[samaltmanfried]

ACE 4. I generally feel like adult life is very difficult for me, but I'm a fully functional adult. I'm in my 40s, married with young children. I suffer from depression, but I've come to terms with the fact that I'll be living with it forever. I'm totally functional otherwise. I have a career in software, a mortgage and I'm in good physical shape. I've spent a bit of time lately thinking about how childhood trauma may have affected my adult life in negative ways. I get bored and disillusioned easily in jobs, and find myself changing jobs every 18 months on average out of sheer frustration with how unfulfilling they are. I find myself annoyed at bureaucracy, and get impatient with less competent people. I never express my frustrations with them, but I feel a lot of negative emotions about my coworkers. One day I'd like to make some effort to address my frame of mind.

[fy20]

I'm in basically the same situation, although not quite 40. My ACE score is 1 or 2 - I didn't have a very traumatic childhood, but I was an only child and my parents were never really mentally present for me. My parents themselves had a pretty traumatic childhood and early adult life.

I went through my 20s by keeping my self busy with work and side-projects. I guess "high functional depressive" is the term. Financially I've done pretty well - changing jobs often has some perks. Working for early stage startups you can avoid a lot of the corporate BS which has become my niche.

The hardest part of life has been since I had kids. Trying to be present for them, and not making the same mistakes as my parents.

[rvrs]

Anything you would have done differently in the past? You're describing me but two decades younger hahaha

[pistoriusp]

For me the greatest help was therapy, and if advised by a professional, medication.

[samaltmanfried]

It's really hard for me to answer this question. In hindsight, I feel like I should always have been more stubborn, more intransigent, more uncompromising. However, who knows how things would have really turned out if I'd have lived life like a wrecking ball.