
Secrets of Resilience: Lessons from adults who overcame difficult childhoods - fmihaila
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-secrets-of-resilience-1510329202
======
mmsimanga
My most upvoted comment on HN was when I made reference to fact that I had
grown up in African village. I was totally unaware that this was a something
worth sharing but it seemed to pique people's interest. As I didn't know any
better at the time, I never felt that I lacked anything. I had two parents,
grand parents and many cousins around. We spent the whole time playing,
"exploring" and "hunting". Not once did it occur to me that we didn't have
running water or flushig toilets and hence I was worse off. We had chores,
looking after the livestock and helping out with the harvest. We had at most
three pairs of clothing and hardly wore shoes.

We moved to town and my siblings were born in town. To this day me and my
older brother, the village kids have always been more independent. During the
time I was in school my parents didn't glance at my homework. Later on when my
younger brother who is 11 years younger than I am was in school my mother had
"learnt" that good mothers help their kids with homework. To this day my
little brother cannot do anything on his own without help (accept poetic
license for the sake of being brief).

I read somewhere though, I think one of those decade long Harvard studies that
having chores when young was the biggest factor in how successful people
became. I presume poor kids have to play a bigger role, hence have more chores
in ensuring that household is fed and clothed.

~~~
saalweachter
I didn't really have a childhood that could be described as "difficult", but
having grown up on a farm and having ended up workin' in the big city for a
tech company, I suspect we have at least one common experience.

Do you ever sit and think sometimes how weird it is, to know all these things
and have all these skills from your earlier life that have, like, no relevance
or use in your current life?

It's weird to me how much I know about pigs, tractors and corn/soybeans/wheat
that just doesn't come up much when you're sitting at a computer typing all
day. (Hay bales should be stacked "sideways", to allow air to flow up through
them, so that they will dry safely and not spontaneously combust. With straw
it is fine to stack it any which way; some people prefer to stack it with the
wires up so that it is easier to walk on, others the same as hay for
consistency.)

~~~
mmsimanga
:-). I totally agree. I keep an eye on rainfall totals because that determines
how good the harvest with be. Nevermind the fact that I buy all my food from
the shop. I don't see cow dung or any farm animal dung as being dirty. We used
to use it as binding agent for the mud huts and spread it on the floor, to
make the floor. I often terrorise my city slicker friends with cow dung. I can
make cars out of wire. When I see wires I often find myself visualisng the
cars I could make. We used to milk cows and goats, plough with cows, pull
carts with the donkeys, fish with home made hooks and nets. None of this
useful when trying to tune my SQL queries.

~~~
zafka
I grew up rather privileged,but I share a lot of the same sentiments, having
paid a lot of attention to my father who was raised on a farm. I love knowing
about farms/nature and still hope to continue learning more.

------
buro9
A topic so close to my heart I can barely engage with it.

I credit my resilience to a sense of absolute worthlessness.

If you have seen the film Gattaca and the bit at the end how the non-modified
person can beat the modified person... it comes down to not being afraid of
the consequences, of literally being willing to die trying because what do you
have to lose? That you would accept that, to die trying, stems from the
worthlessness that one feels totally, and the worthlessness that the world and
everyone around you communicates when you are so low.

Resilience, taking risks, fighting harder than anyone else, needing to always
drive forwards or else fall backwards... for me it has an underlying secret:
the profound sense of worthlessness as a human. From never really accepting
you are valid and valuable even when you have "made it" by some definition.
This is why I've made some decisions the way I have, I have nothing at all to
lose... not even the value of life itself.

Which loops back to another recent theme on Twitter and HN and elsewhere...
those dark thoughts of suicide if once thought, they never ever really leave.

NB: I'm fine, just being honest, feeling OK, in a good place... but this is
what a hard life creates and such lives aren't lived for the purpose of being
a lesson to others, and I'm not sure anyone should learn this lesson.

