Ask HN: Anyone here make a 'comeback' from rock bottom? What is your story?
I don&#x27;t know if this qualifies as rock bottom, but here goes.<p>As a baby, I was adopted by the mother of the man who was married to my biological mother, and at the time thought to be my father, but wasn&#x27;t my father. Growing up, I knew this, and always had underlying issues relating to the mess which enshrouded the ordeal; my parents being drug addicts, the person who was thought to my father dying of an overdose, and a lot of other stuff. I knew the whole story quite young. On top of this, the family put me in the company of a handful siblings which were drug attics, whose actions were quite clearly visible to me.<p>My adopted mother was in her mid 50&#x27;s when she got me and my sister, at which point her life should have been winding down, but she had been taking care of her own kids from the age 17 until her mid 40&#x27;s, and here were two kids again. She was angry, and bitter, and while I could see why, she very aggressively, even though she still denies and refuses to realize it, took that out on us. It wasn&#x27;t fair to us, but I think it&#x27;s safe to say she was better than the alternative (and she did quite literally save my life; I would have died of pneumonia and meningitis at 3 months while sick and living in a car with my drugged-out biological mother, and I apparently almost died anyways).<p>Anyways, going into our teens years, me and my sister grew farther and father away from her. I and I alone remained close with my adopted dad, but it was mostly because he kept quiet to prevent her verbally abusing him, as well. Plus, he was always teaching me about electronics, woodworking, mechanics, and the general skill of &quot;building shit&quot;.<p>Around 13, my sister and I got in an argument with our mother, and she told us she wished she&#x27;d never adopted us and that she couldn&#x27;t wait for us to be gone. So we left. I was gone for a week, staying with friends and sleeping a night in a park before she picked me up from school. My sister, she fell in with some bad people, got into some stuff, and ultimately ended up coming home a week after me, telling the cops she wanted to kill herself, and got placed in a mental hospital. She was there for 8 months or so, then moved to a group home. After 4 or so months in the group home, my mom realized she could do the same to me, so, come summer before highschool, she did.<p>I was an hour away from anything I knew, my sister, my only blood, being 3 hours in the other direction. It played quite hard emotionally; suicidal and whatnot. I was only there a year, and saw far more tragic stories of kids left behind by the world, and honestly it made me resent my family-mostly mother-even more. These kids had terrible, terrible situations, and I was being thrown in there because I wasn&#x27;t wanted. Not out of necessity, as they were. I remember, one time, the staff made my mom take me to a doctors appointment because they were busy with the kids who belong there. The whole ride she bitched and moaned, and I remember her once saying &quot;this is their job, not mine.&quot;<p>After the homes, we moved back with my mother, but she picked up, left California, and moved to Tennessee with us. My dad, the parent, I was close to, did not join us. A whole mess of shit happened after that, too, but suffice to say the whole ordeal and the rebelliousness before it lead to grim situations for us. As a kid, I was always good in school, top of my class, but not since about a year before the home, and not after, either. I absorbed myself in my computer at night, and when I wasn&#x27;t asleep at school, I was taking out my rage and angst on the teachers. I wasn&#x27;t violent or anything, just an angry, seething confused jackass of a kid out to prove the world wrong; it didn&#x27;t help that this school was full of unqualified teachers, that just made me worse. From 8th grade to graduation, I had had 6 expulsions and at least 200 days of suspension (most expulsions were a result of excessive suspension). I failed almost every class I had. At one point, my mom had the brilliant idea that this might be due to some form of retardation, so she had me tested for special education (I obviously failed that test, just like all of my classes). Throw in some teen pregnancies, abortions, and miscarriages for some extra emotional issues (in retrospect, it was the best personal outcome that none of those went to term, but doesn&#x27;t change the emotional damage they had).<p>By the end of it, I &quot;graduated&quot; with a 0.89 GPA. I still don&#x27;t think it was possible, but there were a small handful of amazing teachers that I&#x27;m sure played some role. It was rare, but the competent teachers, the passionate ones, I respected and they respected me, and I think they realized there were a ton of issues, and thus pulled the strings on making sure I made it out. Maybe not, I&#x27;m not sure.<p>Graduation came about a month after my 18th birthday, on which my mom presented me with a lease agreement and asked me to sign it before having any cake. She wanted $800 a months for rent and utilities. I happened to know her rent of that four bedroom, of which I had the smallest room with no climate control, was $800. I paid the first month with all the money I&#x27;d saved over the years, but after that, I had nothing We got in a fight, so I moved out.<p>I lived in my car (the car she bought for me, but I took it, no other option really) for a few weeks. Spent some time living with an ex girlfriend, also. After about a month, I picked up and moved to Oklahoma to do freelance coding work with a friend; those years absorbed in my online life had one good outcome: I learned to code. That lasted for 4 months, but I was alone there and miserable. Went back to Tennessee, lived with my ex girlfriend&#x27;s family, and got a job in a factory. The day after I knew I had the job, my online business blew up overnight. I had been making bots for online games and selling them. The income was in the low hundreds per year. But, one day, my competitor closed up shop and I got all of his business; a surge of $2000 or so on the first day and a couple thousand a month following. I worked in the factory for 5 months, working 10 hours a day 7 days a week, not a single day off. Whenever I wasn&#x27;t there or sleeping, I was improving my bot. I quit in May, interviewed for a programming job it Atlanta in June, and started that job in July. After a year and a half, I got a security engineering role in Silicon Valley, and took that. I had made connections along the way, and was writing a Game Hacking book at the time, which is now finished. I worked there for 3 years, then moved to another security company. I&#x27;m currently working there from the comfort of my downtown condo in San Jose. Along the way, I wrote my book, spoke at almost a dozen conferences, and started working on some online classes for Pluralsight (currently in progress!). I&#x27;m 24 now. The side business with my bot has been going the whole time; it&#x27;s shutting down sometime this year due to the game changing their client, but I&#x27;m okay with that. It&#x27;s made about half a million gross by now, and I&#x27;m extremely proud and humbled by the experience.<p>Multiple times throughout this climb, and even now, I find myself confused emotionally. It&#x27;s extremely hard to be happy, or to smile. It&#x27;s hard to have any negative emotion besides anger. I can laugh and have fun, but I don&#x27;t just smile, I&#x27;m quick to anger like my mom was, and I&#x27;m never just in a ground state of happiness. I find myself at times seeking pain because it&#x27;s what I knew, and this success is still new to me. When I was first in Georgia, I realize I was trying to develop problems. I drank more than I cared to because I wanted something to be wrong with me, etc. It&#x27;s fucking weird. I hate my personality and attitude now, but I shouldn&#x27;t. I should be happy. I&#x27;m proud and excited about the future, but for some reason not content.<p>Man, I know there are people who had it way worse than me. I lived with some of them, and I know there are others in much worse situations (worm torn countries and such), so I feel really selfish to call this rock-bottom, but it was mine. I feel like it&#x27;s wrong of me to think I came from some astronomically shitty odds, knowing what the real odds are for a lot of people, but I do. I don&#x27;t know, I&#x27;ve never got to really share this story (and there&#x27;s a lot I&#x27;m leaving out for obvious reasons), but it feels nice to, and I don&#x27;t know why. I&#x27;m looking forward to now reading other people&#x27;s stories.<p>P.S. don&#x27;t tell me to see a therapist or something please, I&#x27;m not here seeking advice, just wanted to share.