Mental retardation

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Hey everyone,

I am new but don´t want to bother introducing myself in a different post... I actually think I am mentally ret*d as well... I was always last in school, always obsessed with things not wanting any social interaction, and not knowing what I wanted in life when I got out of high school. It took a year longer to finish high school, and I have always had problems sleeping, and going to school, I had extreme low energy. I was depressed when I finished high school, and working as a cleaner for 15 hours a week, I stayed at home for one year. Since then I have been seeing a psychologist and a psychiatrist. I went to college for a year, and felt something was not right. Everyone was willing to socialise and I was antisocial as hell. After that year, I went to university which looking back, was a huge mistake. I studied English literature and was ALWAYS struggling, with coursework, with workgroups, antisocial behavior, communication and every day was torture. Those years were only spent on my studies, and all the while I was working as a cleaner for the eldery, walking aimlessly, no concept of time or goal, when I looked for another job, as a barista at Starbucks, and being among my peers again, I noticed the difference again. I still haven´t finished my studies and spent a semester in Hong Kong, again walking aimlessly being depressed. My mother has always taken care of me, getting me out of debt and stuff. I had a meltdown after my ex dumped me after three months, bc we weren´t compatible... It seemed no/one was ever compatible with me. Now I have been living at home again for one year doing absolutely nothing seeing a psychologist and a psychiatrist. I have mentioned the fact that I think I am mentally ret*d but they just believe I am depressed and setting my standards too high. When I was 18 they already mentioned I was depressed, and actually smarter than the rest. Only NOW do I realise that I am probably mentally ret*d, and I am just so angry that they didn´t help me when I was 18. I regret not insisting on an IQ test back then, bc now, I am wondering what my future will be like. I walk around aimlessly, scared all the time, developmentally delayed, feeling like I am completely useless and probably ending up collecting garbage or something. Maybe I wouldn´t even be successful at that. I feel really angry that they didn´t help me at school, or at the psychiatric care. I have had no youth, and at 25 I have zero life experience. The only experiences I know, are the ones at home... I have zero energy and no will to live, or to want anything, I am just angry and extremely sad all the time. I can´t even concentrate on movies, or read or anything. I work as a mailman right now, and I can´t even do that right.... I feel so alone, bc nobody seems to be willing to help me in getting a diagnosis... I feel like my life has been thrown away when it didn´t have to be that way... The only thing that gives me hope is my goal to be working as a prostitute in order to get stam cell injections, so maybe I will become independent some day... I have already lost friends, bc I didn´t want to see them anymore bc they were living their lives and I didn´t want them to find out I was stupid...

I am still harassing my psychologist, to give me an IQ test and a personality disorder, but they don´t seem to care, bc it takes them ages to get me that....

I am sorry for the long post, but I felt I had to add my story, when I saw the post... Napoleon, would you care to share your story, and try to get an IQ test somewhere, so you have some definite information, why life has been the way it is...

Regards
Nancy

p.s. I am so glad this forum exist, it has helped me so much in finding kindred spirits...

Keep harassing them, but don't just insist on the IQ test. You want more of a neuropsych evaluation, focused on gauging the skills you need for employment--something that covers not just stereotypical IQ-test-type problems, but things like memory, attention, processing sounds and images, what you learned in school, how well you judge distance and speed, etc. You seem like you're confused because you don't know what you're good at, or what you should do with your life; and if you answered those questions you might have some leads on what employment would be best for you, because you'd know where your talents were.

Even if you're right about being mentally ret*d, the information about where your strengths are can still be very useful. People who are mentally ret*d get jobs, live on their own, get married, and have families. It's getting to be a lot better than it used to be for people with different kinds of brains, autism and MR included, and it'll get even better as we start getting more and more people to listen to us when we say we want to live our own lives, make our own decisions, and be respected like any other human being.

You're likely enough to discover that you have one or more specific learning disabilities--weaknesses in specific areas, like dyslexia is a specific weakness with reading. Finding out where those are can help you learn to work around them.

If you keep bugging them, emphasize that you want to work, you want to find out what you're good at, and if you knew, you might be able to find a job that fits you better than what you're doing now.

BTW--your evaluation report will be written in psychobabble. Get them to explain it to you if you don't feel like learning psychology and neurology for the occasion.

Stoppit.

You might not be ret*d at all. I used to think I was ret*d when I was 14 because I also struggled in school, I wasn't like the other kids, I couldn't relate to them, I didn't understand teasing or sarcasm and I coudn't tell when people were joking. This was before I understood AS despite knowing I had it. I thought if I wasn't ret*d, I wouldn't be getting help with my school work and I would be able to do it on my own. It took me a while to get over that thinking.

Wow Callista,

thanks for the advice! And so quickly too! Yes, I actually also have an appointment soon, with an agency that deals with work and they´ll be evaluating what I would like to do and could be good at. I hope that will lead to somewhere... It´s still hard to deal with the fact that I´m not normal like everybody else, but I guess all of us have to learn to live with that... If only there was this magical cure eh...

Nancy

I've always had a beef with IQ tests(not that I ever rode the little bus or anything ); I'm of the opinion that's it's not possible to quantify intelligence with a simple multiple choice test. It might be useful for determining if someone has a severe cognitive impairment, but other than that, I think it's rubbish.

I used to think I was that way, until my mum told me that I was an Aspie, at the age of 15.