Talk:Creddie/@comment-4542190-20140228185439/@comment-14284535-20140307053200

I have had many setbacks. It started with being the first non-white in my suburb. I was a bad cross between Freddie, Gibby, Sheldon, Leonard, Howard, and Raj. Girls called me a two-bagger because one bag over my head wasn't good enough. I had to give up my dream of being a research mathematician to keep me from self-harm. I have under-achieved my whole life. I have the tools for greatness (when Nobel Prize winners and Fields Medalists tell you that, you take them seriously), but can't make them all work for me. The first love of my life dumped me for a guy whom I hated and don't respect because OUR friends in our common social circle said to her that I was a loser who was dragging her down.

Of all those, hands down the hardest one to deal with was my first love dumping me. I went into a psychological death spiral that took me two years to dig out of. The others hurt a lot, both physically and mentally, but I could deal with them quietly and with relative equanimity. I had to take my first level PhD qualifier exam before I got out of that spiral. I still don't know how I passed it.

I discovered a hard truth then: as long as I didn't move on and try to be the best person I could be, I was always going to be held down by it. I had to find positives in my life and things I could do to move past it.

When I met my wife, it was years later. I discovered a nice truth: you don't fall in love the same way twice. You don't love less or more, just differently. I thank God every day for her being here.