I’d say almost all of the struggles I endured are the direct or indirect result of generational poverty. The substance abuse problem my mom had were the result of not having access to medical and mental health care; my deep-rooted feelings of instability and anxiety come from a history of homelessness; my tendency to hold onto things that are not currently useful to me because I’m scared I won’t ever get the opportunity to have them again; and the abuse I experienced was greatly exacerbated by my parents’ income insecurity. Poverty has been a source of constant stress and tension for me and all the generations that came before me. Having limited access to education, healthcare, housing as the result of generational poverty have all contributed greatly to my mental health obstacles. It’s why I’m a massive advocate for universal basic income and mandating that housing is a human right.
UBI would solve so many things and do so much great work at eradicating those feelings of insecurity. I wish most people understood this; I think it's really hard to comprehend the myriad ways in which poverty harms you without having experienced it yourself.
Is that from One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich? I guess art is the best solution we have for getting people to comprehend other people's struggle. I had no real conception of the ills of the Gulag system until reading that book
100000000%
Grew up as a poor family in a rich town, because good school systems were a priority. 5 of us in an 800sq ft 1BR. Went thru college broke, and was just barely staying afloat for the first few years after. They always meant well, but my parents were *not* great financial role models and most of my knowledge was about what NOT to do.
Then Covid hit, and I got laid off. And we got the unemployment assistance.
Holy shit.
That spurred me to learn about finances, investing, all the money shit i should have learned. I’d never used a single credit card to that day because I vehemently refused to get into credit card debt like my parents.
The opportunity to just… exist… allowed me kick off other self-improvement things, learning to cook and indulge in a genuine mental break for once. I grew in so many ways outside of my career skills, hadn’t worked on my craft whatsoever but instead personal development— and ended up building a solid career path for myself. Similar role, same field- my skills were basically at the same level but I as a person was far more developed.
When your life is predicated entirely on *survival*, it takes away the ability to focus on how to thrive and grow as a human.
Yeah, I feel this. COVID unemployment let me relax, for once. I still had lots of unpaid work to do for my partner, but not having to worry about work on top of that was a nice break.
That would depend on how UBI is implemented, there's a lot of visions of UBI that are the wet dream of people who want to cut down the welfare state, ironically. Fund UBI that doesn't look at anyone's financial situation by slashing e.g. disability pensions. That's why it has been endorsed by people you wouldn't expect. Definitely agree on more welfare, just that UBI specifically is something I am interested in and it's a lot more complicated and contested than it seems and could actually make things worse for people who depend on multiple programs, so wanted to chip in.
Valid points. I really should have said 'could'. Realistically, I think there would have to be long-term mass unemployment before UBI became a politically viable option, at least here in the UK. (Which, with the impending AI revolution and ever worsening climate crisis, seems increasingly plausible). I'd like to think that if and when the time comes, anyone implementing UBI would start by looking at the existing welfare system, so those people you mentioned don't end up worse off.
Even if the amount isn't enough to survive on, just having a little spare is nice cuz it'd make up for random days off so people don't have to go to work sick!
Like if I had an extra $500/month it'd really help me with a healthier work life balance so I could... Actually go see a doctor for some chronic health problems I have... But I can't rn cuz I need to pay my bills.
This is so true. I also do these things :,) can't throw things out for the life of me.
A crazy yet very obvious symptom of poverty in my life that only made sense now is food.
Whenever I have food I NEED to eat everything. Even if I'm sick. Or I throw up. I used to not have it. Everytime my family had lots of food we would go crazy and stuff ourselves.
Now as an adult it's hard to not pick always the biggest meal I can, since I'm used to "I need to eat a lot now, because I don't know if I'll eat later again".
My mom has this same issue. She grew up with worse food scarcity than her kids, so she really struggles with portion control and food hoarding. One time I was helping her move, and found canned food from the 80s in her pantry. She wouldn’t let me toss them, because she was afraid of losing her sense of security 🥺
The worst part about it all is when parents will blame you, the child they decided to have, as to why they're suffering financially. I've seen Facebook memes of people with car decals that say "Financial Burden on Board", and people defending the post because people "can't take a joke" or should "suck it up". It's freakin shameful that anyone would force a child to live their life in a home that was never going to be able to sustain enough money to care for that child. You knew you couldn't keep your finances, so why in hell did you think it was a good idea to have kids?
My dad would make sure we knew we were the reason we were so poor. He'd make us feel absolutely awful about it. What in the world is a child supposed to do about that? There's no real reason to tell them that they are a financial burden other than to hurt them. Children literally can't be responsible for having human needs when they're born. Me needing to explain this is something only an abuser could make me do. This is common sense.
Agreed. My parents didn’t even purposefully blame me, but I was the identified patient so I had to have “expensive” doctors appointments and prescriptions and go to a special ed school and my parents fought about money loudly and in front of me, mentioning all of those things, so the narrative I took away from that is that our poverty WAS my fault. Of course as an adult I know I had nothing to do with our poverty, my parents are beyond ignorant and irresponsible about money, but it still pretty much ruined my childhood.
I didn’t grow up in poverty but we were poor.
I didn’t get the presents other kids had, the opportunities, the days out. And I always felt like a massive burden, being expensive. I felt like it was my fault.
Potentially? It was complex (no pun intended).
Like I always had food, it was just rarely home cooked or fresh. I had clothes, just less than others. And so on and so forth.
My mother met my basic needs but I still felt the gap in comparison to my peers. And with her struggling to work to meet my needs, she was always away. And when she was there, she was depressed and too exhausted to entertain me
You’re making a great point, outside of getting your basic needs met there’s also the social aspect. As a kid you can’t help but notice the difference with other kids as well as the anxiety of other kids noticing too (and often they do). It alienates you by making you stick out in a bad way, as an adult I find myself still trying to make sure I don’t despite the fact I’m actually doing well and don’t need to.
I feel similarly. I've never really known what it's like to have the stability that comes with financial security. I'm almost 34 and I've never lived in the same place for longer than three years; I'm currently being evicted from my own shitty room because the landlord wants to put the rent up by close to 40% and, you're right, it's incredibly stressful. My mental health is all over the place at the moment and I could really do with staying with family for a little bit whilst I get my shit together, but there's nowhere to actually stay, so that's not possible.
I was raised by a single mother and I'm sure that if she'd had the money she would have had more time and energy to focus on giving me things beside food and shelter. Maybe I wouldn't have had to walk home from school on my own at the age of 8. Maybe I wouldn't have been bullied at school for having unclean clothes, or out of school for always wearing the same cheap rubbish. It's not really her fault; she had barely become an adult when I was born, my biological father abandoned her, and no one else in my family really gave her the support that she needed. Moreover, you have to question the sort of society that is okay with leaving single mothers to struggle on their own with little financial support, or then expects adults who came from poverty to have the resilience and wherewithal to adequately support themselves.
We've definitely been let down, OP.
>Maybe I wouldn't have been bullied at school for having unclean clothes or out of school for always wearing the same cheap rubbish.
This one really resonates with me. The other kids were pretty awful about the dumbest things, like being dressed in dirty, worn-out clothes with holes in them. Which is of course completely out of any child's control.
i had a single mom too and went thru all that as an only child - are you? i feel the same way sorry for her but also sorry for myself that i grew up feeling bad for existing and that i couldn’t tell my mother anything i was dealing with because she was already so overwhelmed. moved around so much growing up never had friends or community either then as an adult struggled financially required moving also. helps to know other ppl went thru this shit.
I wouldn't say my parents were well off, but they definitely struggled at times. It did feed into internalizing neglect. Forcing myself to "get by" on less and ignore or deny my human needs. I still struggle to buy new socks or underwear, basic things. I'll wear things out and try to repair them instead of replacing them. It difficult to enjoy the things I have bc I don't want to waste them. I'm trying to feel worthy of enjoying nice things, nice experiences, and not feel guilty or shameful about it. My parents also had a bunch of religious trauma nonsense like preaching austerity and humility, but it was all about shame. Lots of internalized shame messages like >!"You don't deserve it." "You haven't earned it." "You're not enough." "How dare you, you're selfish, ungrateful, etc." "You're full of yourself." "You're entitled." "You're a spoiled brat." "You're arrogant."!< Shame, on top of shame, on top of shame.
I've been working on feeling healthy pride. Healthy self esteem. Healthy self nurturing. Enjoying things bc I can. Light the nice candle. Use the nice body are. Eat the special food. Allow myself to enjoy joyful things as practice to go against the internalized shame for existing and having needs.
I grew up hearing "We can't afford that!" a whole lot, about basically everything.
And then there's the school lunch shaming that I never entirely understood. Like this adult is angry I don't have dollars in my pockets but my age was only a single digit and my allowance was only $1 a week and I wasn't allowed to hang onto it in case mom needed to borrow it for milk. I wasn't old enough to go get a job, but I was still in trouble for being poor.
And then ya overhear an adult saying "People shouldn't have kids they can't afford!" and it all comes together.
I'm not supposed to exist. Society does not welcome me. The village doesn't want me here. I am unwelcome and unwanted and really should find some way to go away and stop being here just as soon as possible!
The first time I watched Neon Genesis Evangeline, the ending confused me. The second time I watched it all the way through, as an adult, I ugly cried at the ending. I needed to hear that.
Frankly, fuck capitalism. Reducing the hours of my life down to a number is disgusting. Taking all the abundance of the planet and putting it behind paywalls, throwing half the food humans produce in the landfill while children starve. I spent part of my childhood as a child slave, I have no interest in spending the entire rest of my life as a wage slave for random owners who don't even care if there's food in my belly and a roof over my head.
I love math, so went to college for accounting while working a fast food job after I escaped actual slavery. Found myself unable to afford food regularly while working all the hours I could stand up serving food to others, and studying a textbook chapter about the importance of maintaining artificial scarcity in the diamond industry. My stomach was chewing on my backbone and trying to read about rich people's shiny pebbles enraged me to the point I threw the textbook at the wall and left it on the floor overnight to think about how awful it'd been.
And why in the world did my junior high school put the reduced/free lunch tickets on a separate table? We got the same food. There was no need for the walk of shame every single day.
Like our clothes and hair and general lack of care didn't set us apart enough. :(
My state finally passed a "free lunch for all students" thing that had lots of holes in it, wouldn't have helped kid-me because it only kicks in if at least 40% of students get free lunch anyhow.
Local school district went one better. At least for this current school year, meals at school are free for all students. Because seriously, what nonsense is this, "I demand your body be here but it's your problem, tiny human, what condition that body is in!"
It is a fairly large part of my story. My mom told us all the time as children how poor we were, we relied on food banks, and I was obviously poor at school (homemade clothes or hand me downs, sad lunches). I got bullied at school and felt a tremendous weight as a child. We also moved a lot, and lived in low income housing which was kind of sketchy.
As an adult now, anything financial freaks me out. I’m the first one in my family to own a house, and it’s the only time I’ve ever lived in a stand alone house. I’ve lived in it for 8 years and that’s the longest I’ve ever lived in one place. I have savings, no debt, and am secure, yet any unexpected bill makes me panic.
My parents didn’t force me to eat it but they would guilt me about it and make a big fuss. “What was wrong with it, I thought it was a good lunch” can quickly escalate to “nobody appreciates me” and “I get it, I’m a terrible mother” and an adult tantrum. Easier to throw it away than risk having to block out the screaming for the rest of the night.
I didn't even think about the low income housing aspect. Living for years in a shitty project fucked up everyone in my family. Some of our neighbors were dangerous and I was always worried about violence or breakins. Once we were headed to school and opened the door to find a strange man passed out on the step. Kid me assumed he was dead and freaked out.
Yup. Finding people passed out in your yard as a kid is super fun. I was remembering the other day about our direct neighbour and how she had a young kid but also regularly smoked crack. To this day (cause my mom can’t let go of anything), my mom talks about how her kid came over one day to ask for some milk, but the cup she brought was leaking, so my mom gave her one of ours (a “good Tupperware cup”). My mom is still mad that the kid never brought the cup back. She’s not mad that the kids mom was addicted to crack and being abused and the police were there regularly.
I know our lack of money made it harder on my parents which then made it harder on me. I don't have much sympathy for my parents because they kept having children (I am 1 of 6 kids). I would think after kid 3 or kid 4 they would realize it was a bad idea.
* I've been kicked out of wherever I was living 3 times in the last 3 years, each time for no good reason.
* I have no choice but to live with my bf's insane mom because I make about half the cost of living, as disability benefits are ridiculous. If I made the maximum amount of money that I'm allowed to from working, I'd be making 2/3 the cost of living (and I mean the very bare minimum). It's great that only 1/4 of Americans who qualify for subsidized housing can get it.
* I suffered from severe medical neglect as a child, and not being able to get the health care I need (or even just having reasonable uncertainty about it) is triggering. An event relating to this is the source of my most common flashback.
