At a glance, Perrish may look like a real success. After studying at a business school and a stint at the prestigious Science university, he started working for an advertising agency. Then he fell into a depression and everything went to pieces.
Sunk in constant gloom, Perrish left the office and looked for professional help. The diagnosis was clear: Perrish is… a genius. But according to him, this condition is more of a curse than a gift. And Perrish is still suffering from it. He tells us his story.
My handicap is all in my head
I’m basically handicapped, and no one has done anything to help me. I walk on two feet and there’s no special sticker on the windscreen of my car. I am among those that no one really looks out for. My handicap is invisible. It’s all in my head.
I was born with a super efficient brain, like around the 2 percent of the population. My senses, my perceptions, my emotions and all that mess are sharper. I experience things more intensely, for better and for worse.
Granted, I’ve been given a lot in life: health, family, friends, a prestigious education… all of which should add up to happiness. But the truth is that people like me aren’t allowed to hurt, and much less to bitch about it. Intelligence is damaging. “It makes you suffer, and no one thinks of it as an illness,” says Martin Page, in his novel How I Became Stupid.
Although most high potential adults are doing just fine, about 30 percent of us suffer from the crippling aspect of intelligence. That’s what happened to me. I’m going to tell you how I basically screwed up my life – I got it wrong – even though I had all the right equipment for success.
If we were in a bar, I could tell you what most the people around us were talking about. I know how they’re dressed, what they’re drinking, and how many of them are wearing Stan Smiths
North of IQ 130, the problems star to pile on. I always felt something wasn’t right anyways – felt a problem with the world, with other people, with myself. I always knew I was different, a misfit, with the constant impression of being misunderstood or of understanding too much. Something wasn’t right.
But since everyone else seemed to agree that everything was fine – since they all seemed happy – I spent the first 25 years of my life convincing myself that I was the problem. I didn’t dare question the honesty and the common sense of the entire planet. That prospect was just too heavy. So I turned against myself. I convinced myself I was crazy. And growing up with this certainty in mind is nowhere near painless when your very handicap is not being able to to stop thinking.
The nature of genius
Geniuses aren’t smarter in the quantitative sense. Their intelligence is of a different quality altogether, their neurons more richly interconnected. I don’t tick like you do. My brain perceives way too much information and filters it in a less linear way. It can be described as rampant thought: I think about stuff that makes me think about stuff that makes me think about stuff – all of it way too much to handle.
And all of these thoughts whiz by too quickly for words to describe. What comes out are phrases cut short, floods of incoherent words and subject changes. I lop off sentences, link words incoherently and make erratic jumps from one subject to another… It looks from the outside as if I’m rambling, and the truth is I’m gone.
You won’t see the logical thread because you’re not up to speed. You don’t understand me. You think I’m weird. I’m locked away in a bubble, a little artistic, a little autistic (one can never be too sure).
My senses are on edge in a bubbly, organic mess. I sense, notice and analyze everything incessantly; every last detail, all the time, and with everybody. If we were in a bar, I could tell you what most the people around us were talking about. I know how they’re dressed, what they’re drinking, and how many of them are wearing Stan Smiths. It’s like a sixth sense.
I am imprisoned by my surroundings. There’s no emergency exit for me before all the crap this world serves up on a silver platter
I feel your emotions very intensely and can’t shake them off; I am hyper-empathetic. I don’t need to observe you for a very long time to know what you’re thinking, and I already know you don’t like me. To me at least, it’s like an elephant in the room. You may be thinking I’m pretentious and egocentric, capable of using his so-called intelligence as an excuse to whine about his problems on the internet. I get that all the time. But you’re wrong! As Martin Page would say:
“Those who think there’s some sort of nobility in intelligence clearly don’t have enough to realize it’s a curse.”
One of the burdens of brilliance is lucidity. You’re exceptionally aware of yourself, as well as of others and of the entire world. This diabolical machine doesn’t spare anything or anyone. Hyper-sensitivity combined with a sharp intelligence makes for a machine that dissects and analyzes everything. There is no blind spot. As a kid, I could perceive the weaknesses and the absurdities of adults, of my parents, even of international geopolitics.
