
Existential Depression in Gifted Children - JacksonGariety
http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10269.aspx
======
MichaelAza
I cried a little.

I'm 18 and since 3rd grade I was in a special class for gifted children. I
know this feeling so well, from my experience and from those of my classmates
and friends, it literally hurts.

I'm no psychiatrist but from my nonobjective personal experience depression in
gifted children and your regular "normal" teenage depression are completely
different, in symptoms as well as in cause, which I think the article
illustrates nicely.

I think the people criticizing the article for focusing on children and on
gifted children specifically don't understand it's a whole different world.
There are whole fields of study in psychology, psychiatry, education studies
and other fields that focus on gifted children because they need a completely
different system to thrive. People, especially family and educators, need to
know about this.

~~~
dkural
Just don't get too used to thinking being gifted is particularly rare and
requires a different system to thrive. Many acquaintances of mine at a certain
crimson ivy university grew up with similar notions, and got into a different
kind of depression once being surrounded by other 'gifted' individuals - due
to having the 'world view' they've internalized so far, around the notion of
them being special, getting totally crushed. Many also got used to explaining
away their flaws as somehow being related to them being brilliant. This notion
of specialness being crushed, they also saw those thing for what they are -
failings, i.e. that they fail to connect with young people their age due to
poor social skills, and not due to them gifts; and this becomes obvious now
that others around them are also smart, etc. They realized that even if you're
1/1000 this means Facebook could staff the entire company with even more
gifted Americans, and you'd still not make it, and so on.

These people are also crushed to learn upon graduation that people don't
automatically revel in their obvious greatness, and that they need to earn
their place by actually delivering / 'executing' on some of that potential.

TL;DR: Smart teenagers tend to not realize they are still 99% teenager, 1%
smart. That itself is a teenager like habit.

Humans have roughly similar meta-emotional makeups and thrive in environments
that cater to this. Gifted or not, children and teenagers thrive where they
can expand their social, intellectual, emotional, spiritual boundaries and
capabilities in a trusting, safe, encouraging environment. Thus the 'system'
is the same, the gifted merely require a different mix of 'content'. They may
be advanced in certain ways but normal or behind in others.

~~~
MichaelAza
I agree that the system makes us think we're a special little snowflake and
I've had the whole "I'm not that special" crushing experience, but I do truly
believe that gifted children need a different environment to thrive. I
wouldn't have lasted long among my peers, socially and academically.

~~~
padolsey
No doubt, but unfortunately it's probably not as simple as placing the
'gifted' ones in one room and the 'ungifted' ones in another. Surely its a
spectrum?

------
angersock
The only two real issues I've got with this article are that it limits itself
in scope to the "gifted" and that it limits itself to children.

As for the latter issue, I suspect that this may fit into a broader work or
area that the author presumes readers are familiar with--these issues are
certainly seen in teenagers and afterwards.

As for the first point, a bit of a cliche but still accurate is the saying
"The rain falls on the just and the unjust alike"; at some level, everyone
I've met sharp or dull, gifted or not has run up against some version of the
four issues (death, freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness). It may take
until middle age and a house and a picket fence and seventy grand in debt, but
it hits eventually.

One of the best realizations I've come to is that _everyone_ , at some level
or another, faces these problems in their own way and that I should try and
respect their experience--because for them, their existential conflict is at
least as severe as my own, their circumstances and stakes at least as dire.

What struck me as interesting was the author's specifically calling out touch
as a mechanism for grounding and comfort--this struck a chord with me when I
read it. It's part of the reason I have dogs: there is a very real touchable
physical presence of pet, something to hold and hug and pet when you're
mulling over some of the day's shittiness.

tl,dr; life's a bitch, get a dog.

~~~
cbhl
_The only two real issues I 've got with this article are that it limits
itself in scope to the "gifted" and that it limits itself to children._

I think that can be entirely attributed to where it is published -- the
website of a 501(c)3 that solely focuses on "gifted children".

~~~
mtrimpe
_> Such concerns are not too surprising in thoughtful adults who are going
through mid-life crises. However, it is a matter of great concern when these
existential questions are foremost in the mind of a twelve or fifteen year
old. Such existential depressions deserve careful attention, since they can be
precursors to suicide. _

This paragraph explains why it is relevant to focus on gifted children.

I can attest to that as I still have rather vivid memories of standing on the
edge of the roof berating myself for not having the guts to actually jump.

------
Arun2009
I googled Dabrowski and Positive Disintegration Experience and was led to
this:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Disintegration](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Disintegration)

I found the following especially interesting:

 _Dąbrowski also described a group of people who display a different course:
an individualized developmental pathway. These people break away from an
automatic, rote, socialized view of life (which Dąbrowski called negative
adjustment) and move into and through a series of personal disintegrations.
Dąbrowski saw these disintegrations as a key element in the overall
developmental process. Crises challenge our status quo and cause us to review
our self, ideas, values, thoughts, ideals, etc. If development continues, one
goes on to develop an individualized, conscious and critically evaluated
hierarchical value structure (called positive adjustment). This hierarchy of
values acts as a benchmark by which all things are now seen, and the higher
values in our internal hierarchy come to direct our behavior (no longer based
on external social mores). These higher, individual values characterize an
eventual second integration reflecting individual autonomy and for Dąbrowski,
mark the arrival of true human personality. At this level, each person
develops his or her own vision of how life ought to be and lives it. This
higher level is associated with strong individual approaches to problem
solving and creativity. One 's talents and creativity are applied in the
service of these higher individual values and visions of how life could be -
how the world ought to be. The person expresses his or her "new" autonomous
personality energetically through action, art, social change and so on._

------
narrator
The book that taught me to spiritually make sense of a world that is a
constant let down was "The Master and Margarita" by Bulgakov. The author wrote
it in secret while living with totalitarianism and meaninglessness in
Stalinist Russia.

If you're not in the mood for a book, there's a great mini-series adaptation
that was produced in Russia in the 2000s that takes about a week to watch. It
does an almost perfect job of reproducing the book. I don't think it's
available online.

