I am not sure of is whether or not I am, in fact, broken. Following that train of thought has done nothing but cause me more grief, as my broken-ness seems to be the kind that is managed rather than repaired.

What if there were another explanation? What if there was nothing wrong with me in the first place; what if I am exactly as I should be? What if this oppressive difference I feel so often were a sign, not of something wrong, but of something simply out of place, like fine caviar on the menu at a Waffle House. There's nothing wrong with the caviar, but it certainly doesn't belong on the menu next to the hashbrowns and toast, now does it?

I am the caviar and I have been living in a Waffle House world.

I spent quite a long time today looking for my psychological paperwork from 2008 because it includes my IQ score. For whatever reason, I am rather certain that my IQ is 127. Not altogether impressive, but above average - to be sure. There's some evidence that people who are of a higher intelligence experience feelings of isolation, depression, perfection, and underachievement. Sounds a lot like all those psychological issues i have, don't it? While I might not be in the "gifted" range (That would require a 130), most people I come into contact with are keenly aware of my intellect. It's often commented on. I'm not trying to sound smug and "OMG I am so smart!". Most of the time, I don't feel that smart at all. I am highly deferential with regard to any talent I have for fear of looking like an asshole. Humility is supposed to be a good thing, right? (Of course, I take it to an extreme wherein I never feel pride in the things I do and while I crave praise and gold stars, when I get receive it I'm very "Aw shucks" about it. I probably need to work on this, but that's another matter for another time.)

What's my point here? That perhaps it would be beneficial to reframe my situation. I am smart. I am good at a lot of things. I have a very high vocabulary. I think outside of the box. I am a generally good person. I like rules and order, but I am very disorganized. I am easily overwhelmed. I deal with a lot of anxiety. I am compassionate. I am a good friend. If I take away all the suffering and the labels I am human, right? A smart and funny human. Maybe I am too smart for my own good, but that's a far easier psychological burden to bear than facing a myriad of disorders and conditions that can be controlled, but never cured. Whether my specific brain chemistry and neurological intricacies are working for or against me at any given time is really inconsequential and whether I was born this way, or "made [this way] through years of systematic abuse", I am what I am, and I think I have a choice at this point about how to proceed, for the sake of my sanity.

Am I going to stop taking my meds and going to therapy? No. It's helping. Am I going to stop researching the things that I am told are psychologically wrong with me? No. Knowledge is power, and if knowing something like "list making is detrimental" helps me to make some progress in my everyday life, I see no problem with that. Am I going to stop it with the humility act? Yes. I'm going to try at least. It sucks to be the only sober person in a room. It sucks even more to be the smartest person in the room, but neither are anything to be ashamed of. The best thing I could do for myself is to seek out like minded people. I am stagnating intellectually and I think that, more than anything else is the key to my personal misery. It's never good to spend too much time in your head, but it's just as damaging to be continually shut down by people who don't understand you at all. It's really not their fault, or mine, but it still cuts from the inside out.

Email correspondence to old friends. Reading. Writing. Dancing. Singing. Sweating. Coffee dates with my Deep friends. These things are integral to my mental health. Goals, guilt, shame, "should"s, to-do lists, and labels on the other hand have got to go. My mother was always fond of saying "There's a thin line between a genius and a madman." This always stung. It was usually uttered when someone who was conventionally seen as very smart did something my mother considered very stupid. It was harsh and judgy. It was uttered as a warning that I too could fall from grace. Now, here I am at the foot of the pedestal on which I was once displayed and looking up to where I once sat, the bottom and the top aren't really all that different. The fall was scary, and while I may have shattered upon impact, I'm finding that the pieces of me may have been designed to come undone.