Good morning, my name is Christian Wells and I'm a Ph.D. student in Health Psychology.
Before returning to school to pursue my doctorate, I was a social worker and a child welfare
system. But the cumulative stress of case work was getting to me and I knew that my
days were numbered in that role. At a meeting one day, my client, she disagreed with the
treatment plan that we were proposing for her teenage daughter. She began raising her
voice. She opposed the distance of the treatment center because she didn't have a car and
she wouldn't be able to visit. One of the professionals in the room stopped her and
she said, have you been taking your medication? And I was stunned because the question I have
been uncalled for, it had nothing to do with the issue at hand and it felt mean-spirited
and the mom got up and she walked out of the house. I'm nervous. The woman who'd asked
the question shook her head. She leaned forward and said, she is so bipolar and she used to
be addicted to crack. Her implication was that we shouldn't expect rational behavior
from a person with severe mental illness and addiction, even though she hadn't been an
addict for years and was taking her medication. I got up and walked outside to find my client
and I found her smoking a cigarette and fighting off tears and I was often perceived as the
bad guy by families because child protection cases are very difficult and I decided to
be the good guy that day and do something that I'd been trained not to do and I said,
I wish I'd told you this a long time ago but I have bipolar disorder too and I used
to be addicted to crack. I've been asked that medication question and I've never handled
it as well as you just did and I saw the relief on her face and shocked and what made that
self-disclosure so powerful for both of us was the awareness of the stigma attached to
mental illness and addiction and by revealing that I had the same devalued status as her,
the inherent power differential between caseworker and parent disappeared. This lot of ethnography
is about my life as a person with twice exceptionality or 2e. Who I am drives everything I think
or do and I'm intense and I've never been close to normal but while working on this
study I found that there are other people like me. 2e is the reason why my life has
been filled with paradoxes. The simplest explanation of 2e is that it's being identified as both
gifted and disabled. Throughout most of my life until recently I felt like a freak because
having 2e means there's not just one thing that makes me unusual. In my case giftedness
coexist with two other exceptionalities, ADHD and bipolar disorder. It's difficult to explain
a construct that's based on constructs that are controversial and not clearly defined.
There's no consensus on what it means to be gifted and I have no simple definition to
offer. And the potential disabilities range from autism to dyslexia. A gifted was a status
described to me in childhood at TAM and it opened the door to many opportunities. I excelled
in elementary school, driven to master my interests and prepare for a bright future filled with
unbridled success. That's what everybody promised me. And giftedness made sense until my disabilities
were revealed. By 14 it was obvious that there was something wrong with me. I wasn't purely
gifted. I was damaged. And during the 80s being a gifted girl with ADHD meant there
was virtually no chance of diagnosis. I think most people believe that leasiness and apathy
were behind my sudden academic failure in seventh grade. I had serious behavior issues
and people didn't understand. I wasn't trying to be difficult for attention. I couldn't
help myself. I had no impulse control. And adults were baffled by the way that I could
achieve when I wanted to and be a leader and not care about my grades. But I did care about
my grades. I couldn't admit it. I was very sensitive about it. And so I used humor to
hide my shame and anger. I was committed to a psychiatric hospital at 21 after two serious
suicide attempts. It was a shocking and humbling experience and it affirmed what I had known
all along which was that I was crazy and a drug addict. I was drowning in my perceived
failure. Following high school I had gone away to college in the southwest for two years
before dropping out and returning home to Connecticut. One of the most striking paradoxes
in my life also occurred during that period. I became a published author at 20. The book
was about my teenage recovery from addiction. I'd written it during what was probably my
first manic episode in the months leading up to college. Words spilled from my brain
so fast I could barely keep up. And I wrote no guarantees with no thought about the harm
it might cause others. None. At 18 I don't think I could have known the magnitude of
polishing an autobiography. I'd told stories about people I had no right to tell. And it
damaged the most important relationships in my life and sabotaged my social support network
at the time when I needed it most. But it wasn't all bad. In the dark years to come
when I felt hopeless and worthless I'd read the Curtis review to remind myself that I
hadn't always been a failure. It never ceased to amaze me that a stranger had described
me with the words almost frightening brilliance and leadership. I hung in on my wall to motivate
me to try to keep trying. I moved out west with my parents at 22. And my status as a
published author conflicted with my status as a mental patient. I felt angry and bitter
and I lived in self-imposed exile in my bedroom. All my friends back home were graduating from
college, getting married. And I was so far away from that life that I could barely stand
to think about it. Where was the success that everyone had promised me? Sam was the new psychiatrist
that I started seeing after the joke. Within a few months he recommended that I return
to the hospital because I was getting worse. And it was more than just the symptoms of
ADHD and bipolar disorder. Mental illness had permeated every aspect of my life. I identified
as being bipolar. And once I was at the hospital, I immediately stopped taking all my medication.
