I’m starting to think that my life is over and I don’t want to live anymore. As of writing this I am a 23 year old woman with no qualifications or education. I have learning disabilities and my IQ is just 76. I struggle with things like talking, maths and spelling and I can’t find a job.
When I was a kid I knew I was different. Things that were easy for the other kids to do took me ages to learn. Kids used to make fun of me because of the way I talked and in general I could fit in. As I got older my learning disabilities become more noticeable. I was diagnosed with ADHD and low intelligence and therefore struggled academically but my dad refused to put me in a special education program because he thought it would be an embarrassment. School was very hard for me. I would work my ass off just to get C’s and B’s and my father was very abusive. He would expect me to do well in school and if I didn’t he would beat and punish me. I had to repeat the 7th and 9th grade but I eventually graduated but very poor grades and no qualifications. When I was around 15-18 started to do drugs like weed and alcohol just to cope.
I left my parents house when I was 19 and went to live with a friend. I have very little money as I’m addicted to drugs and my lack of education makes getting a job practically impossible. I don’t see my life going anywhere and when I’m not on drugs I’m miserable. My brothers and sisters have done so much better then me and it makes me so jealous, angry and ashamed. I know this may sound cringe but I honestly can’t do this anymore.
EDIT: I now have a job at Burger King as a cook. It’s not glamorous but it’s some money.
Download Tinder and find someone.
I’ve already get my eyes on someone, no thanks
I read this post yesterday and I went back to find it to write a response.
First, let me clarity when I give advice, I speak my mind, saying what I would do if I know what I know now but were in your shoes. It isn’t intended to make you feel better, but genuinely a matter of “this is the easiest way to reach my goals”.
First, let’s address the problems you can fix, and ignore the ones you can’t. You say you’re 76 IQ, but to be honest you wrote a more comprehensive post than most people can. In any case, check out this video by a guy who claims to have 70 IQ and how he holds down a job at McDonalds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjDXvXACIEA
Why a job at McDonalds? For a few reasons:
- You already live with your friend. You’re not about to be homeless. This is the best time to start working.
- Getting a job means getting experience working. You might not think much of it now, but that’s step 1 to getting a job at a company with a union, or a company that will offer you full time for health insurance
- Getting a job will preoccupy your time. You can’t quit drugs and alcohol if you’re not distracting yourself with something else
- A new job means meeting new people and learning new things. You might find another path yourself
- McDonald’s will let anybody interview and start working. So you can get this job
Second, you need a long-term plan. This is why I mentioned a full time job with a union: it doesn’t matter if it’s an Amazon Warehouse or a Walmart, a union will look out for your best interests. They will give you a livable future and be the backbone you need for support, since it seems you can’t turn to your family for that.
Getting a job at a company with a union is harder, but that’s why you do step 1 first. When you have experience and a reputation working, these doors will always be easier to open up.
I think part of your problem is you’re comparing yourself to others that are different to you. It’s like thinking you’re lesser because you’re not a tall basketball player, when you’re not meant to be a basketball player. IMO if you can hold a steady job to pay yhe bills that’s probably the first thing. Then a good way to get off the drugs is to focus on exercise and eating healthy. If you can keep that up for a year theoretically you should feel a lot better about yourself. Maybe get into reading books as well. Even the most trashy of books.
How can I control my own thoughts? I can’t choose what I think. The truth is that my brothers and sisters are just more accomplished then me. There all in university or graduated. They’ve all got there $hit together. Why me? Why can’t I be like that? I hate to think what they think of me. Don’t get me wrong I love my brothers and sisters but I don’t like talking or seeing them because it fills me with such shame. They all look down on me and makes me so mad and sad at the same time. I just don’t understand why I didn’t turn out like them.
I’m not good at reading books. I’ve tried in the past but I can’t. They always take forever to read. The words go everywhere and they get so boring.
Sounds like you might have ADHD. Anyway, don’t give up. I found mindfulness practice 15 mins a day helped me a lot.
You write well, and you got B’s and C’s in school. This tells me that you’re smarter than you think, but abuse and/or lack of proper support has had an effect on your development and self esteem (which isn’t surprising). You are still at a very young age, when a lot of people are still trying to find their way. I’m not saying any of this to minimize your struggles, but to give you at least a bit of perspective. A lot can change in a year or two when you’re only 23!
For specific advice on resources available to you, it would help people to know at least which country you are in.
Don’t focus on your IQ. I mean that could be a handicap for yoy but we all have handicaps here or there. IQ is seen as so important but it is just one thing in a multitude of factors. Do you like any kind of art? Music? Nature? How are your emotions? Sports? I bet you have something where you thrive and feel inspired. Explore that. Practice that. Focus on developing your skills in that. If you really try, tomorrow you will be able to teach people about this that you love and do so beautifully. Life is oh so complex. Multiple paths. Also! Keep an eye on emotions, trauma and your psychological health. Try to find any kind of psychological help you can afford. You know drugs are not good but they are trying to fill a hole. Find that hole and fill it with consciousness, love for yourself and something you like to do.
