00:00:00
people with depression often say they
00:00:02
feel like they are not very smart I hear
00:00:05
people say this all the time in
00:00:07
individual therapy sessions in group
00:00:09
therapy sessions and although this is
00:00:11
not true which we'll be exploring in
00:00:13
just a few minutes here there are a
00:00:14
number of reasons why it might seem that
00:00:17
way one of which is that when you're
00:00:19
depressed you have a lot of trouble with
00:00:21
daily activities you struggle to get
00:00:23
things done that most people do not
00:00:25
struggle to get done you have a hard
00:00:27
time taking care of your house you have
00:00:28
a hard time taking care of your hygiene
00:00:30
going to work going to school you look
00:00:32
out there in the world and you see most
00:00:34
people doing these things apparently
00:00:36
without trouble sometimes that's not as
00:00:38
true as it looks but I I know what it
00:00:40
looks like out there you see people
00:00:41
doing this stuff and they seem fine you
00:00:43
try to do it you struggle it's easy to
00:00:46
think well I must not be very smart this
00:00:48
isn't a measure of your intellect though
00:00:51
this is a symptom of depression this is
00:00:52
decrease in motivation this is chronic
00:00:54
fatigue this is your body and your brain
00:00:57
not working as well and that's different
00:00:59
than not being smart depression also
00:01:02
causes difficulties with executive
00:01:04
functioning so you might have trouble
00:01:06
with your focus your concentration your
00:01:08
memory your organization and especially
00:01:11
if you can remember a period of time
00:01:13
when you weren't struggling with
00:01:14
depression or a mood disorder and you
00:01:16
didn't really experience that and you
00:01:18
remember feeling like organized and
00:01:20
sharp and and your memory was good and
00:01:22
you were capable and now everything just
00:01:24
feels like this chaotic jumbled mess
00:01:26
inside and it can really feel like like
00:01:29
did some did Might brain break did I
00:01:31
become stupid like what's going on here
00:01:33
why does my brain not work right and
00:01:36
again this can make your performance
00:01:39
that of someone with lower cognitive
00:01:40
abilities than what you actually have
00:01:43
but your brain hasn't actually gotten
00:01:46
less talented at doing those things you
00:01:49
are experiencing executive dysfunction
00:01:51
as a symptom of a mood disorder and
00:01:54
those symptoms will EB and flow as your
00:01:57
symptoms of depression EB and flow so it
00:01:59
doesn't actually reflect a decline in
00:02:02
cognitive ability although I certainly
00:02:04
understand that it can feel that way
00:02:06
another symptom of depression that can
00:02:08
make us feel not so bright at times is
00:02:11
something called psychomotor retardation
00:02:14
and I know that for the context of this
00:02:16
conversation that's kind of an
00:02:17
unfortunate name but I'm not in charge
00:02:19
of the names I think that one my we we
00:02:23
like to update names from time to time
00:02:25
in mental health my suspicion is that
00:02:27
one is is probably going to be coming
00:02:28
soon because that's a that's not
00:02:30
necessarily the word we want to be using
00:02:32
to describe these things but it it it
00:02:33
basically just means physical and mental
00:02:35
slowing and so when when you're
00:02:37
experiencing depression many people
00:02:39
experience psychomotor retardation as a
00:02:40
symptom and it kind of feels like your
00:02:42
body suddenly weighs like three times
00:02:44
more than it actually does and just
00:02:47
everything takes so much effort and and
00:02:50
even just like getting out of bed or
00:02:52
getting off the couch feels like there's
00:02:55
this giant weighted blanket on you that
00:02:57
you have to like push up somehow but
00:02:59
it's not just your body it's your brain
00:03:01
too and people who experience this
00:03:04
cognitively they report feeling almost
00:03:06
like their brain is like muddy or foggy
00:03:09
like there's physically there's like a
00:03:10
thickness or a density that's getting in
00:03:13
the way of like your thoughts completing
00:03:15
or connecting to one another and so we
00:03:17
feel very slow we feel very
00:03:20
dysfunctional and again this can
00:03:22
certainly make you feel maybe even look
00:03:25
like you're not as bright as you used to
00:03:28
be but it is again a cyclical symptom of
00:03:31
a cyclical mood disorder so it doesn't
00:03:33
actually reflect your intellect and then
00:03:35
the fourth reason I think it's easy for
00:03:37
us to feel this way is that depression
00:03:39
