As a baby, my parents didn't take the right measures to make sure that I would grow up to be healthy and intelligent. My parents have a higher IQ than I do, and I feel that there is something wrong with me. My mom didn't breast feed me, and I know that intelligence can be affected by the absence of breast feeding. My mom also drank a glass of wine every day that she was pregnant with me. I don't know if that would be enough to cause fetal alcohol syndrome but I'm not sure. I was also born a couple of weeks early and I know that my mom smoked and inhaled second hand smoke during her pregnancy. My dad frequently smoked in the car with me as a toddler, without rolling down the windows. I wasn't given hardly any toys, nor was I given very much attention. My mother was always upset and angry because she was going through the divorce process with my dad. I feel that a combination of all of these things have caused my emotional problems and the fact that I have an average IQ yet the rest of my family is well above average.
4:17 pm on July 23, 2008
KathyN
Enlightened One Patron Support Leader
You can not change the past, but you can try and improve your current state. Don't blame your parents for that. It will not do any good to anyone.
Maybe your IQ is not as high as you wanted it to be, and maybe you are in more emotional that you want to be, but who knows what person will you be if those things wouldn't be the way they are.
I know that you will treat your kids better that your parents treated you. I know that you would work harder to study things and to get things in life. But that would make you a strong person and a better person in future.
I hope you will take a look at your life from that angle too...
Best wishes, Kathy,
------- Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery and today is a gift! That's why we call it PRESENT.
10:28 am on July 24, 2008 | Joined July 2006 | 393 Days Active Join to learn more about KathyNIsrael | StraightFemale | 5485 Posts | 14701 Points
medjai
Patron Support Leader
Your IQ is not as important as you'd think, you're far better written than the majority of the people here, and so it's clear to me that your language skills are above the mean. Do not be intimidated by your infancy, in many cases it's not as important as you'd think so long as you had certain basic things (it's very clear that you were not subjected to extreme neglect as you would be a horrible writer were that the case).
Your parents are people too, and it is very likely that while they had horrible issues, they did as much as they could for you. I was not breast fed as long as I should have been because my mother was very, very ill during some of the time and so was unable and yet I am one of the most physically and mentally fit people in my entire family, of which almost every member is already rather far ahead of the bell curve.
Do you have Asthma, do you have Bronchitis or any other breathing disorders? If no, then the smoking is not that big of a deal. I do not believe that one glass of wine a night is significant, it's actually healthy for the host at least. If you had fetal alcohol syndrome odds are you'd know by now that you suffered from its effects.
Emotional problems have all sorts of causes, but I do not recommend blaming them on something solid like how you were treated in the womb as an infant. If you convince yourself that you are emotionally distraught because of something so incredibly static and immovable then you will end up justifying it and possibly contenting yourself with your situation, believing it can't change.
An interesting study about plastic intelligence recently revealed that it can and does in fact increase significantly and nearly without plateau with practice and mental training. In other words, you're IQ can in fact increase, even in adulthood, by as much as something like thirty points. If you are as of now average in the IQ department, it is quite possible for you to get thirty points ahead of the bell curve, which is not bad at all.
Do not ever convince yourself that you are somehow cursed, that you are somehow planted in an unchangeable situation where aspects of great importance to you are somehow completely out of your grasp, doing so is counterproductive and will only serve to bring your mental state even lower. You are not trapped in mediocrity.
Your IQ is not as important as you'd think, it is a test, and it is not an intelligence test, despite the implications of the name.
Do not listen to anyone but me in this thread, because I guarantee you my advice here is the best of anyone's.
12:59 am on July 25, 2008 | Joined Nov. 2003 | 1280 Days Active Join to learn more about medjaiCalifornia, United States | StraightMale | 11750 Posts | 29288 Points
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