"mentally deficient"

[Sofie]

As you may well know that generalisation was commonplace, often I have read many older text book to find descriptions of intersex people as being mentally deficient in some way, It is utter rubbish ....

I am "mentally deficient" and I don't think it's so rare. It's not the same as being stupid. It just means, that I'm not so good or very slow at some mental tasks.
I find descriptions like "mentally deficient", "personality deficit" and "immature" rather rude.

Children with chromosome-aberations are not always fully developed at the time they are born. There can be visible differences like deformities and problems with vital organs like heart and kidneys. The less visible differences include delayed motor and speech development or being autistic.
Usually such children only need more time to learn and develop. Being compared to other children all the time really sucks. Or people assume that these children are just lazy and could do better if they really wanted to.

Sofie
:rolleyes: I can tie my shoes and I have a highschool diploma

[Kara]

Sophie,

Anyone who is human, breathing, and has a brain is "mentally deficient" in one way or another. The older I get (youth deficient), the more I've come to realize that just because a person has a degree, money, social importance, etc., doesn't mean that they are masters of knowledge and superior to the rest of us. They have their "mental deficiencies" too. Case in point for me is the "genius" who did my genital surgery.

Remember your words about writings on IS individuals...it is utter rubbish!!! There is no need for you to even make mention of the mental tasks you are slow at, everyone has this problem, IS and non-IS. Many people judge themselves much more harshly than the situation warrants (yours truly included). You are more than good enough. There will always be someone rude out there who is more than willing to cut us down (probably to compensate for some "mental deficiency" of their own), so stick with the people who know the truth and love you, all of us at BLO.

Hmmm...I too can tie my own shoes, but I can never get them to stay tied...is that an IS "mental deficiency"?

[Dana Gold]

Hi Sofie,

Usually such children only need more time to learn and develop.

Such children especially need love and caring. Criticisms and admonishments like: "why are you so stupid?" or "can't you do anything right?" are usually one of the factors that exacerbate and maybe even in some cases cause "learning disabilities". Childhood abuse (not talking about you, ok?) will affect the child's psycho-social development and it will show in school grades and interaction with others. Praise of what a child can do is infinitely more positive than pointing out what they can't do. I also think having a "good heart" is more important than how "smart" one is.

I'm known here at BLO as a "science nerd" (egghead, a "brain") and eloquent in my posts.....hah! I have been and still am slow in most any kind of math, especially "word problems"......my brain has trouble comprehending the meaning and what "it wants"... and as a former chemist and even now, (and in school) I have/had to study extra hard just to "get by".

Legalese :eek: ( law books and government voting measures) and even when some here at BLO start talking about legal-political stuff...I don't quite know what the h*ll they're talking about! :redface: :doh: My speech? You'll notice that almost every one of my posts here at BLO has been edited ( more than just once per post!)... in real life I will sometimes stop in mid-sentence to try to find the word or phrase I want to communicate my thoughts and feelings; sometimes coming out with something dumb or that doesn't "fit"....sometimes I have just quit my sentence because I couldn't find the *%$#@<hidden> word! :confused: I used to be worse...I would call it my "Norm Crosby" syndrome, for those who are familar with that comedian who "mixes up" words. And sometimes I ramble on and on...and "squash" sentences together in a loooong string when I get "excited"....Julanne pointed that out to me before and I've learned and have tried to shorten them to be more coherent.

But given time and extra effort I "passed" within the medical and science fields and not many (until they catch me in a Norm Crosby or Phyllis Diller moment) would know it. Reading a lot, doing crosswords, studying texts, constantly learning something has "exercised " my brain ( language/speech center) to "come up to speed" and maintain the same. Deficiencies need not necessarily be "eradicated"...rather strengthening other capabilities compensates for the other "weakness" and may even improve it. Like athletes with disabilities have done to go on to be champions.

Dana :pizza:

[melonaide]

