>I've never believed that adversity creates strength, at least that has not been my experience in life.
Except this is true in the most literal sense.
Except this is true in the most literal sense.
According to Sapolsky's lecture on depression [1], a stressful childhood experience is 30x more likely to cause depression in individuals with a particular serotonin-related gene variant.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOAgplgTxfc @ 47:00
No. [1] The context of the whole conversation is traumatic relationships. If anything you are talking about eustress - and traumatic relationships are not beneficial and do not "make you stronger" [2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormesis
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eustress#Compared_with_distres...