~~~
phaedrus
This line from Gattaca always hits me so hard (when the genetically engineered
brother asks the protagonist how he always won when they competed to swim as
far out from shore as possible):

"I never saved anything for the swim back."

~~~
gonvaled
He only beats the improved one once, as far as I can recall - the last time,
the one that matters, when they go all out.

------
ta76567656
I too had a difficult childhood and overcame some moderate difficulties. Then
I proceeded to waste my adult youth (20s and most of my 30s) in a multi decade
pit of depression and withdrawal from the world. So let's not forget
survivorship bias.

~~~
rohitb91
I can echo that. Low middle class, alcoholic parent, failed family businesses
that I wasted teenage and early 20s in, just rebuilding now.

Tragic.

~~~
throwaway82729
Add me to that list. Became sole breadwinner at 22 for a family that had $2M
in debt due to failed business. At one point, I was held hostage at gun point
by a debt collector. Deeply scarred by debt to this day. Scared of investing
anywhere and just hoarding for a rainy day. No family to speak of except wife
and child. Very few friends. No purpose to life other than seeing my child
grow up and be successful.

~~~
toasterlovin
> No purpose to life other than seeing my child grow up and be successful.

FWIW, in my opinion (and in the opinion of evolution and biology), raising
children _is_ the purpose to life. By having children, we give another human
the ability to experience life. And, for most of us, they are the only lasting
mark we will leave on existence.

~~~
krageon
Aside from the philosophical side of your argument, there is of course the
biological argument: There are far too many people. I understand that anyone
who advocates reproductive moderation will get out-competed by everyone else,
but that doesn't mean that we have to accept mentally that this is the purpose
of life. I'd argue that seeing this as your one and only purpose makes you
akin to a cancer. Your genes exist to consume, but fulfill no real goals.

~~~
toasterlovin
> Your genes exist to consume, but fulfill no real goals.

Can you give me an example of what you would consider a “real goal”?

------
Arete31415
I've had both experiences. I had very difficult home circumstances, and I
"overcame" them at a challenging boarding school. Then I "couldn't handle"
them in a challenging Ivy League environment, where I felt isolated and
developed depression.

I have a few takeaways from these experiences:

1\. The difference for me between "succeeding in spite of" and "failing
because of" was in a few areas. One, good help being available if I sought it
out. Two, being able to find a few niches - academically or in extra-
curriculars -- where I could excel and feel mastery. And three, having
involved, concerned adults around who cared -- even if they weren't "yours"
(not _your_ family, not teachers in _your_ major -- they're still there and
they still care).

2\. Other peoples' judgments about whether you are "succeeding" or "failing"
are, in fact, part of the problem. That's why I put those terms in quotes.
Sometimes leaving a bad situation to take care of yourself is success.
Sometimes forcing yourself to look good on paper but ignoring your insides is
failure. Who knows what's really going on with other people? Not me.

3\. Good health care, especially good mental health care, _especially_ good
mental health care that looks at the whole body -- these are extremely
important.

4\. Focusing on resilience is important, but it's only half the story. The
truth is, most kids who experience hardships are affected by them, often quite
seriously. It's better that we as a society figure out how to reduce poverty
and misery to help _most_ kids, rather than figure out how to help a few more
kids be the exception to the rule.

