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From a limited dataset: They get by. Find balance. When you ask them for a coffee, they tell you they don't have the $5 to take the subway to meet you and are v

From a limited dataset: They get by. Find balance. When you ask them for a coffee, they tell you they don't have the $5 to take the subway to meet you and are very sorry for that. Some have other problems they are trying to work around, and all their energy goes to that and not inventing the next quantum equation. They drop out of being the hottest developers in the software industry, they stop being the top performers in the financial sector. They can get back, but it requires support. Our western society isn't optimized for such support but for grinding the rest down. So, it's not where they go, it's how do the rest of us, help them?

nils-m-holm 10y ago
Author of the article here: yes, the most interesting question is, what can we do to help? The article makes some suggestions. Short version: Spread awareness, especially among professionals (medical doctors, psychiatrists, etc). I have seen lots of high-IQ/highly sensitive people who got terrible advice from psychologists and psychiatrists. Educate those professionals, so at least they don't do any damage. Also: a communication platform for troubled high-IQ folks would be great! I would do it myself, but I'm bad at both, IT and social networking.
- pierre_d528 10y ago
  I know at least one of these people (IQ 155). Here is the fundamental problem she has: lower IQ people will deny the obvious even in front of their eyes. The combined delusion of all these people literally build our world that for her appears like a cheap stupid fairy tale (specially IQ 110-120 people that try to trick lower IQ people for money (advertisement etc)). She is surgeon and only deals with children: it keeps a lot of the low IQ people at bay. When she is not fixing children, she is riding horses. Much else is just fake to protect her from low IQ people. These 2 poor souls physically segregated themselves from low IQ people, she did the same... to a less extreme level (accepted to pretend/lie when needed). If she had seen a big warning sign saying "high IQ hurts", she would probably have had found help and more people to soften the terrible loneliness she experiences.
- stephengillie 10y ago
  So tell the experts that they're wrong, and that they are ignorant about part of their field? That sort of behavior rarely has a beneficial outcome, and can appear egotistical. > When one of them learned that their high IQ might cause some of the trouble they experienced, they once again looked for professional help, only to find out that the problem is widely unknown out there. How did they learn of this - that their IQ might cause some of these troubles - what was their authoritative information source? Essentially, they've found multiple professional authorities who dispute the information they heard somewhere and chose to believe. --- Learning and technical skills have always been easy for me, understanding people less so. I got an undergrad business degree specifically to understand why businesses do some of the nonsensical things they do. What I learned is that companies are essentially just organizations of humans, money, and things - and humans do all kinds of 'nonsensical' things because we are humans.
  - TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
    There's a surprising dearth of research into the challenges faced by gifted people. As a topic, it does get some - not much - attention in both psychology and psychiatry. But it's considered a specialised field far out of the mainstream.
- dfraser992 10y ago
  This is a crude analogy, but a high IQ is in itself the same as having a certain gene, or genes. A marker of potential for something, but environment/nature is such as or more important. Nature in this case would be social environment, if we are talking about social/life success etc. And social/life success is tied far more strongly to emotional IQ. I'm up there at the far end of the IQ scale, but at this point in my life, I can see that all the trouble I've had in life is due to the emotional IQ part. And that was all due to the psychological environment I had to grow up in. Those anecdotes are bereft of real details, but I think it is safe to assume those people, because of their home environment, didn't grow up with <whatever is needed> to deal with the issues of dealing with society in some manner. Society, is .. well, once you grasp psychology and how primate societies operate, the stupidity of humanity makes sense. It doesn't excuse it, but that is humanity for you. You just learn not to expect the ideal, as simple as it may seem to one smarter than average. An understanding of Buddhism helps. The fact that psychotherapy etc didn't help shouldn't serve as a condemnation of the profession entirely, but just the fact that an awful lot of therapists are incompetent. I think I was lucky, I had mostly good ones. they didn't help solve everything, but each provided the support to get ahold of the next piece of the puzzle. Even then, with a good therapist, it still takes some sort of inner resolve to fully transcend one's emotional pain. I have no good advice on this other than keep trying and learn enough psychology/psychiatry so you can spot the idiots. One you learn how to start playing psychotherapist with yourself, it becomes easier. Suggestions? Some sort of group therapy model re: a platform would be an idea. Group therapy was very useful for me. I could see the problems I wrestled with mirrored in the problems others wrestled with - the guy that had a personality fundamentally like mine was ... the details were different, but the themes were the same. You wouldn't want a platform for people to just reinforce their complaining or poor me attitude. i.e. no friendships or socializing developing out of it. OTOH, text only communication is bad for this sort of thing. A group video conference might be workable, but I don't know, there are logistical problems I think. But I am somewhat biased, given what I know and have found useful.