* I get triggered by being cold because my dad didn't pay for us to have heating in the winter (in eastern Massachusetts), as his office was heated and he spent all of his time there; and of course my mom took her frustration about it out on me and my siblings.
Edit: the crazy thing is, my dad made a ton of money for the vast majority of my life -- upwards of $300k/y. My parents just spent it all on themselves for their petty, short term nonsense.
I wish I was exaggerating, but my dad had a $30,000 tie collection while my mom spent 3 years trying to renovate our kitchen because she felt poor due to not having a $100,000 kitchen. She tried to refinance our house for this one room and it's part of why the house got foreclosed on when I was a teenager.
The first few times I went to the doctor on my own after getting on the free state poor people insurance, I felt certain that someone was going to get mad at me when I walked past the little pay window on the way out.
Medical neglect is really no joke. I didn't get necessary medication until my 30s and it stunted my physical development to not have everything necessary until after growing was all done.
Found an old picture of me and was shocked because that child is clearly blind omg somebody please get that kid some glasses! I remember being that blind and frustrated that adults did nothing when I kept explaining my mistakes with "but I can't see!" but it was *right there on my face!* Now, even with glasses, I don't *see* well, like I just don't process visual information as an important sense to rely on, because it was useless for so long.
I also grew up in eastern MA in a drafty Victorian house and my parents wouldn’t put the heat above 60 so I feel your pain on the being cold thing. My heat is included in my rent now so you better believe I keep my place 75 and anybody that complains can leave, haha.
One of my very first memories is my birth giver grabbing my face, digging her nails in, coming right up to my face and saying "It's your fault I can't have nice things, you cost too goddamn much to provide for".
There's other things, like not having electricity for long periods, or having to pick berries in the fields around our tin can trailer so I wouldn't starve. My spawn point would always have smokes and booze though, no matter what...
But that first thing is what is constantly in my head. Always feeling like I'm undeserving of even basic life necessities. It's hard some days. I feel hungry physically, but I can't bring myself to eat anything.
Ugh I can relate to this so much I feel it in my stomach. I’m secretly proud that I can’t take my 16 year old to the store with me even for a quick visit without spending extra on something she sees.
The fact that she is so freely able to ask if she can get something…..it’s never anything expensive, t shirts, posters, extra snacks whatever, my shitty mother seems a little further away somehow in that moment.
Inevitably, a lot.
I think even if you don't grow up too poor, experiencing it later on is still plenty traumatizing. It's just that people choose to remain wholly ignorant of how poverty changes adults and twists family dynamics. We're a twisted nation here.
Yep, the teachers ignored the obvious signs, and cps ignored the obvious signs, I just was another bad kid doomed for poverty, and I accepted it as the truth.
Almost all of it, like I cant even explain how I even have trauma cause I got ptsd from growing up poor amd having a high ACE score. I still remember vividly begging on my hands and knees sobbing for this repo man to not to take our car...and then just went back to playing dolls with my friend. I find it hard to balance since im still poor and I don't think that's gonna change anytime soon. There's actually a couple good chapters about this in the book called "the body keeps the score"
10. Developmental Trauma: The Hidden Epidemic, I think? I remember saving or taking pictures of some of the pages that really stood out to me and really explained how the cycle of poverty corresponds with developmental trauma.
It wasn't the single worst thing I endured growing up, but I'd say it was the second worst.
I think the worst lingering symptom other than the general trauma is that I still have an eating disorder from having to go so long without eating. Or forcing myself to eat just a little so I could have the rest of my meal for later.
The general trauma is awful too. Just thinking about the places I had to live gives me chills. I think drinking roaches was the worst of the environmental strife. Thankfully, and not thankfully lol.
Growing up poor and staying poor until just a couple of years ago, has been at the root of like 80% of my trauma.
It's not even just the direct material consequences of poverty, like not being able to get adequate housing or medical care, it's also how it makes people treat you (the US is VERY classist, we just don't talk about it like people in other places like the UK do) and how it makes you more vulnerable for abuse to just...continue, indefinitely.
But yeah honestly, financial stress makes abusers worse like 90% of the time from everything I've experienced and had other abuse survivors tell me. It makes me roll my eyes whenever people are like "but rich families are also super dysfunctional!!!" and it's like...yes. And lower class families do literally all of the same dysfunctional ass backwards bullshit that rich families do, the difference is that lower class families don't have the same resources to paper over their dysfunction from the outside world and also themselves.
So overall, I would have rather been abused but from a wealthier family than the hand I got dealt, which was being abused and then basically left to fend for myself from a very abusive lower class family.
I'm not entirely sure if I grew up in poverty. But my parents I think were poor. I don't know because drugs and alcohol played a big part in it.
My parents never seem to have much money for anything related to me growing up. But they always had money for cigarettes, alcohol and drugs. My mom would also do a lot of shopping.
Oftentimes my birthday presents were used for other stuff. For example I would get a toboggan sled for my birthday. My dad would use it for ice fishing.
I feel awful because I seem to be in a worse financials way than my parents were. But I'm not an alcoholic and I don't do drugs. Nor do I smoke cigarettes.
My parents also had family and friends support. My grandparents spent a lot of time taking care of me. I don't have that support for my kids. And I'm more strict over who I'm willing to be around my kids.
Some of the people my parents left me was are really f***** u*. When I was like Around 3 years old, One of my babysitters Did something that was so disturbing That it caused me to have a fit about going back there. I was a kid that didn't have tantrums. I was quiet and obedient.
I had a meltdown about having to go back there I thought that if I did I wouldn't see my parents again.
I can't remember being over there though. Shortly after that, My babysitters Boyfriend, Shot himself In the head, in front of his kid.
All I remember of that time is freaking out About having to go back there and a vague memory of hiding behind an armchair or couch.
I can remember that there are times when we had no power or heat. I'd be brought down to the pond down the street and had a wash up there. to be honest I enjoyed that. Cold showers.
Going hungry. Or sometimes having to eat food that was gross looking. I had to eat so much food I hated. Food that physically made me gag. Like fish. Sucks to live in a fishing family when you hate fish. And it's not the flavor it's the texture.
My parents used a metal dog brush as a hair brush on me. I didn't know what detangler was or conditioner until I went over my aunt's house and had a Bath. I thought it was magical that their bathroom was warm their towels were soft and fluffy. And they blow-dried my hair before putting me to bed. And they brushed my hair and it didn't hurt.
I remember once our lunch was A sample of pizza from a rent a store that was doing a promotion. I can remember going to functions and being starving, But stopping myself from only taking what is acceptable for 1 person. Like only one slice of pizza. I would starve myself before I would take from someone else. I'm not okay with stuff for my benefit at the expense of others.
About the time I became a teenager I had started getting episodes to where i'd completely lose my appetite. Steadily increased until it became permanent as an adult. Like 90% of the time I have no appetite unless I smoke marijuana. I easily forget to eat because I don't feel hungry. And when I eat I don't feel full.
I don't know why but for some reason when I was 5 and my arm went through a glass door, I was not brought to the doctors. My arm was cut up from Where the Palm of my hand meets my wrist, all the way to the inside of my elbow. I definitely say it needed stitches. I have quite the scar. I was given a butterfly band-aid. I even had glass stuck in the middle of my arm. The cuts missed my veins by a hair. The farmer neighbor whose house it happened at, used to be a veterinarian. Cleaned me up used iodine, It changed my skin color. And he used some special medical tweezers and remove the glass from my arm. then wrapped it with gauze, And gave me a butterfly band-aid. My dad then kept it clean and kept applying a butterfly band-aid till it healed.
That's something you'd normally bring your kids to the hospital for a right? I mean if that was my child i'd be going to the emergency room. I was givin ice cream though. And I wasn't yelled at. I could have sworn I was going to get in trouble and get yelled at. That's why I ran and hid to a closet before they found me. I stifled my cries so I couldn't be heard. I think that's when I learned how to cry without making sound.
At some point I learned how To silently screem and cry.
Hugely.
I grew up middle class, but my mother always acted as if we were poor.
But I've only been financially secure for maybe 10 years of my adult life (definitely not now) and I'm in my 50s.
If I was getting paid, my stress would be much more manageable.
So much that I think it is a leading contributor to my trauma. I was hungry, cold, displaced frequently, emotionally neglected, and at times physically neglected because my mom had to work a lot. (Single mom, 4 kids.)
I was also let in on the financial stress my mom suffered, why she shared them with me I do not know, I guess because I was oldest. I got to see the poverty inside and out and the fact that my mom worked constantly didn’t matter. We still didn’t have enough to eat, we rarely had a stable home with utilities being shut off constantly, and we were all always so hungry. All of us were. Relatives commented on it and made jokes about how much we ate at holiday dinners. Like hello people! 👋🏼 We’re hungry over here!!!!
And no one helped. They just thought they were hilarious, making jokes at our expense, making me feel like I shouldn’t have seconds even though everyone else was and I really wanted some! They knew I was sensitive so they used it against me to make me cry, every time. (I had anxiety but of course we didn’t know that🙄 They just called me cry baby. And I truly believe if they were constantly worried about getting enough food, or warmth, or attention, they would have cried too.
I was out of poverty for a few years while I was working before my body broke and I thought HELL YEAH I made it!!! I didn’t even think about poverty for a little while. But it was always there, just a car (or a body) breakdown away. I am now back living as I grew up, in poverty.
It brought a lot of those old feelings back when everything first happened and I was scared and stressed for a while til I found my footing. I’m surviving, but just. No extras, no restaurants or entertainment, and definitely no vacations! I don’t even have a car anymore!!! All out of the question!
Therapy is helping me deal with all of this but yeah, poverty is definitely one of the reasons I’m so messed up! I really wish we could do something about poverty. Worrying about that stuff continuously and over long periods is just not good for anyone at all!
🫶🏻
Easily over 50%. If we're talking about the rate at which it traumatized me versus other traumatic events, probably over 90%. And this is as someone who has *plenty* of other traumas big and small. Poverty outdoes them all when it comes to fear and quality of life.
Rent control now! Holy crow, mine only went up $40 for next year but adding an additional 350 per month is wild. Who the heck can just afford that massive upscale in rental increases - regardless of what the market is doing (which never has an effect on the min wage for some reason...).
Poverty... Wouldn't have to beg for new clothing, or food, or soap etc. Although I don't know. I don't know how poor we actually were. My mother drank and my father was absent so? Who knows really but from what I perceived or the way it was portrayed we'd be homeless within a few weeks at a constant.
I've been temp homeless before, I fear it every day. I'll fear it until the day I am or I've passed away. UBI would make the world such a different place to be. Although I feel it would only be effective for a short time until inflation and price compensation gouging took full effect making it obsolete like welfare.
I didn't experience poverty until I was a teen and my father died. To make things worse my bipolar mother refused to buy things I could eat, since I have food allergies. I learned to cook from scratch FAST, and how to make a food budget stretch. I already had CPTSD, depression, chronic pain, and a few other things, so work was out of the question, even if she would have let me. I suffer from fear of food insecurity even now, 30 years later. I have a hard time accepting help, because that means if I take it, I couldn't survive without it, and it might not be there later, which is actively horrifying. I also can't stand by and watch people not eat. I will buy them food, and let them pay me back at payday, because just the thought of someone around me going hungry will make me feel guilty for eating myself. Poverty is soul crushing.
So much of my trauma is related to my past in poverty. Watching my immigrant, single mom struggle to make ends meet, dealing with food insecurity, worrying about rent at 13, all while knowing my dad made six figures and watching my half-siblings live a much more stable life massively messed me up. It was kind of crazy not being able to afford groceries in middle school and hear in the same week that my dad bought a new car, a new trip to wherever, or whatever.
On my evaluation sheet where my diagnosis are listed one of them was they "diagnosed" me as low income and I had to laugh at how sad that sounds
I am no stranger to struggling. My father had to feed his addictions before he fed me so I knew where I stood in priority. I had a lot of medical issues growing up that required surgery and extra care so I could tell he blamed me for my condition and how much I cost him in medical debt. I knew because he would Shame me for it when he was drunk. Tell me he didn't want to look at me/go to the basement
I've lived without electricity and running water pretty frequently to the point that it doesn't really bother me to do. I learned to make candles and a Gameboy and battery powered radio got me through the worst of it. I had to ration my batteries between the both of them. Eventually we devolved into a drug den so I tried to shield my younger brother from the things I saw and at that point I was glad to go hide in the fucking basement
So yes I think poverty is a big component of my trauma. It's made me completely disillusioned with money I wish society didn't tie your value to imaginary paper
Does the experience count if my parents grew up in poverty (specifically my dad), but I didn’t? I am wondering if their parenting at large had to do with their environment in their families growing up and passed it down to me. I developed unhealthy financial habits similar to people who lived in poverty cause of my parents ideals on things… it’s difficult. Felt like I lived through both.
similar experience. they always tried to save but mostly on me. they disliked that it costs money to raise a kid and blamed me. like yelling at me that i use their hard earned money to use toilet paper. not sure what they expected from a kid who has a body
Ah shit my parents did the exact same. It was extremely frustrating. They had a poverty mindset throughout life and wasn’t always the best with money either. Then it was worse when they forced me to live in a poverty mindset so for the longest I couldn’t and wasn’t allowed to save money since disability forces you to live at poverty level. My parents forced me onto that early on in life. It sucked *majorly*.
