"A Brutally Beautiful Mind", Shervin Emami.

Summary:

I was born in Iran during both a war & a revolution, to a Mum that was so heavily traumatised that she couldn’t give me the nurture & protection I needed. Soon after, I burnt nearly to death in a fire. Narrowly escaping death gifted me an incredibly deep gratitude to be alive, by age 1. Iran being a collectivist society, my extended family gave me all the love I needed. But I lost this at 4 when we moved to Australia where I lacked nurture & protection.

My life quickly became brutally tough around age 5: I realised I’m not like other kids (due to Autism and Complex PTSD), I was banned from ever speaking Persian, my best friend was taken away, my Dad left, leaving me to keep my chaotic Mum from falling apart, I stripped in a paedophile club, and I was gang raped by a group of men, all within 1 year! My Persian people were still in war & poverty, so I felt I didn’t have any right to complain, I accepted absolutely everything life threw at me. I desperately needed nurture & protection, I tried so hard to get it from classmates, yet I just felt lonely and permanentlly in danger. I couldn’t trust my parents or any adults or classmates, only my little brother & sister. So I made sure I could have full trust in myself at all times, relying on my intelligence to keep us safe, never allowing myself to relax or lose control of my mind or emotions. This became crucial when I was 7: my 45 year old babysitter kidnapped me & my little Brother. She didn’t know that by 7 I was an Autistic genius with monk-level self-control. I out-smarted her & saved us just before she smuggled us overseas! I was in an orphanage by 8, and in a gang by 11. I hated humanity, but saw enough beauty in Mother Nature and existence to keep surviving.

By 13 my emotions & loneliness reached too much to endure another year. I needed a powerful escape. As my final attempt before heroin or suicide, I tried a radically unusual addiction: focusing my mind so hard on inventing gadgets, that all darkness temporarily disappeared. I eventually gained so much happiness. Plus expert tech skills. I became a world-class Robotics Engineer, even offered to work on NASA’s 1st robot to step foot on planet Mars. Then I backpacked 35 countries with my baby, raising her to be very joyful & light-hearted, marking an end to generations of trauma!