~~~
dkural
I've often thought that in a warped, twisted way totalitarianism gives meaning
to life for certain people. If it opression is so intense to make life
worthless, then one has a cause dearer than life itself - to fight this
opression. This struggle itself is meaningful. Many 'hero' movies are
structured in this way, the 'good guys' have a cause, usually around defeating
some kind of evil, that gives them ultimate purpose.

Likewise, I've found friends with far worse actual problems in the developing
world to be existentially happier. They derive great pleasure in being able to
go to a rock concert, etc. The game dynamics still work for the majority. Lots
of intermediary issues to overcome, bosses to beat. Threat of destruction
(socially or economically) seems to be wonderfully stimulating. Game dynamics
still work.

What I find far worse is the banality of the first world. That seems to evoke
and ferment existential concerns. Kind of along the lines of
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98LeLZ2crZE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98LeLZ2crZE)

In a way, it is the problem one faces once more basic things are taken care
of. Hard to focus on existential angst when hungry.

At the end of the day, even though the universe itself may be arbitrary and
doomed, I found that the only things that infuse durable meaning into us as
humans is our love for each other, our desire to understand this universe, and
our appreciation of beauty in all its forms.

~~~
penguindev
Man's Search for Meaning is about totalitarianism to the extreme; having no
freedom except that in how you choose to react. The author was a prisoner in a
Nazi concentration camp.

And about first world banality - the book of Ecclesiastes in the the bible
addresses this also:

"I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My
heart took delight in all my labor, and this was the reward for all my toil.
Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to
achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was
gained under the sun."

I had the existential depressions when I was 19 - 24. I dropped out of college
and all my parents knew to do (and did) was put me in a psych ward and 'treat'
me with electroshock. That didn't work.

~~~
reinhardt
What worked then?

------
Vivtek
Gifted children are intense? Has the author ever actually been around
children? They're _all_ intense. That's the nature of children!

Of course, they may simply all be gifted until they're hammered into their
little social boxes; I've often thought that. Some of us weirdos just can't be
hammered as efficiently, or break before bending or something.

~~~
Vivtek
(Also, the guy in the picture is probably not depressed due to nihilism, but
because he forgot to put a dropcloth down before painting - I know I've cursed
myself for that one before.)

~~~
angersock
Perhaps a very subtle hint at the existential crises we all have of living
with the corners we've painted ourselves into?

------
asolove
A somewhat different response is found in "The drama of the gifted child,"
which argues that gifted children, having been singled out for attention
because of their impressive abilities, become dependent on validation from
authority figures and then have trouble adapting to self-directed life as an
adult:
[http://www.amazon.com/dp/0465016901](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0465016901)

~~~
gboudrias
Well, it doesn't help that most parents want to see their child as "gifted".
We as a society put a _lot_ of emphasis on inborn qualities ("being smart"),
rather than growth and hard work.

It's not surprising when the dream of many is to have it easy. Being smart is
easy. Working hard is hard. I remember there being a study where successful
kids who were told they worked hard ended up working harder (and over time
getting better results) than kids who were told they are smart.

I guess what I'm saying is everyone has impressive abilities, but the
authority figures' guidance may be what will differentiate a lazy "smart"
person from a hard working (successful) one.

------
molbioguy
Giftedness is misunderstood. That even highly educated audiences don't get
this is evident in some of the comments here. Giftedness is terribly named. It
is more affliction than blessing. Giftedness is rare. Gifted kids are not the
same as brilliant high achievers. They have high IQ's but are also
underachievers (by regular standards, not some elevated bar) and often
dropouts. They should be highly successful but are not and often commit
suicide. Gifted children are routinely dismissed as overly privileged or
advantaged kids, and usually do not get any special needs attention in
schools. People see their intellectual side and ignore their emotional needs
and problems. I can say from personal experience that while gifted kids are
exceptional in many ways, they also tend to lead difficult lives with many
challenges because they are so deeply misunderstood. Even by their own
parents.

~~~
bsenftner
I second this. I was identified as "gifted" around 3rd grade, and from that
point on, my teachers "guided me" (only allowed me access to) literature and
texts they felt were "at my level". Third grade is way too young to be reading
literature classics - they are all incredible tragedies, with the worse
aspects of human behavior exhibited and analyzed to the extreme. By 5th grade
I'd pretty much finished the entire classics section at our library, and I was
as dark minded as an individual could get, with the vocabulary to support plus
youthful piss and vinegar ready to debate anyone with optimism.

Thank god I discovered literary science fiction, and soon thereafter Phillip K
Dick. I found reading "unhappy" literature was comforting, and U.K. post-punk
bands like Joy Division also lent a sense of not being completely alone. Also
reading Malcome X was hugely uplifting, as a white Iowa boy. And the cyper-
punk authors were just starting then; I remember reading Neuromancer when it
first came out and feeling completely at home in the reality painted by that
novel.