This reminds me of an experience I had. When I was 23 I started working in a distibution center. One of the first people who caught my eye was a little guy who couldn't have weighed much more than 110. As a matter of fact we had to wear back belts and I'm 5'3" @<hidden> 90lbs and I wound up with a back belt that he had lost or something and got a new one. It had his name on it. He was very slim and not too tall. He was so cute. His voice was like SpongeBob square pants and he had soft skin like a girl. His ears stuck out like a cute little monkey and the hairs on the crown of his head were always sticking up cause he would forget to comb them down. I remember being told that he could only work on certain things and I was also told he had ADD.....but I was also told to not make the mistake that he wasn't extremely smart because he had quite a reserve in knowledge about certain things that interested him...like computers. He also liked TV and could recite many things from TV. I tried to get closer to him and asked him to the movies but he was 21 and had never kissed a girl in his life. He was terrified of me....but I also know he liked me by the looks he would give me and the games he wold play but he wouldn't exactly come out and say it. He was very gaurded of himself and mae it known to me that he was afraid I would get him out and me and my freinds would ridicule him and I couldn't convince him otherwise. I didn't understand his behaviour. All I knew is that his parents were considered late in life to have a child. I knew that he was an only child and his parents were protective and a little strict and conservative as was he and he went to a private school in all of his school years. I couldn't understand why when I would bring up hanging out and going out together that he would go into a tailspin of changing the subject and talking really fast and going on and on and on and on about anything other than being alone with me where I might make a pass at him. I chalked it up to his ADD and I became offended of his games of showing subtle, unspoken but deffinate interest and then ignoring my actual desire for companionship. I thought he was just playing headgames and never considered that he had a secret. I quit trying to talk to him and became annoyed at his immaturity like everyone else. His intuition picked up on it rather quick and he came to me and greeted me and spoke very calmy and patiently and was asking about how things were going for me. I immediately forgave him but still didn't understand. All I knew is that I had to let it go and accept the freindship. I began to notice how others would treat him. They would belittle him and say anything they wanted to rile him up because they knew how sensative he was but that he was too conservative of a person and to small to get even. Guys would not give him the respect they would give other guys. Some girls would have his back all day long and then some would pay him no mind whatsoever. When people began to make him upset (and he had quite a temper) and pick on him I began to notice that he would act just as immature as he could....because he knew it annoyed people. That was his weapon because losing his temper only got him laughed at untill the day he purposefully ran over a pallet jack and got fired.
He started working at a computer store that was much more up his alley but he still got picked on....but he was liked very much and this was greatly noticed after he was killed in a car accident. It didn't sink in while he was alive that maybe he had something he was hiding or maybe some of his "abnormal" behavour was not completely perpetuating itself. I think back now of how he might have grew past it all and proved himself to be one of the best and most capable of people but unfortanely he is no longer here and I miss him terribly. He was very special and far from defficiant.

[nimo6211]

Hey Dana, We seem to have a lot of "like sysmptoms". I think I am fairly intelligent but am very poor at Maths......just barely passed it at High School......my analytical and problem-solving is very poor and it sometimes takes "an afterthought" (usually when it is too late) to grasp something. I have had difficulty memorizing things and I am slightly deaf but hate loud noises.......yeah I am guilty as charged Sofie, I blame it on my condition....though most people say that Maths is not really a "woman's best friend".......which really is not the case.

[Dana Gold]

"an afterthought" (usually when it is too late) to grasp something.

Yep,.......been there, done that :confused6 :doh: :embaresse

Dana :biggrin:

[Peter]

Hi Sofie,

I had various learning problems when I was a kid. I guess that these days, they have better ways to help children with learning problems. I have heard from my parents that I developed slowly as a child, and that they took me in for an IQ test when I was very young. I don't remember anything about it. Later when I was in about the third grade, I was having trouble learning to read and they suspected that I was dyslexic. The school system had this theory that there was a connection between dyslexia and walking pigeon-toed with the feet angled outward. In what must have been an early experiment in behavior modification, they had a few children regularly walk back and forth across an empty classroom while we made sure that our toes were pointing straight ahead. I thought that the treatment was silly and stupid. It did not do any good. However, in the end, I have come to realize that the connection between dyslexia and walking pigeon-toed is not the stupidest social theory that I have run across in my lifetime. One of the stupidest social theories that I have personally encountered in my lifetime is the theory that you can assign a "sex" to intersex children through infant genital surgery and related treatments. I have to agree with Kara that such views are a real work of "genius".

Peter

[Sofie]

Hi Peter,
One reason I started this thread was, because I thought that in many threads there was focus on genitals and gender, but little about all the medical or mental conditions people might have, like problems with the heart, spine, growth, hearing or learning disabilities. Like when you told us about your hip. I have read about other people btw who had both a malformed hip or leg and ambiguous genitals.

Sofie

[Peter]

Hi Sofie,

Thanks for starting this thread. I have been thinking about your writing style today. You are generally not a person of many words, but each word seems to be well chosen. To me, your writing style is like a good jazz musician who does not play many notes, but plays the right notes. I have personally worked in an office way too long, so I tend to use too many words to express myself. But somehow, against all odds, my brain is not totally dead.

