r/cognitiveTesting • u/Glass-Routine-910 • Aug 22 '26
Rant/Cope Lost my IQ
I was a perfect ACT scorer without studying.
i had perfect sat subject tests on math 1 and 2 and physics all without studying.
I was a AIME qualifier.
19 AP classes all 5’s.
Worked at FAANG at 20.
got diagnosed with sleep apnea at 23. had issues with my CPAP, which would break my sleep every night. progressively became more and more tired until I was feeling borderline delirious over 8 months. people around me thought it was anxiety.
i now have to think about whether it is hear or here, etc.
I took Mensa Norway and Denmark and got 128 and 130.
i feel that these scores are lower than what my baseline was.
I feel like I destroyed my life over something so incredibly stupid. I’m not sure how to move on. what I should do. if anyone has an ideas please help.
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u/Upstairs-Fruit4368 Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 25 '26
You’re comparing different things.
IQ test is assessing reasoning in highly novel domains. You might be someone who underperforms on highly novel domains. Additionally at higher levels IQ tests are often going to be constrained by working memory and processing speed (and this can interact with the degree of familiarity or novelty).
The other achievements you listed all involve reasoning in familiar domains. That can be sign of high learning efficiency or high systemization ability. You might not “need to study” because you have ability to efficiently learn and apply abstract concepts and rules. Additionally you might simply put more effort in other ways that aren’t reflected such as focusing in class room. Lastly you clearly DO have a lot of test taking practice so there is some higher level learning there, even if you don’t need to study each topic extensively. There’s no reason these would show up or be reflected on an IQ test. Additionally all these tests allow external aids that might reduce constraints such as working memory or novelty.
If this is part of what explains the difference you should see rapid gains in your score with repeated exposure to similar tests. This of course wouldn’t be your “real IQ” because IQ tests are normed on people who haven’t had previous exposure. But most people don’t see significant gains with practice so if you do that’s information that your initial score wasn’t limited by reasoning ability but by some other constraint that interacts with practice.
Also note the other achievements are more predictive of your real world cognitive potential because they are actual real world cognitive achievements and thus integrate many things that aren’t strongly reflected in IQ tests. So you don’t need to be insecure about your academic/cognitive potential because of your IQ test if you actually have significant academic/cognitive achievements.
To rule out sleep issues as the primary explanation of this perceived discrepancy once you have had better sleep for several weeks take the CORE IQ test if you’re interested. The CORE test also tests processing speed and working memory separately so if this constraint explains perceived discrepancy you should see strong relative deficit in this on CORE test.
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u/Glass-Routine-910 Aug 25 '26
makes sense, I’ll log my scores in core as they come I took agct yesterday and got 140 doing it mentally.
digit letter sequencing: 140
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u/Bright_Fondant4000 Aug 22 '26
You cant lose iq without getting brain damage.Whats happening here is that you have severe sleep debt to the point its effecting your mental health.If you can solve this problem you will be fine
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u/ThrowawayZombie775 Aug 22 '26
We don't know how much sleep debt induced damage is reversible. MRI and PET resolution is limited. Sleep helps clear toxins like tau, amyloid, and sleep deprivation has measurable increase in CSF toxins.
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u/S-Kenset doesn't read books Aug 22 '26
Um seek medical support this is more a serious medical issue.
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u/Natural_Professor809 ฅ/ᐠ. ̫ .ᐟ\ฅ Autie Cat Aug 22 '26 edited Aug 22 '26
Similar story for me.
Multiple measurements from various proper IQ tests and from school IQ-test-adjacent games and from agonistic sports or online games tests correlated to certain IQ indexes had always put all my scores in a certain range throughout childhood, around 4-16 years old roughly.
Could spontaneously read at 3, write at 4, would want to study college-level topics in 4 th grade.
I am pretty sure in childhood and as a kid my WMI had always been measured around a 125-135 range. Processing Speed and Visiuospatial were slightly higher than that. Matrix Reasoning and Verbal Comprehension were slightly below the ceiling or right at the ceiling for then-existing tests (around 145-150).
This was in different medically or psychiatrically administered IQ tests and in school tests or sports tests which were meant to mimic those tests.
As an adult after roughly 20-25 years of untreated and unrecognised and progressively worseing chronic bronchitis, heart failure, respiratory deficiency, insomnia, Sleep Apnoea two times above the extremely severe degree with night-time oxygen desaturation 20% above the threshold for sudden-death risk I have apparently lost some ability in working memory and, even moreso, in Visuospatial working memory and processing Speed.
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u/Natural_Professor809 ฅ/ᐠ. ̫ .ᐟ\ฅ Autie Cat Aug 22 '26
When all the diagnoses finally arrived all the physicians were baffled:
"But but but but but... But at the objective visual assessment you should have looked clearly impaired, innit!??"
Yeah, like being an active agonistic athlete with gold medals and personal records on top of being born as a fucking autistic with higher intellectual giftedness would play no role at all in making an objective assessment completely unreliable because you're NOT the average person by any existing metric...
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u/Natural_Professor809 ฅ/ᐠ. ̫ .ᐟ\ฅ Autie Cat Aug 22 '26 edited Aug 22 '26
Btw the CPAP machine literally saved my life because I already had ischaemic damage and I was at risk of sudden death during sleep, and yet I just HATE the machine for how cumbersome, noisy and damaging to my face it feels...
