just a question

iwanttogetbetter

Well-known member
i think a lot of people with sa are highly intelligent and deep thinkers. So in saying that if your a smart cookie and have anxiety problems would you give up your intelligence and be lets say...dumb? like bimbo dumb etc do really bad academically no matter how hard you try. your ignorant and your perspective of whats going on isn't as good. Though you are popular and outgoing and can mix in. how about a step further... lets say illiterate and dyslexic would you still trade?
 

klytus

Well-known member
i think a lot of people with sa are highly intelligent and deep thinkers.
Nonsense. While most people with SA "think deep", they "think wrong", since, obviously, they would realize quickly that whatever they fear is irrational and correct their thoughts.

So in saying that if your a smart cookie and have anxiety problems would you give up your intelligence and be lets say...dumb? like bimbo dumb etc do really bad academically no matter how hard you try. your ignorant and your perspective of whats going on isn't as good. Though you are popular and outgoing and can mix in. how about a step further... lets say illiterate and dyslexic would you still trade?
I like the way I am. You don't need to make up fictitious cases - the general question is, would you trade in your self-identity for something as transient as social integration? I certainly would not.
 

Kinetik

Well-known member
I don't think SA has any bearing on cognitive function or IQ. You see some real dumbasses with anxiety, too.
 

iwanttogetbetter

Well-known member
That's an odd question.
My mind has a world of it own.

"If your a smart cookie".

"While most people with SA "think deep", they "think wrong", since, obviously, they would realize quickly that whatever they fear is irrational and correct their thoughts."

...... its not that easy.

"I like the way I am. You don't need to make up fictitious cases - the general question is, would you trade in your self-identity for something as transient as social integration? I certainly would not."

Haven't you come across people who are really ignorant and oblivious to their surroundings? GAHhh so hard to explain, they don't think, they just do like extrovert kinda thing. You can have the saddest look on your face and they wouldn't even realize that your sad. Not knowing so much makes them happy go lucky people... no1 knows people like these? My problem is that i think too much of whats going on. I'm way too aware of things. guess everyone has their own different probs "ignorance is bliss"*EDIT*
 
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Harleyq

Well-known member
If I HAD to choose between being a happy dummy or an SA-inflicted smarty pants (with no chance of curing the SA), I would trade my intelligence. I'd rather be the village idiot grinning stupidly from ear to ear and grinning genuinely, than be the local Einstein with SA and constant loneliness and worry and depression.

Maybe that's a shallow way to see things but I just think that if I'm going to live, I'd want to live happily. But again, that's only in a hypothetical universe where my unhappiness and SA were impossible to cure.

If we're talking realistically, I wouldn't give up my natural intelligence in order to cure something that I think I can do on my own.
 
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Nonsense. While most people with SA "think deep", they "think wrong", since, obviously, they would realize quickly that whatever they fear is irrational

The diagnostic criteria for social phobia requires that you be aware that the fear is irrational. If you're too stupid to realize that your fears are irrational, then by definition you don't have social phobia.

(You can find the criteria just about anywhere, but here's a random source at the top of google -- note "Recognition That Fear is Irrational".)
 
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Lonelykitsune

Well-known member
i dont think id want to become a complete idiot,but then again,whats th point of being really smart when your too anxious to put it to use?
 
The diagnostic criteria for social phobia requires that you be aware that the fear is irrational. If you're too stupid to realize that your fears are irrational, then by definition you don't have social phobia.

(You can find the criteria just about anywhere, but here's a random source at the top of google -- note "Recognition That Fear is Irrational".)

Im not convinced my fears are entirely irrational, and I have a 90th percentile IQ.
 
i think a lot of people with sa are highly intelligent and deep thinkers. So in saying that if your a smart cookie and have anxiety problems would you give up your intelligence and be lets say...dumb? like bimbo dumb etc do really bad academically no matter how hard you try. your ignorant and your perspective of whats going on isn't as good. Though you are popular and outgoing and can mix in. how about a step further... lets say illiterate and dyslexic would you still trade?

Ive often pondered this myself. Id say it's a relative question. Id trade 20 IQ points and have an average IQ, in order to have happyness and popularity. I might even trade 30. But I would trade more than that.
 

Lea

Banned
Sorry that is a nonsense question ::p:. I don´t find it right to think like this, if you do, seems to me that you don´t understand life properly. I wouldn´t trade anything, much less inteligence for stupidity. I am just me, and I am the way I am. If I have any intelligence or knowledge, or just thoughts, that´s because I gained them with my effort. And if we put effort into something, that means that we care. I wouldn´t give up anything that´s precious to me just in order to be some shallow (or even non-shallow) socialite. I don´t say it wouldn´t be good, but who would be I then? As if the human being was something to be cut up in pieces and exchange the non-suitable parts for the parts we would like :).
 

Harleyq

Well-known member
I think people are taking this question way too seriously....it's just a hypothetical "what if" situation. I play a similar game and I can't imagine going onto a forum and asking something like "would you rather: slide down a 50 foot razor blade into a vat of alcohol, or suck all the snot out of a dog's nose until its head caves in?" and then get responses like "If this is how you think, then you're really messed up" or "what? that makes no sense" But then, I also get annoyed when I try to have a little verbal fun and ask "who would you rather screw, Cher or Barbra Streisand" and the person just goes "eww, neither". Then I'm like "Aw, you're no fun"

I don't think the OP was saying that if you're outgoing, you're ditzy. It was just a question like "If you had be this or this, which would you rather be?" not "since people are either one way or another, which side do you pick?" if that makes sense.
 

Ebbe

Well-known member
I do think this is a relevant question (although not very useful in real life). I have thought often about what I would be willing to give up in the hypothetical situation where I would get social fluency in return.
I think that intelligence is the one thing I wouldn't trade for being social. I like my mind too much to give it up for anything.

*gives brain a hug*
 

Lea

Banned
I think people are taking this question way too seriously....it's just a hypothetical "what if" situation. I play a similar game and I can't imagine going onto a forum and asking something like "would you rather: slide down a 50 foot razor blade into a vat of alcohol, or suck all the snot out of a dog's nose until its head caves in?" and then get responses like "If this is how you think, then you're really messed up" or "what? that makes no sense" But then, I also get annoyed when I try to have a little verbal fun and ask "who would you rather screw, Cher or Barbra Streisand" and the person just goes "eww, neither". Then I'm like "Aw, you're no fun"

I don't think the OP was saying that if you're outgoing, you're ditzy. It was just a question like "If you had be this or this, which would you rather be?" not "since people are either one way or another, which side do you pick?" if that makes sense.

Yes I know what you mean. You´re totally right as well. It can be understood from two sides, from the serious and non-serious. I am somehow tired of the non-serious one because it´s been so much of it everywhere, so I employed the serious this time. Don´t get mad :).
 

Tiercel

Well-known member
I wouldn't trade. What good ever came from a genius or an artist who wasn't tortured?

Of course, I fully expect one of you to cite at least one who was always happy as a lark. Anything less from someone who is as smart as a cookie would just be unexpected, disappointing, and wrong!

:D
 
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