Why High IQ Autistic People Are at Higher Risk for Suicide

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]Autistic people are about 1.5 times more likely to have suicidal ideation and make suicide attempts than allistic or non-autistic people. But autistic people who also have an IQ above 120, a group of people sometimes known as twice exceptional or 2E, are nine times more likely to have suicidal ideation and make suicide attempts. That's a pretty scary figure on its own. But what's really concerning about it is that with most mental health conditions, high IQ decreases risk of suicide. But with autism, it increases risk of suicide.

[00:00:35]And the studies that have looked at the relationship between these two variables haven't really found a reason for that yet. But I have a theory, and it's kind of a scary one, just so you know. IQ [snorts] is just learning speed. So a high IQ person learns things more quickly. So if there's a relationship between high IQ and suicidality in autistic people, what that suggests is that autistic people are learning something quickly that makes them not want to stick around, to not want to be here anymore. And I think what that piece of information is that they are learning that is producing this suicidal ideation is likely the fact that this world is poorly designed for them and does not take them into account very well. And that is a very, very hard thing to live with.