"I Wish I Could Be Normal": People With Low IQs Are Opening Up About Their Deepest Hardships In Life, And It's Absolutely Gut-Wrenching

In this age of social media and people constantly showing off for clout, it's become all too easy to focus on the things we don't have, and to feel dissatisfied with our lives.

But it's important to be appreciative of the things we're lucky to have — like an average intellect or higher. Over on Quora, people have been answering: "What's it like to have a very low IQ?" Similarly, Redditors are sharing their experiences in the subreddit r/lowIQpeople. Their brave testimonials are a reminder to have empathy for others, to offer them a little grace, and to create opportunity and inclusion for everyone. Here's what they had to say:

1."Probably the most frustrating part of being low IQ for me is just never having anything to say. Sure I can spit out some words, but it’s never anything witty or interesting or anything. Whenever I’m in a group, I kind of just sit and listen to what other people say because I know that whatever I say will be less valuable to the conversation than what anyone else will say."

—u/XpHAHAman

2."I'm going to disappoint everyone. I'm low IQ, in my early 30s. I think I'm going to lose my job due to being incompetent. Every day I get feedback about how I do simple things incorrectly. I'm not blaming anyone but myself. I don't know how I'll face my wife and son when the sword drops. It isn't just this job. Almost every form of employment or internship, I struggle with basics. Every good and likable person at my job grows to loathe my existence due to my being incompetent. I bring out the absolute worst in people by being around them. I honestly sometimes wish my wife would divorce me for someone better. I wish I could be normal."

3."Most people will avoid you and even mock you in the workplace because you are too slow. Even my parents get frustrated with me when I don't get things or if I don't understand simple instructions because they think that I am lazy or inattentive. Although they are patient with me most of the time. But think about it — if you have average IQ and you know a person who is mentally slow and you have to work to explain stuff to them, you will somewhat feel frustrated and at times impatient. As a person of low IQ, I came to terms with people's behavior toward me. What I can't accept, and I don't think I will ever do, is accept myself. I've been trying for the past year to accept being cognitively inferior to people, but there is no way. Especially when on a daily basis people run circles around you without you having a clue what is going on."

—u/Inside-Mall-894

4."I have an IQ of around 86, which is pretty poor. I have a learning disability when it comes to math especially. I suffered a lot of abuse and discrimination from teachers who knew I had a disability but didn't offer me any help. They separated me from the other kids (they took me out of math class and made me sit in the janitor's closet to do my work because they assumed I was lazy). This was around 1989–1990. I find it hard to believe there weren't programs to help kids like me back then."

5."Life is very challenging. You don’t know when people are serious. You don’t know when they are joking. You are gullible, yet you may become distrustful and develop a cynical attitude about people because of always being suckered. You have a hard time thinking rationally and applying critical thinking skills because it takes extra time to think! It became super obvious to me when I tried playing blackjack at a casino. I count more slowly, and the other players were frustrated with the rate of play. It doesn’t mean you cannot be successful. You just have to apply yourself much harder to achieve and get what you’ve earned."

—Jonathan G., Quora

6."I went through life with an IQ in the 99th percentile until a traumatic brain injury at 51 years old left me with an IQ in the 25th percentile. I remember being smarter and quicker to react. My recall is now much narrower than what I remember from before. It’s easier to type than talk because accessing words can delay a conversation. Right now, I’m writing with a dictionary, thesaurus, and Grammarly open for assistance with spelling and clarity. Where I once was quick-witted, now it takes me so long to craft what I’m trying to say that often the conversation has moved to another topic, and I don’t end up contributing my thoughts."

"I was a fairly serious reader before my brain injury. I kept up with the books I read, and in two or three years, I finished over one hundred books. Now reading is not easy and certainly not fun. I lose focus with audiobooks. I respond better to movies or TV. Listening to music has lost its charm for me.

I had been a medical professional for 30 years when I was hurt, but since then, I can't remember many of the medications I frequently used, much less learn the constant flow of new medications and equipment that comes online. My work was in critical care, so mistakes could have severe consequences. I don't think I ever would have taken on or completed the college program I trained in with my current intellectual capacity."

