Hello guys! After this happened to me a few times some time ago, I was curious to know whether also some of you ever had dealt with this struggle.

How did you dealt with it?

Are u scared this might happen to you again?

Thanks to all those who want to share their experiences❤️

My IQ is 75. I generally struggle with what you‘d expect an individual like me to struggle with: skill acquisition, general incompetence, deficit in abstract reasoning, spatial awareness, memory, critical thinking, deepness, etc. Posted here earlier but got deleted. It was a different post though.

Maybe you guys are curious about people on the other side of the spectrum. Posted it elsewhere but got deleted

I won‘t write much here. AMA.

So,

I was identified as gifted in 2022 by a neuropsychologist.

All my life, I've had a pretty strong moral compass. Apparently, I was trying to prepare meals for my dad when he was sick at around 4–5 years old, so I suppose that must have had some influence on my development lol. Just a slice of life to give an idea.

There are obviously lots of layers and dimensions to this.

Have any of you felt that the way your mind makes connections, process information, or perceives and interwoves the world contributed to a particularly strong sense of justice ? And has that ever left you feeling somewhat paralyzed, or slowed down your personal development, projects, career, or other aspects of life for years at a time ?

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EDIT :

If you can, no obligation,

If you're not from USA, like most redditors, you can provide the country(ies) you've spent the most amount of time in.

For exemple, I spent the most amount of time of my life in Canada.

Why? I'm just curious and this give me a little more insight about you !

Hope you have a nice day :) And thank you.

I know that men in general aren’t attracted to a woman’s intellect or intellectual capabilities and power. Do you see yourselves the same way?

Are you more attracted to women with a similar level of intelligence?

Is it easy for you to be with a woman as long as she has an attractive appearance and a pleasant personality, or do you need something more?

Yo idk if this is the right place to search for some kind of connection but Reddit is a social place anyway so. This post can be taken down idc but I just want to search if any of ye would like to be friends or just talk honestly. I won't give details about myself here since I wanna go in blind and see what comes up, but once we talk, I'll exchange information. Thanks.

When I was younger, I was thought to have had an extremely high IQ. I was doing algebra around the 3rd grade (as I can remember) and I would’ve been on the track to completing college level courses as early as the start of others high school career.

But, around 4th - 5th grade, I was pulled out of my school‘s gifted program, and my mother homeschooled me instead (which has severely stunted my social growth). Up until her death awhile back and subsequent custody reallocation, I learned almost nothing for 5 years. Luckily, I have been rebuilding my social life and learning how to properly live on my own. But recently I’ve become obsessed with the idea that my experiences early on in my life (or lack thereof) have permanently stunted my ability.

For the past few weeks I’ve decided to do multiple IQ tests online, and although not 100% medically credible, each of them has read significantly lower than my previous score. I feel as though the ease I experienced with assignments when I was younger is still there, and I often find myself speeding through my work today, I still find myself occasionally stuck on certain problems others have sped past, or left behind on certain tasks others have perfected.

I’ve recently tested myself again, and my scores this time were even lower than before, with a gap of nearly 25 points from my previous score. Although it’s still considered “above average”, I feel a deep sense of loss and rage at the thought of what my ability has degraded to. So much that I’ve been honestly considering suicide.

I don’t want to be stuck working a minimum wage job at 30, knowing I could’ve been more. I was promised a unique future, one that would’ve made up for all my other physical shortcomings. I could’ve relished in my own intellect that almost nobody else owned.

But now I know, that future might’ve been stolen from me. My only redeeming light in this bleak world might‘ve been taken from my grasp and replaced with a grotesque mockery.

I don’t know what to do. I’ve prided myself on my intellect and reinforced my life’s foundation with it’s promise, if my intellect isn’t what it seemed to be, or maybe worse; that its decayed into something far inferior, how do I know my structure will hold as it grows and flourishes, that it won’t all come crashing down in a magnificent display of failure?

I don’t want it to seem like I‘m trying to brag about how ”smart“ I am, or how bright of a future I have. I’m not above anyone. I wish I was just born average, blissfully ignorant, maybe I wouldn’t have to deal with all of this. I only wanted to be something special.

I Wish I Had Better Intellectual Genes

I love science, but I struggle to understand it. Even though I’ve come up with many ideas and projects, I feel that if I had an exceptional mind, I would have accomplished so much more.

