[tern]

I don't know your relationship with the former person, but as for drawing general conclusions, I—as a reader of your comment—can't assume that you have assessed accurately whether their case is better. You might not be aware of subtle abuse in the home, masked depression, overt narcissism, suicidality, etc.

Years in the trenches have taught me that many people who seem successful, put-together, and happy are deeply struggling or causing harm to the people closest to them.

[zdragnar]

You are free to be as skeptical as you like. You might even imagine I made up both of those people. For all you know, I'm actually one of your split personalities who made that comment just to troll you, and this one too.

I spoke in generalities because the specifics of their stories aren't really mine to tell.

You are right that people are more than the facade they present to the public world. Objectively, though, it's clear that they had very different reactions to traumatic experiences, and healed (or didn't) very differently.

If you can at least assume I didn't make both stories up, then we can at least agree that drawing universal generalizations about trauma, recovery, and what is "best" for people (or what they are "good at") is a fruitless endeavor.

[pixl97]

Yea, this seems to be an issue with this entire thread. Lots of people making lots of assumption about others.

As a kid into my teens I had plenty of my own trama, but was quiet and generally didn't interact with many other people my age, generally having friendships with people much older than I was. Once I got into my late twenties this turned around and I ended up being the person who many other people my age and younger would come and talk to about their lives. In general I'm just quiet and let them talk. Listening to a lot people talk about their lives has let me see one thing.

A lot of people are really screwed up from their childhood and bring it into their adulthood

The number of women that have been sexually assaulted or raped that disclose it is downright depressing, especially in their childhood. More depressing is the number of 'high status' people that cover it up.

The number of men that have some kind of depression coping mechanism such as alcoholism or hidden drug use is disturbing too. And a lot of these people are the ones you can't tell. They have successful jobs and make good money, have a wife and kids. All the checkboxes of supposed happiness. But so often these are things they had to do at some point after being driven by narcissistic parents for years. Trama driven workaholics with no at home coping mechanisms are common too.

I have no idea how much people that have had trauma can be fixed. What I'd really like to see is the signs if it taught younger so kids and learn how to avoid it and call it out.