You go through pain in professional sports because your muscles must be broken down in order to build up and your brain has to master the skill and precision required to play the game. You are also typically coached or trained by someone with more experience than you until you are more experienced than them.

How does spending most of the important years of emotional development experiencing only abuse assist in making one creative? Maybe by having extra time on your hands, but other than that it doesn't seem like it would be something valuable or even connected in any way, let alone _required_.

I think it's correlation vs. causation. People who are creative are non-conformist. Non-conformists tend to get bullied in High School.

Some of the most creative and interesting people I have ever met were homeschooled. They had _some_ negative social experiences growing up, but nothing that would have amounted in their lifetimes what some kids at my school experienced in a day.