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

I find it hard to call what I went through "trauma" when compared to other situations people have posted - they definitely had it a lot harder than I had. It's hard to not compare your upbringing compared to other and minimize your trauma.

Anxiety, Depression, ADHD. Verbally and occasionally physically abusive father, with an emotionally absent mother and an intellectually/mentally disabled brother. If I had to draw a comparison - it was like being a kid in a family where the parents should have divorced decades ago but stayed together "for the kids".

I never felt comfortable with bringing anything about my life up with either of my parents as they'd fight and argue all the time, and they'd never really _listen_ to me when I had problems. So I absorbed myself in the internet on the computer I was given one Christmas when I was 9 years old. Not a healthy environment for a kid - 4chan, porn, etc. all had their effects on me.

Now I'm looking back through all the arguments, all the fights, all the emotional breakdowns I had, all the gaslighting, all the lies, manipulation tactics, etc. and I can't help but be depressed about it - so many times I passed the guidance councilor's office at school and thought "man, I could just walk in there and say my dad yells at us all the time, and my life could have been much different". So many times I wanted to do things but I was just too scared and didn't have a person in my life to support me.

Personally, I wouldn't say I'm successful - though that's probably because of my lack of motivation. I work remotely for a larger IT firm in eastern Canada and make okay money (Canadian economy taken into consideration), but I struggle so much with pushing myself and goal setting, time management, etc. I was never able to figure out what I really wanted to do because I was living life for my parents and not for me.

I struggle with social situations because I don't feel valued. It's hard for me to make friends (especially when you're in your late 20's early 30's), I feel like everyone has moved on with their lives and I'm still stuck here the way I'll always be - the party's over and I'm standing at the empty bar, getting in the way of the cleaners vacuuming up the floors of confetti for a party I showed up to 10 minutes before it ended.

As I get older I'm coming more and more to terms with the idea that I'll never be in any kind of relationship and/or have kids because of how messed up I am mentally - I push people away from me when they try to get close because I'm horrified of rejection. Biological clock ain't getting any younger either. I never know what to say or how to interpret things in conversation - doc says it's from my inexperience, but part of me wonders if it's a hint of Autism that's undiagnosed.

To avoid this being even more of a somewhat glorified trauma dump - for anybody else reading these situations, if you're suffering from trauma, please get help if possible. I hope there are free or low-cost options wherever you live, whether a phone hotline, support groups, etc.

You don't get to take the easy way out while the rest of us have to stay behind and suffer! ;-) /s

Here the quote for the principle hewed closer to the subject than ordinarily. Tolstoy’s “cheery white crosses” probably deserves its own principle too.

I'm doing OK in life. It took a long time for me to stop running away from things because I didn't trust anyone for a long time. I'm still cynical and paranoid, but I have a steady government job, a solid early retirement plan, and a supportive wife that loves me.

People are surprised I didn't amount to more in life, but I live my life 100% on my terms, and that's what's important to me.

Not rich, not poor, but I enjoy life in general.

I was identified as gifted in 1st grade. It got to a point where I was teaching myself and working from 3rd and 4th grade textbooks in class, so the school basically told my parents I either needed to skip grades or go somewhere that would allow me to work at an accelerated pace because "otherwise, he's going to get frustrated and end up hating school." Parents moved me to a private school that taught in kind of an alternative style. The closest thing I can approximate it to is somewhat Montessori style. Starting in 1st grade, I basically sat in a cubicle and self-taught myself every subject. I had a minimum amount of course work to complete for each subject each day, and I was also in charge of grading my own work. If you got your work done, you graded and corrected your work accurately, and didn't get in trouble for anything else, then they had a "privileges" system that basically allowed you to play board games or, at times, wander the school grounds to do things like shoot baskets. I remember days where my school work took maybe an hour total. When I was in 9th grade, that school moved to a more traditional high school class setup, which was pretty boring for me. I'd been so far ahead before the change though that it allowed me to take a couple honors courses at the local university 1st semester of senior year and then graduate a semester early, where I spent that semester interning on Capitol Hill.

Growing up, I always did really well on standardized testing. I'd think I did terrible if I scored below the 97th percentile. For the college entrance exams, I scored National Merit Scholar level. In college, I tested at 137 and 142 (different IQ tests, don't recall which two).

Because the private school was small and "unaccredited" at the time, I suspect that led me to miss out on potential opportunities at more exclusive universities. Instead, I ended up attending a large state university (still a decent school). There, I had to teach myself how to study (never needed to before) and learn to balance attendance (for a subset of classes, I could skip lectures and still score highly on tests, but that sometimes bit me because I'd get dinged for missed attendance). Around junior year, I was officially diagnosed with ADHD.

I've spent my career working in the technology side of consulting. I'd classify myself as "somewhat satisfied" with my life. Career-wise, I've consciously made some decisions that I knew would potentially slow my career advancement in the interest of my family and trying to have a more sustainable work/life balance.

I'll be honest, I don't feel like my brain is put to great use most of the time. (Counterintuitively, that seems to get somewhat worse the more I advance.) I stay working in the field mainly because the nature of the work brings change and new challenges (new clients, new problems, etc.) and because I highly value working with intelligent people (and I'd put most of my coworkers in that category). Once in a while, something comes along that really allows me to leverage my natural strengths and shine. Between, I can get very bored and almost go on autopilot at times (some of that is the ADHD). Or I'm been viewed as performing well, but know deep down that I am only doing a fraction of what I am capable of. I constantly battle my ADHD tendencies.

I've had to adapt over the years in many ways. With the way I grew up, I'm very self-sufficient, so it took concerted effort to learn to delegate. In general, I had to learn patience. I think I was an okay manager but getting better at both of those things made me much better on the management side of things.

The rest of the "somewhat" response stems mostly to some marriage challenges over the past few years. That's another story but some of what I've described plays a small role there. Ex: it can wear on a partner when the other partner has a strong memory and is usually right, or when you the other partner is several steps ahead of the other when thinking something through, even when it isn't a competitive thing and you are just trying to get to the best or most accurate answer.