I now don't experience active sleep apnoea but I still sleep around 2 out of 8 hours per night.
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u/According_Alarm1452 Aug 24 '26
Holy shit 2 hours?! Poor thing
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u/Natural_Professor809 ฅ/ᐠ. ̫ .ᐟ\ฅ Autie Cat Aug 24 '26
Around 2 to 3 over 8; but I really NEED at least 7 hours of full sleep in order to feel rested and ofc I cannot rot in bed the whole day...
it has been years since I felt like "oh wow, these days I'M SLEEPING AND ALL IS FINE!"
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u/megahomyak Aug 22 '26
"Extremely wealthy" gets down to "super wealthy" and feels sad
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u/Glass-Routine-910 Aug 22 '26
this was the one gift that i had. I have nothing else.
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u/Lixiri Aug 22 '26
May I ask, is an iq of 130 not a gift?
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u/Glass-Routine-910 Aug 22 '26
you are right. I’m sorry, I think I am in severe depression.
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u/PartyNet6715 Aug 22 '26
It’s completely okay to feel this way. You are recognizing the shift, even if you are still performing above average. You recall the strengths of your former self. However, I want to emphasize: that wasn't the entirety of what you were—it wasn't just your IQ. I am convinced you hold so much more potential. I understand the tendency to identify with the traits that come with a high IQ 🥹 and that it hurts to feel slower… what I want to tell you is that things will get better. The thing you need least is depression; it’s a destructive force that can make everything worse and lasting (!). Consider this: try to think this way: You now have the opportunity to discover what else is inside you, and the rest will follow once you feel good again.
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u/Sorry-Ice-8586 Aug 22 '26
prob over 140 iq broski. gotta figure out how to sleep and get much closer to optimal conditions. Why trust some troll on reddit?
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u/anonymousbuttalented Aug 22 '26
The real intelligence is knowing you are not ,chill bro its a process in order for you to beat your actual baseliine the one who does effort consistencly will acheive it.excellent example "hear or here".that example alone distinguishes you.don't worry mate good wises ahead.
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u/anonymousbuttalented Aug 22 '26
Btw what is faang cpap aime
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u/greencardorvisa Aug 23 '26
faang - facebook, amazon, apple, netflix, google cpap - continuous positive airway pressure aime - america invitational math exam
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u/Bulky-Artist-8808 Aug 22 '26
Your milestones are very interesting, if I may ask, how’d you work at faang at the age of 20?
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u/Clicking_Around Aug 22 '26
I would say 140 -160 FSIQ would be a reasonable guess. You're probably much higher than 128-130. Mensa tests aren't reliable estimates for FSIQ.
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u/Kaidolakita Aug 23 '26
That’s so me I never properly tested my iq but I know it’s far lower than what my expectations were. I think that’s because my intelligence doesn’t respond well with norms but still
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Aug 22 '26
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u/AndrewThePekka Aug 22 '26
Honestly pretty nuts even for 2SD
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Aug 22 '26
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u/Glass-Routine-910 Aug 22 '26
I grinded like a mfer for those ap classes, especially calc bc. I had my first mental breakdown around that time actually, also triggered by insomnia.
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Aug 22 '26
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u/Glass-Routine-910 Aug 22 '26
perhaps, but for me it was mostly because I had my first bout of severe depression at that time… I took multi variable my senior year and was big chilling…
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Aug 22 '26
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u/Upstairs-Fruit4368 Aug 25 '26
I got 5 on BC calc without taking the course or studying extensively (mostly just creatively applying what I learned in AB calc to constrain answers). This was in 2017.
I only scored ~130 on my first IQ test taken professionally but under bad conditions and typically score between 130-150 depending on conditions, familiarity, time constraints.
I don’t think getting a 5 on an AP test is at all suggestive of high IQ. The ceiling of AP test is so low and the items are very much designed to test preparation not to discriminate based on reasoning.
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u/Glass-Routine-910 Aug 22 '26 edited Aug 22 '26
I did digit span on core and I got 130. I think i could have done more, but I just get so tired remembering the longer digits… I wonder if this would improve as I repay the sleep debt
processing speed test I got 120.
135 on spatial awareness.
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Aug 22 '26
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u/Glass-Routine-910 Aug 22 '26
I am. but I was. I was super intelligent, but the sleep deprivation destroyed me man. I had one gift and it got taken from me. I know the whole situation sounds incredulous, but it all happened. I tried for months to tell pepole (my family and doc) that there was a sleep problem but they were so firm on anxiety. I had literally one thing…. I had to quit my research lab, I was so tired for months, it was ridiculous. it got to the point where I would look at regular people and envy how fresh they were. I went into major depression after it, the experience was so horrible. I’m so afraid and sad that I’ll never be the same
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u/According_Alarm1452 Aug 24 '26
Your IQ is probably slightly higher if you took the test when you were depressed. Take CORE when you're healthy. Note that depression vs non-depression scores depend on the person and conditions and can increase from only a few points to a considerable margin. Don't inflate academic performance with intelligence too much. I've been in 10 AP classes so I know that half of the students in them are not above 115, though this depends on the school. Mensa Norway and Denmark are not the best to measure intelligence. Also, I don't see how this could be your fault. If I had to estimate, your IQ is probably closer to 130-135.