And I saw myself as taking a stand. Because my need to control was a classic symptom of
2E. And my extreme stubbornness and inflexibility, it was one of the biggest barriers I had
for years. And when I finally got the chance to talk with Sam, we sat in a small office
and I was ready to plead my case. And it never occurred to me that Sam, he hadn't known me
when I'd been gifted. Before I internalized the sickness role and became my own self-stigma,
how was he supposed to know that I hadn't always been that ill? Or that I expected special
treatment not because I was narcissistic but because that's what I'd always known. But
before I could explain myself, our meeting ended after what felt like just a couple minutes.
And he told me to take my meds and go to group. And he stood up to leave. And I was astonished.
I said, that's it? Are you really not going to hear me out about this? And no. He walked
away and I was in disbelief because I'd expected more from Sam. But I never considered that
Sam might have expected more from me as well. He was human and probably didn't like it when
his patients were non-compliant and refused to accept his treatment. At that point, I
couldn't see past what I wanted and how things affected me. Later, a staff member pulled me
aside and he helped me, he helped explain what had gone wrong with Sam. He told me that
refusing to take my meds was not the right strategy to show him that I want to get better.
But I never had less confidence in myself and my abilities. No one had ever taught me
the coping skills to deal with my exceptionalities because how could they? Being an outlier means
that the vast majority of people I meet don't understand me. But when I began this study,
I wanted to know why I was able to succeed and leave the sickness role at 26. How did
I go from chronic mental patient to doctoral student? The odds had been stacked against
me and I wanted to know what had facilitated my change. I knew that Sam had helped me but
I mean there was no doubt about that. But how had he done it? What qualities or therapeutic
techniques had he used? And Sam possessed many of the positive characteristics that
are known to strengthen and improve the working alliance. After the frustrating hospital stay
I described, I became determined to connect with Sam. Would I proceed as his indifference,
like strengthen my resolve to get him to connect with me? Because I was certain that once he
got to know me, he'd want to help me. One theme that emerged from my coding was the
important of taking personal risks and allowing myself to be vulnerable. And as my trust in
Sam grew, things did get better. No one seemed to understand why I kept calling my medication
doctor instead of my therapist. But the literature supports that I was right to go with my instincts.
I was calling the person who I felt understood me and who had the capacity to help me. My
interactions with Sam were as powerful, maybe more powerful than the medication he prescribed.
Sam, he seemed to always know the right thing to say or do. And he joked around with me,
which was important because I'm nervous now and you can't tell, but I like to laugh. And
I like to work with people who would laugh with me and who got my sense of humor. And
Sam also didn't make me feel like I was at fault for my illness. And over time, my self-stigma
almost completely disappeared. After feeling adrift for years, I finally started to work
toward my goal of returning to school. Something about him compelled me to reach out when I
needed help. And talking to him made me feel better. I called Sam frequently with my questions
and concerns, which wasn't encouraged, but he tolerated it. And I appreciated his responsiveness.
