Depression and gifted teenagers

The ennui and depression of gifted teenagers – why talk about a dark subject in relation to giftedness? The number one demographic of suicide is 17-year-old males with high Intelligence Quotients (IQ). Being forewarned is being fore-armed, and parents of gifted teens need awareness, hope, and help to deal with this subject.

Some gifted people actually think themselves out of existence. They ponder the purpose of life more deeply than most and can reach a sort of hopelessness about it. My father did that. Lucky for me, he made it to age 48 first, but he was depressed off and on his whole life. I'm grateful for the extra 3 decades with him.

Teen years are a very self-absorbed time, yet even bright teens can lack the ability to project cause and effect or consequences properly. Science has shown that the chemistry of the human brain, especially in the frontal lobe, changes after about age 18. Therefore, even smart teens can err in their ideas of the future.

Teens feel their emotions very intensely, and being gifted can magnify this. They don’t realize that a lost love or university choice is not the end of the world. They can’t project the future properly.

One of the best medicines against this deep angst is to help our teens serve others. I tell my son to use his brain to do good in this world and make it a better place. The mental, emotional, physical, social, and spiritual health of children is important, and learning to volunteer in a greater cause is important in developing a well-rounded person.

The ennui and depression of gifted teens is an important subject so that parents and educators can be aware of this problem and help teens see other possibilities and solutions to their problems.

Sometimes gifted teens are depressed because they can’t find other teens like them. They are so smart that no one gets their jokes or humor. They think on a deeper level than the materialism focused on by other teens. Often they get along with adults better than their peers who don’t understand them. They can be depressed because they’re lonely.

One of my sons understood the world from a more adult point of view, so all the adults in his environ loved him. But his social skills with kids his own age weren’t good. He was never able to talk on as shallow a level as was required to hang with the other boys and be cool. Luckily, he hung on until time helped him grow up. In high school and later as an adult, he found more people who thought like he did and could discuss something a little more interesting than the latest stuff they bought or the latest sports team. He also found girls who could talk about something deeper than who did their nails and where they bought those cute shoes – ugh!

A great place to find socialization for gifted teens is from the MENSA society. They will find others who get their jokes and think like they do. Children are always welcome at all MENSA activities. There is a national special interest group (SIG) for teens, and a Brightkids email resource for other ages. For more information, contact the Gifted Children Coordinator at giftedchildcoord@mamensa.org

Sometimes gifted teens are depressed from a sort of arrogance about themselves compared to others around them. They know they can out-think their peers (and many adults), and have impatience with others. (Studies show that intelligent people can make the worst bosses when they won’t listen to any other point of view.)

Along with this arrogance can come a hopelessness about the state of the world and a reason for being.

The interesting thing about teen depression is that it is interspersed with moments of fun joviality, masking the true underlying feelings. Teens can go to a party and have a great time, then come home and feel the depression creep back in. Parents and Educators need to be aware that a depressed teen has moments of looking like a happy teen. All the symptoms of depression need to be viewed together to see a pattern of depression.

With one of my sons, depression was manifest as anger. He would rage at the simplest annoyances. He was angry that the world wasn’t his idea of perfect. When he started verbally spiraling downward into more and more negative self-talk, I realized he needed professional help. He was headed for suicide. This intervention probably saved his life.

Parents of gifted teens should make sure that they know what resources are out there to help them when they can’t talk to mom or dad. One of the best places to find hotlines and help is at teen central. Go to http://www.teencentral.net/Help/ You can go to the home page and search any state. The website lists many different hotlines and agencies for teen help. There are places teens can call in a crisis to talk. There are resources for parents, too.

Each state has a 24-hour Crisis Hotline for abuse such as http://www.mocsa.org The Teen Connection Helpline for MO is at (913) 281-2299. Each state should have one.

And a great resource for boys and girls is the Boys Town, which can be reached 24 hours a day and 365 days a year. They have a free crisis hotline. Go to http://www.BoysTown.org for more information.

One way to help gifted teens out of depression or to avoid depression is to teach them gratitude. When we can be thankful for the gift of life and the gifts in our lives, large and small, we are happier. This also helps to keep the arrogance at bay, so that we can enjoy other people.

One day the realization hit me that being gifted is just that – a gift. I didn’t personally do anything to get a great memory and logic, it was given to me by God and nature. It may have been passed on to me from my parents, which was still a gift. I have nothing to be arrogant about because my giftedness wasn’t a personal accomplishment, just a gift.

What if my mother had taken antihistamines at the wrong time in pregnancy? What if oxygen had been deprived during my delivery? What if I had been dropped on my head as an infant? Then I wouldn’t be gifted, I would be handicapped. I learned gratitude for my gift and a realization that others had different types of gifts to be appreciated. I learned more patience, too.

Gratitude for the little things in life helps us and our gifted teens see the good and focus on the positive. It helps us understand what’s truly important and what isn’t. Gratitude can be developed and we can learn that the glass is more than “half-full” in our lives.

Creativity can also alleviate ennui and the blues. Encourage teens to be creative. A wonderful website for budding inventors and scientists in Boing Boing found at http://www.boingboing.net with lots of techno gadgets and ideas. They also publish a magazine called MAKE.

Enjoy!

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