feeling dumb as usual

[Phantasystar4]

All my life i've never felt like I was the smartest person in the world. I wasnt very good in school for one thing. Sometime people talk to me and i'm so much in my head that I dont even hear them. I always felt like something was wrong with me. I dont talk very well...though I have to say i'm alone all the time. I am the quietest person and very rarely talk. I always wondered if me not talking all that well was because i'm constently alone. Is that an excuse i'm making or is it possible that never talking somehow made me rusty at talking? Whenever I say something I just feel like I said it wrong or that it sounded really stupid and I keep replaying in my head the few words I managed to get out of my mouth over and over again.

But all this to say that today at work I just looked like a complete idiot. I got promoted not too long ago. I am now a superviser. But the director (my direct boss) kind of told me it was not only because i was a good worker but also to help me out. I left my work for 6 months because of a suicide attempt and they know about it. So I guess they are trying to make me break out of my shell.

So today someone at work was asking me a very simple question. She was a few desk away and I didnt hear her all that well at first. But even when i did hear her I just couldnt understand. I always thought this person was smart and the question she asked was too simple, not to say stupid. So I really didnt understand what she meant. But anyway after yelling it 6 times even in a different language then my main one (french) lol I finaly walked to her desk to see better what she asked which was what i had understood already. That didnt stop everyone from laughing at me. God I was so embarassed:shyness:

I did a few I.Q test in the past and its really not bad at all. Then why am I always so slow to understand. I sometime think I have bad hearing but now i'm wondering if its just my slow brain not processing what people are asking me.

ahhh I hate feeling that dumb...

 

[laure15]

I have moments like this too and it's embarrassing. Sometimes I couldn't understand people because of their accent and I have to ask them to repeat or pretend to understand. There were also times when someone said something to me but I thought he/she was talking to someone else so I just didn't reply. I can't even tell when someone is talking to me. There is evidence that SA makes us dumb in social situations.

 

[Pacific_Loner]

I know it's easier said than done but try to not worry too much about things like that. They obviously care about you if they say you're a good worker and they promoted you "to help you", so these little embarrassing moments will be forgiven and forgotten in no time, or at least a lot faster than we tend to forgive ourselves.

I don't know if you're like me but I have a hard time thinking while talking with someone, so usually I sound very confused and I don't understand what the other person is saying at all, but once I'm alone and I can replay the conversation, I finally understand what we were talking about.

Not everyone is a good talker, I don't think it has anything to do with IQ. We just got to do the best we can with what we have.

 

[Metal_isthe_Answer]

I understand the feeling perfectly well. I graduated high school only cause I got a 70 on my English final exam. I was failing most of my classes in high school, and like the OP, I seem to have trouble speaking.
The thing is, its likely completely in your head. I briefly attended college and what I saw surprised me, high 90s on math homework, Music Appreciation was an easy A, and my first test in History was an 88. Those grades where way better than the 50s and 60s I was seeing years before.
So I realized, I am not stupid, I had been so depressed that I convinced myself I was.

 

[Lou-s-Darkness]

I get that too. People have to repeat a million times what they said so that I can try to understand and most of the time i just pretend that i understood. I don't understand what they mean when they're asking a question, as if I were really stupid. It's a problem that's been quite frustrating for me. Know that you are not alone. I speak three languages, fluently two of them being french and english, and no matter the language the results are still the same. I think we're just so nervous about not understanding that our brain disallows us the ability to actually focus and listen to the person speaking and that's how people end up not understanding. That's the way I see it.

 

[Steelsoul]

I feel like this too. Sometimes i don't understand what others say. I have to ask again and it's very embarassing. But they don't understand what i say either. I think it doesn't have anything to do with IQ, but our social skills. We have to improve it somehow.

 

[mariospap]

I have exactly the same problem ! I always thought I am stupid. Or that I just have asperger's syndrome. But your symptoms are like mine. I sometimes face trouble speaking clearly and understandable. The proper words are just not coming in my brain, like I talk a foreign language. People give me simple directions and It seems that they are too difficult for me to understand and I keep asking for simplier directions or just repeat their directions in my words, so I can make sure I understood well.
Here's a recent incident, which I felt very stupid. It's like my brain proccess information differently :
I was in a public service, giving some documents to a public servant. I had two identities with me. Mine and my mother's. I gave mine to the worker, and the other dropped out of the case. I put it back but fell again out of case. In this paper mess, the mother's identity was not in the case with the other papers, but in the desk. I was looking at it and thought "Oh, it must be the identity of the public servant or just someone forgot it. I left the desk, get back and I realized that it was my mother's identity. Situations like this happen all the time and feel very embarrased.
This is a major problem for me, especially when I'll finally get a job. IQ test were perfectly fine for me, and I could play speed brain games very easily, when others I consider "smart", can't reach even the half score I did. So I can realize that it's SA, as many of us have pretty much the same symptoms. It's maybe that we are too anxious to listen to someone carefully or we are afraid of the possibility to fail in our task.
There is also a syndrome called listening dyslexia or something like. I couldn't find much on the internet, but when someone's talking, even if your listening capabilites are the best, you can't understand what is he talking about. It's like he is speaking a foreign language, or your brain has just stopped proccessing information.