People with Confirmed LOW IQ, what's it Like to be You? - Reddit Podcast

people with a confirmed low IQ what's it like to be you I was born with a severe case of hydris that no one caught on to until I nearly went full potato at 18 then comos a few days after when I turned 19 turns out all the issues that I had with learning things memory retention emotional maturity that was all affected by the water pressure building up on my brain I wasn't being a lazy slacker kid I worked my bus off to pass my classes and graduate I just couldn't process things well so a lot of it was very difficult for me in my haze of a memory during the first visit to the neurologist it was determined that my condition was so severe I shouldn't have progressed past middle school learning and most if not all people diagnosed with the level of pressurization and compression of the brain as I was having were in assisted living facilities just surviving as shells after needing a second surgery a year later my brain eventually started firing the signals for mental maturity but the process was still pretty difficult I had to learn how I learned things best things didn't process the same way I've also adapted to overcompensating to make up for the lack of intelligence didn't have the work smarter option most times so I just worked harder it's been about 12 years since the last surgery and I've grown immensely during that time as a person but the fact that I have to work harder to overcompensate is still a huge issue for me we still don't know how off I really am because no one caught it it early enough and that's really an isolating feeling IQ of 87 here I saw someone else with a 90 IQ who story was very similar to mine words just don't seem to click in college my brain gets saturated after about 2 hours or so and I can't remember any studying past there there's no chance of studying the last minute and it's weird to be the smartest in the family despite my obvious flaws I seem to have zero ability to think outside the box it happens from time to time and it's extremely satisfying when it does but mostly there's no creativity whatsoever for an example I played a guitar for years and could never create a single original riff where my peers could after a week or so my significant other paints very often and always wants me to try it I never could even start a painting without a template in regards to problem solving in math I used the formula to a te in language I followed the writing rules and template on puru owl the only time where it's a problem in a real world situation is weirdly physical work I'll get stuck using the shovel the exact way I was taught without deviation and throw out my back while a pier would turn around for a better angle or use their foot to push it farther into the ground lastly my working memory and comprehension is not very good which is what an IQ test is based on this means that when I'm literally at work in my retail job sometimes I completely forget what I was doing or where I put an object a customer was supposed to get what the narrator will note is that most of the comments he's reading like the previous one are quite well written and grammatically correct compared to a lot of what he has to Wade through in this job just goes to show you that you never know what someone is working with in the old Cranium and that you should probably check your assumptions at the door I have a Global Information processing disorder if our brains were computers running at 60 frames per second mine runs around 45 on a good day not quite enough to really be noticeable as it might be in some people with Down Syndrome for the sake of exam Le but enough to lower my IQ and cause problems in my everyday life I'm one of the lucky ones I can function relatively normally discounting my autism and the occasional epileptic seizure however I'm also fully aware of this deficit and how high my IQ could be talking slowly or getting annoyed because I've asked you to repeat something or pushing me out of the way when I don't react fast enough that's just rubbing it in I can't change how will I process information believe me I've asked my doctor about it and other people have tried before I'm stuck where I'm at in this regard and it's hard to try harder when I'm already running at 110% just to keep up with the rest of the world I have an IQ of 90 which means below average I sometimes see that other people can memorize and understand stuff faster than me my triplet sister was born with a brain bleed and partial damage to her brain we were all 3 months premature and it happened to affect her more than me or my brother she has a lower IQ and was put in the special education classes in second grade I'd never consider her to be dumb in any way we have a very close relationship and we communicate very well she looks completely normal and has really nothing wrong about her besides her lower IQ we live in a narcissistic household and she was obviously dubbed as the black sheep and was bullied throughout school as well when we were younger I also ganged up on her with the rest of my family because I thought it was normal at 7 years old we've definitely gotten closer as we've gotten older and we kind of stick Like Glue against the rest of our family we're both very empathetic and kind and a lot of my other family members are complete bullies so we seem a bit out of place she's doing well now that we finished high school and she's gotten a boyfriend recently who seems