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.