SYNAPSE
Active member
First, I want to say I've tried to find my answer through google, wikipaedia, and various sites. . .
Second, I know I'm going crazy over something that per se - on rational grounds solely - is ridiculous. What I'm presenting here is a painful psychological/emotional condition.
________________________________________________
When I was about 10 years old I was taken a number of psychological tests because of my generally disruptive behaviour. It came out I had an iq of 127; I liked that.
I got a 95 percentile on a raven type of test some years later which implies, I understand, something somewhere half through the range 120-130; pretty consistent. . .
Since even before that time and now I had the most harrowing emotional life characterized by loneliness and constant situations of abuse/harassment; hell hasn't even stopped for me in that sense. To put things into perspective, having established an online romantic relationship with some hopes of an actual encounter feels like a terrific change for the better.
Towards the end of high school I had mostly forgotten about iq and used to explain my situation - that is: seeing things in a different way, feeling profoundly different to the vast majority; away from social trends - as some sort of philosophical/psychological stance.
The concept of iq came back to me in these later years - mostly from hanging around different forums where earlier or later someone posted some online test. I took a variety of these tests, getting as low as 100 (once! ) and as high as 139, doing better with matrices and mostly confirming an average close to my earlier "official" results. The last score I feel I can take somehow seriously is 130 from some matrix type test (made by somebody realted to Mensa I think) some years ago with some distance between that and other tests; even if I indulge in other tests after that, I refuse to consider the results - they don't make much of a difference anyway. . .
_______
My obsession arises from the following. . . Earlier or later I ended up in one of these forums and found a thread about giftedness. I related profoundly to some of the things I read in it so I started researching the matter a little bit and this is what keeps gnawing at me:
1) I seem to have most of the qualitative characteristics of giftedness. Even though I did not do something like learning to read at the age of three I did stand out in a number of ways. By around the age of 8 I found myself deeply interested in astronomy/astrophysics; reading and thinking about it by myself to the point of accumulating a considerable amount of knowledge (even for the standards of "layman" adults) - I got sent to some school psychologist once at the age of 12 for insisting with one of the theories I ended coming up with. At the same time I quickly thrived as a short story writer (my first story was about scientists constructing a machine to destroy an approaching black hole - most of my classmates were struggling to reach a 10 lines quota and the teacher initially believed I had ripped it off from somewhere). Something a bit more bizarre is the memory of me whining, during kindergarden, about not being satisfied with just knowing something I had learn about chlorophyl. I had differences like that all throughout but not in every area.
I used complex statements with an extensive vocabulary and got bullied for that. . .
I did have, too, the "sense of justice". I was deeply hurt by things being arbitrary/unfair. I used to do a lot of thinking for myself to the point of finding the religion teachers (for example) contradictory in a dishonest way.
I have always (too) experienced things in a rather poignant way; this was mostly pointed out by others and have come to terms with it only now.
Before qualitative descriptions of giftedness to which I can strongly relate I have found a way to understand part of my problem. I'm not understood and the terms in which I like to be understood seem beyond most people (but not all), I suffer my lonelines. . . and I suffer it more. Then those descriptions are accompanied by rather harsh iq range definitions which sometimes seem to imply "nope, you are not gifted. . . you are an average dude just like them".
I know I belong to a gray area and am more close to 140 than to 100. . . the fact that I'm not a bonafide genius shows in some of my shortcomings and the sheer distance between 100 (or 96 which is the average here) and "my 130" shows in other things. I can understand this rationally. The fact that I still can't find many people to relate to, the fact I can't help being extra-careful 'cause dorks have proven to be quick to point out these shortcomings as proof I should "shut up and not annoy them with my theories/knowledge/whatever", the fact I don't feel fully entitled to easily explain myself through giftedness yet I do seem to suffer from a part of it, those things hurt me. . .
2) This second thing is more scientific I. . . presume. I've read a newspaper article stating that there's something altogether different in brains corresponding to iqs over 120 - a layer of cells allowing for a qualitative change. I found another article, this one online, describing the typical characteristics of giftedness then stating that there's a qualitative jump at "130" (isn't iq too vague a concept for such strictness?) and almost describing anything below the 98th percentile (that would include me at the 96th or 97th at best) as little more than narrowminded and intolerant blockheads (such is the qualitative jump! :roll: ). ¿Anyone heard of any of this?.
___________
Have some patience. . . I needed to give vent to this. :?