I wonder about all the new diagnostic categories that are finding a way into the classroom. Terms like Dyslexia, Attention Deficit Disorder, and the like are increasingly popular. I hear that an astonishing number of students today are on medications recommended by schools. I remember the first three years of school. I don't know how it is in Denmark, but in the United States we have a grading system from A to F, with F being failure. I did very well during the first part of my first grade, and then because of constant physical threats and attacks, I retreated inside myself for several years. Early on, I realized that I was trapped in a world with bullies. So, for the next few years, I got mostly "C"s on my report cards. I was not bad enough to get "F"s, but my mom was very disappointed that I was not getting better grades than "C".

The secret of my school performance was that I hid in the back of the classroom making myself as invisible as possible. So, was it me who had a learning disorder, or was it the world around me that was so hostile, that my ability to survive as a student was constantly in question? The older I get, the more I suspect that I never really had a learning disorder, but rather turned inward for self protection. I don't think I am alone in this, and would be curious to hear the experiences of others.

Peter

[Dana Gold]

Interesting direction that this thread has taken......focusing on accompanying factors with "genital and gender" issues. Peter, you mentioned that as a child you went through a period where it seemed you had a learning disorder; and others have related experiences of extreme "hardships" with psychological issues. Would it not seem evident that having to endure life's inequaties, cruelties and, in many cases, medical treatments that represent perhaps the ultimate in "identity theft" or an "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" that human beings who are born outside of the anatomical sex norm have psychological issues. Duh!? The psychological community "grants" those who get into car/train wrecks or victims of rape and /or violence the status of "severe psychological stress". Then imagine the experiences of being any person with an intersexed condition who has the added mental insult/injury of long-term lack of self-esteem, and the added "heap" of shame and secrecy that is a constant reminder that one is not "part of the normal world"..

Sofie, thank you for bringing this topic up. The med-psych community seems not to "grant" (acknowledge) those who endure the psycho-social trauma of being born and living the life of an "other" the same "injury level" acquired by "normal" people who endure life's "trauma" mentioned previously in the above paragraph....why??....perhaps just because there is a lot of focus on genitals and gender....who provides/has provided adequate counseling and psychological support for human beings traumatized by society, peers, and "normalizing" regimens......affected by perhaps both active and passive violence for being "queer-bodied"?....has anyone here, who has posted or read others' posts, experienced what you consider adequate medical and psychological support resources in your community? I've had panic and anxiety disorder for years, with life-long insomnia, that my erst-while counselor could only address in a limited way....because she was centered on gender issues. I would say that the "wrecked lives" of those who are branded with society's label of "genital/gender abnormality" deserve the same kind of support and resources that the rest of society has access to...or do "they" think we are all happy with our "outcomes"!?..that we are willing to accept "che sara, sara" (whatever will be, will be)....that our "trauma" does not equal or is deserving of the same care and support from the med/psych community that "normal" trauma victims get. Am I being presumptuous in thinking that such support is inadequate and unrecognized in our society?
I guess what I'm really saying is that many of us here at BLO have experienced a great "mind-f*ck" and had mysterious and harmful "things" done to our physical and emotional selves.....leaving many "scarred" for life and then being diagnosed with or seen as having a variety of psychological/psychiatric disorders...more abnormalies piled on the already "heap" of perceived/diagnosed ones!!....which I see as only a natural response of the human mind and body to great physical and psychological trauma.....just as it is in the case of "normal" people who experience physical/psychological harm.

Anyway, maybe some of our psychological "disabilites" have a physical etiology, but I believe many others were the result of "suffering" unique to individual experiences in the "normal" world.

:pizza:

[miriam]

AISNederland is organizing an awareness campaign in which we tell medical professionals that in the past decades they have been showing more than enough interest in the 3 G’s (Genes, Genitalia & Gender) and that we want them to move on to the fourth G: General health.

Groeten, Miriam

BTW in every IQ test I scored in the 99.997 percentile or even better. My point is that learning disorders are not necessarily related to intersex conditions (or v.v.). I know many people with an intersex condition who have a degree. Okay, okay, I admit, ending up in the 99.997 percentile of an IQ test is a kind of disability by itself ;-)

[Peter]

Thanks Miriam for working on getting medical professionals in the Nederland to consider the fourth "G" - General Health. Here at Bodies… , this is the "General Health Issues" area of the forum, and perhaps it should be used more often. It's good that you are using your very great brainpower to work on improving the lives of intersex people in your country. I am glad to hear that you are able to work with medical professionals. I have been known to verbally "bash" doctors who perform infant genital surgeries. However, I know that there are other doctors, who take a more enlightened and progressive view of medical treatments, and feel that the tradition of barbaric involuntary intersex surgeries performed under conditions of great secrecy should end. I believe that these doctors do not believe that human rights should end at the door to the medical office.

