High IQ and masking

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I do not know my IQ. I was in school long before gifted programs were even dreamed of. I was a straight A student, unless I didn't care about the subject.

That said, I am quite convinced it is the level of my intelligence that has allowed me to do as well as I have. Not that it is all that great, but I do work full time and own my own home. I think I never got as far as I was "supposed to" due to executive function disorders. I have spent most of my intelligence to overcome executive and social malfunctions.

I wonder how true this is https://www.kcl.ac.uk/ioppn/news/record ... at-a-price .

Ooo, that's exactly what I was wondering/my theory.

I also saw a study where Mensa members reported much higher levels of anxiety, depression, etc. than the general population...that's what originally got me wondering if (1) high IQ "typicals" and high functioning autism/asperger's have a similar impact on the effort required for semi-successful social interactions and/or (2) high IQ aspies are going undiagnosed because its okay to be quirky if you are a rocket scientist and they compensate more anyway.

It would be interesting to do a study with high IQ autistic people vs. non-autistic people with similar IQs and see how self-reported social difficulties/masking, actual observed social performance, executive function, mental health, etc. compare and contrast. You'd need to assess all the "typicals" first though to catch any secret aspies, haha. And I'd like to see the breakdown by gender as well.

It would be hard to get enough people together to do a good study (although mensa and this forum would maybe help), but if there are any grad students out there who need a thesis idea, feel free to steal this! And if it would get me a free official autism assessment, "I volunteer as tribute!"

Wow, this kinda explains a lot for me I guess. (160+ IQ).

I didn't even know what "masking" was till I dated another aspie last year. Apparently that's what I had been doing my whole life almost as a survival coping mechanism in order to build some sort of support system before everything inevitably fell apart for me (which usually happens once every year or two). I had been wondering why I always had anxiety building up after several months and I started making subconscious social mistakes that put me in serious trouble or the object of people's hatred after a while and I guess this sort of explains it.

One data point in your favor. Crippling anxiety led me to a nervous breakdown led me to autism diagnosis, all in my mid-20s.



I've often stated I wouldn't want to be smarter than I already am. Must be lonely up there.

Yup. I have built a (albeit very weak) support system here in Atlanta, which is more than what I had in Vegas anyway.

I consider it isolating. My IQ is two or three times higher than my EQ, and I only realized how non-interchangeable they are recently. I always felt that socially adept people were pretty smart, and would not have much trouble with logic, and they always went blank when I asked for help socially, thinking I must be kidding or something, since I seemed pretty smart. I had always assumed that almost everyone who said they couldn't do math was just faking it to slack off.
I'm no whiz at higher math, but the basics sort of come on like an automatic calculator function whenever I'm awake, accurate to 10%.
My career might have gone much better if I'd been willing to spend more time socializing with people who never said anything very interesting. I did some, but would never get committed socially.
Now, it takes me about a day to settle down from an hour's conversation. I have to re-play it and check for problems, feeling like I'm having to read raw HTML code instead of glancing at a web page.

Same. Well, kinda. I might not have known the term "masking", but I was well aware of what I was doing. Between my parents cracking down on any and all Aspie habits I might have, and my own careful studying of fellow NT kids, I managed to portray a pretty convincing NT kid for my whole life. Personally, I think hiding being on the spectrum was much easier than hiding my intelligence. Everyone always knew from like a single conversation, even though I couldnt recognize what I was doing differently. They always expected me to know the answers to every question no matter the subject

Also, holy sh*t you're smart! You just beat Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein Mensa only goes to 162 right? With the Wechsler scale topping out at 155? And most recordable IQs have a max set at 170. Damn.

PS: Hello fellow Georgian!

I'm not THAT much higher than 160... and I've had to take several additional tests (of which I forgot what they were since it was way back when I was younger) to find that out. I know the first test I took maxed out at 150 and completing it with time to spare was pretty sweet.

Also a lot of it is locked right now. Peers and family had made my intelligence out to be more of a curse than anything else so I've had to suppress it my whole life. I'm seeing counselors now that want to help me unlock it while learning to cope with the Aspieness.

Question about Weschler:
Are people allowed to use a pencil for the math? I did all the math mentally for the online test because I wasn't sure.

Which online test was that? Do you have a link?

https://wechsleriqtest.com/

I think it was this link. I just noticed that it said people can use a pencil. I would have scored much higher if I had noticed that, because I did all the math in my head.

^ Thanks .





As a contrast the JCTI non-verbal timed test which was available by email at one point .

Hey note to anyone who takes this online: DONT TAKE THE SHORT ONE.

I got a perfect score, and y'all......I aint no Einstein.

I did the long one, without a pencil and post-stroke.
I should try it again with a pencil the next time I'm bored.

I tried the short one and got 24/25 . The 31 1031 etc question really baffled me . I'm guessing that's the one I got wrong.