very kind she'll hopefully be getting a job soon and moving out by next year it'll be funny to see her be the first one to move out because everyone said she'd live with my mother forever I'm proud of her and I love her I was given an intelligence test in the sixth or seventh grade A group of us were given it for some study the person entering the data into the scoring Matrix misplaced a decimal point on mine they told my mother I had the IQ of a 5-year-old it took a week for them to figure out the mistake for a week straight everyone treated me as different I was the one who answered the phone when they called with the correction my family still brings it up 20 years later I don't know if I'm actually below average but I have a learning disability I'm ADHD and I always struggled really hard in school I'd stay up all night studying my butt off only to make either a d or an F sometimes a c if I was lucky I mean I really really studied I felt like as an adult it's been a bit easier to learn some things now that I don't have the pressure of tons of school workk and teachers assuming I'm lazy and telling me to try harder I've taught myself how to keep a budget really well I've taught myself how to start a reselling business and even track my expenses I feel like I function all right but I'm very intimidated by a lot of things that I'm supposed to do as an adult anything to do with taxes really scares me because I'm terrified I'll mess them up somehow I'm really shy in conversations because I have trouble pulling the words out of my brain to explain how I feel about a subject if I'm writing out what I want to say I can do it pretty well but speaking is very intimidating I have a lot of opinions on things and I love to learn different viewpoints on things but I'm terrified of someone trying to debate me or have a conversation with me about any of those things because don't really know how to repeat anything I've learned I just have it stored in my brain and can't put it into words easily basically it's contributed to a lot of my social anxiety and I have a major inferiority complex I'm 30 years old and I feel like such a late bloomer in every possible way my mom at my age was already married with two children and fully established in her life I'm nowhere near that point I'm just now learning the basics of being an adult I feel like all of my 20s was an extension of my teenage years I feel embarrassed of myself honestly I wasn't qualified for the normal school but they let me go anyway to quote try it out I remember the admission IQ test I knew it was a test and thought there must be some kind of secret bonus answers like the cube might fit in the Triangle somehow since the sides of the cube are smaller than the long side of the triangle I'm not smart there's quite a few times I miss what might seem like obvious details overall I've done okay though a lot of things have been more stressful than they should have been because I'm constantly second guessing myself that has been something that's occurred a lot to the narator just the assumption that you aren't as bright as other people could probably be a major handicap to some we're pretty well aware of the effect that confidence can have in all manner of activities and second guessing can really hinder our operating abilities going into something feeling like you might be too stupid to succeed is already a major hobble one of my brothers has always had a slight mental disability maybe you could say below average intelligence but the things he takes interest in he often thrives with however he can struggle to understand things that others would consider almost Common Sense he was never diagnosed with anything or there was never a clear label I think the worst thing my siblings and I were ever told was that he had some sort of mental disability because growing up we were only two years apart for a long time we were best friends essentially we were Irish twins suddenly he had something wrong with him and my siblings treated him slightly different and so did I we just assumed that he didn't understand things that we did almost similar to how humans treat animals we are more intelligent and therefore Superior I remember when I was about 13 years old and my brother 15 we had a massive fight over something stupid in retaliation I said well at least I'm not stupid like you he stormed off and locked himself in the bathroom immediately I felt bad and begged him to open the door so I could apologize I found him crying and he said to me I know there's something wrong with me but I just can't understand what it is at that moment my heart broke I realized how awful I was to have ever put him in such a box over some minor differences since then I don't treat him any different to anyone else my siblings still treat him differently to each of us which is a shame but it often makes me think who is really the one with the mental deficiency because so what if you struggle with something we all struggle with something at the end of it he's still my best friend and we have each other's backs through everything and I don't trust anyone quite the same way that I trust him we as humans put so much weight on intelligence although I think it's important to understand everyone's struggle sometimes the worst thing we can do is attach a label or description which can completely diminish their intrinsic value as a person so I'm writing this for him to just say treat everyone with respect and consideration and