Being very intelligent: the dark side that is not talked about

Being very intelligent is not always a guarantee of success or happiness. After a very high IQ there is a reverse side that is not always talked about, such as existential anguish, social isolation, emotional problems or that continuous personal and vital dissatisfaction when not meeting many of the high objectives that the person with high abilities sets for themselves. .

There are those who do not hesitate to affirm that intelligence is not the same as wisdom, and that the latter is something that many of those people (not all) with an IQ above 120-130 points lack. Thus, Jeanne Siaud-Facchin, psychotherapist and one of the most recognized experts in the field of high abilities, explains to us that Nothing can be as paradoxical as the brains of these people.

Being very intelligent also entails a certain fragility. We are faced with a type of mind capable of generating thousands of ideas at the same time. They are fast, they are original and they can produce endless reasoning and concepts in just a few seconds. However, They are not always able to manage all that information. Their cognitive worlds have so much capacity that a single stimulus is enough for their neurons to fire instantly, giving shape to many ideas, but the truth is that They are not always able to give a concrete or even correct answer..

All of this can generate great frustration and confusion.. Not everything is so incredible or so simple for a person or child with high abilities. No one has explained to them how to use that sophisticated brain, so eager for information and productive of ideas. In fact, reality becomes much more complicated for people with IQs over 180 points. In these cases, and as we saw in the story of the most intelligent man in the world with an IQ of 250 points, his lives can become true tragedies.

Being very intelligent, a paradoxical gift

We live in a society where gifts are revered. We are fascinated by people with unique talents and abilities, we admire those who master a certain area of ​​science, art, sport… So much so that There is no shortage of moms and dads who say that they would love to have a child with a high IQ, because somehow the idea that being very intelligent is synonymous with success is still very present in our daily lives.

On the other hand, children themselves also have the conviction that nothing can be as fabulous as “being very smart.” Can there be anything better? The “gifted” – they say – pass exams with good grades without making any effort or barely studying.. Now, every educator, every psychologist or parent of a child with high abilities knows that these ideas are not always fulfilled.

For a start, It is very possible that a student with a high IQ goes unnoticed for a good part of his or her school life.. It is also likely that he will not get good grades, that he will not be good at making friends, and that he will be that absent-minded student engrossed in his own world who lives in the back rows of a classroom, where he will not attract attention.

An intelligence that is difficult to control

The reason why being very intelligent does not guarantee always being the first in the class responds to several dimensions. The first is boredom. The child with high abilities does not feel interested or stimulated by everything that surrounds him and simply “disconnects” and assumes a passive attitude, which can even lead to academic failure.

In other cases, we find ourselves faced with students who do not know how to control their ideas and ramblings. Sometimes, when faced with a simple exam question, the child can fall into a sort of ramblings, reflections and inferences where he is not always able to give a concrete answer. In fact, in the book “Too smart to be happy”, A girl explains that while her classmates raise one antenna to find the solution, she raises 25 and feels unable to reach a conclusion.

Tree thought. This type of reasoning carried out by people with high abilities is called tree thinking and is explained as follows: when a stimulus is received, the mind begins to generate one idea after another, although in many cases without clear associations. There is a very dense tree with infinite “branches” where the person cannot control or organize that data.

emotional cataclysms

Another aspect that needs to be considered is that related to hypersensitivity. Being very intelligent implies assuming a very deep and transcendental vision of reality. and about the world itself. Sometimes, it is enough to see a news story on television for the person with high abilities to feel incomprehension, anger and skepticism towards humanity itself.

Emotions grip them, they cannot control the impact generated by certain events that usually go unnoticed by other people.

Likewise, beyond that classic idea that very intelligent people are cold, It is necessary to understand that your empathic capacity is immense. Something like this makes them sometimes prefer to isolate themselves so as not to suffer, to keep their distance so as not to get overly involved and get hurt in some way.

Their emotional universes are complex, however They also channel that intensity through creativity and inspiration, developing many of their natural talents to the maximum.

Being very intelligent should not be a wall to happiness

At this point, it is very possible that more than one person may think that being very intelligent is little more than a pathology. It is not true, we should not see it this way. What we must do when faced with this series of data is to reflect. The gifted child who spends his school life undetected will develop little academic interest and will live in personal isolation where other types of problems such as anxiety disorders or depression may appear.

On the other hand, the WHO itself warns us of the following: IQ cannot be used solely as a “diagnosis” of giftedness. Because intelligence cannot be understood without the emotional partwithout its hypersensitivity, hyperesthesia, hyperemotionality, hypermaturity, hyperstimulation, without its arborescent thinking and its speed of thought…

Being very intelligent can mean living in a very complex private corner where emotions and thoughts are chaotic, deep and very intense. Our role as fathers, mothers, educators or psychologists is therefore offer them appropriate strategies to find calm and balance. So that they can reach their maximum potential and of course, happiness.

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