I don't feel like a genius....
I have an IQ of 160 which apparently means that I am a 1 in 30,000 individual in terms of how commonly this IQ arises. Otherwise known as 4 standard deviations away from the mean.
But I don't "feel" the intelligence.
Am I "used to it"?
Because people around me tell me how intelligent I am. And I came in the top 250 teenagers in the UK in a national mathematical olympiad. I'm also known for my ability to retain huge volumes of information. I skipped 80% of my maths lessons throughout secondary school yet I got 98% in my mathematics A-level (I sadly couldn't do A-level further maths officially because my stupid school wouldn't let me do 5 A-levels, but I taught it to myself anyway), and 96% average in my other A-levels biology, chemistry and physics.
Let me stop boasting.
I am said by psychiatrists, psychologists, teachers etc etc that I am highly intelligent. But I really cannot feel it.
Does anyone else share this?
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I am a partially verbal classic autistic. I am a pharmacology student with full time support.
Tollorin
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CockneyRebel
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Yep. I have tons of math awards from when I was younger, perfect scores on standardized tests, even a few publications. Yet simple s**t constantly eludes me. I'm always in awe of people who have full time jobs, relationships, and still manage to find time for a social life.
On the flip side, I'm always the first one to understand a new concept, and especially in math and logic I routinely watch something I consider to be completely obvious and intuitive have to be explained repeatedly to people who just don't get it. And these are people with advanced degrees in technical fields I'm talking about.
On the flip side, I'm always the first one to understand a new concept, and especially in math and logic I routinely watch something I consider to be completely obvious and intuitive have to be explained repeatedly to people who just don't get it. And these are people with advanced degrees in technical fields I'm talking about.
I feel the same way, I can really relate to this.
For example there are the numerous times I've been watching a medical drama and I've diagnosed the patients (correctly) before the doctors on the TV get there.
Yet I still feel that I will be jobless for the rest of my life. Government benefits help but I don't want to live on income support and housing benefit for the rest of my life (although disability benefits are not means tested so I can get then even if I do get a job).
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I am a partially verbal classic autistic. I am a pharmacology student with full time support.
People have been telling me that I'm "highly intelligent" my whole life. I was even put in a program for "gifted" students while in elementary school. But I feel pretty stupid a lot of times, especially in social situations, or when it comes to topics outside my scope of interests.
I feel rubbish in social situations too.
I got the lowest mark in the year three years running in the history exams in secondary school.
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I am a partially verbal classic autistic. I am a pharmacology student with full time support.
nick007
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I think you guys feel less intelligent than you are because of your Aspie issues. The NT world can be quite a struggle for those of us on the spectrum sometimes & even thou some of us may be great in school & have very high IQs; we still feel less intelligent due to all the other issues & struggles in life.
I never really felt very intelligent because I really s#cked in school due to dyslexia & having a rare low vision disorder that wasn't identified till my senior year of high-school(I heard 90% of school learning is visual) & I've felt slow & been called stupid & retorted a lot because of my Aspie stuff in addition to my school problems. I was told by psychs when talking about & trying to get diagnosed with AS that I am too intelligent to have anything on the autism spectrum. Being told I'm too intelligent actually makes me feel less intelligent because it's like I have no reason or excuse for having some the the problems I'm having in an NT world so I feel like I must be stupid for not getting things NTs tend to grasp easily. I have been feeling less stupid lately thou because my girlfriend is an extremely smart Aspie who never 1ce made me feel stupid or slow or anything. The fact that someone as smart as her is with me & relates to me; makes me think that maybe I'm smarter than what I think I am; maybe my smarts are just different than the way NTs define smarts
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Last edited by nick007 on 15 Sep 2011, 3:54 am, edited 1 time in total.
As the other posters have pointed out, intelligence is generally understood to be much broader than just IQ or mathematical ability. There are many different types of intelligence...spatial, verbal, social etc.
So I think this makes it impossible to judge your overall intelligence in relation to other people. In other words, to say you have a higher IQ than someone does not automatically make you more intelligent than that person, in my humble opinion.
Or maybe I'm just jealous because my IQ is pretty average ![]()
In Elementary school they wanted to put me in the gifted program, but because of me being AS/ADD and the town I lived in so negative about autism, they convinced my parents that it wasn't the best route for me after all. Said it would be too much work or some nonsense.
That rant aside, no, I don't feel like I'm that intelligent, and because of that I've become a bit obsessed with figuring out if in fact I am as smart as they say. And then when I feel like I've confirmed that I am, I get so happy I sort of brag to my brother, who then tells me I have delusions of grandeur and so the cycle begins again.
When you're of high intelligence, you're used to your intelligence, and it seems like everyone else should be as intelligent, perhaps due to Aspergers and mind blindness and all that good stuff.
I wish I had more of a functional IQ, like logic and math, it'd be so nice to be able to just recite algebraic equations or something to prove that you're intelligent. Supposedly being a genius means you have to be humble due to advanced ethical and moral development or some such. However I think being a humble genius in truth just means you feel like an idiot.
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Aspie Score: 170 of 200
NT Score: 37 of 200
But I don't "feel" the intelligence.
Am I "used to it"?
Because people around me tell me how intelligent I am. And I came in the top 250 teenagers in the UK in a national mathematical olympiad. I'm also known for my ability to retain huge volumes of information. I skipped 80% of my maths lessons throughout secondary school yet I got 98% in my mathematics A-level (I sadly couldn't do A-level further maths officially because my stupid school wouldn't let me do 5 A-levels, but I taught it to myself anyway), and 96% average in my other A-levels biology, chemistry and physics.
Let me stop boasting.
I am said by psychiatrists, psychologists, teachers etc etc that I am highly intelligent. But I really cannot feel it.
Does anyone else share this?
I'd venture to say that maybe you, being in touch with the disabled side of the coin, eclipses the bright and burning other side.
A split that you see, but others may not, or may not see them in their entirety, e.g. executive functioning-- inability to plan to achieve goals, etc.
People can jump on the praise bandwagon when there is cleverness shown, say with math, along with your other achievements. One or two areas of brilliance, can evoke the notion of a pervasive universality of "intelligence."
Barring clinical depression, I believe one can accurately 'feel' or gauge their overall ability. People with strengths in most areas know it.
You got me beat by 2 deviations, and I've heard similar. Do I feel this "ability?" Not really. My executive side or executive IQ is probably below average from the 'mean,' it's a noticeable limiting factor--most apparent to me.
Last edited by Mdyar on 15 Sep 2011, 10:29 am, edited 1 time in total.
Last night I talked to the carer at my supported housing and it was only then that I realised that I am in fact highly intelligent.
I think, as most of you have said, that I am not highly intelligent in all areas, and the fact that I am useless at socialising and communicating sensibly with most of my peers (I can communicate articulately to some people, such as the carers, doctors, parents and my friends) makes me feel "stupid".
Last night I got through half a medium-sized mathematics textbook in two hours. And I didn't notice how much I actually know until yesterday evening when I talked to him.
Strange.
_________________
I am a partially verbal classic autistic. I am a pharmacology student with full time support.
On the flip side, I'm always the first one to understand a new concept, and especially in math and logic I routinely watch something I consider to be completely obvious and intuitive have to be explained repeatedly to people who just don't get it. And these are people with advanced degrees in technical fields I'm talking about.
Well put ! !
and a virtual quote from my father > "those people who just dont get it had to spend years of study to learn it" ,.."you get it and understand it"
"those people are usually the ones that create engineering disasters"
and I also couldnt comprehend why it was so difficult to understand........
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