HEROIN IS A DRUG TO MAKE THE WORLD GO AWAY

THIS IS A BLOG ABOUT A LIFE WITHOUT HEROIN



Wednesday 6 March 2013

My Average IQ

HEY I just did an online IQ test and my intelligence is FIVE POINTS ABOVE AVERAGE! A score of 105. I feel super-brainy now! Binky did one on her phone last week and told me she's 120. I'm not surprised I'm thicker than her. Certain people appear to think I'm ever so bright. But I'm not. I'm terrible at maths, cannot do anagrams to save my life (almost all "word games" rely on spelling and I'm no good at spelling either). Oh, and they're obsessed with sequencing things. And I'm no good at that either. Ie I'm thick. I just happen to be fairly articulate with an OK vocabulary. Trust me, if I really were intelligent I'd be working as a doctor as we speak. (Fair enough maybe a doctor with one arm in the morphine cabinet but a doctor through and through...) 

But medicine never was on the cards. In my day, to qualify for any undergraduate medicine course you need to be able to get three As at A level in all three sciences ~ or physics, chemistry and maths (which would be even HARDER). Nowadays, apparently, the prerequisites are softer: chemistry and biology only (which would give me half a chance). I did once manage to get on to a BSc psychology course (if you wonder whence my fluent psycho-babble originates, it's from there. But psychologists need to understand research methods and statistics (which WAS hard and bored the pants off me. You need to be able to assess data against the odds of the same results occurring randomly ~ something to do with a kappa value, whatever that may be...) oh yeah and psychobiology. Which is brain science. And I thoroughly enjoyed witnessing the pain of my fellow classmates as they attempted to grapple with something TANGIBLE AND REAL. Yes it was funny. And also REALLY REALLY HARD. I'm not at all impressed by my drug workers' babblings on dopamine and serotonin. Ask them to draw molecules of these neurotransmitters and to provide intricate details of 5-hydroxytryptamine reuptake at the synaptic cleft and they'll no doubt be baffled. Quite possibly not even realizing that 5HT is serotonin! You see, you really need to know your stuff to be "knowledgeable" in this area. (And I'm certainly not "knowledgeable": I wouldn't know the difference between a dopamine molecule and a parrot dropping!)

Well I'm TRYING to keep away from the Nasty Heroin. I went back to it because I was feeling so intensely crappy. And I've used it this morning. If I hadn't, and had been feeling the way I have felt without it, I wouldn't be here writing at all. Anything I did write would be intensely gloomy and morbid.

On a lighter note I finally got my Disabled/Pensioners' Free Bus Pass. So I took the bus everywhere today...

That's about it. I SO WISH I could kick the gear out of my life for good. But past experience has left such a bad taste in my mouth. Promises promises ~ all broken. I cannot trust myself at all. And haven't been able to since I became dependent on heroin (for years it was all going to end "tomorrow" or "next week" ~ I seriously believed that!)

I hope you're feeling good. Spring is springing. I can feel it light up my brain like a drug. A drug that doesn't make me happy, just weird... but hey, all things change. Turn turn turn....


Illustrated: me as a doctor; London Freedom Pass...

5 comments:

weightloss said...

i like it <3

Akelamalu said...

I scored 96 on the test which is average. However I guessed at some of the questions, maybe if I'd taken the time to work them out I'd have scored higher. LOL

Anonymous said...

Couldn't resist the I.Q. test. I got 128! Is that super brainy. Why aren't i richer then!

Kiwigirl

Unknown said...

Gleds- I'm glad your nice and brainy, I always knew that. I remember years ago when spring was in the air it would make my cravings sky rocket. Mind you this was 20 years ago, but the drug would call me in the fresh air and sunshine. It has been a life long struggle that at 46 I have overcome. I now prefer to stay at an even balance and take my meds like a good girl. Please be well, and most of all Mr.Brains, lol, be happy!

Gledwood said...

Hello Weightloss. What do you mean by "<3"..? Are you talking about pounds you lost this week. Or kilos?... Or something..?

Akelamalu: hey I bet you're like me. You don't seem to be thick either. But that obsession with abstract thought processes you might never use in real life is i BET what pushed your score down. I am sure you would score higher on a "proper", professionally administered test. (Just like I flatter myself I would too!)

Kiwi: wow you REALLY need to be bright to get anywhere on that test. Which means on a "proper" test you'd probably be over 150 which is genius-level intelligence!!!!

Susan: craving more in spring? Really? I know there is ***some*** link with me between light and moods, because on TWO occasions my depression has miraculously lifted and properly went away for good after seeing (1)ce, the sun setting and the (2)nd time the sun glittering on the Indian sea... also when I have been in a slightly "over the top" frame of mind just looking at any lights in the darkness (even something as prosaic as streetlights) gives me a real rush! So spring springing gives me this peculiar sense of something like light at the back of my eyes and my brain feels lit up. Aparently about 1 in 3 sufferers of Seasonal Affective Disorder, aka SAD, who feel so crap all winter (but whose moods can be lifted using a simple high-power lightbox) get "hypomanic" come springtime. Over the top cheerful and excitable, racing thoughts, hyperactive, disinhibited and prone to compulsive spending// etc. And THAT is all down to daylight too...

I once had a really good book about depression and bipolar called A Mood Apart by a Dr Whybrow and he points out that where mood disorders run in families and a "complete" manifestation would be bipolar 1 disorder, incomplete constellations of the same supposed genes will often manifest as things like anorexia, compulsive gambling, alcoholism or... you guessed it... ADDICTION! So rising mood (presumably associated with impulsivity and disinhibition) (hence an elevated chance of going out and using substances) occurring in springtime... MAKES PERFECT SENSE!!

ps have you got any mood disorders in your family? I haven't got any other manic-depressives in mine (if bipolar really is what I "am") but my Mum is prone to depression and has had several attacks, my late uncle on my mother's side was an episodic severe binge-drinker and gambling addict, at least one of his kids (my cousins) is a depressive and another was chucked out of school for weed-toking... and there's other stuff in my family I can't really go into but I DO believe if there's any genetic element to my own problems it's on THAT side of the family and not my Dad's...