Comment by dusted

ACE 0, iq 125, never qualified as gifted beyond teachers and others saying "you're smart! you just need to apply yourself!"

Talking with wife and mother about my childhood made me understand that I've had untreated adhd (got diagnosed only recently, in my late 30s, now in the process of seeing if I'm also on the autism spectrum).

Life seen from the outside looks fairly okay, educated, employed, wife, kid, 3 homes, 2 cars, no mortgage.

From the inside: depressed and chaotic, self hatred, lethargic, I can't ever remember wanting to be here, and always finding external reasons to stay, first I didn't want my parents to get sad, now I don't want to fail my wife and kid. But so far, this life has been for others, no myself. I'm not suicidal, I just don't find it particularity thrilling to be alive, it seems like a lot of trouble for very little reward.

So in short, I'm not satisfied with my life, and it's not really depending on external factors, just the way my brain is wired.

I remember in particular an episode where I was 5 or 6 years old and I asked my dad, "why are we even alive? what's the point?" he got mad (I concluded at the time, because he didn't know either, but in retrospect, might have been because it might have sounded like a dark or provocative thing to ask for, but it was an honest question).