Discovering my highly sensitive character trait last year put me on a rollercoaster for a few months. So to imagine for even two seconds that I could belong to another category of so-called "atypical" profiles was almost impossible... And yet... It took me a few months of reading, listening to podcasts and questioning before I came to this question:
AND IF I WAS A SO-CALLED HIGH POTENTIAL ?
I may sound like a complete idiot, but when I wrote to my sister to share my doubts and questions, her answer was without hesitation. "I always said you were gifted!"
When I read her message, a storm broke out inside me. Gifted. I HATE that word. I hate it with a force that disarms me. And that is surely the proof of so many years spent in denial. At school, I already had trouble accepting the label of nerd, so I don't even want to talk about gifted...
And then in gifted, there is the sense of having something more, but also beyond. More intelligent, therefore, but also superior to anyone below that standard of giftedness. My emotions and I were well aware that we were already "too much", so I didn't want anyone to think that I was also "more"...
Also, to be honest, at school I was far from being a genius. It wasn't my knowledge that got me good results but rather the fact that I understood what the teachers expected of us and that I served it to them on a plate. That was my only genius, but I could never have thought that my sense of observation and my perception of others was indeed my intelligence.
THE DISCOVERY
This year, under the advice of two friends, I dug into the subject. I read books, listened to audiobooks, podcasts, with the constant doubt in me of a possible reality of the subject. I recognized myself in most of these writings, but it was finally the book "I think too much" by Christel Petitcollin that made me feel like a slap in the face. Perhaps because she talks about "mental overachievers" or "surefficient mental" in french and avoids the word giftedness, precisely because she talks about the complete rejection of this word by the gifted themselves.
She returns to the very activity of the brain of the high potential people. To the very atypical functioning. She talks about the feeling of difference that most high potentials or HPIs try to hide, to conceal in their relationships. She talks about this inner uneasiness that nobody understands, sometimes, not even psychologists if they have not spotted this trait in their patient. She talks about the increased differences between "normopensants" (meaning those in the normal range, 70 to 80% of the population, with linear thinking) and the hyper brains or HIP, with tree-like thinking. She talks about the subject at length, and I believe that it is her straightforwardness and the frankness of her words that finally convinced me.
ACCEPTANCE
However, to be honest, in the last few months I've gone through all kinds of feelings:
ANGER: of not having been spotted as a child and of not having put a word to who I was earlier in my life (apparently it is very common for HPI girls to go unnoticed more than boys, because of the norms imposed by society on little girls)
DECEPTION: I have wasted so many years in a false-self to try in vain to blend in... While I discover today that I will never be like the others. There is some grieving to do.
THE RELIEF: discovering I am an HSP had gently led me on this path but I must confess that there were still moments when I thought "what's wrong with me". Understanding that I simply function differently from most people and that my difference, often pointed out by my ex-partners, is not that unique, has taken a big weight off my shoulders.
ACCEPTANCE: writing this today is the proof. Accepting who I am, becoming one with this sensitivity and this brain that is so overwhelming at times, but finally being able to give myself the freedom to be me.
NOW WHAT ?
In her book, she evokes the continuous need of the HIP to talk about their difference in order to try to be better understood. With an unconscious desire to change the world. For me, in my friendships, I think it has always passed. In my love and family relationships, on the other hand, it always failed. And I think that was the idea behind this blog at the beginning. I wanted to shout my difference to the world and make it accepted by others. But if I believe her book, my quest will be in vain.
She confesses, without filters, that most people will have a block to the very concept of high potential brains. And that they won't feel like discussing it. Not because they don't like me as a person. But simply because their brains feed on facts, more scientific and linear, than the more abstract ones that right brains feed on. (And, obviously, things aren't just white or black. You could be a very curious "normopensants" ready to dig into deep conversation or a HIP person refusing to talk about those) But in the end, you know what? That's okay, it's actually quite good. It takes all kinds to make a world, right?
And then, after all these journeys, all these years of doubts and questions, I think I finally found the last piece of the puzzle that was missing. The one of reconciliation. With myself and with the world...
Before, when I looked at pictures of my childhood, I constantly saw them as an enigma. I often found myself lost in the photos. But now everything makes sense.
And this is the very first time I can look into the blue eyes of all these little versions of myself with sympathy, love, forgiveness and compassion.
And I assure you that this is priceless.
I'll write to you soon,
Love.
Co.
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