But his behavior was discouraged by everyone else involved in my treatment. The hospital
staff and therapists kept telling me to stop bothering Sam so aggressively that it felt
like they were shaming me. I did feel pathetic, but I was undeterred. Another area where Sam
stood out from other clinicians was his ability to effectively manage his counter-transference
under very difficult circumstances. He was amazingly patient with me. My non-compliance
with medication, my constant need for reassurance, and my chronic addiction must have been really
frustrating for him. But he never gave up, and I knew I could count on him. I felt an
enormous amount of gratitude for his consistent support. I began to realize that I wasn't
a helpless victim, that I had the power to make changes in my life, and a sense of agency
began to develop. And I set goals and made plans. Sam consistently pointed out my growth
and the issues that I needed to work on. I learned that he was trustworthy by taking
risks and discovering that it was safe to tell him the truth. And rapid change occurred
once I started feeling like I was a partner in treatment. As my symptoms improved, Sam
allowed me to have more input. And I felt respected. Even when I wasn't making good
decisions, he took the time to help me gain an understanding of why I needed to trust
him and have faith that he was acting in my best interest. And he insisted that I remain
in therapy with a second provider, even though it seemed increasingly unlikely that anyone
was going to be able to fill his role in my life. But I couldn't understand where he
was coming from because I was very demanding. During the time I worked with Sam, I saw seven
different therapists in about three and a half year period, and I was never able to build
a strong alliance with any of them. But resilience played a key factor in why I had been able
to overcome adversity throughout my life. And one of my biggest assets was optimism.
And that kept me going through all these repeated treatment failures because I entered new therapeutic
relationships thinking, hoping that this would be it. This would be the time when I could
finally develop an alliance. And in my journals, I documented my efforts. I tried to correct
errors that I'd made in the past. And so I wrote letters, and I made tables and charts
to try and help these people understand my history and what had happened in my life.
But mainly, I created Sam's approval. And since Sam wanted me to bond with a therapist,
that's what I tried to do. And it was frustrating because I couldn't work well with someone
if I didn't feel like they understood me. I tried to, like I said, I tried to solve
the problem. But I viewed their lack of understanding as my fault because I was doing something
wrong. And clearly, I wasn't, I wasn't getting through to them, and I was failing at therapy
just like I failed at everything else in life. Until now, I didn't grasp the impact of 2E
on the therapeutic relationship. But it's time for mental health professionals to be
educated about these constructs as part of the training process. Because researchers
have consistently found that people with 2E or giftedness experience the world in a unique
and qualitatively different way than usual. The construct of asynchronous development
helps make sense of the disruption and identity formation that occurs in people with 2E or
giftedness. And behaviors and beliefs that are normal for gifted people are commonly
misunderstood and misdiagnosed because they're not normal in people who are not gifted. The
feeling intensely different can lead to a paralyzing crisis in their identity. People
with giftedness sometimes feel so misunderstood that they wonder if they're aliens. And
I found several journal entries that revealed that I was questioning my existence as human.
And in therapeutic settings where the focus is on searching for illness rather than strength,
people with 2E can be badly misunderstood. Without knowing the context of my life and
history, therapists and hospital staff often pathologize the characteristics of giftedness
that have once been valued. It was confusing. The 2E population is especially vulnerable
because of the complications from disabilities. But luckily, my interactions with Sam, either
in person or over the phone, were packed with therapeutic value. I was growing up and learning
positive adaptation. And during the trust building process I went through with Sam, there was
a point about two years into treatment where I was able to acknowledge that he felt like
a father to me. And idealizing him as a parent was a way for me to relate to him in a meaningful
way. I believed that it was critical to my emotional development. And Sam appears to
have used my positive transference as a tool to help me move through issues of trust and
fear. I felt safe telling him the truth. And when I did, it gave him the opportunity to
help me make better decisions. And in order to get well, I had to stop fighting Sam and
the medication. I saw it help and battled it at the same time. And I had to accept that
I couldn't control bipolar disorder. And I also couldn't leave it untreated and hope
for the best. And during coding and analysis, I found that misunderstanding and disagreement
with treatment goals were some of the biggest obstacles that I had with therapists. One
of them was determined to diagnose me with a severe dissociative disorder. Even after
Sam told her in my presence that it wasn't true. And for the next several months, she
identified and targeted one of my greatest strengths as a disorder. And while I was doing
while I was working on this project, that was probably the most traumatic thing that
I dealt with. I felt retraumatized by it. And her misunderstanding clearly caused me
like significant long term harm. But let's go back to the positives. Sam helped me develop
an agentic self. And my self efficacy increased dramatically. He took the time to help me
work through developmental tasks and grow up. He kept telling me that I could do anything
I put my mind to. And eventually, I believed him. He provided his guidance without judgment.