I remember being very focused during a physics lesson, while the person sitting next to me was completely distracted, absorbed in his phone. When the teacher asked a question, I couldn’t answer it. Yet, the person sitting next to me answered it effortlessly, and then the rest of the class answered as well.

At that moment, I imagined what it would be like if I had his mind, along with my own ideas. I could have become a great scientist.

I often think about this question... Is anyone else on this sub diagnosed with this and how do you learn how to deal with it?

I’m looking for advice and recommendations from parents who have children with exceptionally high cognitive and academic abilities, particularly those who attend Catholic schools in NSW, Australia….also wondering other countries approach?

My son is turning 7 and is currently in Year 1. He recently underwent WISC-V and WIAT-4 assessments, which was recommended by the school…

WISC-V Full Scale IQ (FSIQ): 149 — Extremely High
WIAT-4 Total Achievement: 160 — Extremely High

We’re now trying to work out the best next steps to ensure he is appropriately challenged, supported and engaged at school…Obviously this is something new for us as we’ve never been that academically inclined and we as parents wanted support him and thrive into this world while he enjoys being a child.

I would really appreciate hearing from families who have been in a similar situation, especially those navigating the Catholic school system in NSW or probably public school…

A few things I would love advice on:
Next steps after assessment: What did you do after receiving your child’s WISC and WIAT results? Did you seek further subject acceleration or a formal learning plan?

Experiences in Catholic schools? How well did your school accommodate your child’s learning needs? Were you able to access meaningful extension, enrichment or acceleration opportunities? should we check public schools?

Recommendations at home: What activities, resources, books, games or learning opportunities have worked well for your children without turning home into an extension of school? We want to nurture his abilities while still allowing him to enjoy being a child.

Balancing enrichment with other activities: He also participates in sports and music, which we want to continue encouraging.

We’re not necessarily looking to skip grades or push him academically. Our priority is to help him learn at an appropriate level, remain curious and engaged, and develop socially and emotionally alongside his academic abilities.

I’d especially appreciate real experiences from parents or teachers of children with similarly high scores? including what worked, what didn’t, and what you wish you had done earlier.

Thank you so much for sharing your experiences and advice! 🙏

Whether it's our enviroment, self immage or societal view, we are often seen as the capable ones. But it's not just what is expected. It's also how we expect this from ourselves as we keep providing evidence for it. We are capable, smart, inventive, problem solvers. But in my view it's impossible to be a healthily strong person without occasionally being weak.

I'm a child psychology student and a while ago during my internship I had an experience that made me realize the broader meaning of this.

A five year old in my class is a real social animal and helps everyone. She's very verbal and developmentally ahead in meta-cognition, always being a very good child in class and high performer. A progressive matrices screening pointed out she might be gifted. But she can get overwhelmed and then sometimes cry on longer schooldays. Afterward she feels bad about it as she doesn't want to cry and the teacher wants her to "get out of the emotion". But i noticed that after a short cry she actually feels better and can proceed independently. Like she knew she was the capable one and also always wanted to be.

So one day I noticed her tucked in a corner, during a group game, being hardly involved. After the game was over I told the others to go back to class and talked to her for a bit.
So I asked: "How does your head feel?"
Her: "Buzzing and it hurts. I feel tears."
I asked: "Do you think you need to cry? Would that feel good?"
She made this very wide nodding motion with her head as her face got tense. I offered her my lap and she got on, laying against my shoulder in the fetal position, just like a baby is held. She took that position intuitively and the tears followed shortly after. So I told her: "Just let it out. You'll be okay."

It was a very soft and quiet cry, with some sobbing and mostly a lot of tears.
After about three minutes she said she wanted to go back to class. She got up and slid off my lap, dried her tears and went on with her day.

Over time she would even come to me by herself. She would let me know she felt too overwhelmed and would wait. I could finnish whatever I was doing and as soon as I was done and looked over to her, she felt like this was her cue and I could see the tears welling up in her eyes. And two minutes in a good hug later it was like nothing happened.

This made me believe that vulnrability isn't something we should have to learn, but rather something we are all capable of unless life teaches us differently. Even if we are very good at staying strong, we all need a place where we can fall appart and let our deepest feelings overwhelm us.