This process could take many years. But start walking towards healing and thriving. Maybe it will take much shorter that you think.
Good luck. If you have a sense of spirituality, that could also help you a lot.
Prefacing this by saying this is in no way directed towards you/meant to undermine your post, but IQ really is racist pseudoscience. “Low IQ” is always used as a cudgel against people who otherwise do not come across as unintelligent (such as yourself, imo) to discredit them. I’m thinking of a lot of instances of young Black people who have been subjected to the criminal justice system and their demands for autonomy being dismissed with BS “low IQ” claims (despite the fact that they come across perfectly eloquently in their writings).
I don’t have personal experience with addiction so I can’t give targeted advice there, but I know there is support out there to help people overcome addictions. If you’re worried about getting a job, definitely you can learn a trade, find an apprenticeship or something like that. I do also have a diagnosed learning disability btw, and didn’t finish high school because of it, and in my opinion the only ways that has held me back is through school systems refusing to accommodate for my learning style. I’ve had no problem self-teaching myself skills aligning with my interests like programming. I’m not saying that applies to all intellectually disabled people, but evaluating your intelligence by school performance is a really shit way to do so especially if you have any kind of learning disability or neurodiversity. Some years at school I would get Cs and Ds, some years at school I would get straight A*s; is it more likely that my intelligence wildly fluctuated between years, or more likely that there are so many circumstantial factors that affect academic performance far more than inherent intelligence?
This isn’t entirely correct. It’s kind of like saying “SAT score” is a racist pseudoscience – which honestly I can kind of get behind, heh. “IQ” is not a property of a human the way height or eye colour is, it’s just a test score. Yes, it’s used by racist people for racist ends, but racist people use everything for racist ends. The actual science behind IQ has always shown that (a) individual variation in IQ score is vastly, vastly greater than any potential racial factor in IQ, and (b) different research findings on racial averages in IQ score are varied enough that it’s hard to draw much of a conclusion. It’s also well known that IQ tests have a bias in favour of people from western developed nations. To me, it’s most likely that racial averages are similarly biased by the test.
Dowsing is a pseudoscience – it falls apart under scrutiny. But under scrutiny, IQ test scores still correlate with success just like SAT scores do. They are slightly heritable, just like SAT scores are. It sucks, but that’s our capitalist society for you. (Let’s revolt.)
But to the OP, please understand that these correlations are nothing more than correlations, and they are meaningless when you zoom into the individual level. Statistics about groups of people only make broad guesses but are meaningless about individuals. Statistics say the average person has one ovary and one testicle. Statistics say the average American has never heard of lemmy. So, don’t let statistics define you – that would be pseudoscience.
If it helps, remember this: it’s not scientific to say “my IQ is just 76.” You should say “My most recent IQ test score was 76.”
I wish you can find yourself more comfortable with yourself going forward. It sounds to me that your previous environment wasn’t the most nurturing for your school needs, and you shouldn’t let this mindset carry over anymore.
With your new freedoms (salary yeey) and environment (roommate, adult life) you’ll be able to re discover yourself and your expanding limits. I think you’ll be surprised of what you’re actually capable of.
I wouldn’t exclude lower IQ as that major of a problem. Sure maybe it kind of excludes you from being an engineer or a lawyer or a doctor and these kinds of jobs. But there’s plenty of low education jobs around, and there’s no shame in that. If everyone was engineers and lawyers we’d have major problems keeping shops and fastfood open. My dad didn’t finish school and raised me no problem, and lives fine. He might not be good at math or writing, but it’s plenty for woodworking and being a handyman.
As others have already pointed out, you’re articulate and sound smarter than a bunch of people I’ve seen on Lemmy. I mean hell, you found your way into Lemmy, a platform that’s still fairly niche and filled with nerds. You could have gone to Reddit but you came to the fediverse.
Everyone have their strengths and things they’re good at. Finding what you like to do is a good start. Some people inherently take artistic paths, and art has nothing to do with intelligence. What you need to do is figure out what you like to do that’s pleasant and satisfying for you to do, and get out of your head that you have to go to higher education.
Also worth noting, you mentioned ADHD. If you’re not diagnosed for it or treated for it, in itself that can significantly lower your IQ scores especially if not accounting for that. When I had my ADHD assessment, they spent time measuring exactly how much my cognitive performance declines under conditions harsh for ADHD. I swear I struggled to figure out how to take the bus after that because I was so fried, was very glad I was too lazy to take the car that day. They noted, initially being well rested I performed really well then my performance tanked the moment they started hammering the ADHD. It’s also important to understand IQ measures only one thing: intelligence. It doesn’t measure empathy, communication, art, or anything else. That might limit you for intellectual jobs, but you can still be great a people jobs. You could be HR, you could be sales, you could be support. Some of the best artists I know failed school hard.