We need to get back more to a group mentality, rather than an individualistic
rising-from-the-trash-fire mentality.

~~~
saalweachter
I think it's very easy to forget that the same thing can both create
advantages and handicaps. Take being an outsider in a field.

Being an outsider in a field can be a huge advantage sometimes. You know
things other people in the field don't, you aren't bound by the same
prejudices and preconceptions as the insiders, and you'll try things no one
else would consider because of your radically different starting point. It can
be a huge advantage, setting you apart from the crowd and letting you succeed
where others fail.

But you'll also make mistakes no one else in the field does, suffer from and
for gross misunderstandings of the simplest things everyone else takes for
granted (and never be corrected of them, because no one could even conceive
you would not know such a basic thing), and waste huge amount of times and
money and effort going down dead-end rabbit holes everyone else would discard
out of hand.

At the end of the day, most outsiders in a field will fail - hard and fast -
because of the handicaps, but every once in a while an outsider will come
along and revolutionize a field, because they are an outsider.

(Or at least, that is the cultural myth ;-)

------
afpx
For me, resilience is about having security. As someone who grew up with all
of the “poverty, abuse, absent parents, alcoholism, serious illness or some
other misfortune” traits, my ability to succeed was directly related to my
ability to find a “gang” of others of similar circumstance and trusting them
for shared security. It also helped to live in the 80s and 90s when it was
easier to “fly under the radar” from external threats like police, government,
hostile groups, etc.

The pain of early trauma never goes away. But, I would never be able to cope
with that pain if I didn’t have the ability to reach out to people I trust for
support.

------
uberduber
I’ve spent a bit of my life thinking about this as I come from a bit of an odd
circumstance as my parents purposely raised me poor (despite having wealth),
didn’t offer much support and made me struggle thinking it would make me very
resilient. They very much believe that anything that doesn’t kill you makes
you stronger.

The biggest problem with childhood adversity is that you are risking your
health. My physical health started to fail and I’ve been unable to work for
the last few years. I wasn’t born with the strongest constitution, but I do
think my upbringing is a large contributor to my health problems.

I have friends who grew up in wealthy supportive environments, they are doing
absolutely fine but the article is right in that they don’t have the drive or
sacrifice to accomplish huge things. They are also by and large, very healthy.
On the other hand, with my immigrant friends (many of whom are very
successful), even though most are healthy there is a way higher percentage of
health problems.

Another problem that I have is that I have some poor people impulses and
habits, like issues with instant gratification. I did get some benefits in
that I am amazingly resourceful and have great problem solving skills. I have
the resilience to navigate awful bureaucracies and deal with everyday problems
which has been helpful in my attempts to restore my health. I do know a lot of
normal people would’ve given up by now.

~~~
Arete31415
The ACES study really backs up what you're talking about. Adults with high ACE
scores (Adverse Childhood Experiences) have a much higher rate of multiple
diseases than adults with low scores.
[https://acestoohigh.com/](https://acestoohigh.com/)

------
sritrisna
This link works:
[http://facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.wsj.com/articles/the...](http://facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-
secrets-of-resilience-1510329202)

~~~
Raphmedia
Here is a bookmarlet[1] that will allow you to bypass paywalls. What it does
is redirect you to FB outgoing page. Since news networks allow Facebook users
to see their entire content, you get access to the article.

javascript:window.location.href=decodeURIComponent('https%3A%2F%2Fm.facebook.com%2Fl.php%3Fu%3D')+encodeURIComponent(window.location.href);

[1] [http://bookmarklets.org/what-is-a-
bookmarklet/](http://bookmarklets.org/what-is-a-bookmarklet/)

~~~
bhasi
This is very interesting and useful! Thanks.

------
neonate
[http://archive.is/wfNSb](http://archive.is/wfNSb)

------
julianss
_Grew up in rural Asia on a small farm. Every morning I have to wake up before
the sun goes up to fetch water to take care of the animals.

The animals we had to sell to get basic necessities such as salt, paper,
clothing, gas and oil for light and cooking. We ate meat for at most 10 days a
year. Always for a special occasion. The rest of the time was mainly potatoes,
cabbage, and carrots. Usually diluted into soup.

Coming to America where even poor Americans can enjoy something like a
McDonalds burger every single day was unimaginable.

Sadly there are still people right now in these rural impoverished areas
growing up like I did. You don't realize it when you are poor and haven't
experienced anything else.

One of the most amazing experiences was flying in a plane for the first time
in my life._

-From my father who managed to obtain a PHD after fighting through hell created by Communism

------
ENTP
When you have nothing to lose, you have everything to gain. Every day brings
new opportunities - take each one as they come. Believe that anything is
possible, even if improbable. Give a fuck, but not too much.

~~~
tk75x
Can I get that on a t-shirt?

------
rednerrus
Most cultures have some variant of "shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves in three
generations". People not socialized to earn it, don't.

I grew up dead broke. It's in the very core of my being that I have to
succeed. There's no home to swim to.

------
Steve44
If you let your circumstances swamp you and you end up being a victim you
don't have the fight to change it. If you have that internal spark to drive
you out of the situation then that drive always stays with you and you keep on
riding it. Many people don't and continue in the quagmire.

Drifting along as a peaceful and well brought up youth can often continue so
you don't have that drive and determination deep rooted in you.

------
tomcam
I had a somewhat difficult childhood and by about 12 was plotting a way to get
the fuck out of my neighborhood. Self taught programmer/business guy who did
well. Wife is far smarter and better educated but not interested in making
money. She came from a good family and reckons my drive came from the
background.

------
pvaldes
An more interesting thing to me is why resilience is so overlooked nowadays.
We "design" young people to shatter like a glass when bad things happen.

