Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 357 posts

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

#281

Post by burnte »

giantg2 wrote: post #227
burnte wrote: 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…

"I'm damn good at it. I just cut our phone system expenses by $300k/yr, and I'm in a project to cut our EMR expense by 70% over the next 9 months." Tell me you work in PE without telling me you work in PE.

I told you I work in PE, but that's not the point of the statement. I cut spending and improve services because I know how to spend properly. The phone system changeover gained us a lot of functionality and ease of use while cutting spending dramatically.

Same with our EMR. We can get better for less, that's what I do. PE isn't the only sector that wants to cut unneeded costs.

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

#282

Post by amir734jj »

ACE 4.

I passed gifted school entrance exam in my home country of Iran when I was a kid. Didn't tell my parents because I didn't like going there and I wanted to have a normal life.

I currently work at Microsoft and have a PhD in Computer Science / Compilers.

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

#283

Post by ninetyninenine »

taurath wrote: post #273
ninetyninenine wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No. You’re missing the people who don’t post on here, which are those who have died, those who are suffering too much to spend time here. This is a high privilege forum on average, and that there are success stories doesn’t mean it’s somehow good. Ask any one of us what we thought we could have achieved with a supportive “good enough” childhood and often you’ll get tears. So you say. I still want data to back that u…

I’m going to have to ask you to google it or have GPT summarize it for you as it’s readily available.

Sure. But your statement alone without evidence at face value looks like something you just intuited without proof and out of thin air.

Hence it was reasonable to ask.

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

#284

Post by varelse »

trogdor wrote: post #79
varelse wrote: post #62

ACE score of 5. I turned out badly. Rich, but badly. Just ask any of the data faking cheating scientists I channeled my trauma into exposing who got me kicked out of academia. But that's how I got rich. Money changes everything. You will never feel safe. You will instead build a life, a portfolio, and a network of friends as a surrogate for feeling safe. And you can trust my words, I'm shadowbanned.

> Just ask any of the data faking cheating scientists I channeled my trauma into exposing who got me kicked out of academia. But that's how I got rich. I don’t know what you are referring to, but I am curious. Would you explain?

It's the past. I've let go of it as much as I can. But I will always have what if questions about it. But broadly, academia was a dead-end. I should have never gotten a doctorate, it was a waste of time. And I doubly should never have done a post-doc because that's indentured labor. The day I left academia my salary more than tripled my income, an experience many sorts in AI encountered more recently. Unless one is born into wealth, academia is a horrible choice IMO. And too many of the tenured sorts calling the shots are some of the most unethical sorts I've ever met. Ironically, the most ethical team I ever worked with was at a hedge fund likely because it's pretty hard to hide the loss of funds at one. And everything else has been between those two extremes.

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

#285

Post by caeril »

ACE score of 1, my parents were pretty great.

But if this test were applied to other kids, it would be off the charts. Abused and neglected in every way imaginable by my peers, growing up.

It's always annoyed me that if your abusers weren't your caregivers, your trauma is never taken seriously by the mental health community.

But it is what it is. I'm doing very well financially and professionally, I have a wife and kids, I am strong, fit, and healthy. But I have no friends, and it's impossible to relate with other people. Perpetually lonely, always the outcast, even decades after adolescence.

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

#286

Post by dewbrite »

zo1 wrote: post #183
matheusmoreira wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even something as simple as a single word can give away absurd amounts of information about us. I used to be ashamed of my nationality and actively tried to hide it. I was very successful at it too, never had a single person identify me... Until I tried playing an MMORPG I used to play when I was a kid and was still learning English. Long story short, I misspelled the name of an item because of my childhood memories.…

I once had my nationality "leak" just by the specific addition I chose when ordering a specific hamburger-like dish at a food-stall. Something akin to choosing to put mustard on a hot-dog kind of situation. The person looked at me, knew, got confused as I had a perfectly neutral and non-native accent, and then just had to ask to confirm their suspicion.

Mayo with fries would be a German likeness. Very odd in the States.

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

#287

Post by kritterLane »

afpx wrote: post #276
codr7 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll figure it out, sometimes doing nothing is exactly what is needed. Look around you, lack of direction and medication/distraction is everywhere, and unfortunately suicide. I would never judge anyone for wanting an easy out. But I do feel its missing the point of the experience. What is your passion? What makes you excited/happy?

Yeah, I'll definitely figure it out. I'm actually a fairly positive person. It's just that the brain chemicals distort my thinking, unfortunately. I'm working on a few things, and going through exercises to retrain my brain. My main issue is lack of direction. Lately, I've been happy making generative art and building things in Blender. But, I'm not sure how to turn that into something that's useful or productive.

This is probably one of the things that you can and should take a lot of time with. Being suicidal is not an entirely rational place, so you cannot completely rely on your own thoughts and feelings, that's why it can be so difficult to deal with. If you are a "better version of yourself" today than yesterday, or improving other people's lives even if it's just one more person's overall, you are already making a positive difference!

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

#288

Post by kritterLane »

galivanter wrote: post #184
eastbound wrote: post #66

My ACE is 0 (lucky me, my solidarity goes to all of you). Although childhood problems are a grave impediment for life, do you think you come out stronger / more brave than people with no problem? For example I turned out a workaholic because I couldn’t find how to have success in my affective life. I’m 40, fit, correctly rich, but with a deep unsatisfaction about romantic life. Should I just be brave about it and sat…

The research shows that people come out less strong. Bravery is different, I think that's highly individual. Some people who seek out extreme thrills and adrenaline do so because their brain and nervous system are hardwired for dangerous environments, and it's the only way they can feel normal. You have to work to find silver linings, opportunity in chaos and vice versa. To your own issue, bravery would be taking act…

[dead]

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

#289

Post by red-iron-pine »

deisteve wrote: post #103
fortyseven wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opsec awareness is brutal on public socialization.

its honestly overhanded unless you work in sensitive positions nobody gives a f about you

just because the internet datamining bots don't care doesn't mean they won't create hyper-accurate portraits of your personal life, that can and likely will be sold, hacked, or leaked.

you have 0 reason to think they'll respect your life, and less reason to help them make money off of your misery. at least with a throwaway and some marginal protections like a VPN and browser fingerprint obfuscation you can feel mostly secure.

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

#290

Post by brudgers »

bookofjoe wrote: post #91
brudgers wrote: post #42

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. The ACE test is convenient and that makes it useful. It validates people’s experiences and that makes it a good thing. I have a pretty clear idea of how and why my childhood was the way it was. I could stretch and analog my lived experiences to fit the questions. Gifted has been bullshit in the water where I swim for a long time. Invisible.…

Tolstoy, "Anna Karenina" (1873)

More relevant to my comment,the anna karenina principle:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Karenina_principle

Post reply on HN