Coming to Terms with not being Intelligent

LegacyUser

Growing up, I always thought I would be successful. I used to excell in class and was regarded as bright all the way up until 4th year. I used to be able to learn quickly, I used to be witty and quick and I used have an incredible memory.

I don't know what happened between the ages of 16-17 but I seemed to regress incredibly. Even looking back on my posts on boards.ie you can see that my posting has disimproved through the years. Suddenly I would say stupid things in conversation (my friends now refer to me as an idiot, more in jest but it still hurts) and sometimes I would stall for ages trying to find the word I wanted to use. I feel like I can't formulate my thoughts anymore, I have just spent 6 hours and have written a few lines for an essay I have to do. When I work in a shop I have trouble counting change on the spot which is incredibly embarassing, I used to always be able to calculate on the spot.

I am reading every day. All the time I read. But if you asked me about something I was reading I would struggle to even make a contribution. I used to be able to talk your off about something I had just read/seen/heard or was interested in.

Whats going on? Is this normal? How does one accept that you will never amount to anything and are intellectually inferior to everyone?

Nolanger

It's better to be clever than intelligent. Most successful people are clever. Most intelligent people end up working as school teachers or librarians.

Overheal

If you don't practice something it can usually be forgotten. I post on here... at least 16 times per day :pac: it keeps my english skills pretty damn sharp. Put me in a party with other people? I don't do that so much. I suck at that! I'm also terrible at telling stories to people. They either come out uninteresting or I simply forget anything worthwhile to discuss. Sometimes I will even space out so bad that when I speak I will start saying something that was already being discussed, and to me it will seem like I was the first one to introduce the idea. To everyone else though it's pretty clear, I was spacing out hard. Daydreaming/mind-wandering; it's a bitch.

In fact as you mention it I now have regular problems counting out change, if not for my register's ability to calculate it I'd get lost sometimes. Usually because most people pay by card in my business. My first job was all cash, and I was really proficient at it during the time. Same as a bartender, but that was all years ago. I also enjoy noting that on my personal perceived average, about 1 in 20 customers can't remember their own phone number, and 1 in 4 have trouble remembering their spouse's phone number.

Why do you say 16 or 17? What happened as you were growing up? Any trauma, drink or drug abuse?

For essay writing it took me a minute to get back into it recently! I've gone back to college and have the chore of English 101. But Pre-Writing really does help. I like to use the Spider-Web thing to grab topic ideas, and then I scaffold a 5-Paragraph structure of Intro, Conclusion, and 3 well defined body topics (eg. viewpoint A, viewpoint B, and viewpoint A vs B as 3 distinct sections).

Intellectually inferior? That is nonsense. Some people have strong academic skills, others have strong social skills, and others have good management and problem solving skills. Just because you may or may not have a strength in one something does not make you inferior to other people.

As I said it's likely entirely normal what you're going through. If it's something you feel does not match what you think you are capable of, just maybe it's worth seeing a GP to see if perhaps say it's something like Depression or related to something else but more than likely just a case of waning interest in Academia? I dunno OP, but I think you'll be fine.

LegacyUser

OP: I know what you mean. i was top of the class right up to Leaving cert, now have degree and a PhD but I feel like a dumbass. I'm not sure how this happened. I can't count either, or do mental arithmetic. for example I can't figure out logical things. another eg, I could read a newspaper article today, understand it, but tomorrow if someone asked me about it I wouldn't remember or I would not be able to describe it. If someone is telling a story or giving a scenario, I find it hard to keep up, and process things so they are understandable to me. I feel like if I went back to school and did some Maths, even poetry etc, I'd be very slow at picking stuff up, and be right down the bottom of the class.

This may not apply to you, but in my case I wonder if my problem is lack of real stimulation since I was 18. My brain was never really put to the test during either my degree/phd, believe it or now.
Maybe we need to start working out brains more, and they will claw back this sharpness or whatever...

ANyone else have this same problem...???

gypsy_rose

First of all, you are not stupid.
Second, you are not getting less or more intelligent.

Intelligence changes all the time, depending on what you're doing with your brain. For example, I had impeccable spelling and grammer all the way up through school because I enjoyed English and read a lot. These days I'm doing science and don't read or write proper essays half as much, my talent for prose isn't being exercised so I find I write long, garbled sentences (like this one) mainly because these days I don't need to be particularly concise or elegant, just have the right answer.

You just need to exercise your brain in the things you feel you are lacking at. You say you read, what exactly? Newspapers, stuff for college? The counting change thing I really wouldn't worry about, the more you think about it the more likely you are to mess it up in my opinion, it's like typing, if you think about it you make a mistake!

Don't be so hard on yourself, and don't take your friends so seriously, the most intelligent people I know are the ones I slag saying they're slow all the time.