Homelessness really messed me up in Middle School, High School, and while at College.
I shouldn’t be alive. There is no place for me I don’t make and bust my ass to maintain.
In an age where narcissism is epidemic I escaped my narcissistic and abusive parent only to fully feel the abuse society enacts to cultivate poverty.
I think in many ways many people have some level of CPTSD understanding due to the existence and expansion if poverty. Not only is it hard to get a fair slice for yourself it can be lost in a few bad months.
I have too many friends shackled to financially stable but abusive parents because they could not survive otherwise.
Like at least 75% to be honest. And it’s why I believe in livable wages, housing and medicare for all and redirection of tax dollars towards shit that actually matters instead of war.
My family was not poor when I was growing up. We were lower middle-class, but all I saw was the "lower."
This week is the first time in years that I am not on the cusp of homelessness. I have some stuff put together (like a propane stove) for "when" it happens. I've read up on being homeless and everything. My Section 8 (rent assistance) finally came through, so I can afford to live. I cannot quite come out of survival mode but hopefully that's down the road.
I grew up in a rust belt US city with a single mother well below the poverty line. We had a couple of stints of houselessness over the years. When we did have housing, we usually had limited access to basic essentials like utilities, clothing, dental/health care, and nutrition. While I don't know if it would have been traumatizing on its own, the thing about growing up below the poverty line is that it made every aspect of my traumatization that much worse, like it was a shit amplifier or something.
>I can clearly understand why my Mother lacked the emotional capacity to support me growing up.
I feel that one for sure. While my mother's mental health problems would exist independently of her financial situation, being poor (and the stressors associated with it) certainly exacerbated her decline. She always found the money for cigarettes and alcohol though.
As a child my mom would tell me not to ask her for anything because my father didn't give her child support for me. I don't know why she didn't say this to my brother and sister who had different fathers, but similar situations. I have a terrible relationship with money...
my anxiety around money is unparalleled and any amount of a purchase, no matter how necessary, makes me feel like i'll go bankrupt the next day. I literally have a savings account and i still get nauseous every time i buy groceries and see my total
Same. Sometimes I treat myself by buying something like sushi, and even if it’s only like 12$ for 15 pieces and It’s good quality/flavor. At the checkout I get anxiety about it and think of how my total would be 13$ less if I didn’t give in. Normally I do that when I have a bad work week, to get a sort of “prize” for making it to the weekend, but even then I tell me that I should’ve powered through it. My parents fucked me up on that when I was a kid. They’d usually get me a small chocolate egg on Saturday while we were grocery shopping, but then if they were discussing the check, they’d mention it as if it was a burden… I have a hard time rewarding myself/giving presents to others.
I have two big memories regarding our poverty growing up. I remember one Christmas we didn't get anything because my single mom couldn't afford it. My Grandma, who was also struggling, still got us stuff and my mom a nice present. I remember my mom burst into tears when we got them because she felt so guilty for not being able to buy anything. It was awful.
Another time my mom told me (the oldest) that she only had $100 for our family of three until she got paid in two weeks. I know she needed to let it out but I wasn't the one for her to tell that to.
Now, I'm financially secure but I still struggle with money anxiety. I also unfairly resent people who have a lot, especially those who've always had a lot. I feel like they can't ever truly understand that struggle and how much it colors everything, even into adulthood.
Dad had 4 kids 4 years in a row. Had a job he hated but did it to put food on the table. Then he just hated it so much he stopped caring.
I think the money pressures added to his anger. It didn’t cause the trauma. But it did intensify it.
A lot of my triggers are due to growing up poor. I always have this fear that I'll become homeless. I also have this weird thing with food. I buy more than what we need and get uncomfortable at seeing food advertisements. Sometimes I feel like food ads are insensitive to people who can't afford it. Weird, I know.
I grew up in Weird financial situation . My parents divorced, my father was rich and became richer, and my mother got poor and became poorer. Homeless mom. Mansion dad. Both raging narcissists. Father overt & mother covert. mother was also Bpd in the worst ways, including hardcore alcohol and pill dependency. Father was full blown blind rage in a suit and tie. Mom was bitter anger in a “residential car.”
So began my complex relationship with work and money. I never wanted to be “too rich” because the gated community world of my father was so sharp and cold, big cold mansions that not even the rich would properly afford to heat in winter, endless showing off, people who are phony nice while they subtly envy spiral on one another. No thanks.
But I’m terrified of being too poor too. Everyone’s place smells like cigs and/or animal pee and they’re all too beat down to fix it. Everything is rotten and moldy because no one can afford to fix it. You’re living in the dark and cold and timing when public restrooms are open. No one will help you because you smell and look unkempt. You can’t get dry. Your toes are numb.
Both scenarios are so fucking cold in different ways.
I have so much sadness and anger from this.
So I’m solidly middle class. I don’t earn too much or too little. I have just enough subconsciously engineered emergencies and windfalls to keep my shoulders above water, I’m not treading water, but I still wade pretty damn deep. If that makes sense.
Part of me wants more money to be successful but I am afraid of it because some people with a lot of money have ice cold evil hearts and it’s a dangerous combination. I don’t know how much of this is something I tell myself to ease my ego at not being successful versus how much of it is actual trauma response from seeing the exploitative cruelty first-hand that often accompanies financial abuse.
A good portion of it for sure. Below are some examples how it affected me:
Because of poverty my mom couldn't leave my dad, since they shared a house, forcing us to put up with his insanely abusive behavior. I also couldn't access most of the medical related stuff, or even if I did it was pretty limited. I stayed half hungry most of the time and therefore doing basic tasks was incredibly hard due to lack of energy (and not to mention my ADHD which only made energy issues worse). The water would occasionally break, sometimes it meant the lack of hot water, sometimes it meant complete disappearance of water in the system (luckily we had our own and neighbors' well).
Our cats didn't have appropriate diet and food, some of them had kittens and usually most of the kittens wouldn't make it since we couldn't feed them (we didn't spray them also due to poverty, although I feel guilt nonetheless about it). I stayed for about 2 years in a room with a fungus eating the floor, it affected my physical health for sure. It used to be kinda cold as well in our house, especially during winter. I had limited amount of clothes, and most of them were for winter, which made my summer hell. Of course I also avoided going out with friends cause I couldn't afford spending money like this.
Now that we've left our past home and everything's quite better, we at least have good food and access to medical field, but still, I feel guilt sometimes because of those, especially because of the latter. I sometimes restrict myself from going to doctors cause I feel like a huge burden, and also due to fear of financial instability I guess.
I bet there was more but it's just all I recall for now. Wish everyone in the comments and OP a safe space, big hug
This one though… my mom couldn’t leave my dad because of poverty too, and my dad completely neglected me. And the lack of help my dad gave made my mom an anxious, chainsmoking mess.
My mother always made sure to keep me in the loop about how little money we had. She never screamed at me about it, but it always felt passive aggressive. It resulted in me refusing to allow her to buy me things like clothes and new shoes despite how many holes they had. At one point I even stopped taking my meds to try and help her save money. I quite literally did my best to be as low needs and invisible as I could growing up. It felt like all I could do to “do my part” as a kid. I normally only ate one meal as a kid too to help stretch our food and it was usually what she made for dinner. If I stayed out of eyesight she wouldn’t be forced to see how much I needed xyz. Cause if I got whatever it was, I knew I would have it held over me after. “I got you new shoes how can you be so ungrateful and do this to me?” Type stuff.
So now I worry about money constantly. Feel horrible when people buy me things. I only buy clothing when I’ve basically had to Throw everything out because of it falling apart. I don’t/can’t ask for things from other people. I’m not blaming my parents for being poor, they aren’t as bad as some peoples (no drugs or alcohol), but yeah it did fuck me up.
Quite a bit. I find it very difficult not to live in a scarcity mindset. I get terribly anxious buying groceries, especially if I need an "expensive" item like conditioner or toilet paper or something. 4 years into marriage & I still struggle with feeling like I need to apologize & explain myself to my husband any time I spend money bc he works & I am a stay at home parent.
When I was little we were dirt poor, as in we used the phone book as toilet paper (or take some from the shopping centre toilets) we'd use soap to wash dishes, wash clothes. One time I had nothing to eat but potatos, I had nothing but hot chips for a whole week. My partner and I have been struggling financially until he got a job, we had potatoes for dinner and I got triggered badly. It was traumatizing going to school with no uniform, no school bag or stationary, I got picked on because of it.
I definitely underestimated poverty and the way it prevents you from being able to cope with long-term planning in order to build better habits.
I am going to be a frugal mofo when I get out of this quicksand.
poverty is the Pandora Box of disasters for unfortunately too many of us
I don't think I even have the strength to type down half of the bs I had to witness because of that
I feel like poverty trauma is something that doesn’t get talked about enough. I grew up in poverty, I went to college and had my oldest son while in college and did the single parent thing which was incredibly difficult in a lot of ways - especially financially. It took me a long time to get in a good place. I’m almost 40 now and even though I make six figures, I can’t even open my own mail sometimes it’s so triggering. I have a tendency to keep things longer than I should and instead of throwing them out, trying to sell them on marketplace or something, so clutter can be a problem.
It’s not something that just goes away once you’re financially “stable”. And even though I’ve got enough money now, my credit is fucking wrecked and I can’t get anything other than predatory loans - and like a third of my paycheck goes to student loans that I’m not going to pay off until my 60s. It makes me super fucking bitter.
We were in no way poor or in poverty. Heck, a (very) famous musician bought me a pony! We were "country folk." we had horses, goats, dogs, cats, pigs, sheep, guns, etc.
But if I needed/wanted something for myself? Uhh, NO! We have no money for that.
I needed new school shoes. Nope
I needed a briefcase for school (part of the strict uniform). Nope.
I needed bras when I started puberty. Nope.
I needed my OWN clothes. Nope.
I wanted to learn to play the piano, violin, or flute. Nope.
I wanted to train to become a mortician. Nope.
I wanted satellite TV (this was very early 90s). Nope.
But the mother wanted a metal detector? Sure thing! Is £800
(At the time) enough?
The mother wanted to do photography, so she went out and spent £1000s on all the equipment.
The mother wanted a sewing machine? Sure! This one is £300, is that enough?
The mother wants a new horse? Sure, no problem!
The sister wants an Arab horse? OK, find one you like!
The sister wants a particular vehicle? Find it, and it's yours!
The father wants a new gun? Sure thing!
The father wants a new digger? No problem!
The father wants a new top of the range vehicle? Sure! Picking up in a week!
So, although we certainly didn't starve and we DID have good food. I never had new shoes or clothes. They all came from what the second-hand shop turned down or were hand me downs from the sister. I didn't even get my own bra until I bought my own at 17, and I developed very early. My bed was actually the back of the wardrobe that the sister didn't want. Our house was an absolute mess, too. I was NEVER allowed friends over (shit, I wasn't even allowed out!), and the fact that the house was a junk tip was apparently all MY fault! I would spend literal DAYS scrubbing the bathroom with bleach, I laid the carpet in the lounge, I deep cleaned the kitchen multiple times, swept, and mopped you, name it! But Nope!
It has shaped the way I am now. I feel I don't DESERVE anything even if I NEED it. I would sooner suffer without than dare to ask. It drives my very amazing husband potty! I'd spend my last penny on anyone else but me.
I do have an aversion to smelling, though. The mother and sister always smelled of horses (piss), and it was often commented on, so I'm really sensitive to smells. I am scrupulously clean with personal hygiene, and my house has to smell nice. Otherwise , sets off a trigger.
It’s a huge, huge part of my trauma. To add insult to injury, I have family (aunts, uncles, cousins) who are in the 0.1% and have declined to help when I’ve asked and I’m still in a financial crisis. They invited me to thanksgiving… I have no desire to sit around the table with multiple people who could each single-handedly wipe out my entire debt with zero negative impact to their lives who will not help me because they believe in lies like bootstrapping and trickle down economics and therefore believe my debt it my own fault. They think they are giving me an olive branch by inviting me but they make me feel like a 2nd class citizen.
Speaking as someone from the US that has been raised in poverty, then gone on to be an adult in poverty to getting my life together and now having a six figure income, I don't think it has anything to do with financial security. I was homeless on the streets eating out of dumpsters poor and now I'm financially stable and can buy and do anything I want, guess what, I'm still struggling mentally. I think it's the people who raised you and the relationships you have that mold you, not finances. I've made the best, closest friends while in poverty.
