Secrets of Resilience: Lessons from adults who overcame difficult childhoods
This article is disgusting. Really, what a load of harmful garbage. At risk of overreacting or ignoring the experiences of other people who have experienced hardships such as abuse, mental illness, and others, I want to say that the authors of this article fundamentally misunderstand what they are talking about.<p>I was severely physically and emotionally abused throughout my childhood and have suffered bipolar 2 disorder my whole life. I am only in my early twenties, but I might be lucky enough to be considered one of those who became &quot;successful&quot; after experiencing such hardships as the article fetishizes: I am attending a good college, earning a good degree, developing experience in a high-demand field, and well on my way to becoming materially successful. By all measures, I am doing very well compared to my peers. In this, I think I am in the minority of people who have gone through similar experiences. I think the majority of people who have experienced these things end up either addicted to drugs, developing alcoholism, living with severe depression, or committing suicide or struggling with self-harm. I don&#x27;t think there is any difference in the personality or resilience of these people and myself which led down paths different than mine. I think it&#x27;s just luck.<p>I don&#x27;t think I am a winner. This kind of trauma, especially trauma in your formative years, changes you whether you want it to or not. In order to survive, I learned very specific behaviors as a child, such as deescalation and avoidance of conflict, lying effectively about what I&#x27;ve done and how I feel, telling people what they want to hear, and pushing down and ignoring my feelings. I think everyone who goes through experiences like this learns skills that help them in the short term. If you are very lucky, I think (at best) you can learn not to automatically revert back to these behaviors as an adult most of the time. The people who can learn let go of those behaviors well enough might be the lucky ones, but I think they are rare. Don&#x27;t get me wrong here: I don&#x27;t think my fate is sealed. I know how to work on unlearning deceptive and destructive behaviors. I always do my best to work with what I have (I learned to do that as a kid, too), but realistically speaking, I will probably never have (for example) a trusting relationship with a woman or ever trust myself enough to raise children (I&#x27;m irrationally worried that I would abuse them and become just like my parents).<p>In a strange way, perhaps some things I learned in order to survive helped me after the abuse, but by and large they were terrible for me. When I was a teenager, I made it my one goal in life not to kill myself. Anything else I accomplished was just extra credit. When I fail in a big way, it&#x27;s not a big deal for me because I&#x27;ve always had low expectations for my life. I think this might help me instantly rebound from failures and rejection, and end up with opportunities less persistent people might have not gotten. I still force myself to go out there and try my best, because the medication that keeps me functional probably won&#x27;t keep working forever, so the time I have left is probably significantly limited.<p>Do you think I&#x27;m resilient? Do you think I&#x27;m one of the winners?