Failing this, if you do think this is physiological problem, why not get a blood test? A friend of mine couldn't concentrate in class, couldn't study and was tired and depressed all the time, turned out she was anaemic. Wouldn't hurt

LegacyUser

I had the same problem. I used to be top of my class in almost everything, I had an IQ high enough to get into Mensa (although I never followed through with it), I could figure out anything and my memory was decent. I did well in school, sports, art; I was having conversations with adults about life at the age of 12 and I was considered gifted. Then, at about 16 as well, it seemed to disappear at some stage. My memory was awful, my calculations were terrible and although it was never proved, I could feel my IQ dropping and I didn't want to socialise with friends. I even started to suffer from depression because of it.
The thing is, it came back as quickly as it disappeared. After a while, it came around again as if it was on a circle or a loop. Don't worry about it, it comes back to you

Firetrap

If you're worried that it's a genuine problem, pop along to your GP.

I agree with the others though - I don't believe for one moment that you've suddenly dumbed down. You might have become rusty at certain things. I used to be really good at spelling in school but now that I type most things, I don't have to figure out how to spell trickier words because my browser or word processor will do the work for me. My writing has gone to the dogs because I rarely hold a pen these days. I don't meet children much in my day to day life any more so when I do meet them, I don't know what to say to them. You get the gist of what I'm trying to say.

I think too that you might have developed a mental block of some sort. That you now feel self-conscious. You just keep saying these stupid things as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Do you do things in your spare time which exercise your brain? Do you read, for example? Watch dramas or documentaries on TV rather than disposable trash like X-Factor and soaps? Solve sudoku puzzles or crosswords? They might be worth a try.

discus

Some people are intellectual, others are intelligent. A lot are combo of both. Nothing wrong with you, it's just that being intellectual can get you by until the LC.

mikemac

It's self fulfilling OP

If you're behind the shop counter and nervous and think you'll mess up counting change then you will.
If you relax and be confident it'll just flow and you're do it no bother.

Which is why some barmen can remember a fifteen round order and some barmen forget you asked for one coke.
Just experience and then with experience comes confidence, if you know you can do it then you can, if you know you're going to **** up the order then you will

You're doing an essay and you're struggling with it. Well staring at it and calling yourself stupid is not going to help.
Have a go at some of the Tony Buzan mind maps. I'm not just recommending him, just he is known for it but there are others.

Don't get rusty OP
Get exercising which will help. Do the daily crossword.
Stop posting in After Hours
And when you go for a run play games or little tests like I can name every team from Italia 90 in alphabetical order or list every Formula One world champion, just little games, whatever you're into

Yeah, I'll say the crossword one again, I learn new words all the time and it keeps you sharp

beks101

Agree with everyone else about 'training your brain' - it's really your own responsibility to keep up the brain power by using all your faculties in as many ways and as regularly as possible.

Another thing to look at is your lifestyle. What's your sleeping pattern like - are you under or over-sleeping too much? I used to walk around in a permanent groggy state because of sleep deprivation or staying up too late and sleeping it out half the afternoon - to the point where I'd be muddling sentences, stumbling over words and just not reacting to things as fast as I usually would. It would take me longer to grasp concepts or understand information and I'd often end up repeating things that someone else had said without realising.

Exercise too - do you do something vigorous every day? I find the more I train in the gym, the more alert I am and that keeps me quick-witted. Without regular exercise I get lazy, not just physically but mentally too - and negative thinking takes over. Too much booze has the same effect.

Beruthiel

StupidGaz wrote: »

I am reading every day. All the time I read. But if you asked me about something I was reading I would struggle to even make a contribution. I used to be able to talk your off about something I had just read/seen/heard or was interested in.

You need to stop being so hard on yourself.
Clearly you have a brain, your OP was written in a legible way, with good spelling and paragraphs, full stops and capital letters. This in itself shows that your far from stupid.

Whats going on? Is this normal? How does one accept that you will never amount to anything and are intellectually inferior to everyone?

But you're not inferior to everyone, you just tell yourself you are.
I also read a lot. Ask me details of a book I read three books back and I can't remember half of it. That doesn't make me dumb, just forgetful of in depth details. No biggie, I don't need to remember each detail.

When it comes to working life, I have always found that doing a particular task on a regular basis is how you remember anything. That is normal imo. and how you gain experience.
You will be fine OP, just lighten up on yourself.

LegacyUser

Some very good advice here, and while I haven't read it all Mikemac's "it's self-fulfilling" is very, very true.

It's also very true that acting/being intelligent is also a matter of training and practice. Your mind needs to be trained, just as your body needs to be trained for a race. The more you apply yourself to studying/thinking about something, the better your thinking process will become. You may never become the first with the sharpest retort (unless you have applied yourself to working at the sharper edge of, say, working class Dublin!), but you will develop your intelligence to the extent of knowing your strong points and taking on the world in that area. The human brain is extremely adaptable.

