Thanks for your response.

It's interesting to see your story in relation to other stories I've heard or people I've met.

Before I describe them, it's important to say that you don't strike me as unkind. I wouldn't want you to compare yourself to the people I'll mention and conclude that you're somehow bad. I'm taking the time to say this because I don't know if the difficulties you've mentioned are a sore spot.

Alright. The people I've met. I've met people whose identity was tied to their IQ and it became painful for me to wonder what I meant to them. For sure I was not close to their IQ; they needed to take multiple tests because they were off the charts. But I always wondered if they liked me as a person, based on my values and how I did things.

I've also met very relaxed and kind people who went on to study at the schools that were supposed to be a goal, people who made me realize it's possible to be wicked smart and simultaneously kind.

When you mention that it was important that you weren't told that the test you took was an IQ test, I think about teenage me. Back then, I learned that people could judge me based on my IQ. I made the mistake of reading white supremacist bigotry, and read that they evaluated whether people were worthy of living based on things like IQ. I knew the whole white supremacy discourse was pseudoscience and bigotry, but I was scared of bigots in power evaluating my existence. I became terrified. I became very distrustful of people who I should've trusted, wonderful people who would've never had such narrow and mistaken views. That has changed, now that I have a clearer sense of self and more perspective. But I can't help but wonder what would've happened if I wouldn't have mistrusted wonderful people. I guess the discourse around IQ can really change the way you look at the world and what you do.

Is it too nosy to ask a couple of follow up questions? If not, here they are: you mentioned ADHD and the obstacle you could never get yourself past, the inability to keep your focus and control it. Is the diagnosis recent? Could medication help? Could any treatment help with the ADHD? As to difficulties understanding other people, do you know about relational frame theory, the self component of ACT, and the PEAK and AIM programs?