~~~
afpx
Do you have evidence that things have changed?

I suspect that if you took random samples of young people from several
generations and followed them throughout life, the rate of success and failure
relative to their peers would be the same across generations.

~~~
pvaldes
Most people can manage frustration correctly. But some outliers, instead...

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_th...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States)

I wonder how this would look in a chart.

[http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/charts-and-
maps](http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/charts-and-maps)

[http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/past-
tolls](http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/past-tolls)

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Relevant xkcd: [https://xkcd.com/1138/](https://xkcd.com/1138/)

Also, there's a lot of terrible ways to manage stress without going postal (or
some variant thereof) and there's plenty of things other than stress that can
lead people to going postal.

~~~
pvaldes
Xkcb is always a good distraction, but not.

What is interesting is not that there aren't mass murderings in the desert or
the sea or that more people are shooted where the bulk of the people lives.
This is obvious. The interesting part is that there are _a lot_ of mass
murderings in USA and a lot of children and young people killed also. (and
those are only the first six months of the year).

Was the same trend in 1970 or 1860 after adjusting the diference of
population? If not... well, maybe something has changed.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Are we talking about murder in general or just the tiny fraction of it made up
of people snapping and committing semi-random violence?

The things that cause of typical murders and the things that cause mass
shootings are very, very, very different as are the options for solving those
problems. Trying to consider them as related is not productive unless the goal
is to create confusion in order to push an agenda that is not supported by
facts and statistical evidence we have.

Most murder is basically a symptom of illegal drug trafficking (either
directly or indirectly) and the problem is made worse and harder to solve by a
bunch of systemic issues (racism, incompetent government, etc.).

Mass murder (the real kind where people commit senseless violence, not the
kind where it's just multiple normal murders at one time that people use to
inflate the numbers) is basically a publicity problem[0]. Once a few people
start doing it and everyone becomes aware of it the people who were on the
fence figure why not. Same goes for suicides, riots and a lot of other things.

[0] [https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/why-do-mass-
shootings-...](https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/why-do-mass-shootings-
happen-best-explanation/)

~~~
watwut
Aren't most murders familly members and friends? That is how I recall it.

------
rambossa
I credit any of my "success" to the struggles I had as a child. Our world
isn't perfect, and some of us experience different & harsher aspects of its
flaws. I think the earlier some experience these flaws, the more they learn to
adapt and realize truths of human nature. We learn that many things aren't
going to be handed to us and to get what we want we will have to work a bit
harder, or struggle a bit more (In the military we called this "Embrace the
Suck").

We learn that our families aren't the same we see on our favorite TV shows. It
hurts & its sad for young children to experience a struggle, but I think they
can ultimately strengthen them -- unless the difficulties are so severe, or
misguiding, that they lead children down the wrong path of life (i.e. severe
psychology disorders, crime).

Again though, the world/nature is a tough place, and its nice to want to
enforce being easier on and conceal realities from children, but I think there
is something of value in experiencing "realness"/struggle -- a simple & less-
harsh example is the losing team getting no trophy.

~~~
charlchi
I was deeply depressed and anxiety strikken during my entire adolescence.
After dropping out of university at 20 I got diagnosed with ADHD and Bipolar.
While sometimes I wish I'd had a normal life with parents that taught we good
life lessons, in hindsight I feel like I've learnt even more fundamental
lessons and have experienced some "truths" that I would not have experienced
otherwise.

