Wow, surprising how many ways this has played out in such a short number of posts... BlackPup's caught my eye in particular... Being late diagnosed (Hello, sashe! And no worries, having BP you will still have good days ahead!!! ), have to say that I felt this way LONG before being dx'd. I blamed myself. Had no idea that there was anything else at play. Failure? Check. Hugely promising HS. Major depression in college round 1 and... never got footing back again. And this was still _years_ before Dx. Like sashe, (and I'm a bit older than you btw) I always wonder, "what if?" What if I'd been diagnosed when it first hit? You know, at the obvious point, at 20?
All that said, I don't mind the "famous BP" lists AT ALL. There are part of myself that are justified by such lists. While I've never achieved "success", there are those... bits of brilliance I guess you'd say, that are somehow verified by those that have been able to harness them, you know? It's good company to keep.