You'll Pry My Intellectual Brilliance from my Cold, Dead Brain!

I guess that there are people who argue that persons with bipolar disorder tend to be more intelligent than other people. I've actually never heard that argument. What I've heard is that there are a disproportionate number of people who would be ranked as intelligent who have bipolar disorder. I have also heard that bipolar disorder and creativity tend to be linked. Apparently creative pursuits access the same areas of the brain that are affected by bipolar disorder, so this would make a fair bit of sense.

I read an article which postulates that people with bipolar disorder are actually less intelligent than people who do not have bipolar disorder because we are cognitively impaired. And on this, I must disagree. I must also point out that while I disagree, I'm not ripping on the author because she wasn't being an asshole, she was simply pointing out her belief that there was no correlation between bipolar disorder and high intelligence. She herself lives with the disease.

Since I grew up believing that I was retarded due to being somewhat dyslexic, I refuse to have anybody take away from me the fact that I learned that I could pass the test to get into Mensa, much to my surprise. I opted not to join because I did not want to come off as an intellectual snob. I don't care for snobbery of any kind. 

I would argue that intelligence (IQ) and cognitive impairment are two different things. There are extremely intelligent people whose learning disabilities make it difficult for them to express their intellectual gifts to the world. I am not saying I am particularly gifted in any area because my thoughts do tend to be scattered and my attention span is terrible. I have OCD as well as bipolar disorder. I have often been accused of being a "space cadet." I have to write everything down, otherwise I'll forget to do it.

Nonetheless, I'm not letting anyone tell me I'm not intelligent. I spent too many years hating myself and believing myself to be stupid to allow that to happen.