I feel insecure about my intelligence

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Hi Salad, I too have poor impulse control especially when all worked up and emotional for any reason, and often do or say regrettable things during such violent but brief storms. Yet I am regarded as smart and knowledgeable by my mom and many other people, since they can ask me virtually anything and I can provide the info they want. For instance my mo always asks my help with crossword clues or other stuff. Like Isabella I also tend to live in my head a lot and my knowledge is more about things considered irrelevant to everyday life, which is something I handle less well. My interests are somewhat limited, e g I can recite the capitals of most of the world's 197 recognized countries as well as numerous territories, and the state capitals of the US and a few other countries.

You can be both a "muscle head" (in the sense that you like to be physically fit and strong), as well as an intellectual. The two are not mutually exclusive, neither are they stereotypes.

It's not always easy to let criticism bounce off us. We need to be able to ignore negative and hateful comments but that's not always easy when we're emotionally sensitive.

A useful resource you might want to take a look at is the website fearlessmotivation.com. You might find some of their videos and talks worth watching. They teach you how to stay focused on your goals while withstanding what others might think.

But with all you post here, you do seem intelligent and thoughtful...so I don't think you're a dumb muscle head idiot. I mean hell the fact that you are even thinking you don't want to come off that way certainly helps your cause that you aren't one. I doubt most actual muscle head idiots would have the self introspection capabilities to even consider if they should be that way or not. But yeah I can't change your mind but as a random person on the internet who read your post you don't really come of as unintelligent. Sure seems sometimes you might get to like sorta acting tough but seems it comes from a place of you being angry at things its right to be angry at. So I would not say you lack intelligence, just sometimes you seem to want to act recklessly. But I mean I don't want to be like braggy but like I have smartness(my family and people have said that so I figure its true maybe idk) but I for sure have made stupid and very reckless choices in the past in spite of all my smarts. And sure sometimes it makes me feel all I am is an idiot, but then I have to think of some of the right choices I have made and the fact that since realizing I had some mental health stuff to deal with I really have gotten to a better place in life.

And well I have some of the things I wanted for a long time...my own space to live in a two bedroom apartment with my boyfriend without disapproving parents or family where I can do what I want like keep my bong out to smoke instead of hiding it up. like when I was younger living with my mom even after my mom found out and just kind of accepted I was going to smoke pot and keep smoking it so she stopped taking issue with that, but would still get mad specifically if I used a bong rather than a pipe. So it is nice not having to hide away my bong every night. Also well I have a good long term relationship with my boyfriend, and sure my brother and sister where always more successful socially than I was, but I am the only one with a legit like successful long term relationship nowdays while they both struggle to find someone they can develop that relationship with. I guess my point is I had a lot of misery and unpleasantness growing up and even into my early adulthood...but its mostly all good now...so like even if it feels daunting now it can get better. I mean some people act like your 20' should be the best part of your life, but well I think overall the 30's are where its at...ha ha like I am so much more well adjusted to life and things at this age, like at this point I am glad my 20's are over and I mellowed down a little bit, like whearas sometimes in my 20's I felt bad if I couldn't like prove myself somehow...but now I am like "I am not even old, but still too old to really give a damn of what 20 somethings think about my leg hair or what not for instance. It is like ok, you just enjoy maybe the worst part of your life and I will continue enjoying being in my 30's and not 20's. Anyways seems you are intelligent and you even recognize not great things about yourself and want to work on those...and everyone slips up sometimes, like you can't be Mr. Brain all the time and that is ok.

Look up Dunning–Kruger effect. People who don't question their intelligence and think they always come across as unquestionably brilliant are usually stupider than those who question their intellect.

Whoa. This book is famous, yes, but highly controversial in scientific circles. The main complaint is that it's racist, overlooking the cultural bias built into most IQ tests. Don't say you've "consulted the research" unless you've also read a good deal of the criticism of Murray and Herrnsteins's approach. Most cognitive psychologists today favor the view that instead of one global intelligence factor, people have a wide variety of mental strengths and weaknesses.

