How to know if you're retarded

[cnidocyte]

When I first meet people they often think I'm "simple" as in mildly retarded, they don't say it to my face but friends and family members have told me a few times that someone asked them if I was retarded after I first met them. My brothers have told me countless times that its the way I act and talk that gives people the impression that I'm mildly retarded. All my family members and just about everyone I know who made a statement about my intelligence tells me that I'm very smart and highly intelligent and all that but the way they deal with me makes me suspect that their words don't coincide with their opinions. These observations must have been seeping in over the years cuz when I think about myself nowadays I can't help but view myself as "simple". I view myself more like a child than someone in his early 20's. What I'm wondering is how would one know they are retarded if that were the case? Firstly when I say retarded I mean having a lower degree of overall mental capabilities than the average human.

Some abnormalities of mine which are blatantly obvious to others, are invisible to me. I find I view myself with far less objectivity than I would any other person and as a result I don't see the things that give others the impression that I'm retarded i.e. the fact that I speak very slowly with a real deep voice while others I can spot i.e. the fact I don't generate rapport with people like I see others do. I was diagnosed with high functioning autism a few years ago and this explains things far better than me being retarded could but I still can't get rid of this self image. Maybe if I confront my subconscious with incontrovertible evidence that I can't be retarded, it will seep in. How does one measure their intelligence though? I always score at least 120 on those internet IQ tests but clearly these tests are not real measures of intelligence, rather they just measure your ability to do IQ tests. I've noticed that many people have the idea that being a scientist or just getting a degree in any science based field requires a relatively high degree of intelligence so considering it won't be long before I have a degree in chemists, this should nullify the idea that I may be retarded but unfortunately its not because I know that any idiot can get a degree in chemistry, its just a matter of knowing how to do exams and deal with the arbitrary academic bs they present you with. I'm a little slower at doing arithmetic in my head than anyone else I've compared myself to but I've observed that some of the mathemathical functions (i.e. matrices, plotting functions, rearranging equations) I can do in my head, other people need to do on paper so I'm not mathematically challenged.

Careful inspection has me suspecting that the criteria many people use assess the intelligence of others is little more than ones ability to conform to the currently accepted social norm. I don't mean just socialising, I mean the idea prevalent in ones society of what a normal person should be like, how they should solve problems, present themselves, live their life etc. If I could conform to the social standard I was presented with I would have but I can't but I can still think just as well as anyone else. I've also noticed that the majority of people maintain an "inner dialogue" which many of them believe is beyond their control and built into their brains and use verbal descriptions as a major tool for thinking whereas I have no inner dialogue and don't use the auditory representation (for lack of a better word) let alone language to think. I use the visual and tactile representations. Maybe I act differently because I have an abnormal style of thinking and maybe this was enough to get me diagnosed with a blanket term used by psychiatrists to categorise something they don't understand.

[enikah]

You are not retarded. Definitely. No chance. A retarded person would never been able to write something like this.

IMHO what you need is more socializing to acquire social skills. And do not care about "normality", being normal. Be yourself. I bet you are pretty interesting person.

[Blackened]

ALL the retarded people get low scores on IQ tests. It's a part of the definition of mental retardation. I think they measure the degree of the retardation by IQ score. However, you shouldn't rely on IQ tests from the internet, because like 99% of them are wrong, even the paid ones. That's because it takes a group of scientists to make an IQ test, but many people think they could just make such test only intuitively. Anyway, they usually contain fairly good questions, so if you compare your result with someone else, you might know whether you're retarded. If someone else gets the same result as you or less, it would mean that either both of you are retarded, or none of you are.

You might have ADD/ADHD. From what I know, it kinda makes people give the impression of being retarded. It might even make them feel retarded. Also, you might just look like a stereotypical retarded person. My advice is to ask your most smart friend about this, and if you've correctly judged him that he's smart, he could effortlessly explain why do people think about you in this way.

P.S. Judging by what you wrote, I think it's incredibly unlikely that you are retarded, or stupid.