I felt accepted. And by not rejecting me, despite some truly spectacular failures, it
illustrated that I was worthy of help. And that I wasn't fated to life as a hopeless mental
patient. During the last year I worked with Sam, I headed down an unlikely path to wellness.
I returned to college out of state at 25. And it was an amazing opportunity for me to change
my life. I'd gone from angry and bitter to self confident and optimistic. Arriving at
school and moving into a dorm like I had when I was 18, it felt like a miracle. It really
did. And unfortunately, to say that I screwed it up would be a massive understatement. Two
months later, I had to return home after a series of terrible decisions, including threatening
to kill my neighbor in the dorm. And I returned home overwhelmed with despair. At my failure,
my huge failure, and I spent nearly three months in and out of the hospital, and a massive
rupture of the working alliance left me unable to go to Sam the way that I'd become accustomed
and overnight everything changed. The days of being able to call him for advice and reassurance
appeared to be over. Our therapeutic relationship came perilously close to ending, but somehow
it survived. And as painful as it was at the time, it was it had to happen if I was going
to become autonomous. I couldn't remain dependent on him and truly enter adulthood, even though
I was 25. It was scary, but but like with a real parent, I had to move on and I had
to learn how to live my life and make my own decisions. But at first, it didn't look like
I was going to make it. I became addicted to crack long in a relationship with my first
real boyfriend. And I left my parents home and I moved to ghetto. And I felt surprisingly
comfortable with my, my homeless companions. I still saw Sam, and I was actually taking
my medications and being compliant. But I stopped telling him the truth, because I was
afraid that if I did tell him the truth that he would reject me. And I couldn't handle
that. So my last several months at Sam's patient were bleak. But then my parents were
moving to Los Angeles, and they offered to let me move with them. And I accepted and went
because I saw it as a chance to reinvent myself, my last chance, really. And so, but it would
be easy to look at that period of time as a huge failure. But it wasn't as counterintuitive
as it seems. Heading down such a difficult path actually helped propel me back into the
mainstream world. And when I arrived in Los Angeles to begin a new life, I had one day
clean from crack. And my goals were to get a job, find a doctor, and keep my life simple.
And during the first months, I stuck with that plan. And I was motivated by a desire
for Sam to be proud of me. And when I felt like putting my job or not taking my medication,
I remembered his words and his guidance. And it worked. But I have to admit that luck and
privilege also played a large role in my success. Stigma and bias are tools of oppression.
And auto ethnography has the potential to transform qualitative research by providing
people who've been outsiders with an opportunity to transcend simply telling their stories
and place their experiences in a broader cultural context. My hope is that across disciplines,
there will be increased interest in 2E as a research topic, because there's virtually
no literature on the experience of adult maturity at all. I say virtually, but I'm pretty sure
it's not. I've challenged myself to be brave with this project, and I hope that I can inspire
other people to do the same thing as a way to combat stigma and increase awareness.
Thank you for joining me today and sharing my experience of 2E and auto ethnography.
Oh, I wanted to mention that I have a few flash drives that have a copy of the digital copy
of No Guarantees. I'll copy my paper, the presentation, my code book. So if anybody's
interested, okay, thank you. That's my contact info. And I'm sorry, I wish I could have said
more about auto ethnography and stuff, but it's just, well, you guys know.
20 minutes.
This is a beautiful mixture of speaking and this visual and stuff that you can use. Very
engaging. As you were saying some things and there was different things here, it really
kind of drew us to be into the story.
