To people that don’t know me this post could sound arrogant, it isn’t intended so. It’s a questioning of society, reality, brain functioning, and so much more.

Part of the reason I’m homeless is the lack of filters. To function in modern society you need to be able to filter out the background noise, the background light, vibrations, and so on.
I can’t. I don’t have fully functioning filters.
When I was growing up, this was a survival trait and it served me and my siblings well. Now that I’m elsewhere, the stimuli overwhelms me.
Vibrations hurt, whether it’d the bass thumping from the little rice burner beside me at the traffic light or the compressor running in the ceiling at school.
Light hurts.
Colours hurt. And I can’t begin to describe how.

The other thing that actually causes me physical pain as well as mental pain, is the lack of communication.
I don’t know if I can describe this but I’m going to try.

I know that I think differently from the majority of people. I see things differently. (everyone does, it’s the consensus to agree upon defined terms that forms a dominant reality). But even within the agreed upon reality I understand things differently.
Words, while on the surface having an agreed upon definition, don’t mean the same thing to me.
Words are too vague.
Words are used as the end-all, here is a word (hands you a word), it is solid and definitive. But it isn’t.
Arghghgh… I’m messing this up. I don’t know how to say it.
People say things and frequently I think I know what they’re saying but I’m not totally sure. I try to respond as if they are using the words the way I’ve learned that the general public uses the words, but I’m never sure.
And when they ask me questions, I frequently can’t answer. The words aren’t valid. They don’t adequately describe what I want to communicate. The words are too vague, the description is unmade, unfinished, pale, incomplete. The truth of my communication is never transmitted.

This hurts. Physically it hurts. And I don’t know how to describe it, how to tell you the picture/emotion/colour/shape/texture/density of the thought.

I see processes different. While I can put the story cards in the order the psych expects, its only because I’ve learned that’s what s/he expects. The order that makes sense to me at that moment may be completely different (and usually is). But I learned a long time ago that if I explain to them why my preferred order is just as valid that they can’t accept it; instead of exploring the very real possibilities of my order they tell me that I’m wrong.

I see this as the true arrogance I suppose. I don’t tell them that theirorder is wrong. Their order is usually a very valid possibility as well; and if it isn’t there’s usually no point in telling them so.

I’ve tried to describe this to the psych and I have to say that he’s pretty okay at understanding what I’m trying to say. (he’s a good psych)
He doesn’t tell me that I’m “wrong”. He does help me sort out the confusion and intense frustration I feel at not being able to communicate effectively.

This psych is a neuro-pysch. The brain’s workings are his bailey wick. There is science in his pysch, not just “how does this make you feel”. And I have to say that he is one of the few people I’ve met who can communicate specific thoughts and ideas to me so that I can actually understand what he’s saying. (I did say he was good)

Today I was angry. Truthfully I get angry quite often, though I don’t live angry any more and it’s usually from frustration instead of terror now. Mostly anyway.

I get angry because I don’t understand what other people are saying. They use the same words but their sentences don’t make sense. Not in the way of an aphasia, though that sometimes happens too and is f’in freaky when it does.

I was asking him why I understood their phrases but couldn’t parse what they were actually communicating.
Along with that I was asking why people don’t follow the reasonable paths of thought. There is no one path, but there are usually several that are more likely than the many others that one would assume the actor would choose from. Why do people not follow their thoughts/actions to any conclusion? Any conclusion, I’m not particularly concerned with what conclusion they follow.

So, here comes the reference to the title of this post; yes, I am intelligent. Yes, I do have a genius IQ as set by the current standards of society, though just barely.
And according to the psych, I have the thought processes of a genius mind. I see things in a different way, put things together differently. I didn’t realize that their were determined ways of thinking for different traits though I suppose that should have been obvious when you think of savants, autism, and so on.

My big question of the day for the psych was this..”If genius is so highly valued in our society then why are those who do think that way so severely punished?”

Why is it that I can barely function in “society” but supposedly have these great gifts of intellect and reasoning?
Why is it that I can see things that any person could if they would just look but I have to study twice as hard to pass a class at school, and that’s even for topics I enjoy and find fascinating.

My psychs answer was this..”Einstein couldn’t tie his shoe laces. He had to have someone tie his shoes for him all his life. (my comment: whether this is true or not I don’t know.) You don’t have anyone to tie your shoes.”

Not a reason but somehow comforting all the same.

And no, I’m no Einstein.