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I don't actually consider my brain as being messed up. Without my brain being the way it is I would not be able to excel academically the way I can. Part of what allowed me to get such good grades at college and university was my ability to think differently. I was told by my lecturers that I had a tendency to be aware of things that others were not aware of and to make connections they did not make. My so called 'donkeyed' up brain got me labelled as 'Extremely Intelligent' by academic institutions but gets me labelled as 'mentally ill' or 'crazy' by society at large.

In one arena I am considered as being gifted in the other I am considered as being ill in regards to the exact same traits..

Now they can't be both...either they are pathological or they arise from extreme intelligence, unless the latter is now considered to be disorder.

I have had a lifetime of misdiagnosis by the medical profession and this makes me worry. In regards to things like ADHD etc how many people have been misdiagnosed?

Let me give you an obvious example of misdiagnosis by the medical profession:

12 years ago I was having problems with headaches and feeling like death warmed up most days, amongst other symptoms. I went to my drs, they did blood tests which showed nothing so they labelled it as anxiety and depression, sent me to a shrink and put me on medication. I was convinced it was a sinus infection so I pushed for a referral for an ENT. Eventually, after years of fighting, I got a referral. It did in fact turn out to be a sinus infection that was not responding to treatment and which I needed surgery for. They also found an allergy to duck feathers, which given that I was sleeping under a duck feather duvet every night, was very relevant at the time.

But several psychiatrists and GP all misdiagnosed an allergy and sinus infection as a psychiatric problem and I got left on medication I did not need and which eventually did create a mood disorder that was not there before.

My brain is not donkeyed up, society is donkeyed up with its narrow minded, ignorant, prejudice, discriminatory attitude.

The psyche profession does not know what it is doing. It is passing theory off as fact, misdiagnosing people left right and centre and putting them on medications that they may not need.

No, this does not mean that some people don't need the medication, but in some cases over medicating people is doing more harm than good.

I would not change the way my brain is because without it being the way it is I would not have the academic ability that I do, and it's not just academia. I may have trouble socialising because of my eccentricities, but when it comes to things I have always been able to learn and excel at almost anything I want to or am interested enough in. What stops me in life is not my ability to learn or do things, I have no problem ability wise and never have, but I do have a problem with people and their narrow minded lines of thinking and lack of acceptance of difference.

I even have no problem getting work done because, when I need it, I have an amazing concentration span and an ability to get tasks completed. I also have personality traits that, when it comes to achieving something I want, make me very persistent. Even my obsessive tendencies can be used to my advantage when it comes to getting tasks done to a high standard and in time to make deadline.

Unfortunately this does not go down well socially...I want to study to get my assignment done and enjoy doing such, but the world insists, that instead of doing my work I should be sitting on my arse all day making pointless chit chat and socialising.

People are obsessed with bloody chit chat.

So because I want to get on with my studies so that I can maintain my A grade average at University and I don't want to chit chat right now, there must be something wrong with me right? And it must be part of my mental illness? Huh?

This is why part of me doubts Aspergers, even though people have suggested it to me because of my social difficulties and quirks (ie tendency to become obsessed with my hobbies although I prefer to think I am more passionate than obsessed) because I can perform most tasks such as organise things, follow both verbal and written instructions, learn via both text and pictures and so on.

My intelligence, in many ways, is adaptable.

But because I am a bit socially awkward and highly introverted (Ie I'd rather stay in and study than go out and party) society has decided there is something wrong with me and I must be defective. They then stick me on disability and medication, assume that I cannot do things I can in fact do with ease, treat my quirks (which I don't find distressing in and of themselves and which I actually function better with than without) as a disorder and treat me like I am a ret*d when I am probably smarter than they are.

And actually that is a key point in that paragraph there...I function better and achieve more WITH my quirks than without them. When I am forced to do things the way others want me to because that is seen as more normal, my life goes to hell anything I was working towards falls apart. When left to my own devices I get better results with the things I am working on, I reach a higher standard of work and so on. This is why I am beginning to think that I would be far more successful in my life if I cut people and socialising out of it. I do have problems asserting myself because of my high level of sensitivity and the fact that I have a soft spot that makes me easy to manipulate (ie I feel guilty for saying no to someone) and yeah, I need to work on that, but sometimes it is easier to cut people from your life, especially if they are too pushy. Much less stress that way. It's hard hearted and it kills my conscience but I am getting sick and tired of my life being ruined by other peoples insistence that I do things their way. I just want them to leave me the F alone so I can get on with doing the things that actually make me happy...like my studying, instead of having to make chit chat and yet more chit chat and more chit chat and more chit chat and....argggghhhhhhhh

No I am not presently employed, partly because of problems with an ongoing physical health problems and partly because of my social difficulties, but when I did work and it came to being able to do my job I was always praised by management for my quality of work...I was ostracised and bullied by other staff members though and that's why I had problems holding a job down. Doing the actual job was NO problem, most jobs are easy, but dealing with the bullying day in and day out when I am emotionally sensitive was hard and wore me down.

