coraxxx
Policy Enforcement
Ok, I really don’t know where to post this so I’m just opening the discussion.
As a disclaimer I want to stress that no, IQ tests aren’t entirely reliable and they test a set of very specific things. Also, you can literally sneeze and lose 10 points. I have very conflicted views on this question and I didn’t ask to get an IQ test. The disclosure of the difference was a social nightmare at school. Now it’s perceived as a weirdness and something quite narcissistic to talk about, so I tend to generally keep that for myself and it’s been a plague in my life. There is clearly a community of HIQ fanatics that I find quite repulsive and with which I don’t want to be associated by any means.
But the question I have here is linked to the possible neurodivergence of having a very high (or a very low) IQ according to the average. That theory says that sorts of thresholds in patterns of thinking can be observed from two "deviation units," arbitrarily set at 15. So, average is set at 100, it means that from 130 a person has a different approach to things and problem-solving, with more global, shortcut and jittered thinking than the average. Some studies (I should reference the papers here) claim that you communicate easily with people that are situated under or above 15 points of where you are, and okay around 30 points. So it means that if you score really low or really high, you’re in some sort of heavy neuroatypical spot. I don’t know if it’s really understandable in the way I’m explaining, and I’m also a bit uneasy about this because IQ has been used to justify a lot of stupid shit and I think the very idea of testing intelligence is problematic.
But what has struck me is that during my endless nights on the Internet and having been on high-IQ forums by curiosity as I got tested around 12 and scored very high (and honestly, all that process of psychometrics was quite traumatic too). Therefore, according to the deviation units problems, I’d be technically in much difficulty to communicate with most people because my easy spot would start at a certain threshold, leaving me at the tail of the curve.
To be short, it would affect your capacity to share on your comfort level. And what I observed in these high IQ forums (never been to a society, sounds super creepy), were loads of people complaining about getting triggered with an immense tendency towards rumination, emotional distress and dysregulation, and quite unaware of it. I also was unaware of the entire world of triggers, emotional dysregulation and all sorts of behavioral disorders before I’d say a year ago. Anyway, I’m diverging!
So I wonder that by having this deviation in patterns of thought and communication, it couldn’t actually create a more vulnerable terrain to develop PTSD or CPTSD as
1) the feelings of emotional/intellectual loneliness and its social consequences can be problematic and traumatic by themselves,
2) the very pattern of thought has a tendency to make links between everything and circulating in shortcuts (and this is my pure speculation, but it might worsen the processing of emotions and cause anxiety because everything rushes fast, furious, and on the top of it convoluted) and
3) it might prompt to that high-achieving appearance and articulation that might complicate sought for help.
As it seems that there is a link between borderline personality disorder and high IQ (again I should reference the papers here), as the disorder is developed in people that have a tendency to "feel" more strongly and being maladaptive in hostile or invalidating environments. Knowing that BPD very frequently overlaps with CPTSD or at least a traumatic background, it doesn’t seem so much of a stretch to think that there might be a link between emotional vulnerability and HIQ. I don’t know.
I wonder if anyone else has had experience with IQ tests and what it means for you?
As a disclaimer I want to stress that no, IQ tests aren’t entirely reliable and they test a set of very specific things. Also, you can literally sneeze and lose 10 points. I have very conflicted views on this question and I didn’t ask to get an IQ test. The disclosure of the difference was a social nightmare at school. Now it’s perceived as a weirdness and something quite narcissistic to talk about, so I tend to generally keep that for myself and it’s been a plague in my life. There is clearly a community of HIQ fanatics that I find quite repulsive and with which I don’t want to be associated by any means.
But the question I have here is linked to the possible neurodivergence of having a very high (or a very low) IQ according to the average. That theory says that sorts of thresholds in patterns of thinking can be observed from two "deviation units," arbitrarily set at 15. So, average is set at 100, it means that from 130 a person has a different approach to things and problem-solving, with more global, shortcut and jittered thinking than the average. Some studies (I should reference the papers here) claim that you communicate easily with people that are situated under or above 15 points of where you are, and okay around 30 points. So it means that if you score really low or really high, you’re in some sort of heavy neuroatypical spot. I don’t know if it’s really understandable in the way I’m explaining, and I’m also a bit uneasy about this because IQ has been used to justify a lot of stupid shit and I think the very idea of testing intelligence is problematic.
But what has struck me is that during my endless nights on the Internet and having been on high-IQ forums by curiosity as I got tested around 12 and scored very high (and honestly, all that process of psychometrics was quite traumatic too). Therefore, according to the deviation units problems, I’d be technically in much difficulty to communicate with most people because my easy spot would start at a certain threshold, leaving me at the tail of the curve.
To be short, it would affect your capacity to share on your comfort level. And what I observed in these high IQ forums (never been to a society, sounds super creepy), were loads of people complaining about getting triggered with an immense tendency towards rumination, emotional distress and dysregulation, and quite unaware of it. I also was unaware of the entire world of triggers, emotional dysregulation and all sorts of behavioral disorders before I’d say a year ago. Anyway, I’m diverging!
So I wonder that by having this deviation in patterns of thought and communication, it couldn’t actually create a more vulnerable terrain to develop PTSD or CPTSD as
1) the feelings of emotional/intellectual loneliness and its social consequences can be problematic and traumatic by themselves,
2) the very pattern of thought has a tendency to make links between everything and circulating in shortcuts (and this is my pure speculation, but it might worsen the processing of emotions and cause anxiety because everything rushes fast, furious, and on the top of it convoluted) and
3) it might prompt to that high-achieving appearance and articulation that might complicate sought for help.
As it seems that there is a link between borderline personality disorder and high IQ (again I should reference the papers here), as the disorder is developed in people that have a tendency to "feel" more strongly and being maladaptive in hostile or invalidating environments. Knowing that BPD very frequently overlaps with CPTSD or at least a traumatic background, it doesn’t seem so much of a stretch to think that there might be a link between emotional vulnerability and HIQ. I don’t know.
I wonder if anyone else has had experience with IQ tests and what it means for you?