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Friday, December 09, 2005

 

Killer PMS

Flink found me online and asked me, "Is PMS worse for smart girls?" You can read my full answer here but here's a highlight:

The point is that gifted people are more sensitive to, well, pretty much everything. That's why I didn't notice PMS for all that time, because I was getting constantly triggered by other things in life. If normal people experience themselves and the world like regular 52-channel cable, gifted people have an enormous sattelite dish with thousands of channels. So yes, it is going to be harder for us because we are simply more aware.

This is why I want to get into schools so badly and let gifted kids know about overexcitabilities. If we don't grow up knowing that we are more susceptible to and reactive to life's normal ups and downs, we can start to think there is something badly wrong with us. For me, this led to a scary run through the mental health system before I finally found someone who could normalize giftedness for me. My own esoteric calling is to help prevent this for as many people as I can.

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Comments:
PMS is NOT my friend. She takes me to a deep dark dungeon and shackles me to the wall, leaving me to wallow in desperation and self-hate. My hair changes from golden locks to Medusa inspired man eating snakes that hiss irreverently at the guy who kindly brings me food. My mind reels worst-case scenarios interupted only by memories of embarassing things I did in junior high school.

In a 'bout of depression in my late 20's I saw a Dr. of Natural Medicine. Come to find out my progesterone levels were way below normal. It is a simple fix, a transdermal cream. When Medusa arrives, I slather on the ointment.
 
PMS and gifted people. Interesting theory you have there, I dunno if Im gifted but the sensitivity graph does take a joy ride when its those days of the month!! I think its normal hon... all beings from venus experience it.


I like your blog.
 
An interesting post-script to this discussion is that I spoke with a friend of mine who I consider to be quite smart about this idea of hyper-pms and she told me that she had been assessed as a gifted child when she was young (I hadn't known) and that it had become problematic for her as a term since then.

She was of the opinion that it is a label applied to kids who exhibit non-normal behaviours to help middle class parents feel happy about their strange off-spring.

I wasn't sure how to respond to this, because i think the term is much more valuable than that. But she made a very convincing case for her side saying that once diagnosed she had felt alienated from her brothers, who were not considered gifted simply because they fit in, and events didn't seem to affect tham as strongly as they did her.

So now, in a complete tangent from the PMS: What do you think of this idea, that gifted is a label that exists more for a parents peace of mind?

ps: i was never tested to see if I was gifted as a child, so I think my view point comes from a sense of interest less than any personal experience.

the flink
 
Hello - new to this blog and wanted to comment on the comments -I guess I am Anonymous the 2nd and am responding to Anonymous the 1st.

Regarding the individual who said she feels alienated from her brothers once she was diagnosed as gifted, another position would be that being diagnosed as gifted helped her identify the feeling she already had - i.e. helped put a word to a pre existing feeling.

Also I think the individual if not diagnosed as being gifted would eventually figure out and hopefully over time identify the alienation feelings she has always had.


Another thought - consider this - what about the young adult who determined from her own research and reflection that she are gifted.
Her parents (middle class or another class) did not recognized or identified the child as gifted.

Alot of parents place a "giftedness" label on their children as an excuse not to do anything. This supports Anonymous the 1st position.

However there are other parents who after discovering their child as gifted, do research to understand the complexities of giftedness and then try to parent and school their children in a manner to make the child comfortable with their giftedness and help them cope with the outside world. In doing so, the parent may understand a bit of their own giftedness.

So I think the issue of labelling giftedness should be judged on what is done afterwards. Judge the labeller on their actions and not their words.

Thanks for reading my comments.
 
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