also disrupts a lot of things that are
00:03:41
important to acute cognitive functioning
00:03:43
so depression can cause insomnia and
00:03:45
without sleep your brain doesn't work
00:03:46
very well depression can mess up your
00:03:48
appetite if your appetite's messed up
00:03:50
your brain doesn't work very well
00:03:51
depression again can cause fatigue low
00:03:53
motivation sluggishness it's it's very
00:03:56
difficult for us to like get up and do
00:03:57
things and move our bodies when we're
00:03:58
feeling depressed and physical activity
00:04:00
is important to cognitive functioning so
00:04:02
all of these temporary States all of
00:04:05
these things that are worsened by
00:04:07
depression or by your depressive episode
00:04:09
can temporarily make your brain not work
00:04:13
right but I need you to know that those
00:04:16
changes are not permanent mood disorders
00:04:19
don't actually decrease your cognitive
00:04:22
ability they cannot do that and in fact
00:04:25
although depression can make you feel
00:04:27
like you're not the brightest person the
00:04:29
the actual correlation the actual
00:04:32
relationship between moood disorders and
00:04:35
intellect is the opposite of what it
00:04:38
feels like meaning people who have
00:04:40
higher IQ or higher cognitive abilities
00:04:43
actually have higher rates of depression
00:04:46
and other mood disorders Than People of
00:04:48
average or lower cognitive abilities
00:04:50
we're going to talk about there's a few
00:04:52
theories why that is we're going to talk
00:04:54
about those theories in just a moment
00:04:56
before we go to those theories I I just
00:04:58
need to make sure you understand end
00:05:00
when we're talking about like IQ
00:05:01
intellect cognitive ability these are
00:05:03
all the same thing they're just
00:05:04
interchangeable terms for the same thing
00:05:06
I you need to understand what this means
00:05:09
because there are a lot of
00:05:10
misconceptions on what it means to be
00:05:13
quote smart so intellect or IQ which
00:05:17
which is just a a numerical value we
00:05:20
assign to try to operationalize
00:05:22
someone's intellect all it measures is
00:05:25
learning speed that's literally it so
00:05:28
it's basically like potential person
00:05:30
with a higher IQ learns things more
00:05:33
quickly they require fewer repetitions
00:05:37
of a skill or of concept before that
00:05:40
thing goes from short-term working
00:05:41
memory to long-term memory and and at
00:05:44
that point they've memorized it they can
00:05:46
apply it they can bring it back up into
00:05:49
their conscious memory and answer a
00:05:50
question about it on a test or in a
00:05:52
presentation or whatever that's
00:05:54
literally all it means and so a person
00:05:58
can have a very very high IQ but not
00:06:02
know a lot of things necessarily because
00:06:04
it's still very dependent on your
00:06:06
environment so like people who grow up
00:06:09
in really impoverished countries for
00:06:12
example the that might be we like the
00:06:15
highest IQ person in the world lives
00:06:17
they may not actually possess the most
00:06:20
knowledge in the world because they may
00:06:22
not be growing up in a in a teaching
00:06:25
Rich environment but they have the
00:06:27
ability to learn more quickly than any
00:06:29
other person and so that that's all this
00:06:31
measures is how quickly you can learn
00:06:33
things it also doesn't necessarily make
00:06:36
you any better at differentiating
00:06:39
between good and bad ideas and so like
00:06:42
for example a person with high IQ who
00:06:45
grows up in a family who has a lot of
00:06:47
kind of like unusual ideas or perhaps
00:06:50
even wrong ideas will learn the wrong
00:06:53
ideas more quickly than a person of
00:06:56
lower IQ it does not necessarily Magic
00:06:59
give them better decision making skills
00:07:02
or better social skills or anything like
00:07:04
that that's literally all it means and
00:07:07
so if you really think about just this
00:07:10
idea of learning things more quickly
00:07:12
that that's all having a high IQ means I
00:07:15
think you can pretty easily see how that
00:07:18
might lead you to actually being more
00:07:19
depressed than most people one is we
00:07:22
don't just learn factual information
00:07:25
more quickly we learn everything more
00:07:27
quickly including things that are simply
00:07:29
matter of opinion and so people also we
00:07:33
don't just learn like you know history
00:07:34
from a textbook right we also learn like
00:07:37
people like us you know are are we good
00:07:39
people are we successful people we we
00:07:41
develop all these ideas about who we are
