Gifties Challenges: Sensitivities and Anxiety

Gifties often feel deeply and intensely.  In my childhood this intense ability to feel manifested in a few different ways.  On the one hand I was very empathetic, especially towards animals.  On the other hand I had extreme anxiety and fear relating mainly to lightning, thunder, and wind but extending to large crowds and loud noises and even things like ants and bees.  What I felt, I felt intensely.

Empathy

Many of the strong empathetic memories I have are from when I was around 13 years old.  One day as I sat in the kitchen looking out into the backyard I noticed that our cat had caught a mouse and was playing with it.  I thought it was terribly unjust so I went outside with the intent to save the mouse.  Our cat grabbed it and headed underneath the trampoline to play with it in peace.   I slowly crawled underneath the trampoline hoping to get close enough to snatch the mouse away.  The cat, annoyed by this, grabbed the mouse's head in his jaws and growled at me.  I was horrified but determined.  I snuck just a little closer and as I did, glaring at me, he crunched down on the mouse's skull.  I ran inside and cried.  I felt I was partially to blame for the mouse's death.

Around this same age, I went vegetarian. I had heard that animals weren't treated well on factory farms and in an effort to boycott them I stopped eating meat.  I hung pictures of little de-beaked chickens and cows wallowing deep in their own manure on my bedroom wall to help me always remember them and stay strong in my resolve not to eat meat.  I shared this knowledge with the people around me and begged them, especially my mother, to stop eating meat.  Nobody listened.  I remember one night at the dinner table crying, "How am I supposed to change the world if I can't even change my own family?!"

Last year as we were doing a GEOPuzzle of Europe, I mentioned that Russia had invaded Ukraine and they were trying to take over.  Since then our little 4 year old, Athena, has brought it up several times.  "Mom, can we move to Ukraine and fight the Russians so that they don't take over?"  I always try to validate her concerns and then also help put them to rest so that she doesn't get anxiety over it.

Anxiety

My anxiety during thunderstorms was debilitating as a young child.  Even when it merely looked as if it would rain I begged my mom not to make me go to school.  I'd feign sickness, plead, cry, and refuse to get out of the car until often she would relent.  If I did end up going to school and a storm started I'd sit terrified in my seat or ask to call my mom.  Sometimes I'd ask to go see the nurse because of a "stomach ache."  I felt bad about lying and tried to justify it by convincing myself that I really did have a stomach ache.  When I was at home during a thunderstorm I'd hide under a blanket until it was over.  I don't remember my mom ever getting angry with me about these episodes but I know it must have been difficult for her.

Dimitri is only 3 but he also has a few quirky anxieties.  Bees terrify him.  Flies terrify him. Even the sound of buzzing terrifies him.  (I have to do some pretty serious convincing for him to allow me to use the electric clippers on his hair.)  So naturally one of Athena's favorite things to do is chase him around the house making buzzing noises. Somehow the whole empathy thing doesn't extend to her 3 year old brother.  I think it's because gifted children are children first and gifties second.  Even with all their extra knowledge and emotions for the majority of the time they still act like the 3 and 4 year olds they are.



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