I'll fix some of the grammar later on, this was keeping me from sleep and now I need to rest. . .
Second, I know I'm going crazy over something that per se - on rational grounds solely - is ridiculous. What I'm presenting here is a painful psychological/emotional condition.
________________________________________________
When I was about 10 years old I was taken a number of psychological tests because of my generally disruptive behaviour. It came out I had an iq of 127; I liked that.
I got a 95 percentile on a raven type of test some years later which implies, I understand, something somewhere half through the range 120-130; pretty consistent. . .
Since even before that time and now I had the most harrowing emotional life characterized by loneliness and constant situations of abuse/harassment; hell hasn't even stopped for me in that sense. To put things into perspective, having established an online romantic relationship with some hopes of an actual encounter feels like a terrific change for the better.
Towards the end of high school I had mostly forgotten about iq and used to explain my situation - that is: seeing things in a different way, feeling profoundly different to the vast majority; away from social trends - as some sort of philosophical/psychological stance.
The concept of iq came back to me in these later years - mostly from hanging around different forums where earlier or later someone posted some online test. I took a variety of these tests, getting as low as 100 (once! ) and as high as 139, doing better with matrices and mostly confirming an average close to my earlier "official" results. The last score I feel I can take somehow seriously is 130 from some matrix type test (made by somebody realted to Mensa I think) some years ago with some distance between that and other tests; even if I indulge in other tests after that, I refuse to consider the results - they don't make much of a difference anyway. . .
_______
My obsession arises from the following. . . Earlier or later I ended up in one of these forums and found a thread about giftedness. I related profoundly to some of the things I read in it so I started researching the matter a little bit and this is what keeps gnawing at me:
1) I seem to have most of the qualitative characteristics of giftedness. Even though I did not do something like learning to read at the age of three I did stand out in a number of ways. By around the age of 8 I found myself deeply interested in astronomy/astrophysics; reading and thinking about it by myself to the point of accumulating a considerable amount of knowledge (even for the standards of "layman" adults) - I got sent to some school psychologist once at the age of 12 for insisting with one of the theories I ended coming up with. At the same time I quickly thrived as a short story writer (my first story was about scientists constructing a machine to destroy an approaching black hole - most of my classmates were struggling to reach a 10 lines quota and the teacher initially believed I had ripped it off from somewhere). Something a bit more bizarre is the memory of me whining, during kindergarden, about not being satisfied with just knowing something I had learn about chlorophyl. I had differences like that all throughout but not in every area.
I used complex statements with an extensive vocabulary and got bullied for that. . .
I did have, too, the "sense of justice". I was deeply hurt by things being arbitrary/unfair. I used to do a lot of thinking for myself to the point of finding the religion teachers (for example) contradictory in a dishonest way.
I have always (too) experienced things in a rather poignant way; this was mostly pointed out by others and have come to terms with it only now.
Before qualitative descriptions of giftedness to which I can strongly relate I have found a way to understand part of my problem. I'm not understood and the terms in which I like to be understood seem beyond most people (but not all), I suffer my lonelines. . . and I suffer it more. Then those descriptions are accompanied by rather harsh iq range definitions which sometimes seem to imply "nope, you are not gifted. . . you are an average dude just like them".
I know I belong to a gray area and am more close to 140 than to 100. . . the fact that I'm not a bonafide genius shows in some of my shortcomings and the sheer distance between 100 (or 96 which is the average here) and "my 130" shows in other things. I can understand this rationally. The fact that I still can't find many people to relate to, the fact I can't help being extra-careful 'cause dorks have proven to be quick to point out these shortcomings as proof I should "shut up and not annoy them with my theories/knowledge/whatever", the fact I don't feel fully entitled to easily explain myself through giftedness yet I do seem to suffer from a part of it, those things hurt me. . .
2) This second thing is more scientific I. . . presume. I've read a newspaper article stating that there's something altogether different in brains corresponding to iqs over 120 - a layer of cells allowing for a qualitative change. I found another article, this one online, describing the typical characteristics of giftedness then stating that there's a qualitative jump at "130" (isn't iq too vague a concept for such strictness?) and almost describing anything below the 98th percentile (that would include me at the 96th or 97th at best) as little more than narrowminded and intolerant blockheads (such is the qualitative jump! :roll: ). ¿Anyone heard of any of this?.
___________
Have some patience. . . I needed to give vent to this. :?
I'll fix some of the grammar later on, this was keeping me from sleep and now I need to rest. . .