------
internetman55
I consider most of that stuff to be trash. I think, according to common sense,
bad things happening to you is actually bad (for a variety of reasons). Many
people who make it out of difficult situations end up with minds and belief
systems so twisted that they borderline can't function in human relationships
(e.g. a relative who would borderline abuse his children by screaming at them
until they were crying and cowering over minor infractions because he believes
you choose how you react to external circumstances and his dad pulled a gun on
him so this obviously isn't even a big deal and the kid needs to stop
overreacting and just try harder)

------
zamalek
I had a pretty rough childhood. I've always been a bit different (something
that I'm now proud of). Not sure if it's spectrum or something else; it
doesn't really matter in this context.

I was bullied to the point of physiological symptoms - by everyone except my
family. This carried on well into high school (I finally broke free when we
moved to a different country). My "friends," at least the closest I had to
that idea, _all_ abandoned me in the most demeaning way possible. A teacher
picked on me, telling me that I would amount to nothing.

I decided that I would never treat any person that way. Everything changed. I
was still (and still am) meak about what is done to me - but I stood up for
outcasts. Spreading my time across cliques took effort initially, but it
became natural. People started seeing me as a leader, even the popular crowd.
The students around me became intolerant towards bullying and ostracization
(through avoidance though, not action). I work hard to make people feel
special, but it does come off way too too strong right now :).

I'm still broken in many ways, but I am aware of them and work on them. Thanks
to the abandonment I experienced, if I feel as though I am being abandoned or
betrayed I have an extended panic attack: becoming distrustful and pitiful as
it subsides. I'm told I'm attractive, but my mental image is still a 15y/o kid
being told "I don't know why anyone would kiss him" by my crush/bully
(Stockholm Syndrome much? :)).

It all came down to a choice, spread acceptance, and I've often wondered if
explaining that choice would amount to anything. That choice was made more
than half my life ago and it is so critical to my being that I couldn't be
swayed any other way. If I had chosen to isolate myself, that would have
worked perfectly for avoiding those situations - it would have become a
reliable and trustworthy solution. Even if I wanted to change that, after
being convinced to, it would be habit.

The only real advice I can offer is to teach your children acceptance. They
even have to accept the bullies. They have to understand why bullies do what
they do. They can be guided to the choice to not repeat what was done to them.
I have no idea how to approach an adult with advice: I strongly believe that
an adult needs therapy (CBT or somesuch) after a difficult childhood. You just
can't let go of nature that has worked for at least a decade based on advice.

I would err against resilience: that is inaction. Becoming the opposite of
what tortures you is action.

------
bvc35
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.

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
"successful" 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'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's just luck.

I don'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'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't get me
wrong here: I don'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'm irrationally worried that I would
abuse them and become just like my parents).

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's not a big
deal for me because I'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't keep working forever, so the time I have left is
probably significantly limited.

Do you think I'm resilient? Do you think I'm one of the winners?

~~~
found_reading
This the same thought that came to my mind as well. We can all romanticize the
tough rural life but in my experience it act as a big obstacle in advancement.
Having a supporting family who you can turn to for advice and who will
encourage you , is not a bad thing. Abuse can leave scars that almost never
leave you.

------
becga
There's a good saying:

"Time heals all things...but you might not live that long..."

------
GeorgeSarkis
Lessons from adults who overcame difficult adulthoods: the word is
"resilience".

~~~
0xcde4c3db
While the parent post isn't phrased very helpfully, it raises a valid issue:
beyond outcomes and people's retrospective explanations of those outcomes
(which are, generally speaking, notoriously unreliable bases for forming
useful theory), what are we actually talking about when we talk about
"resilience"? What occurs differently such that one person develops this
pattern and another doesn't? This essay sort of stumbles around these
question, but ultimately falls back on describing resilience in terms that are
more mythic than scientific. Admonishments like "own the fighter within" are
what I expect from oily self-help hucksters, not credentialed psychologists
writing in major publications.

------
lasekar
Why post articles from wsj, it doesn't show the full story.

~~~
dang
If there's a workaround, it's ok. Users often post workarounds in the threads,
e.g. see
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17371963](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17371963).

More here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20paywall&sort=byDate&...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20paywall&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0)