00:07:44
and we all have somewhat of an inherent
00:07:47
negativity bias which means we pay a
00:07:49
little more attention or sometimes a lot
00:07:51
more attention to things that hurt than
00:07:53
things that feel good because we don't
00:07:55
want to get hurt again so think about
00:07:57
rejection for example
00:08:00
person of average intellectual ability
00:08:02
would need to experience like some
00:08:05
certain number or intensity of intensity
00:08:09
of experience of rejections in order to
00:08:11
start developing sort of like a belief
00:08:13
system or a complex around rejection
00:08:17
they would probably need to have either
00:08:18
either one really dramatic experience of
00:08:21
rejection or many experience of
00:08:24
experiences of rejection before they
00:08:27
start to really get worried about it you
00:08:28
know before they learn from it so to
00:08:31
speak and start entering into
00:08:33
relationships pring for rejection or
00:08:36
fearing rejection a person with a very
00:08:40
high IQ might Experience One relatively
00:08:44
normal experience of rejection because
00:08:46
rejection is something we all face to
00:08:48
some degree it might just happen one
00:08:50
time and their brain might use that one
00:08:53
experience to form a pattern and to
00:08:56
start developing a fear or a complex
00:08:59
around rejection because they learn that
00:09:03
they are at risk of rejection more
00:09:04
quickly because of their higher IQ they
00:09:07
need fewer repetitions of negative
00:09:10
experiences before they start to develop
00:09:13
belief systems around the negative
00:09:15
experience and I've just used rejection
00:09:17
as an example here this could be
00:09:19
anything if you're a very intelligent
00:09:22
person you might learn an entire belief
00:09:25
system and an entire worldview from one
00:09:28
relatively normal unpleasant experience
00:09:31
so if you're walking around with a lot
00:09:33
of really difficult to shake negative
00:09:36
beliefs about yourself or other people
00:09:38
or about the world it may be because you
00:09:41
are a quick learner and and your high IQ
00:09:44
has caused you to develop and grow these
00:09:47
belief systems more quickly than what
00:09:49
most people do which then starts to put
00:09:51
these arbitrary fears or limitations on
00:09:53
your life much sooner than most people
00:09:56
face those problems another problem that
00:09:58
people with higher intellectual
00:09:59
abilities face is that their minds start
00:10:02
to ask questions that they are not yet
00:10:05
capable of finding or understanding the
00:10:07
answers to people with high IQ tend to
00:10:10
start asking really big picture
00:10:12
questions about life really early on and
00:10:15
they don't yet have the emotion
00:10:17
regulation skills to cope with the like
00:10:20
immensity of these questions I see a lot
00:10:23
of I don't do a ton of counseling with
00:10:25
kids but when I do it seems like the
00:10:28
kids who have the most difficulties with
00:10:31
emotional health with depression with
00:10:33
anxiety are kids who really early on get
00:10:35
stuck on like a super big picture
00:10:38
philosophical life question that even
00:10:41
adults struggle to answer and as an
00:10:43
adult with a fully formed frontal lobe
00:10:46
you have you have this wealth of emotion
00:10:49
regulation that allows you to like cope
00:10:51
with all this craziness in life like we
00:10:53
don't know what's going to happen
00:10:54
tomorrow and we could die at any time
00:10:56
and like the economy like all these
00:10:58
there's all this crazy stuff happening
00:10:59
all the time and most of the time as
00:11:02
adults we have we have this emotion
00:11:05
regulation system in our frontal loes
00:11:07
that lets us like still get up and live
00:11:09
life even though it's kind of this crazy
00:11:11
chaotic horrible situation literally
00:11:14
always if you sort of figure that truth
00:11:17
out at a young age when your brain
00:11:20
doesn't have those abilities yet oh it
00:11:23
can really mess you up it can really
00:11:25
mess you up and that gets compounded
00:11:29
if the adults around you and I don't
00:11:31
just mean parents I mean parents are
00:11:32
going to be a big part of it but
00:11:33
teachers coaches you know other family
00:11:35
members mentors whoever you have if they
00:11:38
don't really know how to walk you
00:11:40
through that you know if you start
00:11:42
asking and being unable to answer deep
00:11:45
existential questions at age seven8 nine
00:11:49
your your brain can't do that yet it
00:11:51
can't work through that that's hard
00:11:52
enough for an adult and and you can get