About the only "good" thing that came out of my elementary school teachers
only allowing me access to "gifted" activities was their taking me out of math
class and leaving me alone with the school's first computer (this was the late
70's) for 2 hours every day.

------
sidcool
I faced some of these issues during my early teens. It went away after that.
Now I am 29 and facing the mid life crisis that the author has mentioned. It's
a confused state of big dreams and crushing reality.

~~~
angersock
Shoot me an email if you need to vent--we all need can use someone to chat
with now and again.

~~~
sidcool
Thanks for your kind words. It means a lot!!

------
jwheeler79
When I was in the third or fourth grade, I had an extreme form of this type of
depression that lasted for maybe a year or longer. Instead of just reflecting
on the meaning of life, I worried reality might not be real and understood
even then at my young age there's no way to prove the people around me weren't
constructs of my imagination. I came to these conclusions independently
without ever hearing of Brain in a Vat, Evil Genius, or watching The Matrix,
and it was very terrifying back then.

As I've grown up, I still realize there's no way to prove the world around me
is real, but I'm glad I encountered this theory so young because I've had a
good while to be motivated by the fact that it doesn't matter if it isn't
real. What matters is what I do with this experience and how much joy I get
out of it.

------
asveikau
Not sure why the emphasis is on children especially. This seems to affect
thoughtful people of all ages.

Or maybe, in that thoughtful, existentially-depressed way, the author is just
understatedly asserting that adults are just big children. That would probably
be overthinking it.

~~~
heurist
It's on a website about talent development in gifted children, they're
speaking to their audience. The article has been around for a while.

~~~
asveikau
Ah. This makes my comment look silly then. Sometimes that kind of context is
not obvious when these things come up on a site like HN.

------
6ren
"As intelligence goes up, happiness goes down. See, I made a graph. I make
lots of graphs." \- Lisa Simpson

~~~
Fishkins
I know this post is at least partially a joke, but if there's any correlation
between IQ and happiness, it's positive.

[http://theboostbook.com/2013/01/link-between-intelligence-
an...](http://theboostbook.com/2013/01/link-between-intelligence-and-
happiness/)

~~~
eshvk
Apart from the fact that IQ as a measure of anything is completely bullshit,
sure. We can make such a correlation.

------
meric
I have felt those things before but then one day I had an epiphany. Everything
in this universe, living or dead, are all made of the same universe, like gems
cut from the same rock. So that even when I find myself having difficulties
with someone, something or even idea, I remind myself that we're all in this
together. The universe is us, its what we choose to make of it. The universe
isn't just one state of the universe but rather the transitions between one
state after another, just like how a movie isn't just the current frame I see,
but rather all the frames put together, and although the movie is going to
end, we don't know how the story is going to go. That part, is up to us, so
let's create something beautiful.

~~~
throwaway0xFF
I also had an experience where the existential depression went away. I thought
this comment on the original article described it pretty well:

 _The solution to existential depression is counter intuitive, which is
probably why it isn 't well known. Existential depression is caused by wanting
to have meaning when a part of us knows that meaning doesn't exist. We grow up
in a life where everyone around us jumps from one 'important' and 'meaningful'
thing to another, never seeing the pointlessness of it all. We think this is
normal so adopt the behavior, but we constantly fight ourselves because part
of us sees how pointless it really is. Our base state is where we see how
pointless everything is. However, this state does not create existential
depression. It's the conflict between the pointless state and the part of us
that wants meaning that creates existential depression. We enter suicidal
states only when we are unable to find a solution. (i.e. we are unable to find
something that has meaning.) The solution, which is now obvious, is to remove
all feelings of meaning and importance so that we return to our natural state.
If everything is meaningless than everything is unimportant. If everything is
unimportant than nothing is more important than anything else. When the
feelings of meaning and importance are removed, our existential depression
disappears._

Basically it felt like the abstract notions I had been worrying over were
indeed meaningless, but that the meaningful world from when I was a little kid
was still around, when I could capture the same intense non-verbal awareness.

~~~
buro9
I echo all of that.

Do you not also feel that sometimes it's hard to consciously think that it is
pointless and to feel yourself accidentally drifting back into a state of
trying to find meaning... to feel this existential depression creeping back?

I find it takes constant awareness (not effort) to maintain an idea that it is
all futile and pointless, to allow me to exist without any depression.

~~~
throwaway0xFF
Well, nowadays I just try to be aware in the moment and not focus on meaning,
the future, etc unless I need too. Success varies.

If I'm too hyper-focused on something (like coding) for too long though
sometimes I'll still get a similar feeling. Haven't found anything to do in
that case but wait it out.

~~~
buro9
I mix several things at all times to ensure the hyper-focus doesn't set in.

At the moment I code, cycle, read sci-fi, takes photos, and am just about to
buy an electric piano to add something else (as the coding was dominating
again).

