Are you a former Gifted Kid? Anxious about trying new things as an adult because you'll be bad at them? Me too! I'd highly recommend a video from psychiatrist @dr_alokkanojia on his channel @HealthyGamerGG. Video inside 👇
twitter.com/kindofsquishy/status/1306355884650455040?s=20&t=ZoUwNyegPaOD2nLYnGJzVQ
The full video is long, but I think Dr. K does a great job of explaining the psychology of "growing up gifted." It's of course only a theory, but rings true for me. Here's a clip, and I'll summarize some of his message below.
1️⃣Gifted Kids get by academically through childhood and adolescence using their intellect, but at some point start to rely on their intellect/IQ for almost ALL things, instead of developing other parts of themselves, like EQ, social dynamics, other life skills, etc.
2️⃣Gifted Kids often define themselves by their gifted-ness. It's our Identity. By definition, gifted means "effortless success." So we steer ourselves toward things that come naturally to us, and avoid things that are hard for us.
3️⃣Gifted Kids have a hard time getting help, because our cognitive biases are so strong — our brains are great at coming up with evidence about why we're always right about something! Dr. K calls this "Help Seeking / Help Rejecting."
They may know they want or need help in a certain area of life, but their intellect is so good at thinking through all the possibilities (and their likelihood) that they may jump to a conclusion — and by doing that, make a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I hate to keep inserting all these clips — because the entire video is just *so* good — but Dr. K highlights this self-fulfilling prophecy so well by describing not wanting to go a party because you're not sure if you'll have a good time:
(Have I convinced you to watch the whole thing now?)
As a former Gifted Kid turned "anxious adult with thousands of abandoned hobbies" — I think this video will really resonate with you, or help you with your own Gifted Kid in your life.
I cannot thank Dr. K enough for his videos (posted freely to his Youtube Channel) youtube.com/c/HealthyGamerGG and his Twitch channel. I have no affiliation to him, but he has a foundation you can support, and also signup for coaching from his team too.
healthygamerfoundation.org/
Twitch is a streaming website where gamers can watch their favorite players and chat with them. Dr. K uses the streaming platform to discuss mental health/life questions sent to him and interact with viewers (who often have the same issues).
twitch.tv/healthygamer_gg
We desperately need new models for mental health, this is one: Internet-based group therapy, providing a really healthy space for many to discuss their problems, understand them, talk about solutions, and see that the problems are shared by others (yet still be fairly anonymous).
The channel has videos on tons of other topics:
Wasting Time on the Internet: youtube.com/watch?v=RPzV8fWmKPY
What Is Meditation: youtube.com/watch?v=dvq48pfJa9w
How ADHD Makes Life Hard: youtube.com/watch?v=svD71EJWOBU
And live interviews with people about their mental health:
This is not "Woe is the poor, suffering Gifted Kid." It's just a great example of everything in life having upsides and downsides. And a sense that we all have struggles, and can all improve.
(Thanks to Dr. K for allowing me to clip and include these videos, and I also have to plug @clipchamp which I recently discovered as a great free tool to clip videos in the browser and @4kvideodownload to easily download Youtube videos as well.)