Lifelong ADDer here. Yes, the damage of lifelong undiagnosed mental / attentional issues is absolutely a real and crippling thing.

You HAVE to break those patterns and the negative self-talk.

Cognitive behavioral therapy is helpful for this. Probably the biggest thing I've found helpful was David Goggins book "Can't hurt me: Master your mind and defy the odds". [1]:

>>"For David Goggins, childhood was a nightmare — poverty, prejudice, and physical abuse colored his days and haunted his nights. But through self-discipline, mental toughness, and hard work, Goggins transformed himself from a depressed, overweight young man with no future into a U.S. Armed Forces icon and one of the world's top endurance athletes..."

The audible version is PHENOMENAL IMO. He talks explicitly about learning disabilities and attentional issues - but be-forewarned his language is very raw, but it is 100% authentic.

1 - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41721428-can-t-hurt-me

I got my tonsils removed in high school and it was life-changing. I didn't have oversized tonsils, but I would get tonsilitis 2-3 times a year.

This is kind of dangerous. The article is basically saying you should not demand more of society. I had problems in school and everyone brushed me off -- am I not right to be angry? Am I not right to demand I get the same consideration that others got? What do I need to do to do it, get back into school, and get the same free money?

That's orthogonal to what the article is talking about, which is a lot more like not advertising yourself as a victim without even realizing it to the world, and not advertising to yourself that you are a permanent victim and you can't change anything about that, again often without really realizing how you're doing it.

If you do want to seek justice, you'll be better off doing it from a position of not mentally assuming the role of a victim; indeed, in some sense, I'm not sure how you would progress to truly seeking justice without taking that step, as otherwise, you'll likely to assume there's no hope of any justice. (True, final, or total justice may not be on the table in this world, but partial justice often is.)

Or, to put it another way, the article is about internal factors, and you're talking about external factors. The collected store of human wisdom over the millenia has a lot to say about the efficaciousness of setting your inner factors right first, and how that will almost magically lead to better external results. It isn't magic, really, if you could analyze the interactions from a dispassionate third party view and compare, the reasons why the person with correctly-set internal factors does better will be fairly obvious, but it'll feel like magic from the inside.

Well, let's put it this way. Being a Polish-Jew in a rural, and very southern high school in Florida, one where I was considered a minority because there were no other minorities, wasn't all roses. Then when it came to being a white male applying for scholarships. More than half of those scholarship books pretty much told me that I need not apply. My post high school education is quite lacking because of it.

It took me a while in my 20s to realize how much of a benefit all of that was. And to quit being angry. Compared to all my peers from high school, I have a pretty damn good amount of resiliency. There's already a few known suicides in my graduating class, post-graduating. Plenty of drug addiction. Only a few folks really escaped like I did. But even them, when I touched based with them, it's all doom and gloom. In my early 20s, I faced an eviction, plenty of debt, debt collectors and lots of other problems that, well, never crushed me. Honestly, a lot of problems I shrugged off and found solutions. I think the worst thing that's ever affected me was my cats dying a few months ago. That, honestly, was the worst thing that happened to me, even though I was homeless for a while, couldn't find work, scrapped to pay for food. I could do all that again if I have to. Losing a pet... that hurts.

But that brings me to the next, and I think biggest benefit from all those problems from school. I have a "sixth sense" on people's intentions. Just a gut reaction that's been correct every time. You have no idea how beneficial this has been since I went into business for myself.

It also means, I have zero tolerance for assholes and incompetence. The time I save from wasting time on assholes, I spend on my real friends. I value my real friends and have tight relationships with them. Something my generation really doesn't have. Now, I am abrasive to people the moment I realize someone is underhanded, a user, asshole, etc. Even if they're mostly strangers and it's only been 5 minutes since I met them. But my friends are fully aware that I'm loyal, without end, to them. And thus far, every time I ignored that gut feeling on someone being bad, it always bit me in the ass. If I listened, I would find out from someone else a few months later on what bullet I just dodged.

At the end, the world truly owes you nothing. Having a rough life is actually a blessing. It builds resilience and teaches you to greater appreciate the good and not focus on the toxic. Without experiencing hate, you can't truly love.

Plus, you can't blame the entire world population over what a group of teenagers did. The older you get, the more you realize all teens, all over the world, are an equal amount of stupid.

A lot of your early paragraphs point to an Abundance mindset, rather than one of Scarcity. It really changes your world-view (and the actions one takes) to realize there's plenty of resources, and one doesn't need to hoard and blame others for personal perceived lack.

If I don't have what I want and can't get it then how could I possibly have an abundance mindset? That abundance mindset stuff is like telling depressed people to stop being depressed.

That's ridiculous. Your life would be better without those hardships. You don't know that forgoing those hardships would leave you with other, more difficult hardships; and in any case, if you went without the hardships that limited your access to school you'd be making more money and could deal with your new problems with money.

You've been brainwashed and deluded into accepting mediocrity.

We've banned this account because, although new, it has already managed to violate the site guidelines repeatedly. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and email [email protected] with reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.

I co-own a security firm with a friend and this past year we've been getting infrastructure projects. I hire people with college degrees and most of them have crippling student debt. Debt I dont have.

You got a lot of resentment in you and you need to stop thinking there are guarantees in life for someone. There isn't. The idea that theres a path made of velvet and lined with roses that offers you everything in the world is the brainwashed concept.

A person's character is built and forged through how they approach and deal with hardships. You can define yourself by being knocked down and staying down or defined by getting back up. I say this in hopes that someone reading this who's in a shit situation, like me about a decade ago, doesn't give up hope on themselves. A silly expensive piece of paper doesn't grant access for shit anymore. Except for crippling debt. It gives you access to crippling debt.

Whether being angry is right or wrong is largely irrelevant. It's great to advocate for educational reforms, but society won't agree to your demands soon enough to make any practical difference for you personally. Focus on what you can practically achieve within the current system, while continuing to work for changes that will benefit future generations.