When I was in school I was so "thick" my nickname was basically a synonym of stupid. I would say silly things and do stupid things. I finally realised that all these people were not doing my confidence any good, and left them. I got into university as a mature student to study something I was interested in. My social intelligence was still underdeveloped and I still did stupid things. With time and application, I found I became very good at my subject. My confidence came from that. I immersed myself in it and became more confident. I believed in myself more: I now had substance. I continued to apply myself/sharpen my intelligence in this area and despite being "thick" proved numerous points from my childhood by getting a PhD in my subject. It was when I finished all that that I had to focus on building my social intelligence and emotional sensitivities. But the fact that I had now achieved the highest level of award for academic education gave me confidence which spread into other areas of my life.

Self belief and training of your mind are the keys to maximising the benefits from your own intelligence. Also, do not allow narrow outdated academic definitions of intelligence define the word for you. I found great comfort from reading Howard Gardner's Frames of Mind, which talks about seven or eight types of intelligence. Despite proving myself in the field of academic intelligence, had my strength lain with, say, spatial intelligence I could have proven myself by being an architect, joiner or something.

Find your strength in intelligence terms - we all have strengths - develop it, let your confidence grow and the overall level of intelligence of your life's actions will rise dramatically. It's a brilliant journey so bain taitneamh as!

floorpie

If you've objectively felt like you've become 'more stupid' (you probably haven't) then there could be lots of reasons for it.

Just taking one example, there are links between testosterone levels and learning ability, and your testosterone levels will start decreasing after puberty from, what, 18 or so? And then to complicate things, even just a marginal dietary zinc deficiency will next to ruin your testosterone levels. And that's just one example out of many, and that's just assuming that it could be a testosterone issue; there are lots of vitamins and minerals associated with learning.

People don't give it enough credit (even though almost all the problems and solutions in the thread depend on it), but you should take a good look at your diet.

Baked.noodle

As we age we become slower. It is harder to learn new languages for example. Hard, but not imposable. intelligence is important, but so is technique. Experience can teach us not to jump to conclusions (something many intelligent people often do out of the habit of being correct). Being slightly above average on iq tests, but dyslexic, I have struggled with my intelligence and identity most of my life. I have studied with people who are far better equipped to take academic life than I am but I (and others) have also experienced my own intuitive genius. I know I have abilitys that compensate for my weakness. Op, you have strengths, and you have experienced them. You need to nurture your natural talent and work on or around your weaknesses. An open inquisitive mind is more valuable to me than one trapped in an inward selfassuring paradigm, no matter how clever or intelligent. Being wrong sometimes is preferable to thinking your right all the time. It takes character to learn from being wrong. Problems with counting change and such can be tackled effectively by using a memory/method technique. I would also stress the usefulness of mind maps for practically everybody. Best of luck.

thefeatheredcat

Firstly, don't listen to your friends or take what they say to heart. You're doubting your own abilities as a result, so don't listen to them.

Everyone can't find that word even when it's at the tip of the tongue at one stage or other, regardless of condition or state of mind or intellectual ability.

Like any muscle, the brain can get lazy. I can relate very well to many of the responses here with the examples given. So you do need to flex that brain of yours. The same can happen too, if you are over-using it (or a skill) where that skill can be what you are so focused on, that other skills become a bit more unused and redundant when are needed.

When it comes to reading, even if you're reading interesting things, being tired, or stressed or having too many things to focus on can effect the brain's ability to process things like sights, sounds, and information. Your mind might be too cluttered with "junk" (irrelevant stuff gathered consciously and subconsciously) to process as efficiently as it should. A lack of concentration from many factors/enthusiasm/motivation/struggles/life issues/mental and physical health issues can also have an impact.

I have a difficulty when I'm emotional to process anything but emotions and what I feel in sacrifice of logical strategic thought and some times I just have no choice to but let myself process all that emotional stuff otherwise I'm mentally blocked, and unable to think clearly or as sharply as I'd like. I also from time to time, if I get too caught up in my thoughts or just have enjoyed a day alone, end up struggling to verbalise internal thoughts externally. It's like with any skill, if you don't use it as much, it becomes less as a skill, but you can always "upskill" and re-learn it and then constantly use it or practise it or add knowledge to the skill.

I think perhaps that maybe you're just working yourself a bit too hard? Maybe you're processing just a bit too much (even without realising it) that it's effecting your ability to focus and take in information.

I'd suggest taking a day for yourself, just for you and just let yourself enjoy whatever without having to worry about it. Relax, go for a walk, sit in the rain, walk in the wind, spend time just enjoying the moment, whatever makes you relaxed and happy and it might give you what you need.

If you do think that it is beyond what the responses have given here, then definitely have a chat with your GP though.