"Adjustments to how I function now have been hard. I wasn't prepared emotionally to retire, and even now, 11 years later, I miss some things about work. I miss being drawn through the long-form stories of books. I miss instantly recalling theological doctrines like I once did. I miss reading straight through the Bible in different translations like I did three or four times. With all that, I'm not unhappy, though. The people who loved me before still do, and I'm able to add a limited number of folks into my life, including my son's fiancée and the grandchildren born after the wreck."

7."With the exception of loving family you might have or perhaps close childhood friends, anyone more intelligent than you is not on your side. They will mock, reject, bully, and exclude you. In any job, if you are the least intelligent person in your group, you will eventually be fired. Recruiters absolutely despise you and will actively display contempt toward you during interviews and won't hire you unless nobody else is applying to the position. You don't even need to have low ability. Just being slow, socially awkward, or overly quiet is enough to be judged negatively by these scum. As an individual with low intelligence you are prey, and people are always ready to take advantage of and humiliate you. Be careful out there. You are not being paranoid when they really are against you."

—u/FuckCapitalism1

8."I cannot get interested in anything. My head is completely empty all day. I have no personality, there's nothing I like. Even when I try to do things, I cannot understand them completely. I'm good at nothing, even in video games, I'm the lowest performer. I dropped out of school in the eighth grade because the work was too hard for me and socializing was too hard and stressful, and I haven't talked to anyone since then. I can't cook for myself, I can't clean (properly), I don't know how to clothe myself. I can't go to the store, I can't do anything I don't know how. I can't remember anything, I can watch an anime episode and then rewatch it directly after and not remember watching it."

9."I've become hostile toward normies just for the simple fact that everything I do is a challenge to me. Cleaning a house is challenging to me. Making a bed and getting the sheets to fit on the bed is challenging. Cooking food is challenging because I find it hard to decide on what to eat and I sometimes struggle to follow recipes on the back of the package. Going places is challenging as I'm prone to getting lost. Learning new things is a Hercules task as I get confused and forget so easily. I can't drive because my processing is so fucked. I've gotten fired even from McDonald's and basic fucking jobs just because I'm incompetent. I struggle with literally everything including stringing these words together now. I'm jealous of anybody that's remotely normal and doesn't have these issues. It's not fair, dude. Rant over."

—u/Misssweetnsassy

10."I’m only built for sign holder jobs because sign holder jobs are the only easy job in the planet since you just hold and wave a square advertisement sign. I only got positive emails from sign holder jobs saying I have done a wonderful job with that position and work well. Also, at my current sign holder job, the owner and managers are saying I’m doing a great job, and I got invited to the Christmas party last year."

11."I have a below-average IQ (89). I had jobs that made me feel miserable because I was expected to learn really fast and do data analysis really fast being measured against people that were really smart and fast. My boss liked my work because I am reliable, a good team player, and produce quality work although slower than my peers."

"After several years doing that, I found myself a less demanding job. I am now an office manager making the same money. I am not anxious anymore. I don't have to put extra hours in to learn new stuff or meet deadlines.

I have retaken up painting, going to the gym, spending more time with my family, learning French (I already speak Spanish and English) and running a small catering business.

My home has always been sparkling clean and organized, bills paid. I think keeping up with these mundane aspects has more to do with developing good habits than with IQ."

—Anonymous, Quora

12."I am tired of everything being a struggle. People who don't have low IQ take their common sense for granted. They don't go through every day exhausted, making mistake after mistake and dealing with the consequences of their mistakes. I am so tired. All my life it has been this way. As far back as I remember from primary school, being the one made fun of by teachers and students because I was such a moron at everything. I want a break. I don't know how to find this relief short of no longer existing."