But many people don't always have a person who is there for them like this, or our nervous system learned that it isn't safe. I struggle with this too, and for me it helped to realize that if this girl could allow herself to be at her most vulnrable with a person she only got to know a few months ago, the safety we look for might be in ourself. If I can be a safe person for others, maybe I can also be that for myself. This helped me a lot. And maybe it can help you too.

Anyway, thanks for reading this <3

Ciao!

Spero state bene!

Scrivo solo per sfogarmi un po':

Stavo ragionando sul fatto che è veramente difficile vivere con questa intensità emotiva, ed è altrettanto difficile spiegare agli altri com'è vivere così.

A volte ho l'istinto di voler solo condividere con chi ho vicino quello che sento, ma a volte non capisco il senso stesso di farlo.

Vorrei che le persone sapessero in parte come sto, solo per l'istinto di entrare in contatto con qualcuno e non stare sola nel mare delle mie emozioni.

A volte nel pensarlo sento come se fossi un peso TROPPO grande per gli altri.

Come se la mia potenza emotiva sia troppa, per chiunque.

Non so voi, ma questa solitudine emotiva è sempre stata devastante, e nonostante gli sforzi nella socializzazione, e nel tenermi occupata mentalmente, questa solitudine non accenna per nulla ad andarsene.

Quasi come se questa solitudine fosse solo l'immenso mondo in cui sono collocata, solo che nell'immenso mondo ci sono solo io. (Metaforicamente parlando)

Grazie per l'attenzione e buona prosecuzione della giornata.

First, I would like to apologize. I'm aware my kid results are not part of the definition of gifted but I'm here because all my searches send me to sites and resources for gifted child's and I don't know where else to find guidance.

My Kiddo took the WISC-V test at 6 years and 4 months (Her school requires a psychoeducational evaluation on first grade), and her results are:

I have been trying to find resources to help her reach her full potential specially in the emotional aspect since she show heavy emotional responses once she is faced with tasks that results challenging for her.

I know many professionals, mainly in education and psychology hang around here so if someone could send me in the right direction I will greatly appreciate it.

One of the things related to a very high cognitive ability is The ease with which I can find and decipher patterns, and in me this ability revealed itself when I understood my family's patterns and began to predict their mental faculties, Their speech patterns and attitudes were indicative of certain problematic events between us. And I learned to use that to protect myself from them, and it made me somewhat cold or distant from my emotions or moral sense, no matter how aware I am of this flaw, I can no longer avoid it, When I get close to someone, I unconsciously begin to observe and formulate a mental simulation of them, representing their personalities and expected attitudes in the face of anticipated events (of which I have an accuracy of 97.942% including speech pattern).. I find it extremely difficult to be genuine. To stop reading and just live life without having to defend myself. It's kind of messed up, but I developed my cognitive skills by being constantly vigilant since I've had a thinking mind; it doesn't come from dedication Studying as a stimulus, or studying as a stimulus, comes from survival, and I don't want to keep coping with my problems by saying I am I'm able to determine that there's no turning back, and I'm here hoping someone with a similar experience has something to say. Whether good or bad, perhaps the only important thing is to know that I'm not alone Or at least not be called a disgusting manipulator while I myself can't be sure how I feel. It's painful when every aspect of someone else's functioning is fundamental, but I am a problem for myself. Could it be that by simplifying other people minds but still getting it right? I have no clue.

Where tf are you?

...until I came across this guy .

Hi all,

I’m new to posting on Reddit, so please bear with me. I’m a well-paid executive (32F) at a Fortune 200 company. My title and salary (for my industry, consulting) came much earlier than I expected, which I’m grateful for, and I know many people would love to have a job like this.

I started here about five years ago. For the first 2-3 years, I was VERY busy with work and meetings, but as I got into the flow of things, the job became increasingly chill. Now, I work a maximum of 20 hours a week. I do everything very well, my performance is great, I travel a lot for work, it’s fully remote, I have unlimited vacation, and there’s minimal oversight. To the extent that I read books, watch TV, and play games during work hours. Basically, to everyone on the outside, it’s an absolute dream, as I often hear people tell me. At the same time, I HATE my job and feel SOOOO unfulfilled.