00:11:55
trapped in these thoughts and these
00:11:57
questions and these fears with no way to
00:12:00
navigate out of it and in many cases no
00:12:02
help navigating out of it and when that
00:12:05
happens to people I often see really
00:12:07
early onset experiences of depression
00:12:10
and sometimes anxiety as well that
00:12:12
follow a person well into adulthood and
00:12:14
become very difficult to shake and the
00:12:18
need for support around this issue leads
00:12:21
me into the third proposed link between
00:12:24
high IQ and depression which is that
00:12:26
having higher intellectual abilities can
00:12:29
actually be very socially isolating
00:12:32
having a really strong social support
00:12:35
network friends family co-workers Etc is
00:12:38
a really strong buffer against mental
00:12:41
illness including things like depression
00:12:43
and anxiety when we feel connected when
00:12:44
we feel like we're part of a community
00:12:47
that really helps us and this one's hard
00:12:50
for me to say because I I often struggle
00:12:51
with feeling connected but the research
00:12:54
is clear on this it is tremendously
00:12:56
beneficial and that's probably part of
00:12:58
why it's hard for people with high IQ
00:13:01
because it's I know it's kind of a
00:13:03
stereotype like like the socially
00:13:05
awkward smart person um but it's a
00:13:08
stereotype for a reason and and the
00:13:11
reason is when there's a divide between
00:13:14
your intellectual abilities and the
00:13:16
intellectual abilities of the majority
00:13:19
of people you interact with in a day is
00:13:21
actually really hard to have healthy
00:13:23
relationships with people it it makes
00:13:24
you very socially awkward because your
00:13:26
brain is just like this is not I'm the
00:13:28
main character elitist this is just like
00:13:30
this is a reality it's hard to talk to
00:13:33
people consider it statistically in
00:13:36
average IQ 50th percentile is 100 that's
00:13:40
that's a that's a you know a normal
00:13:42
person really anything from 90 to 109 is
00:13:45
is within that range that's the average
00:13:47
range when a person's IQ is 70 or below
00:13:51
that's when they would most likely be
00:13:53
diagnosed with an intellectual
00:13:55
disability or what we used to call
00:13:57
mental retardation so so keep those two
00:13:59
figures in mind 100 is average 70 is
00:14:03
intellectually disabled that's a
00:14:04
discrepancy of 30 IQ points that means
00:14:09
that if a person has an IQ of 130 which
00:14:12
is very high but not like absurdly
00:14:15
uncommonly like those people are are out
00:14:17
there you you might be one of them and
00:14:19
you're probably not one of them if your
00:14:21
IQ is 130 the discrepancy between your
00:14:25
IQ and an average person's IQ and so
00:14:28
most the people you'll interact with is
00:14:30
the same as the discrepancy between an
00:14:32
average person's IQ and an
00:14:34
intellectually disabled person's IQ so
00:14:36
think of like a person with average
00:14:38
cognitive abilities having a
00:14:41
conversation with an intellectually
00:14:42
disabled person it can be challenging
00:14:45
right there are distinct differences in
00:14:47
how these people's brains work and it
00:14:49
may be difficult for them to to Really
00:14:51
connect with one another not always but
00:14:53
it it does just sort of add this extra
00:14:55
layer of difficulty right if a person
00:14:58
has an IQ of 130 that discrepancy exists
00:15:00
in almost all of their interactions with
00:15:02
everybody it's very lonely it's very
00:15:06
isolating it's really hard to talk to
00:15:09
people and it's not necessarily a super
00:15:12
awesome thing it really can be a
00:15:15
significant problem you don't often feel
00:15:17
understood by other people you don't
00:15:19
often feel like you belong you don't
00:15:21
often feel like you're accepted because
00:15:23
there are just differences there's
00:15:25
differences and it's really hard to be
00:15:26
on the same level and it's hard to
00:15:27
communicate this is fiction I know but
00:15:30
the TV show House had a had a great
00:15:32
example of this there was a uh there was
00:15:35
this man who was having all these
00:15:37
mysterious health problems and no one
00:15:39
could figure out why I know that's
00:15:41
literally every episode of the show um
00:15:43
they eventually discovered that this
00:15:45
person was was severely abusing alcohol
00:15:48
and they also discovered that he was a
00:15:50
genius he had I can't remember the exact
00:15:53
detailed but he'd like published a bunch
00:15:55
of books and like patented he'd invented
00:15:57
