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Powerful manias happen when that type of person builds up momentum, and the paralysis happens when they cannot build momentum. The "gifted kid burnout" is what happens when somebody takes up more of a challenge than they can handle. The more resistance you overcome, the greater the rush you experience when it is overcome, if you overcome it. Perfectionism is similar, people either make amazing things, or they're destroyed by their own high standards. I think what happens is that such people accidentally condition themselves into inaction. If you deem your own imperfect product to be a failure, then you punish yourself for your own hard work. The higher your standards, the less reward you get from your accomplishments.
Suffering leads to greatness because suffering is the gap between your current state and your goals. But if this gap is too wide, you realize that the current you is insufficient in reaching the goal, so you realize that you "aren't good enough". Most positive emotion felt in life comes from movement towards ones goals, and despair generally comes from the prediction that one will not reach their goal. Often, despair drives one to re-evaluate things, and if one questions reality for too long, it falls apart, and one falls into nihilism. From nihilism, one can build their own, better philosophy out of the rubble, but it's generally a really difficult thing to do.
If Diogenes was a Nietzsche-type, then he was broken early, only to never fully recover. A common trait in nihilistic people is that they find enjoyment in pointing out other peoples illusions, e.g. "love is just chemicals". If he had actually recovered, he'd be more positive and monk-like, or like Jesus or the Buddha. A well-made philosophy is for something good, while poor philosophies rely on something else to be against, they exist only as a negation of something else
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