So actually my brain being the way it is does not stop me from excelling at things and functioning...society does. People and their nasty spiteful selfish prejudice narrow minded attitudes combined with their lack of acceptance and lack of tolerance for difference is what holds me back in life.

Of course I have held myself back some by being stupid enough to care about their BS. I should have just learned to ignore them long ago and carried on doing things in my own way regardless of whether or not people accepted me.

My brain is not donkeyed up, society is just a jack ass!

Last edited by bumble on 24 Feb 2012, 10:40 am, edited 1 time in total.

Once you start a thread, you really can't just close it because you want it closed. On most forums, moderators won't close or delete threads at the OP's request because other people have become invested in the discussion and cutting that off to please one person is rarely considered productive.

:: out the door closing it quietly ::

bumble, you can have intellectual Giftedness without the deficits. One can have a stratospheric IQ and have social intelligence, as in interacting in 'NT like real time.'

One can have it all, at both interfaces.

True, but statistically most with genius IQs are either on the spectrum, or have an unbalanced sort of intelligence, like the autistic.

These quintessential NT geniuses do exist, although rare.

They'll probably become more common.

LOLZ

I'm stating Gifted folks in this context. 2 deviations are pretty smart people, and you'd have several in a typical graduating class.

There is enough oomph/cleverness to excel in what you want to do, and at both areas---- people and book smarts.

I wanted ADHD to be a made up disorder. I had to take tiny Ritalin pills as a child and even took half doses of those super tiny pills. No way could something so miniscule affect me so how could ADHD be real? I thought I didn't need those practically microscopic half doses but everyone around me seemed to know when I skipped a dose :\

I didn't get the people smarts.

I Probably got that from my dad. My mum was a social butterfly who had a lot of people smarts and who could also be academically bright but had no love of academics so didn't pursue them. My dad on the other hand had no socialising ability at all (even less than me actually), loved academics but didn't have the ability to excel at it.

I seem to be a strange mix of my mother and my father. I can remember taking mental notes as a kid because my dad would do or say something and people would respond with "Adrian (his name) you just can't do or say that!'. He was so socially inappropriate at times and so oblivious to social conventions that people used to refuse to let their children come around and play with me if my dad was there. He was also prone to meltdowns when he got upset and it used to freak people out so they would avoid him. He could not make friends and maintain relationships etc either. My parents marriage inevitably ended in divorce.

I got some of his social problems and his meltdowns although I am less aggressive than he could be. He could lash out at people during one of his meltdowns/tantrums if he was pushed by them during it but it was rare, he was more likely to yell and break things. My meltdowns/tantrums (when I get overwhelmed and stressed out or very upset) tend to be more verbal in nature and I am more likely to hit myself more than anyone else unless they come at me in a threatening way during the meltdown (which scares me). Then I will lash out to protect myself, otherwise I am unlikely to become violent. Neither I am into self harm on a regular basis, I am only ever prone to hitting myself when I am mid tantrum, mostly because I am so frustrated and upset and I cannot make anyone understand. However, I have never seriously harmed myself. All the same I cannot talk about this to therapists or drs as they misunderstand.

I also got my dads quirks...he had little set routines that he would get upset about if they were disturbed etc.

When it comes to academia though I got my dads love of it and my mums IQ...good combination there! Socially I got my dads social ability with maybe a dash of my mothers genes because I do have slightly more social awareness than my dad did (maybe because of my intellectual ability, I don't know).

I don't know what I am any more lol. Just bloody weird maybe.

Don't mind me I am having a bad week. I am frustrated. When I do manage to make friends I cannot keep the friends going because they are too exhausting. I have lost several online friends lately because I wanted to study and did not want to make chit chat with them. The result is I am running behind with my studies because having to socialise to the degree they pushed me to socialise has exhausted me. Not only am I now having a major tantrum over it because I could not pursue my interests and because I am now running behind, but I am wiped out and drained of all energy.

The studying revitalises me and recharges my energy levels, the socialising and making chit chat exhausts me beyond the point that people can even come close to understanding.

And now I have CBT coming up soon where they are expecting me to socialise more and get over my diagnosis of 'social anxiety'.

It is going to wipe me out and I am not going to have any energy left to function with and I cannot make therapists and drs understand how difficult and exhausting the socialising is. They put my anxiety down to studying, but that is fun, and exciting and invigorating...it is the having to deal with people that raises my anxiety. The having to appear normal...its wiping me out.

They think its about embarrassment...its not. It;s about the fact that my ability to function is shut down by too much socialising and most people need more social interaction than I can physically cope with without feeling overwhelmed and over loaded. Then I have a meltdown, exhaust, get depressed, shut down and then things go from bad to worse because then people think I am even more nuts than before.

PN studying, and the subject I am studying, is my present interest/obsession, hence why it is not stressful to me when I can actually get time to indulge it.

if a thread is causing the OP significant distress when the arguments get a bit heated, i do not have a problem locking it for them (as long as they are not asking for the lock so they can win an argument or something like that). the OP got an answer to the original question in the first 3 pages and is getting upset bu the subesuent debates.

if people want to keep the discussion going, perhaps start a new thread.