The Sensitivities of Gifted People

Compared with most people:

• Gifted people are more receptive and responsive to more stimuli.  Everything comes in.  They are more intense and they have trouble screening out.
• Being  more sensitive and insightful, they have more to deal with and are more easily overloaded.
• They have a larger drain on their system’s ability to deal with the environment.
• Since they experience more of the world, they have more to process, deal with, and cope with.
• They often do not cope the way others think they should.
• They feel that they should not make mistakes and should know better.  They hesitate to ask for help as a result of receiving many subtle messages that they should be able to handle it.  They regret that other people probably wouldn’t understand anyway.
• They perceive themselves as more vulnerable.
• In their own minds, they are likely to make more mistakes because they are more aware of more choices and thus, more potential for error.
• They must compromise their ideals more often.  For them, every possibility has vast options and nuances and shades of meaning.
• They may be discouraged by being aware of the “more” that is denied and not possible to actualize.  Denying, thus, leads to more frustration and grief for the loss of what they never had.
• Even though much may be actualized, they are usually denying more than they are actualizing.
• Still, there are more possibilities to excel and what is manifest may be excellent.    Worth of accomplishments may be based more on personal meaning than product.

Ways to Encourage:

• Help the gifted person understand and accept his thought process and his differences from most other people.
• Develop peer interaction and a sense of acceptance by being in the company of those who share the same struggle.  When one is received, his ideas are great because they are also now within another.  To receive helps to validate and convey courage.