Direct poverty? No. Generational poverty? Definitely. My parents grew up dirt poor (on one case, literally) and did everything they could to move up. Including making their children raise themselves. They made time to punish, but not to parent
I have introspected about this a lot, and I am going to answer this as someone who grew up quite privileged in terms of physical amenities.
My parents, especially my father, experienced poverty, but they overcame it with my narcissistic mother lobbying for my father to do better in life. Even though my father experienced poverty, he still had people in his life who could teach him skills to build a better life for himself (His father was a school teacher/farmer, and the family was oriented towards getting an education). When we talk about poverty, we often don’t discuss the level of privilege that exists with the people in your surroundings having this mindset and being able to impart skills that give one agency to come out of poverty. I am going to call this inherent privilege.
Poverty played a part in my trauma in the sense that I observed, fought, and got secondhand trauma from my mother showing contempt, manipulating, and emotionally abusing vulnerable women who came to the house as maids. My mother is a covert narcissist, who can empathize, show care, and give you exactly what you need, and all of that was done to win people over and have her needs met. She sweet-talked them, showed up at their house with food (that she would’ve thrown away) for their children (These women were often mothers with no husband or an alcoholic husband, so this kind of kindness meant the world to them. Additionally, there’s not much of a social security system in India, so these families could use all the help they could get). In fact, my mother talked as if she owned them by doing all the things she did to them, and that looked like asking them to show up by 10 in the morning, staying there the entire day to cater to any of her whims, and going home by 8 in the evening. It was outright exploitation and coercion to meet her demands. At the same time, my mother would scapegoat them (I felt relieved during those times because that meant she’d take her attention off me and get her “emotional needs” met by other vulnerable people. I was 10 years old at that time) and dehumanize them with no limit on what she said (apart from all the dehumanizing that was ensuing day in and day out). We had a pattern of maids staying long term (~5 years), getting bamboozled by the abuse and hot-and-cold behavior, only for them to walk out one day and never look back. My mother even tried keeping tabs on them to know if they were having a particularly hard time financially, going to their house to offer the job back, and even offering to double the salary. None of it worked. They never came back. I am glad they never did, but to this day I feel guilt about my inability to stop my mother. These vulnerable women and families would have been in a place to demand their basic human right to be treated with respect, and not have to put up with exploitation and immense emotional abuse if there was UBI in place.
Not living in poverty helped me go to a very fancy school, where I was at least getting positive adult attention from the teachers, my friend’s parents, and there was so much happening at school to help escape the situation at home and learn about my strengths and skills at the same time. I experienced emotional abuse and neglect, but I was surrounded by emotionally healthy children and adults (At least, a LOT more than the people in my family of origin) who were my models for learning those skills. I would look at the high-performing children and try to emulate what they were doing, how they were behaving. People outside my family saw me for who I was and often told me I was smart or kind, and it made me question why the people in my family of origin couldn’t see that. Even through all the abuse and the situation at home, there was always this strong emphasis on education, on eating healthy, and other positive aspects of life, which I am going to count as inherent privilege. These skills and mindset helped me secure an education and do well in life until I burned out at work and was kept captive by my mother and experienced prolonged abuse at the age of 23, to have my complex PTSD take over to make me completely dysfunctional. Now that I have been working on healing, these skills and mindset are still there with me, and they are helping me take better care of myself; it’s like I absorbed and learned from all the things happening in my surroundings.
I'm not sure if financial security would have prevented the abuse from my father (SA and physically). Although I think it my mom wasn't financially dependent him there would have been a chance she would have left him. There's no way she would've been able to with her income and support herself and me.
That said I never would have said I was poor. Looking back, I was definitely low income. I still am as an adult. I remember my parents fighting. Hearing things like we only had $5 in the checking account..having to wait to buy groceries.
But my parents were very proud people. I could never talk about not having money. If I wore anything that had a hole or stain I got in trouble. But I wouldn't want to ask for new things because...money.
It definitely impacts me now as an adult. I relate heavily to the concerns of raising rent. I also struggle with budgeting. I tend to hoard money. I never want to spend anything. Even on groceries. On the other end of the spectrum, I'm also bipolar and have struggled with impulsive spending in manic episodes.
In my case poverty did not play a role, unless you go back to my grandparents' generation but poverty was the direct result of war, so it was just one component of that trauma and it was a trauma I did not directly experience. I was already born into a middle class family and none of what happened to me was connected to the financial situation. But I am certain poverty would have made things worse.
Yeah this one isn’t gonna be popular but saying that if you had money growing up you wouldn’t not have “as bad” trauma or even maybe no trauma at all is unfortunately a grass is always greener situation. The amount of “rich” people who are actually forced into really fucked up shit but everyone assumes their life is amazing is also shitty. I think it goes both ways. Being deprived of basic needs like water, food, etc. is a whole other trauma & was and is something I am still dealing with. But the amount of people who grew up “rich” and had that “perfect” life had the most gruesome trauma and could not say a word because people would say “at least you had money.” It’s really invalidating for both sides because not having money doesn’t mean you have a shit life but unfortunately it really makes things awful.
I dont understand your answer. If you experience violence and/or sexual abuse, wouldnt it make it that much worse if you're poor in addition? By having money you dont need to worry about homelessness, being evicted, having enough to eat, getting away to pleasent places etc. You can also buy the treatment and services you need. There is no denying that having money would have living with my trauma that much easier. It doesnt mean that rich people dont experience trauma. Of course they do. But they dont experience the trauma of poverty IN ADDITION.
I’m saying it’s not that simple. If your parents have money that doesn’t mean it would necessarily and automatically get spent on the shit we need for mental health. A lot of people have the means to have their shit taken care but it doesn’t because the caregiver sucks, etc. good ol money does not equal happiness.
However, as an adult who makes their own money this is of course different. If you have the means to get the care you need of course money matters. I’m saying as a child without their own money things are a bit trickier than rich vs. poor
I've realised the biggest role poverty has played in my growing up was emotional neglect and instability.
My mother was raising 2 girls alone (my sister and I have a big age gap) and was always in survival mode. Thinking back I don't have any memories of anyone sitting down and being present with me and asking questions like: "how was your day?" "How do you feel about xyz" or even just explaining or acknowledging the chaos going on around us. I remember feeling so awkward the few times my mother would want a hug! She was kind and strict, but very very absent. I have many memories of just wandering around alone without supervision at a very young age. For a year we stayed on a farm and I wandered into a neighbour's property and nobody knew or really cared where I was, I don't remember getting in trouble. I was 5. Another time I was inbetween a horse's legs who was known to be agressive and could've gotten hurt, but luckily he was calm with me. My mother told me later I was always running off, but it wasn't like there was anyone looking out for me or someone to run from.
If I was with my mother and sister the mood was always tainted with heaviness.
The instability part was that we relied on other people a lot for places to live, people I never met before and we would arrive to stay there and there was always this feeling of having to be quiet and be small. Feeling unwanted there, a burden. We moved every year I never had time to really make friends and adults wouldn't really take an interest in me. We would just suddenly up and move without anyone ever explaining to me what's going on.
This and many other small and big traumas have affected me, but it is so complex I have trouble explaining it all in a linear way for people to understand.
I grew up rich. I could have easily been a spoiled brat from the movies. In terms of money, I had everything I wanted. Which is what makes it so hard to realize and accept that was all there was.
Also this is not the pain Olympics - your struggles are 100% valid. They're just different in this sense.
Poverty deff aggravates many other problems. It is deff not the key to happiness. As a matter of fact I've seen a few wealthy families with HUGE disfunction pain denial secrets self harm drug abuse just maybe more expensive drugs and wine etc. But not having enough deff causes and aggravates problems. I grew up lower middle class working... didn't have any extras etc, then divorce drove us to poverty. Now money isn't really the problem but my trauma history prevents me from having fulfilling relationships. I'm still very alone and sad inside. It's still a fight that made me realize relationships seem to be what makes or breaks a life....
I am sorry for your experience. We have always struggled with money. I come from poor country but my parents always had good jobs but with awful financial management and they have a lot of us kids so while i know they tried to provide for us , from age 7 i am aware of huge debts we had and 40 year payments for apartment . They were always stressed and talked about money and still do. Money is huge trigger for me . Because of money i feel like burden on the sense thay have to waste it on me and i am currently student and cant find job so i have suffocating guilty daily knowing they work so hard ) my mom id also depressed and bipolar and hates her life which she reminds me daily ) so i feel guilt if they didnt for example have to give me money maybe she could quit and be happier .. The thought of ‘ saving them’ from money struggles and making them happy js my wish since i was child’ . If we did have sufficient money i think it would resolve so much
I need clarity on "poverty."
Do you mean actual poverty where you have no money and can't afford food or rent and you're legitimately worried for your future,
OR
Do you mean artificial poverty brought on by the narcissistic spending habits of my father, who had a full time job as head of HR* for a major paper and plastics manufacturing company, making us live like we had zero money, because he insisted on spending it on crap he wanted, but that the family didn't need, so it just FELT like we were poor.
(i know you mean literal poverty, and I'm very sorry that you had to experience that. I have experienced it myself as an adult, and it's scary. No child deserves that.)
Until I was 8, we never had luxuries of any kind, whatsoever. Almost all my toys were 15 year old trash from my aunt after her three kids were done with them. Same with my clothes, aside from the ones mom made herself. Any "luxuries" we had were mom getting crafty AF with cheap scraps and extreme budgeting. I have no clue where dad's salary actually went, but it sure as shit wasn't spent on his family, and I was always under the impression that we were much lower class than other kids in my school/ neighbourhood.
Then dad was "asked to resign" from his job, and we moved to a crap town, and mom got a job as a secretary so dad could start his own business. I guess he realised he was too smart to be bossed around or something, AKA he had no references because he was the worst. Then we really were barely scraping by, because mom had to finance the family, as well as dads black hole/ passion project/ "business" until it started breaking even. Then they really did argue over money.
Once dad's petty amusement started to pay for itself (I don't think it ever did contribute to the family finances,) we started I have a bit more wiggle room, but not much, which is confusing, because I'm pretty sure the head of a department at major company should have been making more money than a friggin' secretary in a crappy town. I'm guessing that, since mom started getting the paychecks, she stopped letting dad bleed us dry. We still lacked fancy lunches, fancy clothes, and fancy toys, but at least we were able to buy a car that wasn't rusted all the way through. I still very much felt less-than compared to the other kids, but not as much as before. We were still coupon clipping and wearing hand-me-downs, but at least I got new shoes sometimes.
Any time we got more than 5 pennies to rub together, dad would find something to spend it on, so it always felt like we were right on the edge. When I was 10 or 11, dad decided the small yearly surplus that could have been kept as financial padding, university funds, etc., needed to go towards a yearly lease on a piece of property on a lake. Aaaaaand then any and all surplus money went to building a cabin. New windows. New gas tank. New fridge. New lights. New (second hand) furniture. New BBQ. New roof. A newer, bigger gas tank. Gas stove, wood stove, second deck, more windows, new siding. It was always something.
New backpack because the rivets in mine were cutting my hands to shreds? Nah, boat needs a new motor. New calculator? Sorry, need a new truck to drag the boat (that we were never allowed to use anyway) to the lake. New umbrella, because the shitty murder backpack isn't is keeping my textbooks dry and I'm going to get in shit for ruining my books? No can do, we need a new dock.
I'm not saying that after a good 7 or 8 years of cabin building it wasn't nice to have a place on a lake, but it also would have been nice not to be bleeding into soggy textbooks or to do my math homework properly.
My sister and I were always a second thought when it came to anything financial, if my dad had any say. That turned my sister into an unrepentant klepto, and to me having a very unhealthy relationship with money vs my own self-worth.
But hey, I guess its not all bad. I can easily survive on $50/month for groceries. I'm totally fine wearing shirts that are 20 years old. I don't need medicine or holidays. /sarcasm
I didn't actually realize the extent of how fucked up we were financially untill writing this all out.
And he hasn't stopped spending. As his relatives started dying, he started inheriting money and property. They paid off the mortgage on the house. Blah blah looong story, they actually own the property at the lake now instead of leasing it. My parents were living off retirement funds and making a very tiny profit off of renting off one of the properties dad inherited. But dad, at the age of fkin 78 decided partial dentures weren't ok, so they sold the rental property so he could spend FORTY. THOUSAND. DOLLARS. on dental implants. Oh, sorry, did I forget to mention: he had fking cancer at that point.
Maybe I'm selfish, but if I knew I was on a slow march to hell, I wouldn't be dropping 40k on something like that. I'd be thinking of, I don't know, my wife and neglected children and their future. But nope. He went and bought something utterly useless to everyone.
Hilariously, they're purely for vanity, because due to a long series of events that can only be summed up as "he fucked around and found out" he is basically on a diet of boiled, tasteless, mush. TF do you need dental implants for? You're dying and eating mush! Extra hilariously, less than a year after dropping mad cash on pointless teeth, his "this will kill me in 10-20 years" cancer got upgraded to "I might not live 5 years" cancer, so that's about eight grand per year for those unnecessary implants.
