An Akin Gump Kind of Crazy

I have been diagnosed with psychotic mental illness. In 1994 I took a battery of psychological tests at the George Washington University Medical Center Department of Psychiatry (GW). The test report says: "Mr. Freedman is currently functioning at a superior level of intelligence according to his Full Scale IQ of 125 (95th percentile) on the WAIS-R. His Verbal IQ is 136 (99th percentile) and his performance IQ is 100 (50th percentile)."

Now that's a little odd. Numerous studies have shown that severe mental illness -- and psychosis is severe mental illness -- will lower a person's IQ score. Premorbid IQ scores can be as much as 9% higher than scores of the same people after they have developed mental illness.

Here's what's strange. My IQ was tested when I was in the 6th grade, in elementary school. I was about 11 years old at the time. My overall IQ was 125. And darned if that isn't the exact same IQ score I tested at in 1994, two years after I had been diagnosed with psychotic mental illness by GW! That's one for the medical journals, I guess. And they say I'm not special!

I still remember that one of my 6th grade classmates, Susan Marks (Philadelphia High School for Girls, 1970), had a perfect score on the test. I wonder what she's doing these days? Little Miss Smarty Pants! You know, I was once at her house and, to this day, I still remember the fake Renoir her parents had in her living room. The paint was peeling from the painting. But that is neither here nor there. As a result of my illness, I tend to digress. My speech is characterized by loose associations and circumstantiality.

When I was in the 8th grade I took the Differential Aptitude Test, a standardized test that measures verbal reasoning and numerical ability. My verbal reasoning raw score was 38 and the percentile ranking was 95. My numerical ability raw score was 27 and my percentile ranking was 80. The combined raw score (verbal and numerical) was 65 and the combined percentile ranking was 95. That's interesting because that combined score percentile ranking (95) is identical with an IQ score of 125 -- my IQ score in the sixth grade was 125 and my IQ score in 1994, while I suffered from psychotic mental illness was 125.

In the 9th grade I took the School and College Abilities Test (SCAT test). The verbal portion comprises 50 verbal analogies. I answered 47 of the verbal analogies correctly. The percentile ranking was 97. The percentile band was 94-99. In 1994, after the onset of psychotic mental illness, my verbal IQ was measured at the 99th percentile. So as far as my verbal intelligence is concerned, I actually got smarter after I went crazy! As Jerry Seinfeld would say, "That is a tad askew!"

(The test results are on file at The Central High School of Philadelphia, Ogontz and Olney Avenues, Philadelphia, PA. I graduated in 1971. Yes, Susan Marks skipped a grade. We were in the same 6th grade class, but she graduated high school a year earlier than I. But then, I didn't grow up in a home with a fake Renoir! Looking at fake Renoirs tends to increase IQ scores.)