I'm 53, and despite graduating with honors, finding a loving life partner, a long-lasting job, and plenty of friends, I still feel like an idiotic failure most of the time. I don't understand it either.

Have you ever been assessed for ADHD? There's tons of stuff that doesn't have anything to do with attention that happens as a result. Depression and anxiety is right at the top for me. It looks different in adulthood

It's good that you feel stupid. That means you realize that there's room for you to improve and that you are surrounded by people who are smarter than you.

That's much better situation than if you feel smarter than everyone around you. There's a famous saying, "If you are smarter than everyone in the room, you are probably in the wrong room."

It's totally normal to feel like that as you enter the real world.

For me, I kicked everyone ass in High School. Got humbled the first semester in college. Got humbled further in grad school. And when I entered the workforce, I felt that everyone was so amazingly good and technically stronger than me. I realize this is a good thing and that I need to keep improving.

Keep grinding!

You just need to realize everyone else around you is faking it too. We all are insecure. We all are just doing our best every day. It’s an awareness that you’ll never know it all like you thought you would.

You are not a failure, you are learning, and so long as you are learning you can avoid becoming a puddle of nothing, and so long as you admit you still need to learn you can avoid becoming a Karen. Just try to enjoy the process of becoming who you want to be

32, pretty much the most stupid person on the planet.

I think dating someone 10 years older may have something to do with it. Maturity =/= intelligence. You're going to get there with time, too. I'm 28, and I feel pretty dumb sometimes too, but every day I improve a little bit. It's not always linear, and sometimes I feel like I'm taking a step backwards, but little by little I feel smarter simply by understanding more about myself, as well as the world.

I think your overthinking and you have to understand everyone’s mind thinks differently doesn’t mean your not smart, you seem too hard on yourself and sometimes it’s life experience that make people seem more wiser etc.

If you've seen the movie Wolf of Wall Street I saw an interview with the real guy and he said he literally always feels like he has no idea what he's doing. I forget who he was talking to, but the other guy was also very successful and he said the same thing. The real smart people never know what's gonna happen next. You just have to rely on your ability to learn an act. If you don't feel this way you probably have a boring life with a low paying job. You aren't using your brain at all and already know all the answers. Feeling stupid is actually quite a good thing. You're only gonna feel that way when you are challenging yourself.

It can be a common factor that leads to depression. But it's such a normal feeling! I feel like that constantly at 32. I think part of that feeling stems from low self-esteem, and i've found that focusing on what i am good at, or what i can do to improve helps alleviate some of that feeling. Like, what are your strengths? What are the things you think you could do to improve what you feel stupid at?

There's always gonna be someone smarter than you, but maybe it's a good thing to be surrounded by people you can learn things from, and some people you can teach. That way you kind of balance out feeling stupid and feeling like you can really help someone else.

Hope that helps, just some things i've found useful