I wander in search of the remnants of frivolity in a desert of lucidity. My world is devoid of magic, of whimsy and of hope. And yet I would give everything to believe in friendship, in mankind, or in love. But let’s stop kidding ourselves. All of that is nothing but BS. Like many other geniuses, I’ve learnt to hide behind humor (a common defense strategy). And when I don’t want to keep laughing, it’s cynicism I’ll use next to shield myself from pain – a cynicism tainted with anxiety and bitterness.
I dream of being simple, of lying down and thinking of nothing, to watch the 10 o’clock news
I am imprisoned by my surroundings. There’s no emergency exit for me before all the crap this world serves up on a silver platter. And faced with any dilemma, a wealth of different scenarios saddle my thoughts, inviting themselves to the negotiation table. I’m never alone inside my head, never left to be. I dream of being simple, of lying down and thinking of nothing, to watch the 10 o’clock news, to get laid and to go to work without asking myself what the hell I’m doing there. What should I make of my time on Earth? What’s the purpose of life? How can one feel fine, or least at peace?
These questions buzz away in my mind from the moment I get up in the morning. They churn and smolder. Cerebral hyperactivity has no mercy. Intelligence is a burden, a responsibility I would give up, in the end, because I’m so exhausted from thinking. From the outside, it looks like bliss not to give a damn! I’d kill for a mental stroll watching trashy reality TV or the latest comedy. But that’s basically impossible for me. I’m a fucking sponge and I feel like it’s up to me to fix all the dysfunctional stuff around me; if I don’t try, I feel a deep sense of guilt.
How can we be “doing alright” in this mad world?
Our small overworked brains suffer from the weight of a moral compass more developed than your average Joe’s. Psychiatrists have touched on the case of homeless geniuses, living on the outside because they refuse to compromise their values and consequently, to join society. In my case, it’s pretty physical: a situation makes me feel like puking, or it doesn’t. That’s my value system. Making any concessions is impossible; going against the grain of my values is repulsive. We can’t stand injustice, both against ourselves and others. And not to fight against it is to succumb to stinging guilt.
“The weight of the world isn’t yours to carry.” “Who cares, we’ve got bottle service at this club tonight!” I know I should see the glass as half full… but those guys in Nepal or in Haiti, how do they see it? As a Martini topped with a nice olive? Asshole. At least admit that you don’t care one bit. Every day and every night, people fight while you sell your soul and your principles for a paycheck and some new threads. We carry your cross, so show some respect.
Alcohol, writing and drugs stopped me from serious self-reflection until the age of 25
I dream of leading my life without these constraints, but I feel deeply guilty when I act in my own narrow interest. There it is again: guilt. It eats away at us. At the slightest mistake, you’re thrown against a wave of internal violence.
I was born more intelligent than the average guy. There’s no greater injustice than that. The result: guilt. I was born in the Western world. Guilt. I have access to tap water. Guilt. It might sound a little ridiculous but it’s the truth; I can’t help it, and it’s breaking me down.
How did I get by all these years? In the same way many of the kids of my generation did: I gave it all a blind eye. Alcohol, writing and drugs stopped me from serious self-reflection until the age of 25. Looking back, I did that mostly to escape the answers. Artificial havens helped fill the void and, no offense, to put me at the level of those around me. It was my shelter, my little pillow fort, my coma. I dumbed myself down to protect myself and escape the world’s nonsense.
And hey, I’ve been lucky to have the word, written or spoken. I’ve always listened to rap, which like poetry in its heyday is a popular activity among geniuses. Listening to my contemporaries gave me a bit of hope: yes, there are others like me – people who feel the same troubling things and write them down in the hard light of day. We’ve encountered the same storms within our minds, the same emotional turbulence, the same delight in rejecting certain things. We’re of the same species. We’re not alone.
The dark side of intelligence
It’s become harder for me to interact with others over the years. What should I say? How should I act? How can I stick to norms and social conventions? How can I talk about nothing for hours, all while pretending I’m actually interested? My family and friends reassure me: luckily enough, these types of people – kind, loving, open and understanding – are out there. The rest of world rejects who we are, out of ignorance, ego, fear or simple cruelty.