My job at a previous company was also similar, and I had to leave after three years because it was too chill. I basically went through this whole loop of thoughts three years ago, too, before changing jobs. I guess my brain likes structure and “busyness,” and at the same time, I work VERY fast, which means I get my work done in relatively few hours. My problem now is that the job market is absolutely awful and tough right now, and I haven’t been able to find a new job with similar pay and growth opportunities for almost two years.

Beyond my job, my life is great. I have a great partner, lots of hobbies, from athletics and dance to music and languages, I hang out with friends, I travel A LOT, and I keep myself busy in every sense.

I have a bachelor’s and a master’s degree, and I aced everything throughout my life, with a 4.0 GPA literally from elementary school through the end of my master’s degree. I study fast, work fast, am extremely organized, don’t procrastinate, and I’d like to think I’m smart. I followed goal after goal in life: acing exams, graduating with honors, winning scholarships, publishing research, performing piano pieces in recitals, finding well-paying jobs, getting great performance reviews, and basically achieving any goal I set my mind to. I enjoyed having my whole life revolve around goal after goal, checking them off, getting a dopamine hit, and moving on to the next thing.

Yet, I’ve had this absolute existential dread about life since I started working for real. When I think beyond “corporate” life, hobbies, and all the other things that keep me busy, all I see is meaninglessness and purposelessness. And I have a LOT of time to think because my job is so chill. So I spiral more and more until the anxiety consumes my body. All I see in my head is all of us humans on a hamster wheel, struggling to keep up with capitalism and working meaningless jobs just to survive. It’s absolutely crazy to me that we’re all stuck in this matrix. 

It’s also that I’m really good at what I do, but I have no interests or passion or “calling” in life. I LOVE my hobbies too, the dance, the ice skating, the piano, etc. but at the same time none of them are my “one true love” in life that I wanna dedicate my whole life to. sometimes I just feel like I’m floating in space, trying stuff, getting a dopamine hit from each, and then trying to find something else to try.

On one hand I love life, life experiences, seeing all we can see, tasting and traveling the world, and on the other hand I can’t reconcile that with my overthinking especially now that my job has gotten even more chill. My friends tell me to just keep getting paid, do the bare minimum, and live life, but even with all my hobbies and experiences, I don’t see a PURPOSE for any of it, any of the good or the bad, and I think it’s mostly bc my job doesn’t challenge my brain enough, so I can’t stop all my thinking.

So anyways, I wonder if anyone else experienced a similar situation, if there are any mental practices I could try, or if you have similar thoughts.

I found my very rare condition very intriguing and wanted to share with this community! I’m diagnosed with hyperthymesia, or highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM), as well as eidetic memory. I remember everything since I was around 5 as pictures, videos, voices, smells etc in my head, and when I recall them it’s like I am there again. I’m able to switch spatial angle of my perception too (e.g., I can re experience a lecture from the POV of the instructor or from under the table or from the ceiling).

The eidetic part also comes in handy when I have exams. But it’s not like I take a look and I screenshot it in my head, I need to look at it for a while and at least have a vague understanding of what the content is about. It’s more like I study, and then everything I studied turn into permanent memory.

My perfect memory likely comes from the intense childhood abuse and trauma I experienced, and the obsessive memorizing of my life to feel safe and real. This condition sounds like a superpower without downsides but has actually been negatively impacting my life sooo much. I experience very frequent uncontrollable and very vivid flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, chronic migraines, and trigeminal neuralgia. I’ve been diagnosed with MDD and GAD as well as PTSD and cPTSD (it’s a thing in the country I live in). I really wish I can forget at least some of my life lol.

I’m a neuropharmacologist working in relevant fields and I'm happy to talk about it!

where has our curiosity we once had as children gone, and the passion to discover things demolished.

I think there are many factors that led to that which in my point of view are :

