> Laying everything on this thick just doesn't increase credibility for me. It makes me suspicious. Counterpoint: if you've gone through enough hardship, your

> Laying everything on this thick just doesn't increase credibility for me. It makes me suspicious. Counterpoint: if you've gone through enough hardship, your self-esteem can tank so much that you start thinking in black-and-white -- "I blew every single question" etc. Every once in a while someone's gonna go through something really bad: "perfect storms of woe-is-me" do come by, and our selection bias of upvoting those specifically means that we're disproportionately more likely to see really horrifying stories.