------
zachlatta
A well written piece. The excessive use of "gifted" works against its
intentions though. By referring exclusively to "gifted" children the author is
throwing up a wall. Everyone has different levels of care and thought when it
comes to the world around us.

~~~
angersock
Well put; thank you for not jumping on the "hurr durr look at the special
snowflake language" bandwagon.

------
nate_martin
Site is giving a 500 error, here is the gcached version:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:piXqTtN...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:piXqTtNWJk0J:theunboundedspirit.com/existential-
depression-in-gifted-children/+http://theunboundedspirit.com/existential-
depression-in-gifted-children/&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

------
kapv89
I faced this "existential" crisis of a pretty severe nature in my college
years. I kept reading stuff about psychology, philosophy, and physics in the
hopes of an answer. The first breakthrough against this existential demon came
in the form of a course "non-linear dynamics and chaos", the ability of
chaotic equations to exhibit life and nature like behaviour, and understanding
that life is chaotic, and so is nature. The second one came when I realized
that philosophy and reason itself are handicapped, insufficient, powerless
against this existential dilemma. The third one came while reading Carl Jung
and his work, the fact that consciousness is a very small produce of the
biological system that is human body. Fourth when I read Nietzsche's "On Truth
and Untruth", which again showed how our speech has taken the form of animal's
claws, we fight, threaten etc mostly by what we say, that's like a higher
level of abstraction over the physical equivalent. Then there was Tolstoy, who
pointed out that its logical that we humans, if we really want to stay true to
ourselves, need a god, or something higher than ourselves to believe in,
because logically, if you are going to die, there is no reason to live, yet
every human and animal does. Then there was "Black Swan" by Taleb, which
drilled the idea into my head that we humans don't know even a tenth as much
as we think we do. And then there was programming, actually building systems
that exist outside of you and do something.

Over the years, I developed the worldview that as human body is formed by
numerous of organisms working together, and how futile would it be for a "red
blood cell", in all its consciousness, to ask "what is my purpose ?", the same
way its futile for human to ask about his/her place in the universe. I started
trying to live more like animals do (or rather, how a human animal would live
if it only had nature imposing rules on it), copying nature for decision-
making, and general wisdom (it even helps me with my work). We humans are
basically nature forming a greater system , the human society, which then
again competes with many other greater systems formed by other organisms, and
till now, has been doing pretty well.

I also have given up trying to control my conscious thought and efforts too
much. I trust the biological system that this consciousness came out of to
provide me with a better judgement than I can come up with consciously.

Its been around 2.5 years since i cleared up the existential crisis in my
head, and my growth since then has even astounded me. I have become better,
much better in all spheres of life, and I can't remember a time I was more
happier than these 2.5 years

~~~
aridiculous
I loved this comment and went through a serious critical study of those
domains as well.

I have a clarifying question: Isn't human consciousness and troublesome
curiosity -- things you seem to be minimalizing and attempting to tone down --
just as real as everything else? Could your view that questioning your place
in the universe as futile not be seen as escapist/defeatist? Why do you trust
the biological system for consciousness but not how that consciousness
operates?

~~~
kapv89
Yes, it is a very troublesome and magnificent curiosity, but realizing the
futility of thinking that "I _NEED_ to know my purpose in this universe" takes
out the troublesome part of that curiosity. The thing is, even if I waste my
whole life in search for an answer, and still discover nothing, then also, I'd
have played out my part as a useless prick in the universe (Read up stuff
about free will, there is a paradox or something). I'm much more happier doing
things that intrigue me push me, fascinate me, and overall, are in sync with
the "biological system" that my consciousness developed on, than spend my time
pondering on my "purpose".

Rest of this stuff is revealed when you actually do something, and push your
limits in it, the patterns that are revealed, and how the system based
abstractions and patterns really transcend various fields of knowledge and
practice.

Anyways. This is what I think, and since I am not rich or haven't "made it
big", , I won't be taken seriously by many people. And when, and if, I get
rich, people would try to "dig my brain", so to say. But I don't think a lot
of this stuff is "portable". Everyone needs to realize this type of stuff on
their own, come up with their own explanation.

~~~
pteredactyl
Thanks for sharing kapv89

------
ausjke
I have two kids both starting at age4 questioned me about death. I don't
believe in God so it's hard to calm them, but there is no better way to
comfort them, so I say we will all go to heaven when we die.

One day we visited my grandparents cemetery,my boy started crying, and asked
me why my grandparents are buried here while I said people went to heaven when
they are dead. I had to say that our body remains here, but our soul/spirit go
to heaven and we live there.

Then one night he tears again, then cry, when I ask, he said if it's just
spirits/souls go to heaven, we won't even have a face there, our family will
never be able to recognize each other, and we won't be able to re-unite in
heaven.

I almost cried myself.

------
danbmil99
I have to point out that a good percentage of people seem to gravitate towards
religious, spiritual, mystical, or other basically non-reason-based thought
patterns, I suspect to help alleviate this sense of existential hopelessness.
Perhaps these "gifted children" find it harder to go down that particular
route, for obvious reasons.

------
simonsarris
While I've read a fair bit of existentialist works I've never seen this term,
but I think I know what it means. I also think the article would be improved
by just titling itself "Existential Depression". The narrow focus is odd, even
if true, and might serve better as a footnote.

There's the strangest feeling I come across from time to time, and I think
"come across" is the only good way to describe it. Everyone has bouts of doubt
and melancholy, I think or would like to think, but there's something much
larger that creeps up that becomes harder to relate. In spite of the
difficulty to describe, I could imagine anyone might feel this way, not just
gifted children.

I always called it "The Cosmic Sadness", which is a name that I came up with
after experiencing the feelings while I was reading about heat death of the
universe (and associated articles) on Wikipedia[1]. This feeling ends up
upsetting (not quite right, maybe disquieting) me much more than things like
the death of a pet or a family member.

It doesn't only have to do with cosmological things, but I think it addresses
the scope of the feeling, where you get this sensation of being so zoomed out,
so encompassed by (perhaps) all that might be, that you have a hard time
coming back down to being you.