suddenly things like low IQ or mental disability become obsolete you can submit your own stories to be featured here on the channel the story submission link is in the description below and if you want to listen to some viby music in the background check out easy mode also linked below and subscribe I have a low IQ but I was never tested for anything else my parents is are actual Geniuses both have poor backgrounds but managed to succeed and all of my siblings are smart as well I had trouble following teachers and other kids in classes it took way more time and more examples to figure something out for me I never had the time to do anything else than study I don't think I've had friends since kindergarten I can't talk to people I have trouble understanding most jokes and reasonable amounts of time I never understood deeper any meaning in movies songs or books even when someone explained them to me the thing that really screwed me up most is the you can do anything you want if you work hard enough thing that we say to kids because it worked for my parents and they thought it will work for me and not just them all motivational speakers all teachers I worked 10 times more literally than other kids so I was actually pretty good in high school I thought that uni was going to be the same just by going there and working hard I'd get my degree what happened was that I couldn't follow courses after the introductory stuff and I somehow passed the first year but was kicked out after the second year because my exam results were so bad I developed several Sleep Disorders several addictions and I'm in huge debt as a result of my two failed years in uni I can't even get my driver's license there are too many things on the road road to keep track of I'm not good at anything at home I repeated what we did in school and did my homework it took me ages for things that other people found trivial I don't care what I do I would do anything I'm capable of doing and that pays me enough to rent my own room I don't enjoy anything anymore I used to read books not for the enjoyment but to better myself it doesn't matter because I don't understand them and I forget everything in a few weeks I'm just a parasite living off my parents hard-earned money now I'm jobless I can't even get a job as a janitor and I genuinely don't know what I'm going to do I had a job at a lumber mill for 2 days until I injured a coworker I had a job at a restaurant but I was fired from there also because of my character my dreams were just things that 99% of people do by default like getting a proper job so I wouldn't depend on my parents getting a degree to make my parents proud and to prove to people that IQ was meaningless learning how to drive getting married and getting kids now all of those things are impossible and I have 50 long years of my miserable life to live I have Asbergers please don't be rude when you have to repeat yourself do not expect me to get a hint if I don't get it Break It To Me Gently no car radio and talking at the same time it's too much stimulus I might appear to be angry in loud restaurants too much stimulus again am I doing something socially weird talk to me about it nicely in private I probably didn't realize it was weird and I can stop please don't ditch me as a friend when and not if I I screw up at least try to talk it out I was born with fetal alcohol syndrome disorder have borderline personality disorder and depression and anxiety I'm a mess some days but because I'm high functioning I have good days too sometimes it'll be a good day in the morning and a bad day in the afternoon and vice versa I need things explained to me thoroughly and slowly sometimes or from a different approach I've learned over the many 28 years to be exact to voice that I need help or I'm having trouble understanding a lot of people say to me you don't seem like you have a disorder you look normal that's only because I've been raised to know of my disorders and to ask for help when needed I learned to read novels before I started school at 4 I just got things and excelled to the point that I was bored then I was punched in the head in my 30s now I'm still trying desperately to get into University but getting knocked back constantly I can't retain information I hear and I'm slow to process it sometimes I'm talking days I'm really a visual only learner I'm poor will never own my own house because I can't get a job that pays well enough to save I have no friends and no connections I can't help my kids with their math homework at all so I feel like a failure as a functioning adult it's difficult because people expect so much more from us than we're able to do or give which makes us hate ourselves even more I'm very autistic and have ADHD and an IQ in the' 70s so it's kind of a mixed bag I have a great memory for facts so I did do well in grade school I even got into advanced classes but as an adult I'm really struggling I don't learn very easily and I don't take instructions well I can get lost in familiar places I can't play complex games and I get really confused by a lot of things even normal things like folding tows I come across like an airhead and I can be explained to in children's terms how to do something and it takes me at least three times every single time and this isn't just every time I do something new I mean literally every time I do it it's very frustrating because I'll say I'm not smart and people will be like no don't say that you're smart but