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Comment by mnky9800n | Hacker News Reader

Tbh I don't care about your history. I had a terrible childhood too. The story is long and boring but it includes beatings, broken bones, being drugged without my consent, and other terrible and traumatic abuses along with the high IQ, super ability, gifted, blah blah blah. But who cares. Now I have a PhD, I have a great job, and a wonderful gf. A lot of that is because I gave up holding onto that story I sat and told myself about how terrible and true my history was like you are doing. It doesn't matter that your accounting of your history is accurate or not. Telling yourself these things is not effective behaviour at building yourself into the person you want to be.

But nobody is going to make you change. You will either wake up one day and be so tired of your own bullshit that you will start to change. Or you won't. It's really all up to you.

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Have you learned empathy on the way?

I have an amazing amount of empathy for this person who is sitting there telling themselves that they are terrible, their life is a product of the traumatic history. I feel the pain in their words when they respond telling of the grandiose achievements they would have obtained if only. I understand the anger and justification they feel when they start a sentence "if only it had been different..." I have been in this headspace. But it wasn't different. My life wasn't different either no matter how much I wished that it was so. And no matter how much I felt the pain from the trauma I suffered, that trauma never went away. That's why I know the choice to move away from this identity, and it really is an identity, is a very difficult choice and requires a lot of hard work. Because at some point that trauma lives on because of your choice to keep it alive. I have spent years in therapy overcoming such trauma. And finally I'm putting it behind me. I fully support this person making similar choices and would be happy to provide resources for them to pursue. But they have to want that and they don't seem to want it in this moment. I can empathize with that decision too. I made it for a long time before I became tired of living my life in pain.

I'm a little shocked you would tell someone "[I] don't care about your history," and "they don't seem to want help." Did you ever hear people tell you that? Did it help? I certainly feel insulted by your 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps sonny," tone.

Nothing really ever helped me get out of the mindset I was in until I felt like helping myself. It is the nature of the beast in my opinion. Although I agree with you. I was being a bit dismissive. I think it's because the original poster simply dismisses what everyone has to say no matter what they are saying.

You appear to be inserting your own words into my mouth. Nowhere did I say I was terrible. In fact, I'm doing better than ever before. That's in large part due to accurate accounting. You even say I'm "sitting here" with a connotation of passivity, as if there's no way I could be typing this at a standing desk or a phone while on the move. You're trying to hammer "victim mentality" so hard down my throat it's... kind of hilarious.

These grandiose achievements as you put them consist of basic necessities for survival. The fact you use words like "grandiose" reveals a deeply dismissive attitude towards the suffering of others. I'm guessing, because you've completely dismissed your own suffering, along with the benefits of accurate accounting. Maybe that was the only way for you to move forward. I'm capable of having awareness and accounting and still moving forward.

You seem to be so afraid of past truth you're literally exclaiming "it doesn't matter" while intensely commenting on mine and sharing your own. So clearly it does matter to some repressed part of you.

> no matter how much I felt the pain from the trauma I suffered, that trauma never went away.

Soo... stop feeling the pain and just do accurate accounting. Why are you making this so complicated?

> And finally I'm putting it behind me.

No offense, the way you talk doesn't sound like that's actually happening.

This response gives me hope - don't let the haters bring us down! Keep on keepin' on!

> It doesn't matter that your accounting of your history is accurate or not.

There's a ridiculously destructive belief if I've ever heard one. Your PHD is an accurate accounting of your research. Your bank account is an accurate accounting of your earnings. I hope your wonderful girlfriend is accurate in her accounting of your relationship, because the alternative is she's cheating on you. See where this is going?

Dismissing accurate accounting of anything, including history, is a recipe for disaster.

Accurate accounting is the #1 skill that has drastically improved my quality of life.

> But nobody is going to make you change. You will either wake up one day and be so tired of your own bullshit that you will start to change.

You seem to be under the false belief that I'm somehow stuck unable to change. Don't know where this is coming from, but it smells of projection. You're dismissing accurate counting of history so hard it's almost like you're afraid to face the truth.

I'm not afraid of an accurate accounting of the truth, on the contrary. We call that wisdom.

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