nils-m-holm 10y ago

Author of the article here: yes, the most interesting question is, what can we do to help? The article makes some suggestions. Short version: Spread awareness, especially among professionals (medical doctors, psychiatrists, etc). I have seen lots of high-IQ/highly sensitive people who got terrible advice from psychologists and psychiatrists. Educate those professionals, so at least they don't do any damage. Also: a communication platform for troubled high-IQ folks would be great! I would do it myself, but I'm bad at both, IT and social networking.

pierre_d528 10y ago
I know at least one of these people (IQ 155). Here is the fundamental problem she has: lower IQ people will deny the obvious even in front of their eyes. The combined delusion of all these people literally build our world that for her appears like a cheap stupid fairy tale (specially IQ 110-120 people that try to trick lower IQ people for money (advertisement etc)). She is surgeon and only deals with children: it keeps a lot of the low IQ people at bay. When she is not fixing children, she is riding horses. Much else is just fake to protect her from low IQ people. These 2 poor souls physically segregated themselves from low IQ people, she did the same... to a less extreme level (accepted to pretend/lie when needed). If she had seen a big warning sign saying "high IQ hurts", she would probably have had found help and more people to soften the terrible loneliness she experiences.
stephengillie 10y ago
So tell the experts that they're wrong, and that they are ignorant about part of their field? That sort of behavior rarely has a beneficial outcome, and can appear egotistical. > When one of them learned that their high IQ might cause some of the trouble they experienced, they once again looked for professional help, only to find out that the problem is widely unknown out there. How did they learn of this - that their IQ might cause some of these troubles - what was their authoritative information source? Essentially, they've found multiple professional authorities who dispute the information they heard somewhere and chose to believe. --- Learning and technical skills have always been easy for me, understanding people less so. I got an undergrad business degree specifically to understand why businesses do some of the nonsensical things they do. What I learned is that companies are essentially just organizations of humans, money, and things - and humans do all kinds of 'nonsensical' things because we are humans.
- TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
  There's a surprising dearth of research into the challenges faced by gifted people. As a topic, it does get some - not much - attention in both psychology and psychiatry. But it's considered a specialised field far out of the mainstream.
dfraser992 10y ago
This is a crude analogy, but a high IQ is in itself the same as having a certain gene, or genes. A marker of potential for something, but environment/nature is such as or more important. Nature in this case would be social environment, if we are talking about social/life success etc. And social/life success is tied far more strongly to emotional IQ. I'm up there at the far end of the IQ scale, but at this point in my life, I can see that all the trouble I've had in life is due to the emotional IQ part. And that was all due to the psychological environment I had to grow up in. Those anecdotes are bereft of real details, but I think it is safe to assume those people, because of their home environment, didn't grow up with <whatever is needed> to deal with the issues of dealing with society in some manner. Society, is .. well, once you grasp psychology and how primate societies operate, the stupidity of humanity makes sense. It doesn't excuse it, but that is humanity for you. You just learn not to expect the ideal, as simple as it may seem to one smarter than average. An understanding of Buddhism helps. The fact that psychotherapy etc didn't help shouldn't serve as a condemnation of the profession entirely, but just the fact that an awful lot of therapists are incompetent. I think I was lucky, I had mostly good ones. they didn't help solve everything, but each provided the support to get ahold of the next piece of the puzzle. Even then, with a good therapist, it still takes some sort of inner resolve to fully transcend one's emotional pain. I have no good advice on this other than keep trying and learn enough psychology/psychiatry so you can spot the idiots. One you learn how to start playing psychotherapist with yourself, it becomes easier. Suggestions? Some sort of group therapy model re: a platform would be an idea. Group therapy was very useful for me. I could see the problems I wrestled with mirrored in the problems others wrestled with - the guy that had a personality fundamentally like mine was ... the details were different, but the themes were the same. You wouldn't want a platform for people to just reinforce their complaining or poor me attitude. i.e. no friendships or socializing developing out of it. OTOH, text only communication is bad for this sort of thing. A group video conference might be workable, but I don't know, there are logistical problems I think. But I am somewhat biased, given what I know and have found useful.