Failing as a high IQ kid

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15 years ago I was tested to have an iq of 148. I was a very smart kid until 2nd year of high school. After that, I struggled with all kind of mental health issues, from depression to adhd. Nowadays, my mental health is a little better but my life is completely a mess. I didn't achieve my childhood goals. I'm living way below my potential.

Can I turn my life around at this point? I'm 27 years old now. What would you do if you were me? Do any of you have a similar story, what did you do? By the way I have aspergers, that's one of the biggest causes of my situation.

Solve your executive dysfunction deficits.
That's mostly the point of why many high IQ types fail midway and towards adulthood and beyond.

Be it because 'untreated ADHD', untreated whatever illness, or crappy habits in the past because either you had it easy then or whatever klits your ego growing up.


Figure your internal complexities.
Emotional and mental, not necessarily social.
Issues remained unsolved can hold you back in a subconscious level in many different ways.

This includes your lack of confidence in socialization, your perception of being above something, or even expectations and pressures you put yourself out of synch compared to your current ability.



A factor people forget with high IQs in some occasion is that they have a particular type of sensitivity; that sensitivity isn't necessarily sensory or emotional (and can be mistaken as such), but it's a mental type of dysregulation that many do not talk about much, and is what some are prone to mental illness.

And it's not necessarily heightened memory and awareness related problem turned hurt and pressure, but it's what can worsen if kept dysregulated and not well managed.

People forget the concept of excitability in giftedness in a sense it can be a form of dysregulation if not well learnt how to manage.
The same way people for get the opposite happens to low IQ cases.

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You seem to focus on your IQ a lot. A high IQ doesn't make a person successful all by itself.

What are / were your childhood goals, and in what ways have you worked towards achieving them?

27 is young. What do you want out of life? What do you hope to achieve?

Apart from mental heath issues, my education was quite similar to yours. I did great until I was about 11, and passed the "11 plus" exam with flying colours, but then sank like a stone. Horrible experience.

I managed to pull out of the tailspin in the nick of time, just before the 'O' level exams, by shutting myself in my room and studying the text books. I could barely learn a thing from conventional spoken-word lessons. My thinking style was way too slow and thorough to keep up, and they expected kids to interpolate a lot from the context, which I've always been crap at. The background noise was often too high for me to hear what the teachers were saying clearly enough. The teachers were mostly an unsympathetic lot. The mathematics teacher was only interested in the high flyers, and there was a general attitude that if you couldn't keep up it was because you were too lazy to do the work.

So the only way was to educate myself by reading the text books at my own pace in a quiet environment. I couldn't bear the thought of doing that all year round, so I waited till a few weeks before the exams and then made it a special interest. In those days there was no continuous assessment, so how you did on the final exams was the only thing that mattered. My test results had been terrible.

I say I had no mental health issues, but I did think I must have got brain damage when I saw how badly I was doing with ordinary lessons. But I found out later on that when I put my mind to something and work in my own way, it's amazing what I can achieve. So I figured that there couldn't be much wrong with my brain.

My method didn't hold up so well when it came to the 'A' levels though. I'd opted for physics, chemistry and mathematics, and the sheer complexity of it all was pretty much beyond me. I did what I could, and passed, but my grades were only just high enough to get me through. The 'O' levels had been a bad enough invasion of my life as it was, but the 'A' levels were the last straw. Still, I passed them, and compared to the average person I'd done quite well academically. But I decided not to go to university. I figured it would be even harder. So I used the qualifications I had to get a halfway-decent job in lab tech, and was much happier doing something practical like that instead of having to learn theoretical stuff all the time.

I don't know what my IQ is. I gather Aspies get strange IQ test results, brilliant in some sections and terrible in others, so I don't think reducing my brain's power to a single number would mean very much. I'm more nerdy than the average person, and tend to do well with intellectual challenges if I'm given enough time and peace to solve them, but I'm aware of an academic ceiling as well, so I don't get much out of joining groups of experts. They talk a different language and are often way above anything I'm familiar with, and I can't deal with their conventions, I have to work in my own sweet way, but when I do, I tend to get very good results.

Hope this helps. I doubt it's too late for you to do adult education lessons of some kind, though I guess it's easier for younger people who are still supported by their caregivers and don't have to work for a living on top of trying to better themselves academically. And of course they don't charge money for going to school, though they charge for going to university these days. When I was young, university was all grant-funded, no student loans. People told me I was a fool for not taking advantage of a university education, and in a sense they were right, but I think if I'd taken up that wonderful free opportunity, I'd only have made a mess of it.

There are a number of trajectories one can take in life. One assumes that a high IQ is a portal to some of the most prosperous destinations. However, prosperity, even if achieved, is often not the "success imagined.

IQ measurement itself is a bit fuzzy as it is an average of quite a number of different mental processes. One might excel in one area to such a degree that the average is pulled up while significant deficiencies in other areas can contribute problems.

However existence is only partially described by mental processing. Seeing "success" as achieving the objectives of others is seldom satisfying. Perhaps a more satisfying path lies in finding satisfaction in work you enjoy, friends who show kindness, and even the opportunity to help others.

It is never too late to try a more satisfying path.