Your post has been an eye-opener for me. I never thought someone could be missing the sense of achievement. That describes me very well.
I'm at the 99.9+ percentile (I haven't found a psychometrician to take tests with higher ceilings) and I can relate to much of what you said, including having to learn how to be more "human", e.g. how much my tone of voice matters to others, that I'm allowed to stop working sometimes and relax, etc.
I also had problems with anxiety and depression (but never paranoia) and I second what others said that meditation works. It works in the scientific sense, but it's not been easy for me to achieve success through it. However, what little benefit it's had was enough that I can now say I'm generally happy (but nothing fills the emptiness, you just learn that that's how things are). I read some Zen and Mindfulness material (also see Sam Harris as it's hard to find this material stripped of its religious culture) and that has helped me. These are my recommendations.
Where did you get your genome done that you could see results about serotonin and dopamine? I'd be extremely curious to do that. I sent my dna to 23andme and I do have the health results online (they don't do that anymore) but nothing about serotonin or dopamine. I think they do give me my complete genome, and if so maybe it would just be a matter of matching bits of it? (Edit: saw your other comment, downloaded my data from 23andMe and I'm reading through the Promethease report right now).
Do you switch projects often without getting close to finishing them? I start projects to see if I can do something; I never can, so that prompts me to learn (a passive activity) and then I can do it; but as soon as I find out I can do it (sometimes just something clicking in my head is enough) I'm uninterested in the project (say, a game, after I've learned rigid body physics) and so I abandon it and move on to something harder, or something else I can't (yet) do. I never doubt I can learn something but synthesizing knowledge into a product is nearly impossible for me outside work. And the things I do complete (work or otherwise) do not teach my brain that finishing is a good thing that I should do more often.
I'm at the 99.9+ percentile (I haven't found a psychometrician to take tests with higher ceilings) and I can relate to much of what you said, including having to learn how to be more "human", e.g. how much my tone of voice matters to others, that I'm allowed to stop working sometimes and relax, etc.
I also had problems with anxiety and depression (but never paranoia) and I second what others said that meditation works. It works in the scientific sense, but it's not been easy for me to achieve success through it. However, what little benefit it's had was enough that I can now say I'm generally happy (but nothing fills the emptiness, you just learn that that's how things are). I read some Zen and Mindfulness material (also see Sam Harris as it's hard to find this material stripped of its religious culture) and that has helped me. These are my recommendations.
Where did you get your genome done that you could see results about serotonin and dopamine? I'd be extremely curious to do that. I sent my dna to 23andme and I do have the health results online (they don't do that anymore) but nothing about serotonin or dopamine. I think they do give me my complete genome, and if so maybe it would just be a matter of matching bits of it? (Edit: saw your other comment, downloaded my data from 23andMe and I'm reading through the Promethease report right now).
Do you switch projects often without getting close to finishing them? I start projects to see if I can do something; I never can, so that prompts me to learn (a passive activity) and then I can do it; but as soon as I find out I can do it (sometimes just something clicking in my head is enough) I'm uninterested in the project (say, a game, after I've learned rigid body physics) and so I abandon it and move on to something harder, or something else I can't (yet) do. I never doubt I can learn something but synthesizing knowledge into a product is nearly impossible for me outside work. And the things I do complete (work or otherwise) do not teach my brain that finishing is a good thing that I should do more often.