my own experience in mensa was enough to make me want to drive over the cliff.

i was young and an idealist and became highly irritated by the focus of most members on how to commit the perfect murder, endless comparison of one's IQ to those of other members, the marvellous uniquity of the member who walked through snow, slush and ice in deepest toronto winter in sockless feet and sandals.

i truly did want to commit a few murders there but decided it was better to leave. soon i was in london, where lunch with victor serebriakoff (organizer and mensa developer extraordinaire) and others resulted in more silliness. while victor was not the creator of mensa, he did become its public persona. meanwhile one of the originators of the society, who had intended to create "an aristocracy of the intellect", was dismayed to find that most mensans came from "humble homes" while the other was quoted as saying "I do get disappointed that so many members spend so much time solving puzzles".

then came "the top 1%( or it might have been the top 2%) of the top 2%". quite a few of the members didn't like the thought that their IQ was waaaaay up there, while someone else just squeaked in. additionally there was the entire "i joined mensa before you" routine that obsessed them. in the70s it seemed to me that mensa was disintegrating, largely in the wake of the scandal around one of its most highly touted members, Prof. Sir Cyril Burt, whose work on the heritability of intelligence unravelled after it was found he had falsified his data. he echoed the assumption of the organization's founders in stating that the IQ of the higher professional and administrative class averaged "153.2" a fatuous statement as their IQ was not measured. in any case i was no longer paying attention.

looking back at my experience it is clear that mensa members present, in addition to the usual traits of the average person, a cross-section of idiocy and intelligence, calm and overexcitability, saneness and psychological wrinkles, largely mirroring that of the general population. (one should ask "why should it be different?")

but that one aspect - high intelligence's effect upon the body - is more deeply felt.

if one is intellectually restless - whether in scholarship or not - one perceives more, not least in the experience of one's body.

interest may cause one to know more about the wrinkly edges of normalcy. one may be more articulate and descriptive in describing unwellness states to one's doctor, sometimes with the result of being tagged "hypochondriac".

one may be more concerned with thinking than interaction with others, which makes one feel isolated because one is perceived as cold, etc.

one may indeed overreact to certain stimuli such as cortisol, allergens etc as one's brain may be racing in four or five different directions at once. perhaps some of those persons cling to OCD-like behaviour to normalize and compose their experience.

one may be more at risk for depression because - let's face it - one can see the problems of the world, the country, the family, the self, and realize that one can't fix it.

one's ruminations may lead to competing strands of thought in one's head that result in inability to decide, mimicking or resulting in ADHD.

and it may lead one to focus on puzzle-solving, murder-analysis, deliberate punishment of one's extremities in winter, or even to thoughts of self-harm, just to stop the blizzards and cyclones and tsunamis of thought in one's never-still head.

https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0160289616303324-fx1_lrg.jpg from the paper referenced above.