Stop being jealous and ashamed. Those that shame you can go to hell, all they do is make you think you’re worthless and inferior to them. Find your own path.
If everyone was engineers and lawyers we’d have major problems keeping shops and fastfood open.
Alright, this is a little condescending. I think OP can aim a little higher than that and frankly probably will need to if she wants a living wage.
The fast food industry is basically a way for corporations to extract a pretty significant amount of labor value out of teenagers and the most desperate in society and all for the end result of contributing to society’s bad health. It’s not like society would collapse without it, unlike something like carpentry.
Lastly, insofar as IQ is a valid concept at all, studies say low IQ alone doesn’t prevent you from learning anything, it just makes it take longer to learn.
Edit: I apologize if it comes off like I’m going off on you, I just felt some things were worth noting. I like the rest of your comment.
Yeah that’s an intentionally extreme example. I’ve also seen garbage truck drivers being used in that context. The point is more that we need people on all tiers of jobs, even the literal shit ones. We need truck drivers, we need train drivers, we need people to pick up crops, we need people to take the trash out, we need people to maintain the sewers, we need people to empty out sceptic tanks. They’re critical infrastructure, and one shouldn’t feel bad because they ended up being a garbage truck driver. If you want a cozy repeated job and come home at 5 to your kids and family, that’s perfectly acceptable.
We put way too much emphasis on “success” and its connection to highly educated and high paying jobs.
IMO the fact that fastfood jobs are considered temporary bootstrap jobs that you’re expected to be exploited to hell is bullshit and an indication of the absolutely broken moral compass of the corporate world. We could do without fast food, but that doesn’t mean we should pay them them minimum wage. Everyone deserves a livable wage no matter what they do.
I appreciate your good humor since I think I came off as hostile
IMO the fact that fastfood jobs are considered temporary bootstrap jobs that you’re expected to be exploited to hell is bullshit and an indication of the absolutely broken moral compass of the corporate world. We could do without fast food, but that doesn’t mean we should pay them them minimum wage. Everyone deserves a livable wage no matter what they do.
I guess my perspective is that we’re talking about what OP wants to do in the present world, not what she could do in a hypothetical utopia (or just fairer society). So yeah, fast food jobs could be less terrible and should be, but at the moment they are absolutely not something to aspire to or even to recommend in many places because, again, they don’t even pay enough to live. Maybe OP is still living for free with a friend, in which case I guess it’s better than nothing, but in general it seems bad as a survival strategy.
Ah I see. I wasn’t using those as job suggestions but rather examples of jobs that are considered “loser” jobs and use those to drive the point that they’re important too, and there’s nothing wrong with ending up with those for your whole life. A job’s purpose is to give you money. Trying to comfort OP by removing the “loser” label and not focus as much on “well you could go flip burgers” because that just doesn’t help the emotional side of the situation.
I wish her to aspire to do a little more than those, but even assuming she’s as dumb as she claims to be, there’s still options, some granted less good than others, but just as important to society. I do think she’s got more potential than she thinks though, she reminds me a bit of my wife when I met her and now she’s competing with me as DevOps/SRE.
As another example: I’m autistic, I struggle with a lot of things. I make frequent use of DoorDash, I also hire cleaners every now and then to clean, and handymen to repair stuff in the house I just can’t deal with on my own. All of those jobs, people shit on continuously, and me too because I can’t manage some quite basic tasks. But using those services let me focus on what I’m good at, which is keeping thousands of computers happy. I make a fair bit of money which gets shared with all those that support me in being a productive member of society: cooks, waiters, delivery drivers, cleaners, trades. It’s good for the economy, it’s good for society. Those people deserve respect for their somewhat hidden contributions. Not having those people would ultimately make me fail, that would drag my employer with it, other companies wouldn’t have the software they need to operate.
Every one that contributes to society is important and valueble, whether people recognize it or not.
Survive out of spite. Fuck these assholes. Fuck this way of life. Fuck this “civilization”. Fuck them all.
This is pro advice. Fuck this existence.
It can be very demoralizing, but remember that IQ is only a part of intelligence, and grades in school matter a lot less than you think. Also C’s and B’s are respectable grades. Focus on the things you are good at and enjoy doing. Do you like animals? There are people who pay for grooming or dogsitting. Maybe you have a good sense of humor and can make it as a comedian. Perhaps you like outdoors and plants?
Please don’t give up and lean into your strengths.