That is something your neuropsych assessment will help you with. You can use strengths to overcome weaknesses and achieve realistic life goals.

I do agree with others here and your own observation, that you are impulsive. Just knowing that about yourself is helpful.

Stop thinking in global terms about intelligence - the word "idiot" is not helpful and is old-fashioned intellectually.

I know I am a little late to the chat, but I deeply relate to you and I just want to say a few things. I have been always, to put it mildly, an oddball and I still am. I never really wanted to make friends and never wanted to make many of them. So kids my age assumed I was ret*d. This didn't really bother me until I grew older. As I grew older I wanted to learn as much as I can about math, history, politics, economics, stuff like that. I also became involved in my church and started studying biblical texts. As this continued I started getting worried when I wouldn't develop an instantaneous understanding of what I was trying to learn. I started taking iq tests online qnd started nitpicking events in my life and lectures myself on where I could've gone better. I would also assume any piece of information someone gives to me was common knowledge and I was either too stupid or too oblivious to know it. If I got a high score on an iq test, it would satisfy the constant nagging but soon I would develop a pedantic attitude towards trying to find possible ways to explain why it was wrong. It got to the point that everything I said was deprived of any certainty and everything wrote in essays and in presentations I assumed was either false or poorly written. I still struggle with it today, but I just came to the conclusion that your value as a human being isn't based on your iq. I like to describe iq as raw materials for your brain. Yes someone who has a lot of raw materials can make more things but if that person spends all their time make useless garbage or nothing at all, they are worse off than the person with less materials who was able to make things that will benefit them and people around them. If you are not willing to spend time and develop your knowledge than iq just devolves into the ability to memorize things easier. I guess I am suggestinf that maybe you should look for ways to learn more. Find a topic you like to study and improve you knowledge of it. Then try finding people with similar interests and start exchanging ideas or join organizations that would provide counseling and help you heal mentally. Find members in your family who were successful and ask about their trials and experiences. This was very helpful to me when I was insecure about my intelligence.

Do you mean unsure? Have you gone to a gp to get a referral to neurologist? Educational psychologist? Dyslexia testing? Eye,ear audiology testing? Mri? Neuropsychiatrist/neuropsychologist ? Iq test? What were your test results from school? Atar?

Mines 85. But I want to retest it. It only takes three hours. So well worth doing it cause your brain is your vital organ.

Unfortunately there’s some things like concussions that don’t appear on mri. Which is creepy! But they haven’t even got colour in mris yet!

Don’t be. Someone with Down syndrome can drive. I always feel stupid but eh what can you do? Stay away from flying soccer balls!

Smartness is about survival so ah yeah it kinda is important cause it’s between living and dying.

Someone said smartness is about perspective? How ? Depending on who you compare yourself too? A d is a fail. No matter who you compare it’s a fail. Aka death.

Being a parrot doesn’t mean you’re smart. Accessing your smartness and understanding complicated things and regurgitating information is smartness? You have to have both not just one to be classed as smart. Or else it’s useless.

dear salad all the reading , i have done here that you have done , never caused me to think that you had ANY shortcomings in your intelligence .
What was going on with the park and the people there: Often Aspies have a hieghtened sense of
right and wrong ...... inbetweens , do not count . There are a variety of ways that the situation could be handled . You chose the most immediate and direct one. Which to some people there seemed too strong a response. Your heritage has nothing to do with the situation .

Truth, Charles Murray does not discuss autism in the Bell Curve, seems if there is a higher IQ among the spectrum, should be discussed somewhere in the book. He did discuss the Idiot-Savant and other anomalies but dismissed the skew.

OR you could think “Damn, I do pretty well for a guy who got his head smashed as bad as I did!”

Same level of functioning, different perspective. Change it up, you’ll be happier for it.

Agrees with this understanding of the situation !

Yeah but the point I was making is that curiosity is a sign of intelligence.

This is a very good point….especially if you have the ability to be curious about your situation.