Photo by Marjan Blan | @marjanblan on Unsplash

(On the challenges of living with OE)

“You know me?”

“I do. You’re not the only one cursed with knowledge.”

(Avengers: End Game)

Living with overexcitabilities (OE) can present challenges in day-to-day life. Well, it presents me with challenges. Some I’ve managed to overcome, and some I’m still grappling with. Understanding OE has helped a lot towards managing these things, but there’s still things I’m still trying to refine, or which take a little bit of additional conscious management.

In this post, rather than just crap on about my own problems, I thought I’d do something a little more fun. I want to discuss some of those challenges in relation to one of my favourites Marvel characters – Ironman.

Tony Stark is without a doubt a highly gifted character, but he has some quirky mannerisms and personality traits. Most people put Tony’s erratic behaviour down to him being a spoilt, rich, playboy, but I’ve wondered recently if his eccentricity could it be due to overexcitabilities.

Is Tony, as Thanos suggests, cursed with knowledge? Or, more appropriately, does he have The Tragic Gift?

Stark makes a great case study, because not only is he so familiar in pop culture, but he has the ‘perfect life’. Which just goes to show that no matter how awesome your life seems, living with OE presents difficulty even in the most glamourous of homes.

And if that’s the case then we need to consider what living with OE is like for those who aren’t billionaire, playboy philanthropists. What are some of the problems that managing life with overexcitability can present for the average person?

I’m going to look at how his OE might be affecting his adult life, and some of the problems he might face (or should I say “we might face”). I’ll also some of the problems Tony doesn’t have to put up with because of his unique lifestyle.

But first, let’s answer the key question – does Tony Stark have overexcitabilities?…

Overexcitability in the Ironman

This is a quick list of traits Tony Stark displays in the Ironman and Avengers, which are in line with the five overexcitabilities described by Dabrowski.

Psychomotor

Tony is active and energetic, loves to move, and has a need for physical action. Tony displays the following behaviours in the MCU:

• High energy, zero poker face, and big facial expressions (think the eyerolling meme)
• Continually tapping, or otherwise fidgeting, and rarely sits still in a scene for long. Big gesturing, and is often walking around the room when he is thinking through a problem
• Competitiveness with Captain America and Doctor Strange
• Interrupts people and talks fast
• Likes fast cars and flight suits
• Shows sleeplessness, lack of eating, and other manic-like behaviours when on a ‘thought bender’ or ‘passion project’. In Ironman 3, he stayed up 72 hours straight
• Although Pepper runs the ‘boring bits’, everything to do with his passion is highly organised

Sensual

Tony loves takes both delight and disgust from tastes, smells, textures, sounds, and sights. Tony exhibits this when we see:

• He doesn’t like to be handed things, or shake hands with strangers, and is an awkward hugger…
• …But he loves sex (pleasure seeker)
• Alcoholic, and gets absolutely wasted a couple of times in the movies
• Attention seeker, who loves the spotlight
• Appreciates aesthetic – cars, clothes, art (he buys a Pollock painting in Ironman 1), architecture
• Loves loud music (Ironman 1 he’s listening to Suicidal Tendencies), vivid colours on his Ironman suit, and luxurious textures in his home
• Loves cheeseburgers (comfort food)

Intellectual

Extreme desire to seek understanding and truth, to gain knowledge, and to analyse information. Tony’s intellectual OE traits include:

• He’s Tony Stark. He’s a genius…
• Thirst for truth, and a problem solver (Let’s pull a time heist…)
• Notices things others don’t (“That man is playing Galaga!”)
• Threatened by other smart people (Strange, Thanos), or else fascinated by them (Banner, Loki)
• Impatient with slow people (Quill, Drax). Doesn’t like it when the rest of the class can’t keep up (“Was I the only one who did the reading?”)
• Loves doing the reading…
• Easily fixated and obsessive with intellectual tasks
• Questions everything, particularly authority and the status quo (“What were you lying again, Nick?”)
• Does not play well with others, and highly rebellious

Imaginative

Stark is a creative inventor, but also suffers from vivid dreams and visions of worst-case scenarios. Tony displays this through:

• Idealistic visions not shared by others (A suit of armour around the world)
• Vivid dreamer (his dream about Morgan is so real to him)
• Fear of the unknown and the future
• Creative builder (Builds weapons out of random items in the kid’s garage in Ironman 3)
• Builds in detailed and visual manner (Uses holograms and Jarvis in his designing of Ironman suits)
• Sees detailed visions of his fears (Dead Avengers)
• His distracted mind is terrible at remembering birthdays, deadlines and important dates or information (such as Pepper being allergic to strawberries)
• Procrastinator on tasks he doesn’t want to do – avoids meetings and responsibilities (and Phil Coulson)

Emotional

Intense feelings, complex emotions, identification with others’ feelings, and extreme experiences of emotional events. Tony shows a lot of these:

• Paranoid needs for security and obsessing over the safety of loved ones, particularly Pepper
• Feeling of responsibility for the Avengers
• Loneliness and isolation (He tells Pepper in Ironman 1 he needs her help replace the Arc reactor in his chest, because he has no one else)
• Anxious and emotionally extreme (Tony isn’t exactly calm)
• Emotional baggage carried heavily (his parent’s death)
• Heavily reliant on people he trusts (Pepper, Happy)
• Willing to sacrifice himself, but not others
• Super defensive in relationships (can’t patch it with Cap easily in End Game, can’t get over the Winter Solider thing)
• Expects to make past mistakes again, and beats himself up
• Narcissistic / huge ego, but still doubts own capabilities
• Prone to physical panic attacks (Ironman 3)

OE Problems

Below are some of the issues we know Tony faces, which could stem from his OEs, and I’ve picked these because they are all things that I have struggled with in the past (or still struggle with today)

Alcoholism / Addiction

We know Tony drinks, and many people living with OE are functioning (and very smart) alcoholics. Substance use can come from a need for altered sensory experience, a way to deal with emotional OEs and trauma, or a way to simply dull down the volume on the old grey matter. For me, it was a combination of the lot.