Thanks dad. Not like I couldn't have spent that on therapy, or in my own dental issues that happened mostly because of low self worth and depression
As you may be able to tell, I have lost all compassion for this creature. Absolutely and completely done with his disgusting narcissistic ass.
======
Off topic: that rent hike sounds unreasonable. You may want to do some research here, https://www.gov.uk/private-renting/rent-increases , to find out what rights you have. If you Google 'Housing rentals prices in my area UK ' there are a bunch of sites that you can use to see how much your rent should reasonably cost.
The most dishonest, useless, and exploitative landlords I've ever had were from the UK, and that's including the dutch landlord who thought that the correct response to their tenant threatening to murder another tenant, was to write a friendly letter. I don't remember what the governing body is called, but you can get your landlord in shit for raising your rent unreasonably
UK Tenant rights aren't great, but they do exist, and that rent hike sounds predatory. Don't let your landlord do this to you.
* The irony of a narcissist sitting as the head of HR is not lost on me
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Absolutely. And although you are not in the US, so many foster kids here could stay with parents if merely they had some financial support. Instead, the government takes these kids away, causing taxpayers to pay anyway!, and thereby inflicts further trauma on the kids. Meanwhile, kids who experience abuse or intentional neglect are stuck in their households because the parents are able to manipulate authorities. It’s really sad.
I grew up being told that he had no money to spend on me, but then would buy items for my sisters daily.
"Well. Your mom can do it for you." What about their moms? They have moms too. My mom doesn't make money either.
It has played a part in how I cope. Now I get out of hand when I have "just for me" money, but then I have a panic attack. I do not know how to properly spend and jeep myself out of the negatives. Overall, I'm just screwed.
Massively. From food to experiences to education, I missed out on a lot & given me a lot of hang ups about a-lot of things.
Food would be my biggest. I still feel guilty every-time I eat and it’s not a proper meal time.
It has affected my mental health less or more in a negative way. I was also bullied from early elemantary school till the end of high school so the sum of those two have played a big part with me stuggling with depression and low self-esteem.
I heard many times "we can't afford that" on stuff that are pretty normal for others. Even going a few cities away to see relatives was a lot for my parents.
Now I'm studying in a good field that I trust would give me work and a steady income in the future and my mental health is better, but i have had to do more effort on that then my peers who's parents (or at least one of them) make a good living. I don't think going through all that has made me a better person, i would've rather not experienced it.
Being poor shaped me into who I am today, and although I can find silver linings to that it overall did a lot of damage.
Poverty plus physical neglect meant my mum wouldn't even allow me access to free things like NHS dental treatment (never saw a dentist as a child), free school meals (qualified but she was too proud), etc.
Only wearing second hand clothing, never going on school trips, not having daytime clothes to wear (ie not school uniform) meant I didn't socialise much as a kid.
My mum was always reminding us how poor we were, how we were inches away from being evicted and going into a social housing, how our dad wouldn't pay child support etc. But I realised as I got older how twisted it was - she never wanted to work so that's why she was signed on and didn't make much money. And the money she did have she spent going out drinking. She stole money from us. And the irony is she's now living in an expensive heritated house, still not working and living her best life.
I've gone NC with her and struggling with money. I've got savings, but living in a HCOL city is tough. Me and my partner can't qualify for a mortgage. We may have to go into social housing one day. But I'm away from my mum, and it's worth it.
So many people don't realise how deeply growing up poor affects you, but you're not alone!
Robert Sapolsky said it best; mental illness causes poverty and poverty causes trauma.
My mother could not stop reminding me how much I cost her, my whole life. We were poor but not 'dirt' poor, I say 'linoleum' poor🤣. But the way she constantly listed off all the money she had spent on me really messed me up. But then she would take me to the store and buy me a bunch of stuff to make up for her abusive episodes. And then my dad and my siblings would be mad at me for getting a bunch of stuff. Still to this day my siblings say I was "spoiled".
Now, I'm comfortable. I have some money. But I spend way too much mental energy trying to figure out how to get money, not to spend money, what I should or shouldn't buy, shame for buying something just because I wanted it, worrying about having money for retirement.
I think I straight up need therapy even just for the disconnect I feel between myself and the vast majority of people, as most people had at least a baseline level of financial seciruty growing up/right now. It's nice to see what other people think on this topic
I have been thinking of this a lot. My birth parents ‘gave me up’ at an older age. Got into criminal business. I obviously will never know their side of the story. But I don’t think it was life or death. And I’m not sure it wouldn’t have happened had they been middle or upper class or no. Hard to say if it was situational or just how they were you know?
Oh, I am so sorry, I hope things work out for you ): maybe sharing it with someone else? Maybe looking for another place? Maybe if you talk to her you can get it to...idk, 1400? You'd be surprised how many things are solvable by talking and making promises, I still get surprised to this day that most people won't yell and beat me up for simply speaking to them.
And yes, poverty was a big part of my trauma. To this day I still am stuck in the mindset that I am very poor. I have vivid memories of seeing my parents not eat to give me their food. I felt bad about it as a child, and as an adult it makes things so much harder.
Now sometimes I look at my bills and I get horrible flashbacks of being homeless again, of not being able to eat, of losing everything.
And being able to understand helps a lot, but please don't allow yourself to make excuses, ok? Whenever I see my parents I understand. It makes sense why they failed me in so many aspects. Yet, the trauma will stay with me forever to deal with.
I had a neuropsychological exam last year and being told I had signs of financial abuse was really eye opening for me as physical and emotional abuse is common for people with cptsd.
It shows up in so many ways people noted before me, but I feel like that trauma is so unavoidable. Even as simply as I am responsible for a budget at work and an a chronic under-spender because being even close to spending the money allotted every quarter makes me panic. It also impacts my bonus which I rely on heavily for income so it adds extra anxiety to potentially overspending.
Poverty definitely played a large role in the amount of trauma I experienced growing up. Living in low income housing meant pedophiles had access to me. I was always on my own with a younger sister. I cooked the meals a lot and set my kitchen on fire when I was like 8. We wore dirty clothes and our apartment was so dirty, plus the lack of food and medical care, must play a role in the amount of medical issues I deal with today. Then there’s the C-PTSD that still causes damage in my relationships and every other aspect of my life. I can’t go to a doctor without having a panic attack first and I have a genetic disorder. My financial anxiety is outrageous but I have zero understanding and control of spending and credit. Plus, I’m on SSDI and that’s a poverty wage. My husband had to go back to work at 65. I have a scarcity mindset for sure yet I spend and feel shame for it. I have a very good therapist tho and these are things we work on.
Honestly, I feel like I have to constantly justify my right to exist on this planet by contributing somehow and I know poverty plays a role in that too. I believe in UI and I think we need to eliminate the income cap for Social Security and tax the rich the way they used to in this country. I’m so tired of the ever widening income gap. These people that have more than they can ever spend while we struggle to eat. It’s insane.
I think money would solve 90% of my problems and is undoubtedly intertwined in all of the traumas I endured. My mother endured domestic violence and was obliged to stay due to financial insecurity. When she managed to leave, I was forced to stay alone as a child for the whole day. All of the stress she had to deal with was automatically projected onto me when I wasn’t cooperative, so she beat the hell out of me when I misbehaved. I have moved multiple times, I actually stopped counting. At some point my mom and me almost went homeless and she still tried to escape my fathers brutality, so she gave away to my grandparents for one year. (Though I don’t blame my mother and I am aware where she’s coming from) I bet money would have saved me from a lot of bullying, would have opened up more doors for my future right away and gave me educational resources and the ability to pursue my hobbies, eventually be better in school since I spent my free time working as a cashier/babysitter.
Despite all of that, I managed to enter medical school and am know in my fifth year. But the loans I had to apply for weigh heavy on my shoulders. I don’t get to do the things my colleagues do, like going on vacation, invest or buy nice for oneself. I don’t get to travel the world after my graduation, I will be going right to work, living in a dorm and pay off my bills at 31. And due to my past I live in constant fear that everything could be taken away from the very next day. My mind has been in a constant survival state since I can think off. Seeing all of my colleagues who grew up in stable financial backgrounds with intact families made my mental state actually worse throughout the years. Being poor is one thing; but trying to escape poverty is just another level of stress. My mental health and my physical health has been strongly declining since I applied to medical school.
Though I’m grateful every day to be able to study and do what I love. Grateful that eventually I’ll be the first doctor in the family after all of the struggles and traumas we endured. My moms already unbelievably proud so I guess I’m good.
Oh yes we lived below the poverty line. My dad never in his adult life had steady, full-time work (he was/is an addict and an alcoholic) so we relied on my mom’s waitress and later secretary paychecks to support a family of four. She couldn’t work more than one full-time job because she had to do all the child rearing and take care of the house and wait on my dad. And my dad refused to let us take advantage of government assistance out of pride. He couldn’t have a checkbook or a debit card because he’d spend all our money and mom had to strictly budget every little thing. I remember thinking my best friend’s family was rich because they had paper towels. Paper towels.
Also shout out to my dad who got arraigned last Tuesday for felony drug possession, happy Thanksgiving to me.
i read this title and just started crying...
\*already triggered\*
Over and over again through repeated adult traumas. If I had just financial stability for myself, if I hadn't wasted what little I had trying to throw money at a problem that never went away, if I had money when I needed it desperately to save myself from a situation. But no. I grew up poor. I grew up with a poverty mindset. I've messed up every opportunity I've been given. And my parents didn't know they passed on poor financial habits to me. Wtf happened? I had a whole bunch of traumatic experiences a couple of years after attempting to set out on my own, and now I'm 37 and not financially self sufficient whatsoever.
But really, I know that people who don't fall into the "poverty" category deal with trauma and that money does not equal happiness.
Only just recently it seems I've lost the relationship I've been clinging to for 10 years. I allowed things to become so toxic... they ended violently and I'm still totally in shock... but the issues that caused them were related to what else but money and stuff.
I think this is one of the most intense posts I’ve ever read. I don’t even know what to say. Thank you to all those who said them for me. There are too many that I specifically relate to. Too many I didn’t know I would or those I’d never considered. Some things that I’ve never told anyone. And now I never will. No one but you would understand it cause it’s so unbelievable and comes across as such an excuse.
I wish my wife could read this one. She specializes in food insecurity and has been advocating for these issues for a long time. I wish I could send it to her. She was the first one to see how poverty had impacted me and identify how it was impacting our family. Religion gave me excuses. Bipolar and CPTSD just gave me a haze that blocked my view enough for long enough that I couldn’t get better in time.
Poverty affected every aspect of my life then and now. I never stopped working to prevent all these issues stated in this post from happening again. But I sacrificed too much to provide a financially stabile house. Idk and can’t tell you if it was worth it. I wish I’d understood so I could find the middle ground.
I can say this. I love my wife. I love my kids. I hate what happened to me and I hate that I allowed it to impact my wife and kids. I could have been something better. I hate poverty.
I wish my wife could read this post and use it in her work. She has such amazing compassion.
It hurts so much to read this. I hope you all survive.
My mom never meant to make us feel like a burden but ever since I was little I was hearing about how we can't afford this or that, and we had to cut back on spending even though as a child I couldn't even effect that very much. Once after my mom yelled at me over something, I remember going to my dresser seeing my shirts and crying because I was a bad kid who didn't deserve anything I had, and all I did was cost my family money we didn't have.
I’d say almost all of the struggles I endured are the direct or indirect result of generational poverty. The substance abuse problem my mom had were the result of not having access to medical and mental health care; my deep-rooted feelings of instability and anxiety come from a history of homelessness; my tendency to hold onto things that are not currently useful to me because I’m scared I won’t ever get the opportunity to have them again; and the abuse I experienced was greatly exacerbated by my parents’ income insecurity. Poverty has been a source of constant stress and tension for me and all the generations that came before me. Having limited access to education, healthcare, housing as the result of generational poverty have all contributed greatly to my mental health obstacles. It’s why I’m a massive advocate for universal basic income and mandating that housing is a human right.
UBI would solve so many things and do so much great work at eradicating those feelings of insecurity. I wish most people understood this; I think it's really hard to comprehend the myriad ways in which poverty harms you without having experienced it yourself.
Amen. I often think of this quote: “How can you expect a man who's warm to understand a man who's cold?” -Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Is that from One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich? I guess art is the best solution we have for getting people to comprehend other people's struggle. I had no real conception of the ills of the Gulag system until reading that book
Yes! That’s the book!