the thing is I'm not even sad about being dumb I have other good qualities I'm funny I'm pretty I'm kind I'm so sick of people acting like intelligence equals worth when that's not at all the case I'm okay with being slow don't pretend I'm not just to make me feel better because what's going to happen is you're going to expect me to be able to do things as if I'm smarter than I am and then you'll be frustrated when I don't pretty much the hardest part is when people especially on Reddit pretend intelligence is the only thing that matters when in my opinion it's maybe among the last things that matter to me personally in a friendship and also it's frustrating because if you're a kind person who doesn't fit their drooling idiot image people write it off as low self-esteem and then whenever you act dumb they think you're doing it on purpose to prove a point learning disability doesn't equal less intelligence my brother scored a pretty high IQ but has been diagnosed with a learning disability I mean a person can be great at school because they were great at memorizing and taking tests that doesn't equal a high intelligence either learning disability might mean you need more help with certain aspects of learning because your brain processes information differently than an average person and not low IQ it's occurred to me how many people of high achievement don't do well in the schooling environment on the other side of the coin I do wonder how many people have difficulties that don't necessarily ffect their ability to test well growing up but that really wreck things for them once they move on to life after school and all of this without a diagnosis I have dyslexia dcalculated but an IQ of 120 it's known as the family curse above average IQs but lots of learning disabilities that make it hard to show everyone in my family was bullied growing up for being stupid including me it was hard for me to find friends because of it my brother was beaten up regularly for it I couldn't read until fourth grade then I had a teacher tell me I'd never do anything with my life that day I started spending all of my free time learning how to read just to give her and the world the middle finger and prove that I could do something with my life after that while I got good grades I was still seen as stupid or lazy I had to work five times as hard on everything I did just to keep up I'm in college now and have accommodations for the first time which really helps but also draws more attention to it I had a friend tell me you know college isn't for everyone I found out later he was making fun of my intelligence with other classmates behind my back I stopped talking to him is it all bad no having to work extra hard for everything in school has seeped into every part of my life now that I have accommodations I feel like I'm unstoppable at my college I'm an honor roll student going into geology president of the stem Club founder and president of the board games Club part of the student Leadership Council and sometimes the college lets me call Bingo numbers at events I love colle what do I want people to know what it's like to be me it's a lot like a fish being told to climb a tree I'm not going to be good at everything you're good at and that's fine I don't need to be I have my own strengths and that doesn't make me any less worthy of respect love or a good life I have some developmental problems like ADHD after years of not doing well in school and wanting to drop out getting hives from stress and actually developing heart palpitations from all the stress I was under I've come to realize that I hate the education systems way of gauging intelligence I suck at math hard other people excel at it but other people won't be as good at me as identifying animal species and knowing facts about them other people won't be as good as me at drawing which takes a plethora of knowledge like anatomy and perspective my autistic cousin can't understand social cues and never went to school because of it but can build a vacuum cleaner and runs a business at 17 my older sister who also has ADHD is currently doing a PhD at only 24 poor but she has a hard time doing addition and telling time I really do hate the fact that everyone's existence for the majority of their life is summed up in numbers determined by people who don't even know them I know this isn't exactly the question asked but our education system and the IQ test is just so biased I still get heated about it I kind of hate the idea that there can even be an average intelligence like what about the impoverished people who never had the chance for a school education or the people who live in tribes isolated Society maybe they won't know about tube worms mathematical equations or Linguistics but they sure as heck will know a lot more about the environment that they live in than I could ever hope to not technically below average but my neurologist or psychologist not sure which said that I had the biggest disparity between cognitive functioning she'd ever seen I was in the 90th percentile for things like reasoning and in the 10th percentile for Speed my entire life has been that feeling of after a conversation you realize what you should have said said when you subscribe make sure to hit the Bell to turn on notifications put the playlist on in the background to finish listening to all the stories or if you want some viby music to put on in the background check out 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