Burn out or ill health (not eating or sleeping)

He gets in manic-like and obsessive states about his work due to his intellectual and imaginative OEs and doesn’t sleep, doesn’t eat, and drives Pepper up the wall. 72 hours with no sleep and little food is not good, Mr Stark.

Trapped in your mind

When you’re obsessed with solving or creating new things, you start to withdraw into your mental bubble. You’re present in body, but your mind is trapped elsewhere trying to solve that impossible time heist thingy. You don’t listen to what Pepper is saying and dismiss her thoughts on composting. Rude. 

Clingy

The emotional attachment to those you love means you’re not willing to risk your family to save half the universe. End of story. Tony is angry at Steve Rogers in End Game – not because they lost to Thanos, because Stark felt abandoned.

 Suspicious and easily jealous

When your brain likes to connect dots all the time, sometimes it does it with dots that aren’t supposed to be joined. I read between the lines all the time. It’s that over-active imagination and propensity for recognising patterns. Tony Stark is a similarly suspicious shit when it comes to Pepper and Aldridge in Ironman 3.

 Trauma 

Tony’s trauma from his parents dying hit him hard. He was still trying to get them back as funky sunglasses holograms years later. His responsibility to the Avengers lies heavily on him too, in the wake of the Battle of New York. We all know the dude isn’t happy. In fact, after the incident in the cave in Afghanistan, it’s possible Stark went through positive disintegration.

The vividness of Tony’s imagination means that he sees the worst possible outcomes and scenarios. When he’s awake he worries incessantly. When he sleeps, his fears follow him in the form of vivid, terrifying dreams. Feeling pain at volume 11 it not something I wish on anyone, ever, OEs or not.

Can’t teamwork

Lack of patience for morons like Steve Rogers can cause friction. Cap barely gets pop-culture references and it’s no wonder Tony has little time for him. You don’t want to hear those magical words from your boss “You don’t have a lot of patience for people who can’t keep up with your ideas, and relationships are becoming strained with so-and-so”.

Risk taker

Tony likes to make radical decisions, quickly (like shutting down the weapons division on the spur of the moment). My advice? Have someone you trust to run decisions by and let them slow you down.

Blunt truths

Tony likes the truth. He likes to tell it. Other people don’t like to hear it. And questioning your boss on everything drives them insane. Your ability to see potential risks and compulsion to tell the truth (bluntly) may appear to be negative attitude, where you’re just trying to help.

Social difficulties

Tony doesn’t make friends easily, even though he has many admirers. People who really get to know him find him difficult to deal with. He’s blunt, sarcastic, and laughs inappropriately (making a murder-bot is funny, right?). But the door swings both ways, and Tony can’t enjoy intellectual conversation with anyone but Banner, because Bruce the only one who makes sense.

Problems Tony doesn’t face

Ironman has resources at his disposal, and a unique lifestyle most of us can only dream of. Here’s a list of problems Tony is lucky enough to avoid.

• Coming out – When you’ve been bullied as a kid for being an egghead, it quickly teaches you not to reveal your IQ to anyone. Tony’s an intellectual rockstar, and everyone loves him and celebrates his talents. Lucky bastard.
• Bored at work – Tony Stark can do whatever the hell he likes. He doesn’t have to worry about lack of variety, being under-stimulated, or being frustrated with restrictions.
• No means to chase dreams – Tony dreams, and immediately has the means to turn his ideas into reality. Creative works take time and resources. Education costs. Materials and tools cost. Start-up businesses cost.
• Lack of qualifications – Doesn’t matter how smart you are, if you can’t afford food, rent, tuition or other costs, you cannot participate in education.
• Shame of being an under-achiever – Howard would be proud of Tony. I’m sure of it. Most parents are proud of their kids at any rate, but a gifted person might feel they’re not meeting their full potential, even if others don’t share that view. They may suffer internalised shame as a result.
• Lack of peers and mentors – I don’t have a Banner, Parker or Strange in my life. Part of the reason people with imaginative and intellectual OE may be reclusive, is that they don’t feel like they have anyone to talk to about their ideas on a level they need.
• Lack of stimulation / overstimulation – If Tony is overstimulated, he has the means to escape and get away for a while. If he’s bored, he can fix that too, and just drive in a grand-prix or something. Most of us can’t just put our life on hold or walk away from it.
• The system doesn’t suit you – A particular issue for people with sensual OEs. You can’t be picky about the fabric of your work uniform or change the lighting in the office. You also must keep society’s sleep cycles, meal cycles, and social rhythms. If Tony doesn’t like the way things works, he just ‘cuts the wire’ and finds a better solution.
• Lack of purpose – When you’re gifted, and don’t have purpose, it’s a cruel trick of life. Why on earth would you be cursed with knowledge, if it wasn’t supposed to serve a purpose? You’re prone to existential over-thinking as it is. Volume 11 doubt of why you’re even alive, when you’re clearly a hot mess and don’t fit in with society, is not good.

So, what do you think? Does Tony Stark have overexcitabilities? Do some of his problems stem from there? Do you have any of the same issues?

Comment below and let me know.