That’s when you start isolating yourself. You’re just trying it on for size at first, but despite our natural humanism, we’d soon rather harden our shells and give up on social relationships. At school, at work or in society, “hell is other people” and everything is easier without them. We’re already far removed from a world that doesn’t understand us and doesn’t really want us. At 25, I had to choose between suicide and psychiatry. And I went for the red pill.
Psychiatry told me: “You’re a genius, which means you function in a completely different way. You’ve built your identity ignorant of this fundamental fact. We’ll need to fix all that. You owe me $100.”
I felt a little bit less lonely that day. I understood that, indeed, I wasn’t like the others, even if I’d always wished to be. I wanted to escape that scary, unknown source of difference. I learnt that if I had followed my mom’s advice (she suggested I see a shrink from the age of 10), I would be doing alright today. I would have tamed the issue. I would have accepted it. Because basically, the later you get your diagnosis, the bigger the shit storm gets. It’s the dark side of intelligence, the one no one talks about. Why? Simply because it generates suspicion
I think I am incapable of loving
I have spent my life facing up to this stuff. I’ve often acted like an arrogant asshole to hide my afflictions, which is quite a common feature between people like me. “Screw you,” I’d say, “I’m going home,” where I would lick my wounds. Violence begets violence, my friends. I’m convinced that deep down I wanted to do good. I feel like on one day I was filled to the brim with good intentions, positivity and kindness. But all these years of misunderstanding have ruined me. My relationship with others, from the best to the worst, have eaten away at me. I think I’m no longer capable of loving. In any case, I just don’t want to any more; it’s too painful being constantly let down.
In life, people are mean twice: as kids in the schoolyard, and as adults in the wider world. Liberty, equality, and fraternity? I would have preferred for school to have prepared me for the future, for this world and its way of making things go round. It should have prepared me to thrive in this society or in the corporate world, instead of praising the joys of an ostensible democracy created by great men who believed in human rights. Because I fucking bought it.
It’s not a lack of willpower. I’ve tried to go along with the world, to walk with the ranks. But we don’t play by the same rules. My way of functioning brings with it huge constraints before a system that does not accept being challenged, especially when those questions are just and pertinent. No, the system has worked too hard to get to where it is now. And it isn’t a lowly, dime-a-dozen intern who will teach it how things ought to be. Despite the praise it often garners, honesty is a bothersome thing in today’s world.
Let’s talk about the glass half full. Genius is a pretty trendy condition
Truth is a threat to the order of things.
It compromises too many people, uncovers too many impostors. No one likes looking like an idiot. And since the first one to tell the truth is the one to blame, we often butt heads with professional and social hostility. And when it comes to getting the approval of one’s superiors, people are capable of the worst behavior. I’m sure many of you will agree with that. But how many will do something about it? How many of you will be rational enough to masquerade alongside the rest in this great game of appearances? Get ahead, play your hand.
A fashionable condition
These days, I’ve realized that even though I was right not to put up with all the bastards around me. But is hasn’t made me happy. There will always be people like them. It’s the oldest profession there is. To join them is to mourn our ideals. It’s to succeed in letting them go. It’s to give up the fight, to forget our struggle in order to staunch the bleeding. I understood I had to swim in the direction of a world that isn’t flowing in the right way. To double down on my efforts to err with the rest of them. It’s a bit like Baudelaire’s Albatross: fly alone or fly low. Hiding its great white wings to live among the penguins. Accepting the solitude that follows up, that eats away and destroys us.
I chose to leave their world, to get involved as little as possible in their affairs, appalled by the individualism only matched by your good faith when you try to fight it. After a series of brilliant academic studies and more than one failed attempt at integration, I chose a shit job where intellectual integrity isn’t even a choice to be made. I get up at 7:00 AM every morning to unload pallets in a cold room. Every day, I pay a price for my values to be able to look myself in the mirror. But you know what? That feeling is priceless.
And since everyone loves a happy ending, let’s talk about the glass half full. Genius is a pretty trendy condition. And it has many advantages: we’re creative, sensitive and passionate. We master verbal expression, humor, charm and analytical precision. We deeply wish to do good. All that is also part of our nature and our rarity. So please, accept it. Do better to try understanding us.
Help us put our great potential in the service of mankind before it’s too late. That’s all we’re asking for.
Note: If you identify with this text, Stop spending a fortune at the bars downtown. You’ll need it for therapy.