13."As an Austrian child, I took an IQ test with a professional psychologist and scored as low as 78. A short while ago (at the age of 24, now I am almost 26) I scored about 80; 55 IQ on spatial tasks and about 83 to 84 on numerical and linguistic intelligence. The conclusion of her was that logical thought processes are 'rather below average.' The deepest pain comes from the inability to socialize correctly. When we play games and someone explains the rules, I find it really hard to remember and apply what they said. They bully me for that and ask me why I decided to play math at all since math is an abstract game with abstract numbers. And since I don't want them to explain it 10–20 times for me, I just don't dare to go to social gatherings where they do some unknown or little practiced activities."

"And then I find it hard to listen to people when they want me to do something for them. Sometimes I need 10 times repetition or I need a recorder to secretly listen to it. This fact made me never daring to do a paid job except help for other students until now because I'm afraid to not be able to grasp what the boss could want from me.

I get overwhelmed by the inputs in social games like basketball or football. Although I'm well above average height, I was thrown quite quickly out of basketball and football clubs because my brain becomes so confused that I even started to shoot into my group's goal instead of the opponent's. I just can't capture so much information at the same time (I admire those ball players; they must have a really good sport's intelligence).

In order to learn something new I need to 'talk to myself' about it. It's not really a private teacher, it's me talking to myself about the problems which sometimes causes a huge switch in problem-solving ability which is why I became the best in my math class when I discovered how I need to learn. The strange thing was I was still unable to understand the teacher in front although my homework was really good."

—Elias A., Quora

14."I am a 22-year-old girl from Italy. I just want to vent about my problems, and maybe some can relate. I never thought of myself as stupid or at least I never noticed. No one around me told me anything ever, but I assume they knew — they just didn't want to hurt my feelings. I started noticing around 20 years old. I started having doubts because certain things I couldn't understand quickly and people had to explain them to me again and again. Everything became more clear last year when I met my boyfriend and I saw the tremendous difference between me and him. He is super good in math, learns so quickly; one time he told me he learned a job in two weeks where most people require three months to learn it. I, on the other hand, have little work experience. I worked as a waitress for one month. I was almost fired because I wasn't fast enough, and they had to repeat the same things several times before I got them correctly."

15."People will start blaming you for all the problems that plague you because they think that lack of intelligence is purely the individual's fault. They never come to the conclusion that it is not our fault, we have low IQ. It depends more on genetics and the environment in which we grew up. We can't just wake up one day and be as efficient as normal or intelligent people — especially when that deficiency leads to other problems like depression and low self-esteem."

"There is no merit in intelligence. The world's geniuses didn't have to work hard to have the IQ they had. They were born with such high potential and all they did was take advantage of their high cognitive abilities to learn things they were already capable of learning all along. The most intelligent people tend to be the most judgmental as well. They become proud of their intelligence, which is just a benefit they won in life's lottery, and go around spitting phrases of motivation and meritocracy — and they use those same phrases to judge those who didn't win like them."

—u/deleted

16."I am 22 years old and currently living with family, and as time goes on, I become more socially isolated. I barely function at all, mostly I simply engage in brainless activities like listening to music all the time, I do not buy anything for myself, I do not socialize or have real-life friends, I can't really sustain a job consistently, so I live in a parasitic way with my family. I do not really have any major plans or goals in real life, I feel like I am just present in a state of just existing, not caring as much about life, unable to think beyond tomorrow."

17."Most people just don't see me as normal, so that does mean technically I'm not normal, but I just don't like the treatment that comes with not being normal, especially if you have ADHD mixed with ugliness or autism mixed with ugliness. People don't genuinely value you. No matter what you do people always treat you like shit or outcast you. People see you as unserious or an easy target."

"A lot of my problems stem from people not seeing me as an equal and seeing they are above me. They see that I don't have large connections, I don't look intimidating, they perceive me as not smart, so I'm just irrelevant to them, and they can disrespect me how they want. It's all just looks and how you're perceived."

—u/Background_Try_9307

18."I'm tired of being treated like an inferior. I can't stand it. People always talk to me like I'm a child. Some of you might say, 'At least they are being nice.' The problem is they aren't. If you have low IQ or people perceive you as having low IQ and you're ugly on top of that, people don't genuinely want to help you."

Entries have been edited for length and/or clarity.