The Times Magazine 43alive”, a permanent record of an identity that
others had tried to ignore or negate.
Hilary Mantel, the Booker prize-winning
novelist, decided to become a novelist in
response to a debilitating illness that started
in her teens and made her see life as “an
almighty struggle” that she had to win.
“When, at 20, I realised my health was so poor
that all I could see was doors shutting, I made
a decision to write because I wanted to assert
myself against the world,” she told us.
Sir Andrew Motion, the former poet
laureate, started writing after his mother
was left paralysed and in a coma by a riding
accident when he was 17. He is still motivated
by a sense of loss: “It is as if there is this set of
scales and in one pan were death and loss and
things going wrong, madness and cruelty, war
and barbarism, and I have to do what I can to
build something and put it in the other pan.”
For many creatives and entrepreneurs, it’s
their struggles with their neurodiversity that
sets them apart as a child, whether they are
dyslexic or have dyspraxia or autism. Cressida
Cowell, the children’s laureate, told us that
she couldn’t spell her name at seven, writing
“Crissida”, but felt liberated by a teacher, Miss
Mellows, who allowed her to write endless
dragon stories with no punctuation but lots
of illustrations, and so the bestselling How to
Train Your Dragon books and films were born.
“When I was a child I was given a special
book just to write stories in because my
handwriting and spelling were so bad,” she
said. “Suddenly I realised I wasn’t hopeless
at English. You forget children are always
comparing themselves with each other, and if
it’s always about grammar and spelling, and
if they don’t get it, their self-esteem plummets.
My terrible handwriting and sketches have
turned into a billion-and-a-half-dollar industry
with my books and films. Never underestimate
the value of allowing children to mess around.”
Nassir Ghaemi, professor of psychiatry
and pharmacology at Tufts Medical Center
in Boston, believes there can often be a
“paradoxical benefit” from severe stress.
“Some people call it post-traumatic growth,
others talk about resilience,” he told us. Of
course, not everybody receives such a boost.
Many survivors of childhood trauma are
left with a debilitating post-traumatic stress
disorder. Ghaemi thinks the long-term
effect may be as much about people’s innate
character as the context in which they find
themselves. “It has to do with the interaction
between your traumatic life experience and
your personality. There’s a parable in the Bible
where Jesus says that if you spread seed on
dry, parched earth it’ll never grow, but if you
place the same seed in fertile land, it’ll grow
beautifully. The earth is your personality, the
seeds are the adverse life events.”
Martin Lloyd-Elliott, a psychotherapist whohas worked with high achievers, says many are
driven by a “disproportionate burning desire
to compensate” for an ego that has been
“wounded” by childhood trauma. “The trauma
becomes a driver,” he explained to us. “In
the same way as our biology is brilliant at
repairing itself – if you cut yourself you’ve got
highly developed systems to stop the bleeding- if we have psychological damage, we’re
designed to try to repair that.” But he points
out that it would be wrong to romanticise
adversity. “Most people who’ve suffered severe
trauma in childhood never really recover
without significant therapy. Trauma has a
terrible legacy, either on their emotional
relationships or on their inner psychological
life. If you look at high-achieving personalities,
they often have dysfunctional personal
relationships. The trauma still manifests itself
somewhere in that person’s story.”
It is important to recognise that many
of those who suffer childhood disaster are
crushed by their misfortune. Estimates
suggest that 24,000 children and young adults
experience the death of a parent each year
in the UK. Thousands more will suffer other
“adverse childhood experiences” such as
growing up with domestic violence, poverty,
addiction, mental illness, bullying or sexual
abuse. There are many for whom the trauma
is so utterly devastating that they never
recover; often any sense of happiness remains
elusive. Research by Public Health Wales
found that those who have suffered 4 or more
adverse childhood experiences are 20 times
more likely to have been in prison, 16 times
more likely to have used crack cocaine or
heroin and 4 times more likely to have a
drink problem. Yet these children are far too
often written off, which makes it even more
important for us to learn how to help them
come to terms with their backgrounds. The
fact that some people have found a way of
dealing with adversity may provide us with the
tools to help young people who are struggling
to overcome complicated childhoods. Instead
of condemning the “Covid generation” to a
life of gloom and doom, we should celebrate
the extraordinary resilience and adaptability
of a cohort previously dismissed by some
as snowflakes.
Sir Alex Ferguson, widely regarded as the
best British football manager of all time, grew
up in a tenement block in Glasgow, one of
nine families living in a three-storey house
with a zinc bath in the kitchen. Football
became his way out of poverty. There was,
however, no self-pity as he described to us the
strong sense of community and work ethic he
learnt as a child. In fact, he seemed almost
nostalgic about the struggles he had left
behind him. “You can’t forget your upbringing
because that’s what’s made me,” he told us.
Then he paused. “I remember reading in a
newspaper article, ‘Alex Ferguson’s done well
despite coming from Govan.’ It’s because
I came from Govan that I did well.” nWhat I Wish I’d Known When I Was Young:
the Art and Science of Growing Up by Rachel
Sylvester and Alice Thomson is published by
William Collins on May 12 (£20)Damon BUFFINI
‘It made me independent
from an early age. I had
to get myself to football,
cook the meals’
ALAMY