Existential Depression in Gifted Children • Hacker News Board

Re: Existential Depression in Gifted Children

#101

Post by ausjke » Sun, Jul 21, 2013, 1:45 PM UTC

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.

Re: Existential Depression in Gifted Children

#102

Post by penguindev » Sun, Jul 21, 2013, 2:01 PM UTC

dkural wrote: post #56

narrator wrote: post #16

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…

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 purpo…

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.

Re: Existential Depression in Gifted Children

#103

Post by peter303 » Sun, Jul 21, 2013, 2:13 PM UTC

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.

Re: Existential Depression in Gifted Children

#104

Post by bsenftner » Sun, Jul 21, 2013, 2:16 PM UTC

molbioguy wrote: post #100

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…

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.

Re: Existential Depression in Gifted Children

#105

Post by penguindev » Sun, Jul 21, 2013, 2:16 PM UTC

bigiain wrote: post #57

smegel wrote: post #34

> 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.

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."

1/4 of middle aged women in this country are on antidepressants. Is that 'existential' depression or some kind I don't know about, I don't know, but that's a pretty sad stat.

Re: Existential Depression in Gifted Children

#106

Post by asolove » Sun, Jul 21, 2013, 2:18 PM UTC

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

Re: Existential Depression in Gifted Children

#107

Post by penguindev » Sun, Jul 21, 2013, 2:27 PM UTC

peter303 wrote: post #103

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"…

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

Re: Existential Depression in Gifted Children

#108

Post by grandalf » Sun, Jul 21, 2013, 2:30 PM UTC

mtrimpe wrote: post #72

MichaelAza wrote: post #35

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…

Since you're still 18, I'll give you the advice I wish someone had told me 13 years ago: You are not a head in a body. Your mind is intertwined with your body and your body is what connects you to reality. Keep in touch with your body. It's easy for you to focus on things to the exclusion of everything else and it's very easy to forget about your body. Don't. I'm fairly sure that's also why the article mentioned hugg…

The parent comment is absolutely correct.

I blame Descartes and his mind/body dualism for much of the "brain-centric" view of consciousness :)

The human organism needs lots of physical exercise, movement, breathing, stretching, etc. to function properly. Along with proper sleep habits, your body's environment must be taken care of if you expect to feel "good" and expect proper brain functioning.

The most demanding cognitive activities require support of all the rest of the body's systems (mood, temperament, stamina) which can be kept in shape through proper physical conditioning and nutrition.

Re: Existential Depression in Gifted Children

#109

Post by eli_gottlieb » Sun, Jul 21, 2013, 2:43 PM UTC

kijin wrote: post #89

skore wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. There are two mechanisms to cope with this without discarding or distorting it. Both are linked to accepting and expanding the comical (and cosmic) smallness of our existences. The first one I actually learned recently from reading Stephensons Anathem (which made me wonder if I'm reading that…

Just to play devil's advocate: > accepting ... reality is always more fascinating, weird and grand than our brains can even begin to imagine ... We're along for a ride and that ride is awesome. Sounds like defeatism and resignation. Why resign yourself to the "ride" and pretend that there's something nice about the long, arduous journey when you know very well that there's not much to see at the destination, or if yo…

I absolutely guarantee that nobody, especially not someone depressed, is actually thinking on the scale of trillions of years. At that scale we stop being able to think and have to switch to mere computation instead.

Existential despair is when your brain decides to think up some Profound Issue instead of just admitting it needs some exercise and a hug.

Re: Existential Depression in Gifted Children

#110

Post by Decade » Sun, Jul 21, 2013, 2:49 PM UTC

hypertexthero wrote: post #83

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

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.