At the intersection of post traumatic stress, overachieving and giftedness…
A snapshot of my inner world in times of needing to produce content
I just got off the phone with my brilliant therapist, Lori. We celebrated our three-year anniversary this month and it was wild to reflect on where I am now and where I was where we started!
One thing that Lori brought up to me early on in our sessions was the idea that I was “gifted”.
You say this to any Swede and they will throw up a little bit in their mouth. I’ve talked about the “Law of Jante” before – basically the same as the “tall poppy syndrome” – it’s the idea that you shouldn’t stick out too much in any way or think you’re better than anyone. So when she mentioned my “giftedness”, I fought her pretty hard on it. That was until she handed me the book “Liberating Everyday Genius - A revolutionary guide to identifying and mastering your exceptional gifts”.
Here’s a paragraph from the book description:
“Are you relentlessly curious and creative, always willing to rock the boat in order to get things done…extremely energetic and focused, yet constantly switching gears…intensely sensitive, able to intuit subtly charged situations and decipher others' feelings…a truth-teller who pushes toward perfection, driven by a sense of personal mission…? If these traits sound familiar, then you may be an Everyday Genius. These are people who break the mold and change the world, who actualize their singular talents, who don't hesitate to "think different." They are not a tiny group of rocket scientists or profoundly brilliant prodigies, nor are they all former straight-A students. They are real people of unusual vision who share one overarching characteristic: They push progress forward.”
It described me to a T. And as I progressed through the book and its quizzes, I scored high on all of them. According to the book, I ranked highly on the “Evolutionary IQ” chart…
After three years of working with Lori (minus a recent break) I’ve finally accepted that I do, in fact, have some seriously potent gifts. In some ways, I am actually exceptional. (I write as I hide under my desk, lest the Jante-police has been notified and are coming to get me, finally…🚔).
I’ve also come to learn, that without understanding and knowing how to work with this part of myself, giftedness can be an extremely challenging aspect of my personality. When left unacknowledged, it is far from a gift but actually becomes an immensely heavy burden to bear.
Living with the intensity of my personality and a genuine lack of understanding of who the hell I was (very different) while growing up I developed some extreme forms of perfectionism and an inability to rest. I, or the things I produced, could always be better…improved…expanded! This coupled with the complex post-traumatic stress (cPTSD) of my early life and later, traditional PTSD – sorting out my psyche and working on my healing has been an exhausting, constant, part-time job.
It’s been fascinating (and sometimes painful) to be in relationship with myself while working on publishing this newsletter. Two weeks ago, I announced that I’m going from weekly to bi-weekly newsletters. Immediately my perfectionist part became loud and demanded that the bi-weekly newsletters be MUCH better than the weekly ones.
As I was entering this week, I was forced to face the reality that I’m actually really plain tired. For the past month, my husband has been sick and experienced back pain. This has resulted in more responsibility for the kids on my plate. I’ve simultaneously been supporting my friends and family through intense personal crises/changes, and finally, I’ve also supported my biggest client with a big sale.
So here we are, it’s Friday and no article has been written. Fuck. Now what?!
Option 1: (Heavily preferred by my controlling part)
Attack the next big topic (Shame!) on my topic list and push myself to complete it and send it out before Sunday. This option allows me to stay within my cadence of bi-weekly stellar emails and I would allow me to grant myself a gold star for sticking with my plan at all costs.
Option 2: (Aligned with my core values of letting the flow of life sustain me and not forcing)
Just write an imperfect article from the heart about where I’m at, give myself a short deadline to complete it, so I can relax this weekend, and let it be enough.
You can tell from reading this which option won out today.😊
I know, I truly fucking KNOW, that my life doesn’t work when I live from perfectionism and pushing. Yet, it is SO very tempting to allow that part to take over the reins. I have a big, fat highway of neuropathways in my brain ready to kick into autopilot mode. Coffee, late nights, obsessing over tiny details, and BOOM! A perfect article ready to be served up, and all the controlling parts feel soothed for a few precious moments. Until they don’t and the whole thing starts up again.
No, thank you.
I’m ready to learn from pleasure, but - as I arrive at the intersection of giftedness, PTSD, and perfectionism - it takes SO MUCH presence, willingness to be uncomfortable and self-love to choose the tiny path of joy and ease!
But, today I managed!
I made the path a little wider with my choice to stay slow and be kind to myself, instead of being perfect and living up to my own high standards.
Hooray!! Celebration time!!! 🎉 🥂
If you want to celebrate with me, come tell me one way you can be kinder to yourself and less of a perfectionist in the comments - or send me an email back. I love to hear from you (I really, really do!).
With love,
Karna 💜
Resources
Working with giftedness:
Liberating Everyday Genius by Mary-Elaine Jacobsen
Your Rainforest Mind: A Guide to the Well-Being of Gifted Adults and Youth by Paula Prober
Living with Intensity by Susan Daniels and Michael M. Piechowski
Personal empowerment:
Counterclockwise by Ellen Langer (recommended by my friend Brandi Bernowskie).
Working with inner parts:
Internal Family Systems - Institute: Internal Family Systems is a powerfully transformative, evidence-based model of psychotherapy. We believe the mind is naturally multiple and that is a good thing. Our inner parts contain valuable qualities and our core Self knows how to heal, allowing us to become integrated and whole. In IFS all parts are welcome.
Voice Dialogue: Voice Dialogue is the basic method for contacting, learning about, and working with the many selves that make up each of us.
Experience the evolution of the Aware Ego Process that allows you to embrace all of these selves, have real choice, and live life more fully and consciously.
At the intersection of post traumatic stress, overachieving and giftedness…
You're awesome ❤️💪
PTSD. Those four insignificant letters, by themselves harmless, but together, they are seismic. How I wished I knew how care for myself and pace myself during my working years when all the trouble in the world was my business. Trauma, both experienced and observed, changes us physiologically. It wounds us, but the wounds are invisible. “Why can’t you just get over it?” So we withdraw into ourselves, into our self medication of choice, into our darkness, away from the light.
There is a way back, but it takes courage and trust. The light will gradually return. The anxiety, the depression, and the nightmares can lose their potency and traumatic memories can become just memories safely in the past, without the immediate presence of trauma, and they cannot hurt us anymore.