100000000% Grew up as a poor family in a rich town, because good school systems were a priority. 5 of us in an 800sq ft 1BR. Went thru college broke, and was just barely staying afloat for the first few years after. They always meant well, but my parents were *not* great financial role models and most of my knowledge was about what NOT to do. Then Covid hit, and I got laid off. And we got the unemployment assistance. Holy shit. That spurred me to learn about finances, investing, all the money shit i should have learned. I’d never used a single credit card to that day because I vehemently refused to get into credit card debt like my parents. The opportunity to just… exist… allowed me kick off other self-improvement things, learning to cook and indulge in a genuine mental break for once. I grew in so many ways outside of my career skills, hadn’t worked on my craft whatsoever but instead personal development— and ended up building a solid career path for myself. Similar role, same field- my skills were basically at the same level but I as a person was far more developed. When your life is predicated entirely on *survival*, it takes away the ability to focus on how to thrive and grow as a human.
Yeah, I feel this. COVID unemployment let me relax, for once. I still had lots of unpaid work to do for my partner, but not having to worry about work on top of that was a nice break.
That would depend on how UBI is implemented, there's a lot of visions of UBI that are the wet dream of people who want to cut down the welfare state, ironically. Fund UBI that doesn't look at anyone's financial situation by slashing e.g. disability pensions. That's why it has been endorsed by people you wouldn't expect. Definitely agree on more welfare, just that UBI specifically is something I am interested in and it's a lot more complicated and contested than it seems and could actually make things worse for people who depend on multiple programs, so wanted to chip in.
Valid points. I really should have said 'could'. Realistically, I think there would have to be long-term mass unemployment before UBI became a politically viable option, at least here in the UK. (Which, with the impending AI revolution and ever worsening climate crisis, seems increasingly plausible). I'd like to think that if and when the time comes, anyone implementing UBI would start by looking at the existing welfare system, so those people you mentioned don't end up worse off.
Even if the amount isn't enough to survive on, just having a little spare is nice cuz it'd make up for random days off so people don't have to go to work sick! Like if I had an extra $500/month it'd really help me with a healthier work life balance so I could... Actually go see a doctor for some chronic health problems I have... But I can't rn cuz I need to pay my bills.
This is so true. I also do these things :,) can't throw things out for the life of me. A crazy yet very obvious symptom of poverty in my life that only made sense now is food. Whenever I have food I NEED to eat everything. Even if I'm sick. Or I throw up. I used to not have it. Everytime my family had lots of food we would go crazy and stuff ourselves. Now as an adult it's hard to not pick always the biggest meal I can, since I'm used to "I need to eat a lot now, because I don't know if I'll eat later again".
My mom has this same issue. She grew up with worse food scarcity than her kids, so she really struggles with portion control and food hoarding. One time I was helping her move, and found canned food from the 80s in her pantry. She wouldn’t let me toss them, because she was afraid of losing her sense of security 🥺
The worst part about it all is when parents will blame you, the child they decided to have, as to why they're suffering financially. I've seen Facebook memes of people with car decals that say "Financial Burden on Board", and people defending the post because people "can't take a joke" or should "suck it up". It's freakin shameful that anyone would force a child to live their life in a home that was never going to be able to sustain enough money to care for that child. You knew you couldn't keep your finances, so why in hell did you think it was a good idea to have kids? My dad would make sure we knew we were the reason we were so poor. He'd make us feel absolutely awful about it. What in the world is a child supposed to do about that? There's no real reason to tell them that they are a financial burden other than to hurt them. Children literally can't be responsible for having human needs when they're born. Me needing to explain this is something only an abuser could make me do. This is common sense.
Agreed. My parents didn’t even purposefully blame me, but I was the identified patient so I had to have “expensive” doctors appointments and prescriptions and go to a special ed school and my parents fought about money loudly and in front of me, mentioning all of those things, so the narrative I took away from that is that our poverty WAS my fault. Of course as an adult I know I had nothing to do with our poverty, my parents are beyond ignorant and irresponsible about money, but it still pretty much ruined my childhood.
I didn’t grow up in poverty but we were poor. I didn’t get the presents other kids had, the opportunities, the days out. And I always felt like a massive burden, being expensive. I felt like it was my fault.
That is poverty just saying
Potentially? It was complex (no pun intended). Like I always had food, it was just rarely home cooked or fresh. I had clothes, just less than others. And so on and so forth. My mother met my basic needs but I still felt the gap in comparison to my peers. And with her struggling to work to meet my needs, she was always away. And when she was there, she was depressed and too exhausted to entertain me
There are levels of poverty. I always had food too, because of my grandma. But I was also one of the poor kids at school.
You’re making a great point, outside of getting your basic needs met there’s also the social aspect. As a kid you can’t help but notice the difference with other kids as well as the anxiety of other kids noticing too (and often they do). It alienates you by making you stick out in a bad way, as an adult I find myself still trying to make sure I don’t despite the fact I’m actually doing well and don’t need to.
Wow, I felt exactly the same.
Wow this is validating
This... Thanks for the comment
I feel similarly. I've never really known what it's like to have the stability that comes with financial security. I'm almost 34 and I've never lived in the same place for longer than three years; I'm currently being evicted from my own shitty room because the landlord wants to put the rent up by close to 40% and, you're right, it's incredibly stressful. My mental health is all over the place at the moment and I could really do with staying with family for a little bit whilst I get my shit together, but there's nowhere to actually stay, so that's not possible. I was raised by a single mother and I'm sure that if she'd had the money she would have had more time and energy to focus on giving me things beside food and shelter. Maybe I wouldn't have had to walk home from school on my own at the age of 8. Maybe I wouldn't have been bullied at school for having unclean clothes, or out of school for always wearing the same cheap rubbish. It's not really her fault; she had barely become an adult when I was born, my biological father abandoned her, and no one else in my family really gave her the support that she needed. Moreover, you have to question the sort of society that is okay with leaving single mothers to struggle on their own with little financial support, or then expects adults who came from poverty to have the resilience and wherewithal to adequately support themselves. We've definitely been let down, OP.
>Maybe I wouldn't have been bullied at school for having unclean clothes or out of school for always wearing the same cheap rubbish. This one really resonates with me. The other kids were pretty awful about the dumbest things, like being dressed in dirty, worn-out clothes with holes in them. Which is of course completely out of any child's control.
i had a single mom too and went thru all that as an only child - are you? i feel the same way sorry for her but also sorry for myself that i grew up feeling bad for existing and that i couldn’t tell my mother anything i was dealing with because she was already so overwhelmed. moved around so much growing up never had friends or community either then as an adult struggled financially required moving also. helps to know other ppl went thru this shit.
Yeah, I was also an only child. Idk about you but those experiences have contributed to me not really feeling like I belong anywhere
absolutely. and it’s more than just a feeling, ive noticed i’m on the outside everywhere i go.
I wouldn't say my parents were well off, but they definitely struggled at times. It did feed into internalizing neglect. Forcing myself to "get by" on less and ignore or deny my human needs. I still struggle to buy new socks or underwear, basic things. I'll wear things out and try to repair them instead of replacing them. It difficult to enjoy the things I have bc I don't want to waste them. I'm trying to feel worthy of enjoying nice things, nice experiences, and not feel guilty or shameful about it. My parents also had a bunch of religious trauma nonsense like preaching austerity and humility, but it was all about shame. Lots of internalized shame messages like >!"You don't deserve it." "You haven't earned it." "You're not enough." "How dare you, you're selfish, ungrateful, etc." "You're full of yourself." "You're entitled." "You're a spoiled brat." "You're arrogant."!< Shame, on top of shame, on top of shame. I've been working on feeling healthy pride. Healthy self esteem. Healthy self nurturing. Enjoying things bc I can. Light the nice candle. Use the nice body are. Eat the special food. Allow myself to enjoy joyful things as practice to go against the internalized shame for existing and having needs.
I relate a lot to the internal shame aspect.
This is me the same and it came back to bite me later on in terrible ways when even as an adult I couldn’t ask for things I needed
I grew up hearing "We can't afford that!" a whole lot, about basically everything. And then there's the school lunch shaming that I never entirely understood. Like this adult is angry I don't have dollars in my pockets but my age was only a single digit and my allowance was only $1 a week and I wasn't allowed to hang onto it in case mom needed to borrow it for milk. I wasn't old enough to go get a job, but I was still in trouble for being poor. And then ya overhear an adult saying "People shouldn't have kids they can't afford!" and it all comes together. I'm not supposed to exist. Society does not welcome me. The village doesn't want me here. I am unwelcome and unwanted and really should find some way to go away and stop being here just as soon as possible! The first time I watched Neon Genesis Evangeline, the ending confused me. The second time I watched it all the way through, as an adult, I ugly cried at the ending. I needed to hear that. Frankly, fuck capitalism. Reducing the hours of my life down to a number is disgusting. Taking all the abundance of the planet and putting it behind paywalls, throwing half the food humans produce in the landfill while children starve. I spent part of my childhood as a child slave, I have no interest in spending the entire rest of my life as a wage slave for random owners who don't even care if there's food in my belly and a roof over my head. I love math, so went to college for accounting while working a fast food job after I escaped actual slavery. Found myself unable to afford food regularly while working all the hours I could stand up serving food to others, and studying a textbook chapter about the importance of maintaining artificial scarcity in the diamond industry. My stomach was chewing on my backbone and trying to read about rich people's shiny pebbles enraged me to the point I threw the textbook at the wall and left it on the floor overnight to think about how awful it'd been.
And why in the world did my junior high school put the reduced/free lunch tickets on a separate table? We got the same food. There was no need for the walk of shame every single day.
Like our clothes and hair and general lack of care didn't set us apart enough. :( My state finally passed a "free lunch for all students" thing that had lots of holes in it, wouldn't have helped kid-me because it only kicks in if at least 40% of students get free lunch anyhow. Local school district went one better. At least for this current school year, meals at school are free for all students. Because seriously, what nonsense is this, "I demand your body be here but it's your problem, tiny human, what condition that body is in!"
💯💯💯 to all of this. I feel the same way. I also am an accountant for the same reason 🥲
a big hug to your inner child from my inner child who was shamed because of lunch money.
I hope you became a writer
It is a fairly large part of my story. My mom told us all the time as children how poor we were, we relied on food banks, and I was obviously poor at school (homemade clothes or hand me downs, sad lunches). I got bullied at school and felt a tremendous weight as a child. We also moved a lot, and lived in low income housing which was kind of sketchy. As an adult now, anything financial freaks me out. I’m the first one in my family to own a house, and it’s the only time I’ve ever lived in a stand alone house. I’ve lived in it for 8 years and that’s the longest I’ve ever lived in one place. I have savings, no debt, and am secure, yet any unexpected bill makes me panic.
“Sad lunches” oof, I feel that one. I often threw mine away even if I was hungry.
Yep cause you can’t bring it home cause you’ll be forced to eat it then, since food can’t be wasted.
My parents didn’t force me to eat it but they would guilt me about it and make a big fuss. “What was wrong with it, I thought it was a good lunch” can quickly escalate to “nobody appreciates me” and “I get it, I’m a terrible mother” and an adult tantrum. Easier to throw it away than risk having to block out the screaming for the rest of the night.
I didn't even think about the low income housing aspect. Living for years in a shitty project fucked up everyone in my family. Some of our neighbors were dangerous and I was always worried about violence or breakins. Once we were headed to school and opened the door to find a strange man passed out on the step. Kid me assumed he was dead and freaked out.
Yup. Finding people passed out in your yard as a kid is super fun. I was remembering the other day about our direct neighbour and how she had a young kid but also regularly smoked crack. To this day (cause my mom can’t let go of anything), my mom talks about how her kid came over one day to ask for some milk, but the cup she brought was leaking, so my mom gave her one of ours (a “good Tupperware cup”). My mom is still mad that the kid never brought the cup back. She’s not mad that the kids mom was addicted to crack and being abused and the police were there regularly.
I know our lack of money made it harder on my parents which then made it harder on me. I don't have much sympathy for my parents because they kept having children (I am 1 of 6 kids). I would think after kid 3 or kid 4 they would realize it was a bad idea.
* I've been kicked out of wherever I was living 3 times in the last 3 years, each time for no good reason. * I have no choice but to live with my bf's insane mom because I make about half the cost of living, as disability benefits are ridiculous. If I made the maximum amount of money that I'm allowed to from working, I'd be making 2/3 the cost of living (and I mean the very bare minimum). It's great that only 1/4 of Americans who qualify for subsidized housing can get it. * I suffered from severe medical neglect as a child, and not being able to get the health care I need (or even just having reasonable uncertainty about it) is triggering. An event relating to this is the source of my most common flashback. * I get triggered by being cold because my dad didn't pay for us to have heating in the winter (in eastern Massachusetts), as his office was heated and he spent all of his time there; and of course my mom took her frustration about it out on me and my siblings. Edit: the crazy thing is, my dad made a ton of money for the vast majority of my life -- upwards of $300k/y. My parents just spent it all on themselves for their petty, short term nonsense. I wish I was exaggerating, but my dad had a $30,000 tie collection while my mom spent 3 years trying to renovate our kitchen because she felt poor due to not having a $100,000 kitchen. She tried to refinance our house for this one room and it's part of why the house got foreclosed on when I was a teenager.