It's like when you ponder the plight of some character in a novel you're
reading, and you empathize enough to get a little upset, then you remember
that none of that is real and its OK you've gone one level up now back to real
life, no one is suffering like the character in the novel. You "snap out of
it" \- There's de-escalation, and some relief. But with the cosmic sadness
there is no going up one level, it's all there to ponder and still real. No
snapping out of it.

I was shocked by how this article ended because the only way of coping I have
(other than mere time), to de-escalate this feeling, is literature and poetry.
I tend to read several poems a day[2] as a kind of cathartic ritual, and
poetry brings a comfortable way to remember (or re-realize) the very
meaningful and concrete parts of experience, so I end up surrounding myself
with it, finding the most comfort in it.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death_of_the_universe](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death_of_the_universe)

[2] For example Where to Live, by Du Fu:
[https://gist.github.com/simonsarris/5472121](https://gist.github.com/simonsarris/5472121)

Du Fu is a favorite of mine because he lived during a time that experienced
one of the largest losses of human life on the planet (an lushan rebellion),
so a lot of his poetry dithers between bleakness and hope. Somehow this makes
it easy for me to reflect (perspective) and draw some inner sympathy for
everything.

~~~
chmike
The article focus on gifted children because it is a particular problem since
they can't share their thoughts and questions about it with friends. These
questions are somehow comming up "too early" in life wrt to their capacity to
cope with them. As adults we have collected enough data to be able to readjust
our understanding of life in a sound way. The depression is the phase that
follows the anger from not being able to cope with it. Helping these kids to
go through this phase is important because risk of suicide is also higher.

I don't want to diminish the problem of existential depression in adults. I
just want to point out that the problem is probably more accute and
troublesome in gifted children as I think the author tried to explain.

~~~
mtrimpe
Indeed. A thousand times this.

I had exactly what was described in the article in response to a car accident
(being hit while biking) that 'should have been fatal' at age 15.

The author's recommendation of a daily hug also resonates with me since if I
had to describe, 15 years later, what happened I'd say that the accident
caused my mind to retreat from my body and that it wasn't until I learnt to
enjoy physical touch again 7 years later that I felt I had recovered.

While my experience probably was a bit more intense than the article
describes, my guess is that it points to a failure mode in gifted (or let's
say 'mentally oriented') children in which they focus on their mind to the
exclusion of all else and lose track of their (physical) connection to the
world.

------
JacksonGariety
If a mod sees this, they should change the URL to this:

[http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10269.aspx](http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10269.aspx)

The link I posted was a re-blog on a website with a nicer reading experience.

------
stephengillie
[http://xkcd.com/167/](http://xkcd.com/167/)

~~~
cgag
[http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=14](http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=14)

~~~
eli_gottlieb
Yeah, I always wondered how the so-called existentialists aren't just yielding
ground to ideological fundamentalists.

------
themodelplumber
I really enjoyed reading that--especially the poem at the end (I remember
mentally rolling my eyes the first time I read it, thinking the message was
self-evident. But in this context it's just wonderful).

I do wish this sort of message could be part of an effective, formulaic
prescription that could be doled out to web surfers who are suffering.
"Depressed about things? Just keep scrolling down...watch this TED talk, heed
this advice, read this article..." My friend who surfs the web all day and who
tells me he has his suicide all planned out--I wish he could stumble on these
things more often. Maybe instead of a "CSS Site of the Day Award" badge there
could be a "Contemplating Suicide?" badge...

Another example, I wish I had learned before I became a film major that
imagery is powerful, and that our brains can confuse on-screen trauma with
real trauma. I suffered needlessly--and that sounds ridiculous and maybe
funny, thinking about a film major with wide eyes wondering just what he
signed up for--but I watched things that I will never forget, and that have
become part of a mental burden I work to release now that I'm a bit more
experienced in discerning what I can and can't handle.

I guess it pains me to think that while there are things we can do to ease
others' pain, there are many extremely simple, almost thoughtless ways by
which that existential depression worsens. Watch the wrong film. Read the
wrong book. Make the wrong song lyric your mantra. (Wrong...well, maybe
inappropriate is a better term; something that takes into account one's
personal state) Traditions, cultures, microcultures...transcending that sort
of thing is harder than most people realize, and certainly doesn't happen on
autopilot.

------
AYBABTME
Let's all get in a circle and talk about our experience as gifted children.

------
csense
I think there are two separate issues here:

(1) Existential depression, and

(2) Gifted kids have difficulties because adults don't talk to them as equals,
and their concerns and thought processes are difficult for their peers to
comprehend.

------
e12e
"In an infinite universe, the one thing sentient life cannot afford to have is
a sense of proportion." \-- Douglas Adams

------
hypertexthero
Another literary cure for the Great Sadness is Isaac Asimov's [The Last
Question]([http://filer.case.edu/dts8/thelastq.htm](http://filer.case.edu/dts8/thelastq.htm)).

~~~
Decade
So, the cure for the Great Sadness is basically... religion? Like a modern,
high-tech version of the Wheel of Time.

You do have to believe in a cause greater than yourself. All your passions and
drives die with you, so if you want life to be meaningful then you need to
contribute to something that will last.

------
hayksaakian
"The average person believes themselves to be above average"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority)

~~~
angersock
Read the article before spouting off.

~~~
hayksaakian
It was directed at the comments.

~~~
crgt
Perhaps HN attracts many gifted folks? Would that be so unexpected? The level
of discourse is quite high.

~~~
kungfooguru
Is this a joke?