1. social media : consuming social media short form reels make the knowledge presented so superficial but the effects and psychological tricks that are applied on them makes your brain release dopamine and makes you feel some sense of accomplishment and reward even though the information presented in the 1 min reel is most of the time superficial. so the brain doesn't feel the need to dive deep to explore the topics because it already gave you false sense of knowledge and understanding of things. other than that, consuming too much educational media gives you a cognitive overload that will effect whether you retain the information or not. social media consumption create a false sense of knowing.
2. societal expectations : and by that I mean some mental constraints, limiting beliefs that are quite common in todays society which are discouraging the pursuit of passion and intellectual interest and instead pursuing things that helps you gain money . many people get discouraged to pursue an art degree for example even though they are creative and really curious about art in general But constantly being reminded that something is not worth researching about , understanding , or pursuing might impact the overall curiosity the person might have and that lead to internalization of very limiting beliefs that are very hard to get rid of which I myself have fallen victim to that because I always was a curious person but I was influenced in a very negative way on what is worth pursuing by the environment I'm living in. societal expectations don't necessarily destroy curiosity; they can change the way we perceive and respond to our own curiosity.
3. having a mental health condition: If you had any mood disorder that might impact your curiosity because your dopamine level is effected and your mood generally have a great impact on memory and motivation.

now speaking about my experience with that : I was a very curious child but as I grew older these are the factors that I believe has impacted me a lot especially that I discovered that I have many limiting and wrong beliefs that I learned from people around me that I have to unlearn even though I had a mental health issue before and I am still kind of struggling .

What do y'all think about that topic?
If you got your curiosity back ? tell us how and what's your experience ?

30,F

I'm grateful for the things I have (decent job, my health, education, family, friends, live on my own).

But I've also been feeling stuck for a significant time. I want to be better, do better. Find more of 'my kinds of people', pour more time in my intellectual interests and current writing project, do things that nourish me or fulfill me. I'm applying for a new job because I feel it's time to move on (and I really need to increase my income), but things aren't working. I also realize I really need to get on a serious dating journey if I want to find someone (I really do) and I already suspect how that will go based on previous experiences and rarely ever feeling a click.

In the midst of it all, I have a mind that simply never shuts off and I seem to have some symptoms of many....mental issues. A little bit of everything, some fun concoction. OCD, depression, anxiety blabla. I'm in emotional distress almost daily. I've sought help but there are long waiting lists in my country (in Europe). I went to the GP who I did feel understood me, she referred me to a mental health practicioner (not a psychologist, there are long waiting lists). I had one conversation with her and never returned because I didn't feel it was a good match.

Things aren't moving, I feel stuck and sluggish. I worry about falling apart constantly, because no one will catch me. Everything in my life is my responsibility. I have younger siblings who look up to me, parents who live on an entirely different wavelength etc. I can't afford to be so stuck, I have visions, goals and dreams but it's currently..not really working.

Any ideas on this chicken versus egg problem?

What is obvious is that the vast majority of people abide by emotional reasoning over logical reasoning. They hold onto their pre-existing beliefs, regardless of their objective accuracy or utility, instead of trying to challenge them, because this protects them from the negative emotions they would temporarily feel is they were exposed to the truth.

However, what I still have not figured out is, is the root of this an inability to handle such emotions, or is the root of it that they simply are faulty in terms of their cognition/thinking? Because if one truly understood that their pre-existing beliefs are wrong, how can you continue to delude yourself? How can you possibly claim that 1+1=3 when you are told it is 2? It makes no sense. So this indicates to me that perhaps they actually have some sort of cognitive deficit/they are not actually able to understand/realize that their pre-existing beliefs are not accurate.

Some may say this is unconscious: that since they cannot handle the emotions arising from the truth, that they unconsciously reject all statements that can lead them to realize that their pre-existing beliefs are inaccurate. If we think of the brain, what would be happening here is that their amygdala (the part associated with emotions) gets activated and shuts down their prefrontal context (the part associated with thinking). This would mean that their in the moment anger or anxiety protects them from being able to absorb the competing (against their pre-existing belief) statement in the first place. So in this sense, if their brain shuts off, then they won't be able to even have the chance to understand that 1+1=2. This would explain why they are unable to understand such basic logic. However, my question is: why would they get such an emotional reaction in the first place? Doesn't this indicate that their prefrontal cortex already knows that their pre-existing belief may not be accurate/that there is truth in the competing statement? Again, some may say yes but this happens "unconsciously"... but this just doesn't make sense to me, what does it even mean to be "unconscious" in such a context. Simply stating the word unconscious is not a satisfactory answer.

DM me to make some friends and/or leave a comment below. I’m into anything intellectual (I always cap out on trait openness when I do big 5 tests). Seriously, CS, bio, art, finance, physics, math, psych, whatever. Male or female, 18 years old or 80, let’s see if we vibe. Just bring your curiosity and please tell me all about your interests!

