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Ask HN: Former gifted children with hard lives, how did you turn out?

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121–130 of 357 posts

Re: Ask HN: Former gifted children with hard lives, how did you turn out?

#121

Ace of 9. Adulthood ADHD diagnosis. Came from a dirt poor abusive background. Declared gifted, but dropped out of school. Now an engineering manager / lead developer making over £250k a year. Rough lad done good. Could've done better.

Also, go get counselling or therapy with a professional (none of this life coach quackery). It made me a better human.

Re: Ask HN: Former gifted children with hard lives, how did you turn out?

#122
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you in your top fitness condition? Most of the times, looking good means being in your top health condition, right body weight and % bodyfat below 13% (for men).

Yes. I’m facially ugly.

Get plastic surgery if your desire to find a partner is this great.

Re: Ask HN: Former gifted children with hard lives, how did you turn out?

#123
Highly gifted here (ACE 7), skipped two grades. Burnt out young before career really took off. Still did well enough to be comfortable - worked in research for a while. Spent decades trying to find answers from doctors who were all useless. Found out much later it’s ME/CFS from hEDS (TNXB) and it’s a lot more frequent that people realize, especially in cohorts selected for intelligence. When I was young I was warned by the gifted program coordinators that skipping multiple grades was bad for kids because they always burnt out, I think they noticed a direct link between the extent of giftedness and the likelihood of burnout but missed the causation.

So I agree there is a strong link between such household behaviors and giftedness but it’s because genetic predisposition to anxiety issues, dopamine disregulation, chronic fatigue in a world that can’t identify it or manage it. So these people get sick and not only can’t get help but the whole world gaslights them. I don’t blame my parents for who they are. And as tough as it has been for me I wouldn’t trade it back for my IQ especially in an era where intelligence is at such a premium. I just try to get the message out in the hope that it helps others, hence posts like this.

Re: Ask HN: Former gifted children with hard lives, how did you turn out?

#124

Ace of 9. Adulthood ADHD diagnosis. Came from a dirt poor abusive background. Declared gifted, but dropped out of school. Now an engineering manager / lead developer making over £250k a year. Rough lad done good. Could've done better.

[dead]

Re: Ask HN: Former gifted children with hard lives, how did you turn out?

#126

Highly gifted here (ACE 7), skipped two grades. Burnt out young before career really took off. Still did well enough to be comfortable - worked in research for a while. Spent decades trying to find answers from doctors who were all useless. Found out much later it’s ME/CFS from hEDS (TNXB) and it’s a lot more frequent that people realize, especially in cohorts selected for intelligence. When I was young I was warned…

>> Found out much later it’s ME/CFS from hEDS (TNXB)

What led to you finding out about TNXB?

Re: Ask HN: Former gifted children with hard lives, how did you turn out?

#127

This is the first time I've heard of an ACE score; I had to look up what it stood for: https://www.christineortollcharity.org/post/adverse-childhoo... I suspect I'm not the only one here in this boat.

My first time hearing of it too, am ACE 10.

In my mid 40s and have been having an increasing desiring for no particular reason to unpack some baggage. I think I’ve done ok in life generally, much better than the course my childhood put me on, but I think I’ve suppressed a lot of stuff and ultimately is starting to wear me down. Most notably, I just feel like a fraud a lot of times. My peers talk about how they did stuff in college and before (stuff normal people got to experience I didn’t, going on family vacations and being social in college) and I end up just laughing and making some jokes and stuff but never have similar stories to share.

I’ve completely disconnected with my family as a coping mechanism for example but now that I have a young kid asking about his family on my side it’s bringing up some weird emotions I hadn’t experienced or thought I had dealt with. Idk. Maybe therapy is in my near future so I’m glad this is being openly discussed here.

Re: Ask HN: Former gifted children with hard lives, how did you turn out?

#128
post #97
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the person you’re responding to, but I’m careful with what I share with people. I once had someone share something rather personal, followed up with a comment that they suspected I’ve had similar experiences. The reason? The language and phrases I use when referencing parents. Nothing negative per se, but the way in which I refer to them (example: my mother) and others. I was giving away more than I realized. Whi…

Yep. Supposedly you can match writing styles across accounts on the internet to identify someone.

Stylometry: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33755016 & https://web.archive.org/web/20221129004703/https://stylometr...

Re: Ask HN: Former gifted children with hard lives, how did you turn out?

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should I have to click on a link to find out what an acronym cited in a post means?

It’s not unreasonable to expect, but also in this case the meaning of the acronym doesn’t really matter as much as the meaning of the score. The link does to a page that lets you do the quiz and see your score, so it’s worth clicking.

Offline/PDF: https://www.acesaware.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/ACE-Que...

Re: Ask HN: Former gifted children with hard lives, how did you turn out?

#130
post #110

ACE of 8. Only child, single mother with psychiatric problems, absent dad with psychiatric problems, I was nearly killed by him at age 4, homeless twice before I was ten, no extended family to rely on at all. Mom died of Dementia at 65 when I was barely 30, and I took care of her starting when I was 25, giving up a great job in Boston. I'm a VP of IT in a healthcare company, my third healthcare gig with this particul…

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