~~~
crgt
The idea that the level of discourse on HN is high? Compared to say, Reddit?
Or YouTube comments? No, not a joke. It's my perception that many of the folks
participating on HN are, well, both gifted and engaged in the world. Do you
disagree?

------
davidxc
I think almost everyone struggles with this type of depression at some point
in life.

I'm not sure how much being gifted has to do with it. Strangely, one of the
things that has helped develop my framework for life is a fanfiction (Harry
Potter and the Methods of Rationality) [1], written by Eliezer Yudkowsky.

I think it's been recommended several times before on Hacker News, but it
really is a great fanfiction. The protagonist is an atheist and transhumanist
who wants to defeat death.

The author has also written many other essays that I find interesting and
sane. I'm an atheist who has occasionally struggled with the idea of death and
meaninglessness, and his essays were the first viewpoints that seemed to make
sense. [2] [3]

[1] [http://hpmor.com/](http://hpmor.com/)

[2] [http://yudkowsky.net/other/yehuda](http://yudkowsky.net/other/yehuda)

[3]
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/sc/existential_angst_factory/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/sc/existential_angst_factory/)

I really recommend that anyone here who has struggled with existential
depression to read the above three writings. Of course, it's very possible
that you'll still be depressed, in which case you'll need to look for other
solutions.

But Eliezer's writing helped significantly in cleaning up my life views.

------
INTPenis
I'm not saying I was ever overly gifted, I was just a very introvert child who
spent a lot of time thinking and through that became depressed about my
seemingly pointless existence.

Well I just wanted to say that what helped later in adult years was
discovering true love. I know it sounds corny but once you realize that life
on this earth is short, and that short time can be used to experience great
feelings of love and togetherness with other humans, you do feel less
depressed about it.

------
peter303
I've only experienced this right after high school, college and PhD
graduations. These were long term goals that dominated my life. There was bit
of emptiness once these goals were achieved. Plus there was a dispersion of
the social communities I had lived in for long time. This emptiness did not
last long as there were always new projects around the corner afterwords.

I expect the same feeling after job "retirement" and expect it to last as
long.

~~~
penguindev
The greatest burden in life is not having a burden to carry. - Sadhu Sundar
Singh.

------
alexvr
I think this is a really pathetic reason to be depressed. And these "gifted"
people have it all wrong. No, the laws of physics don't directly dictate that
all governments be democratic, or that people drive on the right side of the
road. But if they thought about the world on a deeper level, they would
realize that there _is_ structure, and that it's breathtakingly-beautiful
(albeit subtle and not always easy to pick up on when you don't explicitly
seek it). No, you don't get to be a teacher's pet for your whole life, and you
don't get paid for doing well on IQ tests. But one person _can_ have an impact
on the world: sometimes, a very pervasive, meaningful one. I fail to see why
some gifted children can't appreciate the world and their existence enough to
at least have a good time and explore it a bit. You only get to do it once,
and you won't get the chance to do _everything_ the world has to offer, but
you should consider yourself lucky to be conscious in the first place. My
theory is that kids labeled "gifted" end up dwelling on their "ability" to the
point where they actually think they are entitled to something outside
educational institutions. Or maybe they fail to realize, to their chagrin,
that IQ grossly belies proportional intelligence, especially after a certain
point, and that IQ tests don't measure what it takes to make a meaningful
difference in the world. People like Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates are
unequivocally gifted, but they don't dwell on it; they don't statistically
determine the probability that they will make a difference; they don't spend
their time researching IQ tests or bragging about their intellect; they go out
and do their best to change the world. And they do.

~~~
eshvk
> I think this is a really pathetic reason to be depressed.

Who the fuck are you to judge why people get depressed? Someone I know got
depressed because she was 70 and her cat died. The only other social contact
she had in her life withered away. Is that a good enough reason to judge her?

> But one person can have an impact on the world: sometimes, a very pervasive,
> meaningful one.

Really? In the long run, how much does it matter? Oskar Schindler saved a
bunch of people from the Holocaust. He died poor, broken; his saved people
went on to create a state which is known for its war crimes. The cycle goes
on.

> I fail to see why some gifted children can't appreciate the world and their
> existence enough to at least have a good time and explore it a bit. You only
> get to do it once, and you won't get the chance to do everything the world
> has to offer, but you should consider yourself lucky to be conscious in the
> first place.

You have never been depressed ever in your life, have you? This is like me
going to a sad walmart employee and telling them they should be happy getting
a job when there are people in Africa starving.

------
j45
It is a unique experience at a young age when one especially feels that there
is not a soul they can truly speak to, almost to the extreme that it is a
luxury to feel understood.

Since this isn't your usual teenage angst, making friends who are older than
you can help a great deal.

Realizing man has pondered the same things, for hundreds and thousands of
years gives you a chance, to access their thoughts in the form of books,
literature, poetry.

------
oneiros
This reminds me a bit of the short film "Kid's Story" from The Animatrix. It
revolves around a teenager who is waking up to the possibility of the matrix
who finds himself alone in a world full of people unaware of its existence. He
seeks the help of those who are woken up, specifically, Neo. In a way he is
like these children, aware of the fleeting nature of life, waking up to these
issues.

I recently had a psilocybin mushroom trip that resulted in a bit of temporary
derealization during which I needed one of my friends to hold me just so that
I knew I was real. It was one of the most intense experiences of my life, but
through it I learned that our existence in this world is entirely a perception
of the mind, and that we create our reality through each and every action we
take and each thought that we make. Particularly one of my most profound
insights was that the concept of time is irrelevant, for there is only the
now, and when one is able to perceive the now, then one can be free from the
grasps of _what if_ and can one see _what is_.