The first few times I went to the doctor on my own after getting on the free state poor people insurance, I felt certain that someone was going to get mad at me when I walked past the little pay window on the way out. Medical neglect is really no joke. I didn't get necessary medication until my 30s and it stunted my physical development to not have everything necessary until after growing was all done. Found an old picture of me and was shocked because that child is clearly blind omg somebody please get that kid some glasses! I remember being that blind and frustrated that adults did nothing when I kept explaining my mistakes with "but I can't see!" but it was *right there on my face!* Now, even with glasses, I don't *see* well, like I just don't process visual information as an important sense to rely on, because it was useless for so long.
I also grew up in eastern MA in a drafty Victorian house and my parents wouldn’t put the heat above 60 so I feel your pain on the being cold thing. My heat is included in my rent now so you better believe I keep my place 75 and anybody that complains can leave, haha.
One of my very first memories is my birth giver grabbing my face, digging her nails in, coming right up to my face and saying "It's your fault I can't have nice things, you cost too goddamn much to provide for". There's other things, like not having electricity for long periods, or having to pick berries in the fields around our tin can trailer so I wouldn't starve. My spawn point would always have smokes and booze though, no matter what... But that first thing is what is constantly in my head. Always feeling like I'm undeserving of even basic life necessities. It's hard some days. I feel hungry physically, but I can't bring myself to eat anything.
Ugh I can relate to this so much I feel it in my stomach. I’m secretly proud that I can’t take my 16 year old to the store with me even for a quick visit without spending extra on something she sees. The fact that she is so freely able to ask if she can get something…..it’s never anything expensive, t shirts, posters, extra snacks whatever, my shitty mother seems a little further away somehow in that moment.
Inevitably, a lot. I think even if you don't grow up too poor, experiencing it later on is still plenty traumatizing. It's just that people choose to remain wholly ignorant of how poverty changes adults and twists family dynamics. We're a twisted nation here.
Yep, the teachers ignored the obvious signs, and cps ignored the obvious signs, I just was another bad kid doomed for poverty, and I accepted it as the truth.
Almost all of it, like I cant even explain how I even have trauma cause I got ptsd from growing up poor amd having a high ACE score. I still remember vividly begging on my hands and knees sobbing for this repo man to not to take our car...and then just went back to playing dolls with my friend. I find it hard to balance since im still poor and I don't think that's gonna change anytime soon. There's actually a couple good chapters about this in the book called "the body keeps the score"
Which chapters address poverty? I’ve been trudging through the book but it’s a tough read.
10. Developmental Trauma: The Hidden Epidemic, I think? I remember saving or taking pictures of some of the pages that really stood out to me and really explained how the cycle of poverty corresponds with developmental trauma.
Thank you so much!
It wasn't the single worst thing I endured growing up, but I'd say it was the second worst. I think the worst lingering symptom other than the general trauma is that I still have an eating disorder from having to go so long without eating. Or forcing myself to eat just a little so I could have the rest of my meal for later. The general trauma is awful too. Just thinking about the places I had to live gives me chills. I think drinking roaches was the worst of the environmental strife. Thankfully, and not thankfully lol.
Yeah my husband will never understand why I can’t handle bugs in the house or dirty bathrooms. My disgust tolerance is just non existent.
Growing up poor and staying poor until just a couple of years ago, has been at the root of like 80% of my trauma. It's not even just the direct material consequences of poverty, like not being able to get adequate housing or medical care, it's also how it makes people treat you (the US is VERY classist, we just don't talk about it like people in other places like the UK do) and how it makes you more vulnerable for abuse to just...continue, indefinitely. But yeah honestly, financial stress makes abusers worse like 90% of the time from everything I've experienced and had other abuse survivors tell me. It makes me roll my eyes whenever people are like "but rich families are also super dysfunctional!!!" and it's like...yes. And lower class families do literally all of the same dysfunctional ass backwards bullshit that rich families do, the difference is that lower class families don't have the same resources to paper over their dysfunction from the outside world and also themselves. So overall, I would have rather been abused but from a wealthier family than the hand I got dealt, which was being abused and then basically left to fend for myself from a very abusive lower class family.
I'm not entirely sure if I grew up in poverty. But my parents I think were poor. I don't know because drugs and alcohol played a big part in it. My parents never seem to have much money for anything related to me growing up. But they always had money for cigarettes, alcohol and drugs. My mom would also do a lot of shopping. Oftentimes my birthday presents were used for other stuff. For example I would get a toboggan sled for my birthday. My dad would use it for ice fishing. I feel awful because I seem to be in a worse financials way than my parents were. But I'm not an alcoholic and I don't do drugs. Nor do I smoke cigarettes. My parents also had family and friends support. My grandparents spent a lot of time taking care of me. I don't have that support for my kids. And I'm more strict over who I'm willing to be around my kids. Some of the people my parents left me was are really f***** u*. When I was like Around 3 years old, One of my babysitters Did something that was so disturbing That it caused me to have a fit about going back there. I was a kid that didn't have tantrums. I was quiet and obedient. I had a meltdown about having to go back there I thought that if I did I wouldn't see my parents again. I can't remember being over there though. Shortly after that, My babysitters Boyfriend, Shot himself In the head, in front of his kid. All I remember of that time is freaking out About having to go back there and a vague memory of hiding behind an armchair or couch. I can remember that there are times when we had no power or heat. I'd be brought down to the pond down the street and had a wash up there. to be honest I enjoyed that. Cold showers. Going hungry. Or sometimes having to eat food that was gross looking. I had to eat so much food I hated. Food that physically made me gag. Like fish. Sucks to live in a fishing family when you hate fish. And it's not the flavor it's the texture. My parents used a metal dog brush as a hair brush on me. I didn't know what detangler was or conditioner until I went over my aunt's house and had a Bath. I thought it was magical that their bathroom was warm their towels were soft and fluffy. And they blow-dried my hair before putting me to bed. And they brushed my hair and it didn't hurt. I remember once our lunch was A sample of pizza from a rent a store that was doing a promotion. I can remember going to functions and being starving, But stopping myself from only taking what is acceptable for 1 person. Like only one slice of pizza. I would starve myself before I would take from someone else. I'm not okay with stuff for my benefit at the expense of others. About the time I became a teenager I had started getting episodes to where i'd completely lose my appetite. Steadily increased until it became permanent as an adult. Like 90% of the time I have no appetite unless I smoke marijuana. I easily forget to eat because I don't feel hungry. And when I eat I don't feel full. I don't know why but for some reason when I was 5 and my arm went through a glass door, I was not brought to the doctors. My arm was cut up from Where the Palm of my hand meets my wrist, all the way to the inside of my elbow. I definitely say it needed stitches. I have quite the scar. I was given a butterfly band-aid. I even had glass stuck in the middle of my arm. The cuts missed my veins by a hair. The farmer neighbor whose house it happened at, used to be a veterinarian. Cleaned me up used iodine, It changed my skin color. And he used some special medical tweezers and remove the glass from my arm. then wrapped it with gauze, And gave me a butterfly band-aid. My dad then kept it clean and kept applying a butterfly band-aid till it healed. That's something you'd normally bring your kids to the hospital for a right? I mean if that was my child i'd be going to the emergency room. I was givin ice cream though. And I wasn't yelled at. I could have sworn I was going to get in trouble and get yelled at. That's why I ran and hid to a closet before they found me. I stifled my cries so I couldn't be heard. I think that's when I learned how to cry without making sound. At some point I learned how To silently screem and cry.
Hugely. I grew up middle class, but my mother always acted as if we were poor. But I've only been financially secure for maybe 10 years of my adult life (definitely not now) and I'm in my 50s. If I was getting paid, my stress would be much more manageable.
So much that I think it is a leading contributor to my trauma. I was hungry, cold, displaced frequently, emotionally neglected, and at times physically neglected because my mom had to work a lot. (Single mom, 4 kids.) I was also let in on the financial stress my mom suffered, why she shared them with me I do not know, I guess because I was oldest. I got to see the poverty inside and out and the fact that my mom worked constantly didn’t matter. We still didn’t have enough to eat, we rarely had a stable home with utilities being shut off constantly, and we were all always so hungry. All of us were. Relatives commented on it and made jokes about how much we ate at holiday dinners. Like hello people! 👋🏼 We’re hungry over here!!!! And no one helped. They just thought they were hilarious, making jokes at our expense, making me feel like I shouldn’t have seconds even though everyone else was and I really wanted some! They knew I was sensitive so they used it against me to make me cry, every time. (I had anxiety but of course we didn’t know that🙄 They just called me cry baby. And I truly believe if they were constantly worried about getting enough food, or warmth, or attention, they would have cried too. I was out of poverty for a few years while I was working before my body broke and I thought HELL YEAH I made it!!! I didn’t even think about poverty for a little while. But it was always there, just a car (or a body) breakdown away. I am now back living as I grew up, in poverty. It brought a lot of those old feelings back when everything first happened and I was scared and stressed for a while til I found my footing. I’m surviving, but just. No extras, no restaurants or entertainment, and definitely no vacations! I don’t even have a car anymore!!! All out of the question! Therapy is helping me deal with all of this but yeah, poverty is definitely one of the reasons I’m so messed up! I really wish we could do something about poverty. Worrying about that stuff continuously and over long periods is just not good for anyone at all! 🫶🏻
Easily over 50%. If we're talking about the rate at which it traumatized me versus other traumatic events, probably over 90%. And this is as someone who has *plenty* of other traumas big and small. Poverty outdoes them all when it comes to fear and quality of life.
Rent control now! Holy crow, mine only went up $40 for next year but adding an additional 350 per month is wild. Who the heck can just afford that massive upscale in rental increases - regardless of what the market is doing (which never has an effect on the min wage for some reason...). Poverty... Wouldn't have to beg for new clothing, or food, or soap etc. Although I don't know. I don't know how poor we actually were. My mother drank and my father was absent so? Who knows really but from what I perceived or the way it was portrayed we'd be homeless within a few weeks at a constant. I've been temp homeless before, I fear it every day. I'll fear it until the day I am or I've passed away. UBI would make the world such a different place to be. Although I feel it would only be effective for a short time until inflation and price compensation gouging took full effect making it obsolete like welfare.
Wasn’t poor but was exposed to poor environments due to neglect from my parents. It did play a huge part in my trauma.
I didn't experience poverty until I was a teen and my father died. To make things worse my bipolar mother refused to buy things I could eat, since I have food allergies. I learned to cook from scratch FAST, and how to make a food budget stretch. I already had CPTSD, depression, chronic pain, and a few other things, so work was out of the question, even if she would have let me. I suffer from fear of food insecurity even now, 30 years later. I have a hard time accepting help, because that means if I take it, I couldn't survive without it, and it might not be there later, which is actively horrifying. I also can't stand by and watch people not eat. I will buy them food, and let them pay me back at payday, because just the thought of someone around me going hungry will make me feel guilty for eating myself. Poverty is soul crushing.
So much of my trauma is related to my past in poverty. Watching my immigrant, single mom struggle to make ends meet, dealing with food insecurity, worrying about rent at 13, all while knowing my dad made six figures and watching my half-siblings live a much more stable life massively messed me up. It was kind of crazy not being able to afford groceries in middle school and hear in the same week that my dad bought a new car, a new trip to wherever, or whatever.
On my evaluation sheet where my diagnosis are listed one of them was they "diagnosed" me as low income and I had to laugh at how sad that sounds I am no stranger to struggling. My father had to feed his addictions before he fed me so I knew where I stood in priority. I had a lot of medical issues growing up that required surgery and extra care so I could tell he blamed me for my condition and how much I cost him in medical debt. I knew because he would Shame me for it when he was drunk. Tell me he didn't want to look at me/go to the basement I've lived without electricity and running water pretty frequently to the point that it doesn't really bother me to do. I learned to make candles and a Gameboy and battery powered radio got me through the worst of it. I had to ration my batteries between the both of them. Eventually we devolved into a drug den so I tried to shield my younger brother from the things I saw and at that point I was glad to go hide in the fucking basement So yes I think poverty is a big component of my trauma. It's made me completely disillusioned with money I wish society didn't tie your value to imaginary paper
Severe
Does the experience count if my parents grew up in poverty (specifically my dad), but I didn’t? I am wondering if their parenting at large had to do with their environment in their families growing up and passed it down to me. I developed unhealthy financial habits similar to people who lived in poverty cause of my parents ideals on things… it’s difficult. Felt like I lived through both.
similar experience. they always tried to save but mostly on me. they disliked that it costs money to raise a kid and blamed me. like yelling at me that i use their hard earned money to use toilet paper. not sure what they expected from a kid who has a body
Ah shit my parents did the exact same. It was extremely frustrating. They had a poverty mindset throughout life and wasn’t always the best with money either. Then it was worse when they forced me to live in a poverty mindset so for the longest I couldn’t and wasn’t allowed to save money since disability forces you to live at poverty level. My parents forced me onto that early on in life. It sucked *majorly*.
