Language is not essential for the cognitive processes that underlie thought

As some who has a dis-harmonic intelligence profile, this has been obvious for a very long time. In the family of my mother there are several individuals struggling with language while excelling in the field of exact sciences. I very strongly suspect that my non-verbal (performal) IQ is much higher (around 130) than my verbal IQ (around 100). I have struggled my whole life to express my ideas with language. I consider myself an abstract visual thinker. I do not think in pictures, but in abstract structures. During my life, I have met several people, especially among software engineers, who seem to be similar to me. I also feel that people who are strong verbal thinkers have the greatest resistance against idea that language is not essential for higher cognitive processes.

Growing up, I never used words or even sentences for thinking.

The abstract visualizations I could build in my mind where comparable to semi-transparent buildings that I could freely spin, navigate and bend to connect relations.

In my mid-twenties, someone introduced me to the concept of people using words for mental processes, which was completely foreign to me up to this point.

For some reason, this made my brain move more and more towards this language-based model and at the same time, I felt like I was losing the capacity for complex abstract thoughts.

Still to this day I (unsuccessfully) try to revive this and unlearn the language in my head, which feels like it imposes a huge barrier and limits my mental capacity to the capabilities of what the language my brain uses at the given time (mostly EN, partially DE) allows to express.