I find it difficult to convey these feelings with other people, as I often
find them saying things like "yeah, that's interesting", but I can see that
they do not truly _understand_. There are some that do however and for those
who do I am grateful. For the children and those of you who find yourself in
this "existential depression", I can only offer this...

Create. Create art, create music, create _life_. If you can leave something
behind for the rest of the universe, then your life was not for nothing, for
you created _something_ , were a part of _something_. This at the very least
is all that we can do, and that is okay, for even if all you can do is make
someone smile, you have created a ripple in the world that will manifest
itself as a wave in the lives of those who carry on.

------
DanielBMarkham
As a gifted child, I had a lot of this. It was finally in my 30s when I
realized that existentialism for me was really the only way forward. I really
wish I had been exposed to these ideas earlier (However I'm not sure I could
have absorbed them as a young adult)

Over the years I've become somewhat of a shill for the Teaching Company, which
offers college-level courses on CD and DVD. Robert Soloman's "No Excuses:
Existentialism and the Meaning of Life" is an excellent introduction to
existentialism. Highly recommended.
[http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.asp...](http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=437)

In my mind, if we are going to encourage and nurture kids at both ends of the
spectrum -- highly functioning and less functioning -- we should provide some
kind of intellectual bedrock to allow the gifted an anchor to succeed.

------
pallandt
Very thoughtfully written piece. One would wonder what this has to do with HN,
but the content is universally applicable, therefore not only in regards to
children. Plus, we could suppose that the majority of HN's users consider
themselves gifted :) Anyway, read the article folks, you won't regret your
spent minutes.

~~~
JacksonGariety
I posted it because I think HN attracts people who have the traits expressed
in the article:

\- high potential for development \- innately aware of problems in the world
\- over-exciteable \- drawn towards 'escapes' that help them grow

~~~
eli_gottlieb
Really? Here I thought HN mostly attracts white or East Asian mostly-male,
mostly-20-30-something computer programmers who live in orbit around the
Silicon Valley start-up industry.

------
return0
In the end all psychology boils down to our brain circuits. It is interesting
that nature has shaped us so that we have a constant existential anxiety,
maybe it even served some evolutionary purpose (or maybe not, and it's just a
side effect that becomes more evident to the few gifted children)

------
smegel
> it is because substantial thought and reflection must occur to even consider
> such notions, rather than simply focusing on superficial day-to-day aspects
> of life.

What elitist garbage.

~~~
bigiain
Really? I read it nodding, thinking of how many of my friends/family/cow-
orkers, and if I'm being honest with myself - me a lot of the time, could be
described perfectly as "simply focusing on superficial day-to-day aspects of
life."

~~~
eli_gottlieb
I assure you: everyone else is having the same Special Snowflake Thoughts as
you.

~~~
aridiculous
Probably something about being special, yes. But it's not the same thing. The
OP is referring to a kind of critical thinking.

If you don't believe in qualitative differences in thought, then we might as
well just abandon education as a whole.

------
amasad
I wonder how the "gifted children" whom were raised on religious believes
react to the same sort of "ultimate concerns"

~~~
SpartanJ
Yes, it's the same. Any "gifted children" can see also the "problems" in the
belief system that they were raised, it's part of the conflict.

------
miga
I'd encourage statistics check.

It is common that many of the "containment regimes" that are supposed to
motivate children are more ruthlessly enforced on gifted children to "help
them reach potential". And it is known that overly harsh rules induce
depression too.

------
future_grad
Great article. Sadly, I wish it wasn't focused on the gifted. I bet a lot of
children suffer with existential depression and I also can imagine how hard it
is to have to listen to the bullshit answers they will inevitably receive to
their deep questions.

------
j95tin
When I started to read this, I felt embarrassed and exposed, maybe little
taken aback. But I'm really glad I came across this article. I'm in a weird
place between a cynical bastard and depressed kid, and this kind of helped.
Thanks.

------
fexl
The article says that freedom refers to the absence of external structure, as
if it's a grim state of confused aimlessness. I say that freedom refers to the
absence of external coercion, which is a happy state of purpose and
possibility.

------
andrewcooke
_It has been my experience that gifted and talented persons are more likely to
experience a type of depression referred to as existential depression._

is there any evidence (beyond the author's "experience") that this is true?

------
pteredactyl
The fact there's something rather than nothing. 'Nothing' \- like absolute
zero - is only a referential concept. Beware of introspective traps. Light,
breezy and not trying too hard.

------
tokenadult
From the article, which is about a topic I discuss frequently in other online
communities (including online communities hosted by the 501(c)(3) nonprofit
organization that operates the website hosting the submitted article):

"In essence, then, we can help many persons with existential depressions if we
can get them to realize that they are not so alone"

And this is why I strenuously oppose the term "existential depression" as a
supposed designation of something that is rare in most people and more common
among people who are "gifted." There is no evidence of such a thing. Rather,
treating giftedness as a condition of life different from what most of our
fellow human beings experience magnifies the sense of aloneness that too much
of the gifted education literature promotes among people identified as gifted.

