Despite outward appearances, my mental health is quite good. At the same time I think the term is misused. In the common parlance, people associate mental health with emotional health and they really aren’t the same thing. I suppose the vernacular has changed over the years, and when you say someone has gone mental they haven’t become a genius, so I get the confusion.
To me, mental health is related to intellect and cognition. How accurate is my knowledge, and how well can I process information? There isn’t a whole lot of emotion going on there. In fact, when emotion gets involved, knowledge can lose accuracy, and the ability to process information, especially when it challenges that knowledge, can fade. For the purposes of assessing my own mental health, I have to separate the two.
It can be difficult for me to discuss this topic and not come across as arrogant. There is something about being smart and knowing you are smart that makes people uncomfortable. It doesn’t change the reality, but it also doesn’t endear me to people. I am fully aware that I am not always correct in my thinking, but I also know that I am smart as fuck and I trust that my way of thinking tends toward being correct.
I sense the eye roll.
I get it.
I experience it all the time.
I have two metrics which, at the time, made me eligible for Mensa. First, I had my IQ tested early in life and landed at 149. This put me in the position where my parents expected me to do genius things and it resulted in punishments if I wasn’t achieving straight A’s. I was not, however, supported in any way to be a genius. Anyway, I found out later that score would have earned admission but no one in my sphere considered it.
Second, I took the ACT and achieved a 29. I was four years too late as the Mensa folks didn’t accept the ACT as a measurement when I took it, but according to past metrics I was there. Meanwhile I wasn’t even trying and had actually gotten drunk the night before the test. I had grown weary of being expected to be academically excellent and rebelled hard the other direction.
This is not me bragging, just stating facts. Like I said. It’s difficult for me to talk about because it seems people believe that if I am talking about being smart that I am also posturing myself as being better than them somehow. That isn’t the case at all. I never picked my friends on their ability to do calculus. I just happen to have this type of brain and I enjoy using it.
Plus, being smart wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. I didn’t have to try to succeed in school, so I never learned how to be disciplined. I never felt challenged in school, so I set myself up with an expectation that I would never be challenged by life. All the while I was bullied for being a nerd, and punished at home if I wasn’t being a nerd.
Fun times.
That being said, I have never had to worry about my mental health in terms of how I process information, and I don’t worry about it now. The thing is, I have considered trying to get into Mensa just to see if I can. It is a goal I might chase down but it isn’t a priority. The priority is how to remain sharp until I invest in that plan.
I am curious if membership in Mensa would grant me networking opportunities, but if I am honest, I am scared to try. I know my advanced math skills have atrophied, and while my language skills have improved, I am not as confident in my general scholastic chops as I used to be. Plus I am not much of a joiner.
I could take a practice test and get a sense of where I realistically land, but like I said, there is some ego here. It is entirely possible that I am nowhere close to the line needed to join their club. I can accept not making the cut if I am close, but if I am miles out, my ego is going to be more than bruised. That shit will look like a bad boxer after and even worse fight.
I would need to brush up on some things before I invested the time and money to be officially tested. The status doesn’t mean much to me, but it has bothered me for a while that I met the requirements twice and didn’t join. What I really care about now is making sure I am doing all I can to stave off degenerative disease because the one thing I could lose that would devastate me is my ability to think and remember.
To that end, I try to do a crossword and a Sudoku every day. I find the vocabulary apps are a bit basic so I am re-reading the dictionary. I have a stack of Mensa puzzle books sitting around somewhere from the last time I considered trying to get in, so I might pick those up again to work those muscles. I could also just buy some cheap puzzle books to get back in shape.
That’s the intellect part. As for the knowledge part, I can’t say the quality of the information I am taking in is solid. It is getting tricker by the day. The internet has devolved into a morass of opinion rather than fact, and old facts are fading to gray. Even sites that used to seem like a reliable source have been found to have a political slant, and there are many things society used to take as true that have been challenged.
If the internet is to be believed, the fucking Earth is flat.
Given facts are rare nowadays, I have to rely on instinct and critical thinking. That means I should probably go back and recheck my biases. I don’t always recognize when I am falling into my patterns, so I should refresh those skills and dedicate some effort into thinking certain things through before I draw conclusions.
Or I could just talk shit and fly by the seat of my pants like everyone else.
For the most part though, I am not concerned with my mental health. Especially in the face of all the other shit I have going on. I think if I just continue with my basic maintenance plan I will be okay. I can reprioritize this later if I free up enough time to really want to invest in it.
I could probably benefit from a bit of memory training. I still have a great recall but I am not sure I have the speed I used to. Some of it is a focus issue but I imagine with age I am going to be showing a bit of rust. I don’t know though. I am not sure how they are testing and measuring intelligence in 2026.
I really should try. I could use the win, and success really isn’t out of the realm of possible. If I am able to get in to Mensa, I don’t know if I will tell anybody given everyone seems to hate when I am claiming my genius. Well, I will put it in my daughters face because she is constantly trying to prove she is smarter than me and I might need to knock her down a peg or two.
Fucking teenagers.
I know. Being a nerd in this way isn’t the end all be all of intelligence. There are so many forms and expressions of intelligence that it really can’t be measured by how fast you can recognize a pattern or understand the definition of salubrious. I know the idea itself is biased, but I am still curious about the experience of it all. Plus people seem to be okay with feeling pride about winning an award for acting or athletics. Why can’t I be proud for winning at being brainy?
Call it what you will. Maybe I am arrogant. Maybe I am a nerd. Maybe I shouldn’t be measuring myself in this way. Or maybe I am proud of how my mind works and I am unapologetic for having these gifts. Maybe it’s not up to me to change who I am to make someone else comfortable. And maybe, just maybe, in a room of 100 people, I am smarter than 98 of them.
I do realize that a guy who has been studying Russian history for the past 30 years is going to be smarter than me about Russian history. I also know that a dancer, or a super athlete has a kinetic intelligence I will never touch. I understand there are people with depths of wisdom I can only dream of scraping the surface of. I know how this works.
I am smart, remember?
So yeah, I don’t believe I am “better” than someone else simply because I can score high on tests.
At the same time, I do have this ability. Why wouldn’t I see where I am at on the leaderboard? Maybe I am not the Michael Jordan of cognition, but I bet I make the team. Or at the very least, I feel compelled to try before I suffer a major head trauma or stoke out form my shitty lifestyle.
If nothing else, I owe it to that nerdy kid who was afraid to bring home a B at the very least.