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

You sound successful relative to where you could have ended up.

My score was 7.

I have ADHD, autism, and dyslexia, but luckily a >140 iq on a good day. I’ve suffered from depression at times, was incarcerated as a juvenile and an adult. Had a physical and mentally abusive father. I was also a convicted felon at 15/16 and again at 18 years old. Was an alcoholic before being legally allowed to drink. The list goes on.

That said life is great, I’ve exceeded all expectations my parents, family and educators had for me(the bar was low). I own my home, happily married and raising a daughter. I work at a FANG company and have a pretty decent net worth. Have traveled to almost 40 countries and feel like I add value to the world on most days. I even serve on the board of a non profit.

I would never say these things made my life any easier by any stretch but I learned to cope and it made me a “strong” person, in that I have confidence I can overcome just about anything and I don’t really fear much of anything that life can throw at me.

The one thing that’s crippling at times, being through all that with a photographic memory. Closing my eyes to go to sleep at night is hard… every single day.

ACE score of 7. I am ridiculously happy. I have a wife who loves me, and two (little) kids who want to be around me. A successful and fulfilling career that lets me provide for (and even spoil, sometimes) my family. Multiple side-projects/hobbies/'hustles' that I can pick up or put down at will. Life is really, fantastically, pronoia-inducingly, good. It wasn't always this way, and I owe a LOT to great teachers in my formative years (HS and some college) who encouraged me to get the hell out of the house, city, and state I grew up in, and become my own man far far away from the place and family of my birth.

I'd been on the 'gifted' track since pre-K (I was reading books without pictures by 3, for example, and had read The Hobbit in Kindergarten). I made it out (barely) of one of the worst public middle/highschool systems in the country, and got a 70%+ 4 year scholarship into one of the best. My grandparents (specifically my maternal grandmother, may she RIP) busted all kinds of ass to make up the difference. "Family drama" almost made it to where I couldn't get transport to out-of-state college at the very last minute, and my paternal grandfather (may HE RIP!) showed up out of the blue, helped me throw my things in his truck, and drove me 12 hours one-way so I could attend college (no I did not finish, and dropped out after 4 years; long story)

The fear, doubt, and insecurity of my teens led to quite a bit of learning and growing in my early/mid 20s, and it just got better from there. "Getting the hell out" was the best advice I had gotten, and I am so glad I was able to take it.

My biggest concern these days is how do I grow beyond my damaged upbringing and not just be a "neutral" force in my family's life, but a "good" one. I'd like to be around for any grandkids (shucks, maybe even GREAT grandkids if the health and longevity sciences keep doing their respective things), and a positive presence in their lives too.

Is there a more complete list by someone else?

ACE Score: 0, therefore I apologise if this is too flippant since I don't suffer the depth of lows of clinical depression provides, although I've been through some unpleasant troughs in my time I'm sure I can't comprehend the potential psychological damage of most ACE scores above mine.

There's a particular line of The Desiderata[0] that says so much in so few words:

no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

It provides armour to me when the negative voices come. It reminds me that I am privileged to be alive at this point in time and help to remind me of the (good kind of) "holy shit" feeling I should have at that realisation.

Some holes are too deep for this to have an effect, but for the shallower ones, this has helped me escape them quicker.

You Have A Right To Be Here!

[0]: https://desiderata.com/desiderata.html