Are you too smart?

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I obviosly am.
(Stuff I wonder about AS following)

My shrink told me my AS paper couldn't be fulfilled because ... I finished school. That was the ONLY reason. I made it through school. And if that was not enough - I have two educations. I have checked my IQ, and I score well above Mensa level. Well, duh... That's 1/50 (about 135). The coveted Mensa status of a 1%-member is about level 137, which I have passed with flying colours.

Considering my shrink's response to this, I have started wondering. Isn't the smartness a part of this? I really thought it was. I think I am wrong about that - now. Is my ability to remember everything I see once not a part of my AS? Is not my ability to solve problems a part of my AS? Is not my ability to learn a part of my AS?

I honestly thought AS gave me a plus where I had to live with the negative sides of it. But I have started wondering if my mental abilities is because of something else, and I have to fight AS on the side. As a bonus, if you will.
You know - the chicken and the egg.

I don't know what I ask here...

Maybe I just want other peoples experiences and thought about it.

GO!

hello evilduck

hmm yes ditto "too smart"
The intelligence / ASD crossover is interesting... which is the foundation and which the subsequent layer?
Or, perhaps intelligence and AS are intersecting sets, rather than one being a subset of the other.
Picturing human consciousness is an interesting conceptual exercise.

However, I find little benefit (for myself) in strictly dividing my mental activity into AS-or-intelligent categories.
I prefer a utilitarian approach, where I try to develop whatever is most functional in myself.

On the other hand, I find an AS interpretation is most useful for understanding and improving my social interactions.

Am I correct in understanding your post to mean: because you finished school, your shrink thought you did not have AS?
This is not a logical conclusion.

I recommend doing your own research; read widely to find information that you can relate to. Do not listen to just one other person's opinion.

One can never be too smart, too rich or too beautiful.

ruveyn

I use my too smarts to fit in and make money.

I've never heard of anyone being excluded from an AS diagnosis because they finished school. Many individuals with AS hold advanced degrees, and teach at world class universities.

But to answer your question as to whether or not I think I'm too smart. No, I think I'm too stupid. Along with the rest of the world.

I know a young man who definitely fits this description. He's extremely intelligent and is very, very good at masking his symptoms and going undetected when he needs to (short term with strangers mostly).

Since I am going to have to be tested for something else in order to get AS testing, I worry that I will not get the AS diagnosis, but will come out with some other diagnosis that does not really fully fit. I think I'm going to ask the therapist how much experience she has identifying individuals who are high functioning Autistic or Asperger's.

Seems to me your shrink needs to be replaced. You might ask him which section of the DSM -IV or ICD 10 diagnostic criteria references intelligence and finishing school.

Maybe you're smarter than he is and he can't handle it.

Oh, and according to WebMD...

"High-functioning autism is at one end of the ASD spectrum. Signs and symptoms are less severe than with other forms of autism. In fact, a person with high-functioning autism usually has average or above average intelligence. The differences from other forms of autism have led many psychiatrists to consider high-functioning autism as similar to or the same as Asperger's syndrome."

Maybe they don't think you are affected by AS enough to be diagnosed. My doctor's were like that.

IQ has nothing to do with being smart. You can have an IQ of 180 and if you don't use your brain for the right thing then it's got little to do with it. I think people with low or average IQs are intelligent in their own ways. It's what you spend more time on that makes you smart.

I'm not accusing you of not being smart. I'm just saying in general high IQ's don't mean a lot. Although if you have a high IQ and are curious about learning than yes, you fit my definition of smart.

[[Edited for being a loser.]]

Intelligence is difficult to measure.
Some people are smarter at certain things while others are not as much.
Only things involving my special interests (Disney/Pixar, certain films, modern history, mythology/folklore, certain areas of science, etc). I'm more of an intuitive thinker rather than intellectual and I like to figure things out or do things rather than learn and utilize facts.
Of course, I'm still a teenager. In high school. Who doesn't know how to do laundry.
But who knows how to write a novel.

Too stupid in important things. Too smart in unimportant things. Although imagination, to me, is very important.

On Giftedness/Aspergers:
http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10167.aspx
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/eric/fact/asperger.pdf
http://www.twicegifted.net/id6.html

On Giftedness/Aspergers:
http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10167.aspx
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/eric/fact/asperger.pdf
http://www.twicegifted.net/id6.html

I've sometimes wished I were a simpleton. Sometimes intelligence impresses people, but often they just find it nerdy or threatening, and women often feel it's an unromantic or indirect and cumbersome way of communicating.

I keep most of my intellectual ideas to myself these days, though I know a few people I can show off my brains to without annoying them.

The biggest problem is when I'm among people who don't seem to understand the phrase "an insult to my intelligence".......they'll happily watch trash television all night while I feel like I've been busted down to kindergarten level - don't they notice the presenters are talking down to them?