Hi Dana, and thanks for adding your perspective to the discussion. I agree with you that the psychological side of intersex lives should be explored more in terms of trauma. Even my own father, who is not very psychologically sophisticated but a good person at heart, said to me the other day that he believed that I was deeply traumatized when I was young. At times, I have been able to get some psychological help from the medical community. I remember going to the local hospital, and telling the mental health staff that I was suicidal. I was able to get a few months of counseling.

p.s. My mental health has improved greatly since I discovered Bodies Like Ours.

Peter

[Fee]

Hi Sophie, Peter, Melonaide, Nina, Dana and Miriam,

I also consider myself to be fairly intelligent Sophie, but I definitely had some learning difficulties. I remember being terrible at arithmetic problem-solving, you know, 2 men travelled 20km, one stopped off and bought ...for 10mins but the other got lost and arrived late, what time did the first arrive...lol... that sort of thing. I think my brain just couldn't assimilate all the info required because I am and always have been excellent at arithmetical sums and at around the age of 8 - 12 frequently got 100% in tests. But the problem-solving always got me.

I am the same with jokes. If someone tells me a joke, well before the punch-line I lose track and usually have to feign understanding and laugh politely. And I have NEVER been able to remember a complete one if someone asked me on the spot. Recently I have thought this inability must be a hearing problem. In college lectures I could usually hear ok but I had to sit near the front and always ended with an aching hand as my writing has always been painfully slow and precise. I never finished exam papers...much to my frustration because I always knew I could do much better and the knowledge was inside my head, just not able to get out on paper. I think that's about it for my mental deficiencies though.

Physically, I had wonky hips as a child with one leg a slightly different length to the other with inward-pointing pigeon toes too, so my mother took me for phsyiotherapy and I wore built-up shoes for a while. Today this problem is barely noticable.

Now, while I am today happy that my mother's view that my 'knocked-knees', hips, eye-squint, and buck teeth (yes, I was rather an attractive child....NOT!) oughta be corrected, and they made a pretty impressive job of me, surgically altering my genitalia, which is not on public view as the rest of my 'bits' are, would NEVER have been appropriate, but I suppose would have completed my mother's 'perfect' image of me. I am glad my squint WAS corrected, my teeth straightened, that I didn't walk with a limp or with pigeon-toes because I DID fit in socially with my peers. I was quite a bright child and got teased more for being brainy than I ever did for any of my physical deficiencies, that is until my breasts grew. I was quite a happy child really, but I did know that I was different in some way. Dressing-up boxes threw me at playgroups. I seem to recall never being able to decide whether I wanted to dress up as a pretty fairy, wield a frying pan, or get my cowboy gear with gun out. Somehow I always felt a bit uncomfortable no matter which outfit I wore.

But, to my knowledge I did NOT have any normalising GENITAL surgery done to me as a young child. What appears to have happened, happened to me as an adult, during that botched CS.

Take care all.

Fee

[prince....ss?]

Dressing-up boxes threw me at playgroups. I seem to recall never being able to decide whether I wanted to dress up as a pretty fairy, wield a frying pan, or get my cowboy gear with gun out. Fee

I understand why you would feel this way. I felt exactly the same. We did not have dress up boxes but if we did I know I would be the one that… had the fairy dress with the cowboy hat and boots… and the fry pan in one hand and the gun in the other. Once a head case always a head case but I had fun in spite of them …LOL

The question at hand I’ve no serious problems with learning. I have a dyslexic problem and I can’t spell worth a darn. I also have problems remembering people’s names. I think that’s just because I’m lazy or they aren’t important enough to remember. I don’t know.

Other than that I came out of college with a 4.0 GPA. Most of my life I have been bigger than my peers 6’1” and had the reputation of being “Bad B**ch”. I had a big bike and wore black leather jacket….oops ok I also carried a gun. So the bullies stood clear as did everyone else. I think it was my way of self preservation. If I did not let you get close to me than you could not hurt me.
:evil:

[Fee]

Hey, sorry Prince...ss, missed you off my hello list. Nothin intended.
Fee

[nimo6211]

He Fee....I know what you mean....maths problems and the like . Thank you.