Okay, well, thank you.
It ties it together.
It took a long time.
I think it was amazing.
Oh, thank you.
I really, like, we're kind of experiencing their honesty. I really think it speaks to
you as a person outside of qualitative research that they really enjoy it.
Oh, thank you so much.
It's so hard to describe a therapeutic relationship and I just, I thought you were, it's just
the way you told it and the honesty of it. I'm not a therapist, I do a lot of work with
therapists and I know how hard it is to articulate that relationship and so it was great.
Thank you very much.
And by the way, he is proud of me.
After 15 years, I saw him and went back to Dead City and, you know, and got to hear it.
So that was very cool.
For me, I'm also a two-year-old and I saw a lot of myself.
Well, thank you.
And I have to say, I have a son who's 29 and he was, look, he didn't speak for years.
He suddenly went through therapy and was speaking full sentences. He was looked at as being autistic.
Yeah, he's a game designer and working on artificial intelligence.
He has always felt he was odd and I've had therapists look at him and they were always a little afraid of him.
So you've given me some insight as well as to how, I don't exactly know how to deal with him.
He's challenging.
Yeah.
Well, keep in touch if you want.
I mean, my contact info is on the flash drive.
Okay.
Thanks.
You talked about, obviously, the intent with the autobiography here, so I understand that.
And you talked about reflecting on you and dealing with your two issues.
Have you looked kind of beyond this at not only dealing with others and helping them understand their superpowers,
but moving beyond and using your superpowers and helping others use their superpowers to make an impact on the world around them?
I mean, that is definitely what I'm trying to do.
Like, I feel like this is the point where I can launch off, because my dissertation topic is parenting stress and twice exceptionality.
And so that's what I'm hoping is that, you know, I mean, there just, there needs to be more, there's no research outside of education about twice exceptionality.
And I mean, I'm in psychology, and I just find it really astonishing that there's not, because it really, it makes everything more complicated.
It really does.
Excuse me.
You mean like a broader, like socially-
I'm a little bit more specific with my question, because I realize I'm not asking it well, so I apologize.
It's one thing to understand the, understand yourself and understand your two issues.
It's another thing to, you know, those understanding the controls as you go about figuring out your superpowers to somebody through the suit at you,
and you have no idea what to do with it.
I get that.
Then there's the other thing of using that suit to go out and make an impact and put your type in the world.
Right.
So I'm wondering.
Oh, how I'm personally, like what my thing is.
Yes, yes.
Okay, I'm sorry.
I get you.
Well, I mean, I love writing, and so I'm trying to find a way to use my writing, and I love speaking.
I mean, even though I get super nervous, you know, I love doing it.
And so like those are the things I feel like I have to offer, like from a multiple intelligence standpoint.
I mean, mine are verbal, linguistic, and the two personal intelligences.
And so that's what I hope to do.
I hope to speak and help other people by showing like this is how I figured out how to harness what I can do.
And what you need to do is figure out your learning style and how you can compensate because you kind of do it automatically.
And so I think that's how I hope to help.
And even just being honest, I mean, people are, it's really hard to admit that you have mental illness or dyslexia or anything like that.
And so I just want people to know that it's okay, you know, or at least to take a chance.
It might not be okay.
I mean, I've lost a job by being honest for sure.
On multiple levels, your presentation is great.
Thank you.
I'm a brain therapist, brand new therapist.
And I was particularly drawn to in this presentation, how you describe that therapeutic relationship when it works and when it doesn't work.
And so I'm wondering how, I know if you filmed this particular presentation, that might be available at some point?
Oh, yeah.
You know, sharing, particularly with new therapists, this kind of experience as a partner to the therapist.
Yeah, definitely.
I'm going to put it on YouTube.
And so I'm actually on pstress15 at gmail.com.
But I'll, you know, but if I'll give you a drive, you know, definitely not sure.
But yeah, thank you all very much.
I appreciate it.
I was super nervous.
Thank you.
Thank you.
To be done.
