My IQ is somewhere around 120. The highest I’ve ever scored was 126.
I do have negative symptoms and some positive ones, but I have good insight and I’m usually able to tell the difference between sz symptoms and reality.
It can be kind of a curse, because unless I’m really unwell, I’m usually very capable of speaking for myself. This might lead people to think I’m not doing as bad as I am.
I have average IQ
needed extra help in grade school
as an adult I became an exceptional creative writer
not sure if that’s due to illness
or just from reading everything
always brain storming new ideas
That is a problem. Being highly verbally being translated as “Your functioning is good” which isn’t always the case .
Exactly. I often feel like they think I’m faking it because surely I’d be a mess if I was really unwell…
I’ve been to the ER a few times where I felt my vocabulary and my articulation was worse than normal due to psychosis, but I was lucky enough to have someone with me who could tell the professionals that it wasn’t normal for me.
Yes, thats the same for me. I do feel disabled and i experience f.e. a lot of cognitive and executive issues compared to how i used to be, but because im verbally fluent, people dont see that i need help just as badly. Also, i have a strong sense of pride…e.g. my house can be completely neglected, a lady comes by to judge whether i need help with daily living skills. I of course clean up extensively before her visit (by hiding stuff in closets and all) because i have my pride. I offer her a cup of coffee and we have a nice chat. I verbally express i need help, but she doesnt SEE it herself and thinks ive got things together pretty well. She concludes i am capable. House turns into a pigsted again a few days after she leaves. I get no help. Or well, now i do, but it took forever.
there would always be something to clean
not sure why you didn’t get the help
my mom used to come over to my house
and clean and organize
for some reason it always made me mad
maybe a pride thing
I let Phil do a lot of cleaning though
I managed to test as both gifted and challenged as a youth.
Split the difference?
My mum would do the same. Until I got mad one time, because she cleaned my house without asking while I was in the ward. Now she never comes by to clean or organize. I don’t want to be dependent on her, she has enough trouble of her own.
And I got help later - i applied again and invited a random social worker who confirmed that I really needed the help. This worked. I didn’t get the help the first time because the municipality pays and they are always on a tight budget and sceptically screen people for malingering. I make sure for this type of appointments that I look well-groomed, express myself in good Dutch, have a superficially clean house, have coffee and cookies ready, etc. They also visit people who show from miles away that they and their house are neglected, who cause trouble in the neighbourhood, etc… and conclude those are the ones who need help MORE. It was kind of my own fault for hiding my issues from sight. 
why do you not date, @anon73478309
for me, if it wasn’t for Phil, I’d never eat
he cooks all our meals
I try to clean when he cooks all the time
he does most of the grocery shopping too
good to me, gets me salads
he won’t clean bathrooms though, that’s all me
You share the chores. That’s fair and nice.
Yes, nice that the two of you both do stuff and complement each other. I think it would be good for me to have a stable partner, but I’m not totally sure if it would be so good for the partner… 
I do date, but I only enter a relationship if I really love someone for themselves (not as my aid) and see myself growing old with them, and I haven’t met that person yet. Also, I’ve got some fears that complicate dating. I’m terrified of everything sexual, for example.
I also secretly think sometimes of asking my ex on a date. We had a relationship of one year, 4 years ago. We worked kind of well as a “family” (us, his kid, my kid). Until I got unstable, broke up in psychotic panic. 
Not sure how he’d respond, we 're still friends. I actually think he would be good to me and my son and I might be good to them, complement him.
Anyway, that’s going off topic “a bit”.
I would say I’m likely gifted verbally and quite challenged non-verbally. I’ll split another difference if there’s one going spare
According to this study people that have bipolar with psychosis experience similar negative symptoms as people with schizophrenia .
Although I have never taken a formal IQ test, I would expect it would level out to an average result. The thing is I don’t have negative symptoms either. So I think negative symptoms severity may ultimately just vary on the person. A multitude of factors could potentially be responsible for the presence of negative symptoms . But then again the relation between higher IQ and lack of negative symptoms may not hold in regards to bipolar with psychosis
I have a very high IQ. My counselor says I have some negative symptom effects but not nearly as bad as others. He says I present only mildly that way.
If we are splitting the differences anyway, i want to join in and have all such things evenly distributed within myself, without the peaks (gifted parts) and valleys (challenged parts). For my whole life i tried to hide my differences from average in both directions. Average seems convenient. 
Only recently i started to accept myself a bit more.
I think with being on Aps teasing out what is the baseline illness effect re negative symptoms and what is an additional meds effect can be difficult.
When I mentioned my lack of drive and ambition to the pdoc he said that’s to be expected on Consta. I don’t think it’s all meds effect though as I was like that before going on Consta. It’s just it’s probably more pronounced now.
That’s a fair point @anon73478309 . The trouble with peaks and valleys is often people are too busy seeing your peaks to notice you struggling in the valleys. Having said that I think I’m lucky with my stepdaughter as she gets that although I’m clever in some ways I struggle in others . That’s something my birth family has never really got although I’ve emphasised the strong probability that I have learning difficulties.
Your stepdaughter seems like a valuable person (can you say that about a person in english? In dutch you can :)).
I dont know what my IQ is and probably never will. I’m taking a free online harvard intro cs class and I’m doing well. I have negative symptoms, but have never been disorganized and always had some insight. I’ve never really had hallucinations. But I consider my negs bad, but can pull my own weight. I have a ton of stress.
I can only handle 1 class at a time, compared to 4-5. Before I got sick, I was a full time student. I’m a fraction of what I used to be. It’s sad.