When I was young, I read a science fiction story by author Philip K. Dick in
which he made a statement I have seen made in much the same form by many of
the lousier authors on gifted education: that if your IQ is high, you are as
different from above-average people as retarded persons are from normal
people. That's baloney. The social distance hypothesis of IQ has little
empirical support, and seems mostly to be a cultural hang-up of twentieth
century America. When I lived in east Asia (after majoring in Chinese language
at university) as a young adult, I discovered a new cultural perspective, the
cultural perspective that if a person is smart, there is hardly anything
better to do with the smarts than to learn how to get along with other people.
As Confucius said, 三人行，必有我師焉 ("wherever three persons are walking, my teacher
is surely among them"). Whatever my IQ score, I have plenty to learn from
essentially everyone, and plenty of reason to feel kinship with my fellow
human beings.

There is, however, a kind of isolation of the gifted that must be specifically
counteracted. And that is the isolation of the gifted education literature,
like the article kindly submitted here (by an author I have met at several
conferences on gifted education) from the mainstream literature of psychology.
Most gifted education gurus, and the author of this article is a salient
example, have their highest formal degrees in education, from schools of
education (such as from a "directional state university" that historically was
a "normal school" for training teachers). The most rigorous research on human
psychology--and psychologists have recently been painfully aware that all too
little research on psychology is rigorous at all--

[http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/~uws/](http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/~uws/)

[http://hci.ucsd.edu/102b/readings/WeirdestPeople.pdf](http://hci.ucsd.edu/102b/readings/WeirdestPeople.pdf)

is gained by persons whose highest formal degree is in psychology, from a
major research university. Very little of the best insights gained from recent
decades of psychological research seeps into schools of education, especially
those schools of education that have programs in gifted education.

The late author Dabrowski mentioned promptly in the article kindly submitted
here and in much gifted education literature is an admittedly obscure writer
(as acknowledged in the only book that collects commentary on his ideas,

[http://www.amazon.com/Dabrowskis-Theory-Positive-
Disintegrat...](http://www.amazon.com/Dabrowskis-Theory-Positive-
Disintegration-Mendaglio/dp/0910707847)

which I read part of recently) who produced essentially no testable
hypotheses. Dabrowski's ideas are vague and open-ended enough to allow making
up dozens of anecdotes when speaking at conferences on gifted education, but
provide no guidance whatsoever to help young people face tough issues in
personal development.

The bottom line: the term "existential depression" is a euphemism used in the
gifted education community for the same depression experienced by many people
of varied IQ levels. The correct statement in the article submitted here is
the statement that you help people experiencing depression by encouraging them
to feel less isolated from the rest of humankind. And one of the best ways to
do that for gifted people is to emphasize their commonality with the rest of
humankind, rather than their IQ scores or poor fit age-graded school programs.

[http://learninfreedom.org/age_grading_bad.html](http://learninfreedom.org/age_grading_bad.html)

~~~
mb2100
that's interesting. can you link to any research supporting the claim that
depression doesn't fundamentally differ for people with varied IQ levels?

------
dsugarman
parts don't make a lot of sense, not every gifted child is trying to spend
every waking hour on improving their talents. I don't know a child that
doesn't enjoy play..

I find that a lot of gifted children are opposed to authority, which causes
frustration with non-stimulating class work assigned by poor teachers.

------
CurtMonash
Woody Allen already covered this in a scene in Take The Money And Run.

------
JacksonGariety
Aaaaaand it's down.

------
jokoon
ok, I'm gifted and depressed, how can I get a job ?

------
amerika_blog
Having some experience in this area:

Gifted children are aware just how dysfunctional this society is.

They aren't fooled by shiny things. They look at the structure of things and
analyze them.

Thus they're a high-risk group because while most people see a few scattered
small problems, gifted kids see one big problem.

Naturally, there are solutions to that including contexting and acceptance
therapy, but those are never provided.

I bet they'll find gifted kids have a higher suicide rate, too, especially as
an empire nears its collapse.

------
mumbi
I remember thinking these 'existential' thoughts that cause depression my
first day of pre-school. I am not as intelligent as a lot of people, but I
know that I'm not unintelligent. I began failing my classes in school when I
was 9, and my depression was beginning to really develop. I would walk around
the playground, by myself, thinking. By 15, I had renounced my belief in God
and refused to be brainwashed by anyone who wanted to tell me otherwise.

I'm 25 now and after a lot of drugs and alcohol, I believe in God, again. I
read the Bible, not as often as I should, but at least I read it. It makes me
feel better.

For those of you who are 'former Christians', I recommend you try to bring it
back into your life. It does help, I promise.

~~~
penguindev
Thank you so much for sharing that, and I second your suggestion.

I was born again at age 24, after swearing it off for years due to the evil
and hypocrisy I saw growing up in it. But I had just hit another near suicidal
rock bottom - even though my life was very monetarily successful - and I
finally stopped fighting God's call and being so stuck on myself.

I went to church and was blessed to meet my kind, flexible, and giving wife
who is truly my better half. (PS guys, odds of meeting flexible and giving
women is _much improved_ there) It's been 9 years later and we have two
wonderful sons. Even if God takes me home tomorrow, I know he made some good
out of my life.

~~~
kirse
Fantastic to hear... I'm interested to know what you meant by "being so stuck
on myself"? I like to hear stories of how God has changed people!

------
dschiptsov
The French philosophy of the last century said nothing about children.) In
some sense a realization of absurd and meaninglessness require some
experiences of ageing adult which children simply cannot have. They cannot
realize the attractiveness of youth and meaninglessness of that attraction.
Time to reread Age of reason or something.

------
paranoiacblack
TIL: Children can be Nihlists too? Does it really take a gifted child to see
the futility in the majority of life or to understand our insignificance? This
is something that should be fairly obvious to anyone without privilege, not
only children.