a bunch of stuff and patented it I mean
00:15:58
just like a legit genius and the reason
00:16:02
he was abusing alcohol was to create
00:16:05
cognitive impairment in himself so that
00:16:07
he could actually have like level
00:16:10
conversations with his wife or his
00:16:13
girlfriend or fiance whoever it was who
00:16:15
was probably a person of average
00:16:17
intellectual abilities he absolutely
00:16:18
loved her with all his heart but they
00:16:21
weren't on the same level and he found
00:16:23
it very difficult to have a conversation
00:16:25
with her unless he was drunk um and
00:16:28
that's so again I know that's fictional
00:16:31
but it it did a really good job in my
00:16:33
opinion of showing this dilemma that
00:16:34
it's just it's hard to talk to people
00:16:38
when your brains are really really
00:16:39
different and if you have a hard time
00:16:42
finding your people and finding places
00:16:44
where you fit in that makes you much
00:16:46
more at risk for mood disorders like
00:16:49
depression the fourth potential link for
00:16:52
the relationship between high IQ and
00:16:54
depression lies with something we call
00:16:57
reality testing and so reality testing
00:17:01
measures a person's ability to basically
00:17:03
like be aware of and in tune with how
00:17:06
things are actually going in the world
00:17:08
so if you have more or I I guess higher
00:17:11
reality testing you're you have a more
00:17:14
accurate sense of what the world is
00:17:15
actually like
00:17:17
essentially well this might be the uh
00:17:20
the moderating variable between high IQ
00:17:23
and depression because people with
00:17:25
higher IQ tend to have better reality
00:17:27
testing but people with better reality
00:17:29
testing also tend to be more depressed
00:17:32
which is just a whole thing we could
00:17:34
talk about right because essentially
00:17:36
what that tells us
00:17:37
is the more aware you are of what the
00:17:40
world is actually like the sadder you
00:17:42
become and I find it both ironically
00:17:46
incredibly depressing but also
00:17:48
incredibly validating because the flip
00:17:51
side to that is that it it suggests that
00:17:55
there is a level of denial or dis
00:17:59
connection or delusion even that is
00:18:02
necessary to be consistently happy and
00:18:06
so if you do not feel consistently happy
00:18:09
and you see a lot of people who are or
00:18:11
at least seem to and you're like how how
00:18:15
can you feel good and be content when
00:18:19
the world is this
00:18:22
well they either unwillingly or
00:18:25
willingly don't know how bad things are
00:18:27
I mean that's really
00:18:29
this is like the worst pep talk ever I
00:18:31
know but but this is what we're dealing
00:18:33
with if you're really in tune with the
00:18:36
world and if you really understand the
00:18:38
situation we're all in it it doesn't
00:18:40
feel great and and some people can shove
00:18:44
that to the back of their minds just
00:18:46
carry on and be content and and some of
00:18:48
us cannot do that and that almost
00:18:52
certainly seems to have correlates with
00:18:55
learning speed and cognitive ability you
00:18:58
learn more quickly like you're most kids
00:19:01
sort of have this you know like the
00:19:03
brigh eye the world's a wonderful place
00:19:05
View and you know I think at some point
00:19:08
that gets dled by life and and some of
00:19:11
us hit that more earlier in life than
00:19:14
others some of us have that worldview
00:19:16
shattered more quickly because something
00:19:18
terrible happens to us like we we Face
00:19:20
tons of adverse circumstances or trauma
00:19:23
really early on in life and that idic
00:19:25
childhood phase doesn't last very long
00:19:27
or maybe never existed
00:19:29
for some of us it's not even necessarily
00:19:31
that something terrible happened to us
00:19:33
it's like we just figured it out sooner
00:19:35
we just kind of saw through the facade
00:19:38
earlier in life than most people and
00:19:41
again that's going to make life really
00:19:43
isolating it connects with everything we
00:19:45
talked about it's hard to talk to people
00:19:48
it's hard to want to get up and do stuff
00:19:50
and care about your life it it just it
00:19:53
really throws you for a loop so those
00:19:55
four reasons are the main theories why
00:19:59
people with higher IQ are actually more
00:20:03
prone to experiencing depression and
00:20:05
other mood disorders so in conclusion
00:20:08
being depressed doesn't mean you're
00:20:10
stupid it might actually mean you're
00:20:13
really smart but being smart can suck
00:20:16
sometimes because the world is kind of a
00:20:17
crappy place the end