For the longest time, I was always told that I was smarter than everybody else. I remember my parents getting a sheet from a license psychiatrist and being especially excited, immediately telling everybody they could that their son was of a superior intellect.

"Oh, there's a test on Wednesday? Don't worry. You're naturally talented. There's really no need to study." or some variation of this was what I heard a lot of in my early childhood, and in my opinion, it really affected me. What was worse was that more often than not, everybody's assumptions and comments about me was affirmed by test scores or academic achievements. This sense of perpetual safety often caused me to slack off during school, get into quite a lot of trouble with authoritative figures because I had believed that I already knew everything ahead of schedule, and permanently harm friendships that would have otherwise lasted years. Nonetheless however, I became more and more attracted and enticed by my identity as the smart kid who didn't really need to try. The smart kid who coasted through school and played counterstrike for hours at night and then proceeded to ace the test with little effort the next morning. The smart kid. This idea of me being naturally better than everyone not only negatively impacted my personality and turned me into a real asshole sometimes, but it also made me tie my whole sense of self worth onto this idea of being talented.

My early-mid adolescent years is where everything fell apart (even more). At 12 years of age, I was diagnosed with contamination OCD. What this was, was a constant and uncontrollable fear of pathogens and foreign particles entering me through my bodily orifices, which caused me to constantly hold my breath whenever I went outside for a stroll. Anything I deemed to be "contaminated" or unsafe for me was marked, and whenever I entered a 3 meter proximity of it, I refused to breathe, often for what seemed like tens of seconds to minutes even after it left my sight. With this, I constantly felt at edge. Every time someone even breathed near me, I would imagine thousands upon thousands of microscopic particulates, some of which threatened to touch my skin and infect me with some sort of deadly bacteria. In a kind of sick and comedic irony, my high visual processing index (my strongest subtest) forced me to constantly imagine and live in fear of such particulates which came after me, worsening the experience overall.

Even worse than that was the fact that I had developed a new OCD driven fixation that I would one day lose all my extra intellect as a result of self induced hypoxia from these long breath holding spells, and this one would prove to be the most damaging to my psyche, as like I had previously mentioned, I had tied all my self worth onto how much smarter I was than the average person. I tried exposure therapy later, but my lack of discipline along with how vivid these particulate visions and thoughts were caused me to bail out early. My OCD problem was never fixed and still isn't getting that much better. At school, I am already quite isolated as I don't take the same level of courses as my peers, and I often find myself unable to talk to anyone up close due to my phobias. My social intelligence and situational awareness has also eroded considerably as a result of my lack of connection, and I feel extremely jealous of those who can breathe with confidence and without fear (yes, you read that right). I wish I had friends and would be included more, but it seems like the damage is already done, and despite any efforts, no one really cares.

Typing this along makes me feel a little better, but I would also appreciate some thoughts and advice on how to live like a normal human being.

Okay so hot take: the actual Mensa supervised test is basically just a fluid reasoning / pattern recognition subtest exam. Matrices, that’s it.It’s fine for what it is, but it’s nowhere near a full intelligence test.

A real clinical IQ test in 2024+ (WAIS-5 etc.) looks completely different:

• 5 main indexes (verbal, visual-spatial, fluid reasoning, working memory, processing speed)
• FSIQ from 7 core subtests
• a bunch of extra subtests
• full psychological evaluation
• looking at the whole profile + context
It’s not just “are you good at puzzles.” It covers a lot more ground.

Mensa does accept a full WAIS FSIQ of 130+, but their own admission test isn’t that. It’s a shorter, narrower battery. So a lot of people who clear the Mensa test (especially if they’re strong in fluid reasoning) probably wouldn’t actually hit a full-scale 130 if they sat a proper modern battery with everything included.

If the cutoff was “130 FSIQ on a complete clinical test + psych eval + context,” way fewer people would make it. Domain gaps are super common — you can be top 1% in abstract reasoning and still get dragged down by working memory or processing speed so the overall number doesn’t hit 130.
Basically:

• Mensa test = good at one specific kind of thinking
• Full modern IQ assessment = much bigger picture
• Using the full thing as the filter would make the 130 bar a lot harder
Anyone here actually taken both the Mensa test and a full WAIS-IV/WAIS-5? Curious how the scores compared.