There are so many factors at play in this kind of thing...When last tested my IQ was around 140. If it were tested now no way would it be that high. My psychologist has written on social security forms that my high IQ has helped me use coping strategies but my illness is now too severe for coping strategies to allow me to work or function normally at daily life. I am an occupational therapist and for a long time was able to use some of the things I taught my patients to help myself. So professional training was a factor. There was something else but I already forgot it, proving that I've lost abilities to get through a sentence.

For years my pdoc told me that I was the highest functioning patient with the severity of symptoms that she'd ever treated. I am no longer that high functioning patient; my symptoms got rapidly worse in 2011-2012 and I had to stop working and need help for a lot of things now. I do not live independently anymore.

Part of my downfall was that I ran out of meds. So if someone comes up with the right new med sometime I could theoretically go back to high functioning. We're talking a lot right now about my professional license which I am probably giving up in a year because I've been out of the field too long; if that med came along I'd need a new career.

I think a lot of it is circumstance. One thing that helped me function as long as I did at a high level was that I had a person who I could reflect ideas off of and he would help me see whether I was reacting normally or bipolarly. There is a name for doing that I think but I have long forgotten it. I know without him I wouldn't have made it to the 3rd year of my career (I worked about 10 years).

I guess my main point is that it's not a static thing. I've been both really high functioning and.....not. I preferred the high functioning but it honestly was a tower constantly on the verge of collapse as I fought on so many levels all the time to succeed. Now I still struggle but it's over showers and washing my sheets and the like.