I’m ok with animals and I don’t think I’m that funny. I really can’t think of any strengths. Maybe cooking as I now have a job at Burger King which I’m pretty excited about
Awesome that you have a job. If you like cooking, I highly recommend getting as much knowledge from free platforms like YouTube, there are a lot of great and passionate creators to learn from, and their enthusiasm is infectious. Watch videos, try to pay attention to techniques more than the recipes themselves. Keep an open mind and jump at opportunities when you see them.
I believe in you!
There is no reason to be bad at cooking in 2024. I mean Gordon Ramsey has a cooking channel for christ sake
Exactly. I used to be bad at it, but then I discovered Chef John from Food Wishes and this got me to cook better, and these days there are so many incredible cooking creators on YouTube that I have an endless stream of inspiration.
P.S. If you like Italian cuisine, I highly recommend watching Italia Squisita.
Maybe a long shot, but as someone with ADHD and self diagnosed autism, I would encourage you to look into the possibility. I struggled in school all the way through, constantly told “if only you applied yourself”, the problem was I was already working harder and didn’t realize the system wasn’t designed for my brain. Really the world in general isn’t designed for anyone neurodivergent, but your life still has value, you just need help figuring out how the whole unexplained thing works.
I’m gonna be the cynic and say it - I think what we have here is a scammer hoping people will reach out with donations.
The account didn’t exist before this post was made. OP has a 76 IQ but uses perfect sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, paragraphs and five-syllable words like qualification. My spidey sense is tingling.
I support you on the cynic side. But in case this post is authentic, I hope OP struggles through all difficulties in her life with modern technology like spell-checkers.
Good luck, OP.
I’m looking for evidence that this post is real. It is too perfect, like the stuff chatgpt produces. But I’m old and very cynical.
One alternative is her low IQ diagnosis was off. I suggest seeing someone to have that rechecked. If it turned out to be closer to the average 100 it could make her feel more positive about her own potential.
Thank you. I’ve worked on my grammar a lot. I struggle with it. I sometimes wonder if I’m doing something wrong or if I’ve misspelled something. A lot of the time I have I commonly misspell things or forget to include words. My speech-to-text thing on my phone helps if it wasn’t for that I wouldn’t be able to write things this well.
When I was that school during my last year and a half my English teacher finally let me use my phone in English. I was able to check spellings and and find words if I was struggling. It helped a lot. As for the donation theory. I didn’t include any payment offer so that wouldn’t work but know that I think of it I wouldn’t be against it. Lol
Absolutely this. This is a scam and a completely unconvincing one.
first of all, there are people that relate to you, and cherish you and love you. i was quite happy to see that most people here were supportive of you and overcoming this bad moment on your life (because that’s what it is, a moment. it won’t last forever). you have value in yourself and there’s no greater justification in living than knowing that you deserve to live and be who you are simply because you exist, and you are, period. you yourself amount to many important things and if people don’t value you for who you are, screw them, who weren’t able to cherish that beautiful complexity on yourself.
that being said, you need help. and the first thing to tackle is, like others have said, overcoming your addiction. there are several ways of getting help on this: many community centers, even in the united states, keep narcotics anonymous groups on their premises. serious groups will have a way with providing you with medical assistance, which will be needed;
- if, and only if, you are comfortable with going to a place of worship, they often receive meetings of n.a. groups, and serious priests, pastors, rabbis, imams, nuns and monks can give you some direction on where to find help without asking anything in exchange. stay away from sects such as scientology;
- from there, you can get the psychological and psychiatric help that you need to better cope with the adhd, being able to live with it and improve your learning and social skills;
- social services can help you find a job, qualification and help you if there’s any trouble;
- take advantage of everything that’s free in order to better yourself, such as courses and books that are available at your local libraries;
- and most importantly, a day at a time. you will find some difficulties, especially with divesting your old ways, but stand for yourself first and foremostly. some days will be harder than others. learn to forgive yourself and others for things that did not went right, but you don’t have to accept anyone back into your life if they didn’t changed their ways that have hurt you so much. here and there you will take falls, but find the strength to start over, and over, and over. you’re not perfect, but that’s ok! who is, anyway?
Is it possible with ADHD you just struggle with standardised testing? A lack of education can also make you feel a lot less intelligent than you are.
My ADHD friends have very poor IQ test results but it’s simply a product of ADHD making it hard to sit and concontrate on a test.
You write very well and do a good job at articulating your thoughts.
Be less harsh on yourself and look into career opportunities that mesh well with ADHD, and try seek out effective management strategies for the ADHD.
I feel treating the ADHD is central to turning your life around, it’s very normal to feel this way with poorly managed ADHD.
Everyone’s thinking it, I’m just saying it
stop with the fucking drugs already
I can’t disagree
