Expert: Sharon Crandall - 3/8/2005

Question
Dear Sharon,
I don't know where to start, so I'll start at the beginning. In grade school I had the highest IQ in my age group and was able to do well in my subjects. In high school I excelled in Art and English even though I rarely turned in homework. I was also able to excel highly in languages quicker than anyone  because of my photographic auditory memory for vocabulary and speech. However, I barely passed every other subject and almost didn't graduate. It was then that I was diagnosed with ADD but never treated. I graduated from high school and when it came time to apply for college I was so overwhelmed by the forms that I kept putting it off and never went. I moved out of my parents house in VA and relocated to NYC to pursue a career in acting or painting or writing. Instead, I ended up hopping around NY from one horrible job to the next, never able to get organized, pay bills, keep anything clean or focus on the things I really wanted to do.  My parents were no longer there to make my bed and go shopping for me. My anxiety hightened in the city and every day I suffered from sensory overload. I find colors too bright and sounds too loud and sometimes it makes me shut down. Eventually I left NY and moved to a small town in Washington state where I am now. I'm now 26 and still don't feel like I'm "on track" w/ my carreer. Mostly because I have talent in many areas but I can't pick one and stick with it. Also, what I find odd is my photographic memory for things like a foriegn language or a poem (after only hearing it once) and the fact that I seem to forget almost every other little thing on a daily basis. My house is always a mess!
I have been to doctors who kept wanting to just treat my anxiety with drugs like Paxil. Unfortuantely, they made my ADD worse by making me so unmotivated and spacey. I've also tried Strattera which had a similar effect on me and I'm now on Ritilin which makes my anxiety so much worse and hasn't really helped me focus much at all.
My main interest in writing to you is the connection of facial features. My right eye is lower than my left and positioned closer to the bridge of my nose. My left foot is slightly larger and my left leg slightly more muscular. My left nostril is also slightly larger. I'm wondering if there is a connection with the eye crookedness and ADD problems like my inability to read a book without having to re-read every page and the sensory overload thing. Both of these problems make my eyes hurt and I usually have to stop what I'm doing and close my eyes for a few seconds. Also, if I'm playing pool, I notice that I always have to shut my right eye and focus w/ my left, although I am right-handed.
Sorry to be so lengthy! Any insight would be much appreciated.
Thanks!
Caitlin

Answer
Dear Cairlin,

Sometimes I get questions that I feel I can only help minimally but with you I know I can really help you understand what is going on with you.  Thanks for your description of your face.

Ok.  You are supposed to be left handed.  This fact alone can cause confusion, hamper creativity, and cause learning problems.  

Now, as to one eye higher than the other.  Look carefully and see if the whole eye is set higher, and also if one eye slants a little differently.  Look at each eye separately and see if the outer corner of the eye slants upward or downward from the inner corner of each eye.

The one eye that is set higher means that you have unconventional judgment.  It means that you see things more "off the wall".  You tend to do things more abnormally than normally.  Many inventors and creators have this trait because they see things from a different angle.

Every trait has its gift and its challenge. The challenge with this trait is that sometimes it distorts your judgment and makes it diffictul to conform. There are times to be eccentric and times to conform socially in order to get ahead in life.

One nostril larger shows that you are more independent in one mood than the other.  Half our bodies are influenced genetically by our mother's side of the family and the other half by our father's.  One side will be dominant, however.  In this trait it means that sometimes you are more condifent in doing things your own way and other times can more easily ask help from others.

It is my guess that you are also highly intelligent.  Highly intelligent people have great difficulty in doing things on a practical level such as the routine things of keeping house, etc.  It is also difficult to bring down all that abstract thinking into simple equations.

I have a few suggestions to help you right off the bat.  If you feel like you would like some ongoing private consulting from me or just like to talk a little more then include your email and I will set something up with you so that I can get really good pictures of you, both frontal and pictures of you from each side, etc.

First of all, since you are using the wrong hand I would write for 15-30 minutes with your left hand every day.  Then, I would enroll in piano lessons.  Einstein had great difficulty in school but I understand he took music lessons that helped him function more on a practical level.  Piano helps your brain to integrate as you co-ordinate both hands plus there is something about music that helps the brain.

Now, I would also take a product called beCalm'd.  If you type that in the internet menu you should come up with their website.  It is a nutritional product that helps feed the brain and has been very effective in helping people with ADD.  I personally know of one woman who also had an anxiety order in which she pulled out practically all her hair.  This product totally helped her. Tell them that I recommended it and they can help you. You might be able to use my name to get it at a discount.  It won't hurt to ask.

Mostly, I think your challenges are your traits.  I think you are a genius (which can be measured), particularly in certain areas and are just not built to do a lot of things so-called normally.  I feel that you were created to do some very special things and are not built to "fit in" to the mold and that you should celebrate your uniqueness.  I could help you more in that area if I knew all 60 of your traits.

There are more things you could do but this is a start.

I would love to meet you in person but don't know where you reside.  I live in So. California and travel from CA to Nevade, to Utah, and to Arizona quite a bit.  

With unconventional judgment do not be dismayed if you feel like doing strange things.  But you need to take hold of your thoughts so that you will not get too eccentric.

I do hope this helps.  Feel free to respond.  There are more things to know about your face being different on one side than the other, such as moodiness, but I would need to ask you some questions to see how it has affected you and which traits to work on.

The main thing to know is that there is probably nothing really wrong with you except you are highly gifted and along with our gifts - the higher the gifts the greater the challenges.  So, your challenges are really your gifts.  It is just a matter of learning how to work with them.  I look forward to hearing from you.

Sharon Crandall
Certified Personality Consultant