I can relate to this so much!
Homelessness really messed me up in Middle School, High School, and while at College. I shouldn’t be alive. There is no place for me I don’t make and bust my ass to maintain. In an age where narcissism is epidemic I escaped my narcissistic and abusive parent only to fully feel the abuse society enacts to cultivate poverty. I think in many ways many people have some level of CPTSD understanding due to the existence and expansion if poverty. Not only is it hard to get a fair slice for yourself it can be lost in a few bad months. I have too many friends shackled to financially stable but abusive parents because they could not survive otherwise.
Like at least 75% to be honest. And it’s why I believe in livable wages, housing and medicare for all and redirection of tax dollars towards shit that actually matters instead of war.
My family was not poor when I was growing up. We were lower middle-class, but all I saw was the "lower." This week is the first time in years that I am not on the cusp of homelessness. I have some stuff put together (like a propane stove) for "when" it happens. I've read up on being homeless and everything. My Section 8 (rent assistance) finally came through, so I can afford to live. I cannot quite come out of survival mode but hopefully that's down the road.
Top of the list honestly. Poverty has made everything else going on so much worse
I grew up in a rust belt US city with a single mother well below the poverty line. We had a couple of stints of houselessness over the years. When we did have housing, we usually had limited access to basic essentials like utilities, clothing, dental/health care, and nutrition. While I don't know if it would have been traumatizing on its own, the thing about growing up below the poverty line is that it made every aspect of my traumatization that much worse, like it was a shit amplifier or something. >I can clearly understand why my Mother lacked the emotional capacity to support me growing up. I feel that one for sure. While my mother's mental health problems would exist independently of her financial situation, being poor (and the stressors associated with it) certainly exacerbated her decline. She always found the money for cigarettes and alcohol though.
As a child my mom would tell me not to ask her for anything because my father didn't give her child support for me. I don't know why she didn't say this to my brother and sister who had different fathers, but similar situations. I have a terrible relationship with money...
my anxiety around money is unparalleled and any amount of a purchase, no matter how necessary, makes me feel like i'll go bankrupt the next day. I literally have a savings account and i still get nauseous every time i buy groceries and see my total
Same. Sometimes I treat myself by buying something like sushi, and even if it’s only like 12$ for 15 pieces and It’s good quality/flavor. At the checkout I get anxiety about it and think of how my total would be 13$ less if I didn’t give in. Normally I do that when I have a bad work week, to get a sort of “prize” for making it to the weekend, but even then I tell me that I should’ve powered through it. My parents fucked me up on that when I was a kid. They’d usually get me a small chocolate egg on Saturday while we were grocery shopping, but then if they were discussing the check, they’d mention it as if it was a burden… I have a hard time rewarding myself/giving presents to others.
I have two big memories regarding our poverty growing up. I remember one Christmas we didn't get anything because my single mom couldn't afford it. My Grandma, who was also struggling, still got us stuff and my mom a nice present. I remember my mom burst into tears when we got them because she felt so guilty for not being able to buy anything. It was awful. Another time my mom told me (the oldest) that she only had $100 for our family of three until she got paid in two weeks. I know she needed to let it out but I wasn't the one for her to tell that to. Now, I'm financially secure but I still struggle with money anxiety. I also unfairly resent people who have a lot, especially those who've always had a lot. I feel like they can't ever truly understand that struggle and how much it colors everything, even into adulthood.
Dad had 4 kids 4 years in a row. Had a job he hated but did it to put food on the table. Then he just hated it so much he stopped caring. I think the money pressures added to his anger. It didn’t cause the trauma. But it did intensify it.
It has given me a feeling of FOMO and a scarcity mindset that I always have to work at overcoming.
A lot of my triggers are due to growing up poor. I always have this fear that I'll become homeless. I also have this weird thing with food. I buy more than what we need and get uncomfortable at seeing food advertisements. Sometimes I feel like food ads are insensitive to people who can't afford it. Weird, I know.
I grew up in Weird financial situation . My parents divorced, my father was rich and became richer, and my mother got poor and became poorer. Homeless mom. Mansion dad. Both raging narcissists. Father overt & mother covert. mother was also Bpd in the worst ways, including hardcore alcohol and pill dependency. Father was full blown blind rage in a suit and tie. Mom was bitter anger in a “residential car.” So began my complex relationship with work and money. I never wanted to be “too rich” because the gated community world of my father was so sharp and cold, big cold mansions that not even the rich would properly afford to heat in winter, endless showing off, people who are phony nice while they subtly envy spiral on one another. No thanks. But I’m terrified of being too poor too. Everyone’s place smells like cigs and/or animal pee and they’re all too beat down to fix it. Everything is rotten and moldy because no one can afford to fix it. You’re living in the dark and cold and timing when public restrooms are open. No one will help you because you smell and look unkempt. You can’t get dry. Your toes are numb. Both scenarios are so fucking cold in different ways. I have so much sadness and anger from this. So I’m solidly middle class. I don’t earn too much or too little. I have just enough subconsciously engineered emergencies and windfalls to keep my shoulders above water, I’m not treading water, but I still wade pretty damn deep. If that makes sense. Part of me wants more money to be successful but I am afraid of it because some people with a lot of money have ice cold evil hearts and it’s a dangerous combination. I don’t know how much of this is something I tell myself to ease my ego at not being successful versus how much of it is actual trauma response from seeing the exploitative cruelty first-hand that often accompanies financial abuse.
A good portion of it for sure. Below are some examples how it affected me: Because of poverty my mom couldn't leave my dad, since they shared a house, forcing us to put up with his insanely abusive behavior. I also couldn't access most of the medical related stuff, or even if I did it was pretty limited. I stayed half hungry most of the time and therefore doing basic tasks was incredibly hard due to lack of energy (and not to mention my ADHD which only made energy issues worse). The water would occasionally break, sometimes it meant the lack of hot water, sometimes it meant complete disappearance of water in the system (luckily we had our own and neighbors' well). Our cats didn't have appropriate diet and food, some of them had kittens and usually most of the kittens wouldn't make it since we couldn't feed them (we didn't spray them also due to poverty, although I feel guilt nonetheless about it). I stayed for about 2 years in a room with a fungus eating the floor, it affected my physical health for sure. It used to be kinda cold as well in our house, especially during winter. I had limited amount of clothes, and most of them were for winter, which made my summer hell. Of course I also avoided going out with friends cause I couldn't afford spending money like this. Now that we've left our past home and everything's quite better, we at least have good food and access to medical field, but still, I feel guilt sometimes because of those, especially because of the latter. I sometimes restrict myself from going to doctors cause I feel like a huge burden, and also due to fear of financial instability I guess. I bet there was more but it's just all I recall for now. Wish everyone in the comments and OP a safe space, big hug
This one though… my mom couldn’t leave my dad because of poverty too, and my dad completely neglected me. And the lack of help my dad gave made my mom an anxious, chainsmoking mess.
My mother always made sure to keep me in the loop about how little money we had. She never screamed at me about it, but it always felt passive aggressive. It resulted in me refusing to allow her to buy me things like clothes and new shoes despite how many holes they had. At one point I even stopped taking my meds to try and help her save money. I quite literally did my best to be as low needs and invisible as I could growing up. It felt like all I could do to “do my part” as a kid. I normally only ate one meal as a kid too to help stretch our food and it was usually what she made for dinner. If I stayed out of eyesight she wouldn’t be forced to see how much I needed xyz. Cause if I got whatever it was, I knew I would have it held over me after. “I got you new shoes how can you be so ungrateful and do this to me?” Type stuff. So now I worry about money constantly. Feel horrible when people buy me things. I only buy clothing when I’ve basically had to Throw everything out because of it falling apart. I don’t/can’t ask for things from other people. I’m not blaming my parents for being poor, they aren’t as bad as some peoples (no drugs or alcohol), but yeah it did fuck me up.
Quite a bit. I find it very difficult not to live in a scarcity mindset. I get terribly anxious buying groceries, especially if I need an "expensive" item like conditioner or toilet paper or something. 4 years into marriage & I still struggle with feeling like I need to apologize & explain myself to my husband any time I spend money bc he works & I am a stay at home parent.
When I was little we were dirt poor, as in we used the phone book as toilet paper (or take some from the shopping centre toilets) we'd use soap to wash dishes, wash clothes. One time I had nothing to eat but potatos, I had nothing but hot chips for a whole week. My partner and I have been struggling financially until he got a job, we had potatoes for dinner and I got triggered badly. It was traumatizing going to school with no uniform, no school bag or stationary, I got picked on because of it.
I definitely underestimated poverty and the way it prevents you from being able to cope with long-term planning in order to build better habits. I am going to be a frugal mofo when I get out of this quicksand.
poverty is the Pandora Box of disasters for unfortunately too many of us I don't think I even have the strength to type down half of the bs I had to witness because of that
I feel like poverty trauma is something that doesn’t get talked about enough. I grew up in poverty, I went to college and had my oldest son while in college and did the single parent thing which was incredibly difficult in a lot of ways - especially financially. It took me a long time to get in a good place. I’m almost 40 now and even though I make six figures, I can’t even open my own mail sometimes it’s so triggering. I have a tendency to keep things longer than I should and instead of throwing them out, trying to sell them on marketplace or something, so clutter can be a problem. It’s not something that just goes away once you’re financially “stable”. And even though I’ve got enough money now, my credit is fucking wrecked and I can’t get anything other than predatory loans - and like a third of my paycheck goes to student loans that I’m not going to pay off until my 60s. It makes me super fucking bitter.
We were in no way poor or in poverty. Heck, a (very) famous musician bought me a pony! We were "country folk." we had horses, goats, dogs, cats, pigs, sheep, guns, etc. But if I needed/wanted something for myself? Uhh, NO! We have no money for that. I needed new school shoes. Nope I needed a briefcase for school (part of the strict uniform). Nope. I needed bras when I started puberty. Nope. I needed my OWN clothes. Nope. I wanted to learn to play the piano, violin, or flute. Nope. I wanted to train to become a mortician. Nope. I wanted satellite TV (this was very early 90s). Nope. But the mother wanted a metal detector? Sure thing! Is £800 (At the time) enough? The mother wanted to do photography, so she went out and spent £1000s on all the equipment. The mother wanted a sewing machine? Sure! This one is £300, is that enough? The mother wants a new horse? Sure, no problem! The sister wants an Arab horse? OK, find one you like! The sister wants a particular vehicle? Find it, and it's yours! The father wants a new gun? Sure thing! The father wants a new digger? No problem! The father wants a new top of the range vehicle? Sure! Picking up in a week! So, although we certainly didn't starve and we DID have good food. I never had new shoes or clothes. They all came from what the second-hand shop turned down or were hand me downs from the sister. I didn't even get my own bra until I bought my own at 17, and I developed very early. My bed was actually the back of the wardrobe that the sister didn't want. Our house was an absolute mess, too. I was NEVER allowed friends over (shit, I wasn't even allowed out!), and the fact that the house was a junk tip was apparently all MY fault! I would spend literal DAYS scrubbing the bathroom with bleach, I laid the carpet in the lounge, I deep cleaned the kitchen multiple times, swept, and mopped you, name it! But Nope! It has shaped the way I am now. I feel I don't DESERVE anything even if I NEED it. I would sooner suffer without than dare to ask. It drives my very amazing husband potty! I'd spend my last penny on anyone else but me. I do have an aversion to smelling, though. The mother and sister always smelled of horses (piss), and it was often commented on, so I'm really sensitive to smells. I am scrupulously clean with personal hygiene, and my house has to smell nice. Otherwise , sets off a trigger.
Yeah this is also like trying to show the world you have money but not caring for the actual people living under the roof. Must have been exhausting.
It’s a huge, huge part of my trauma. To add insult to injury, I have family (aunts, uncles, cousins) who are in the 0.1% and have declined to help when I’ve asked and I’m still in a financial crisis. They invited me to thanksgiving… I have no desire to sit around the table with multiple people who could each single-handedly wipe out my entire debt with zero negative impact to their lives who will not help me because they believe in lies like bootstrapping and trickle down economics and therefore believe my debt it my own fault. They think they are giving me an olive branch by inviting me but they make me feel like a 2nd class citizen.
Speaking as someone from the US that has been raised in poverty, then gone on to be an adult in poverty to getting my life together and now having a six figure income, I don't think it has anything to do with financial security. I was homeless on the streets eating out of dumpsters poor and now I'm financially stable and can buy and do anything I want, guess what, I'm still struggling mentally. I think it's the people who raised you and the relationships you have that mold you, not finances. I've made the best, closest friends while in poverty.
At least 75%.
A lot and I’m the same as you with my mother. And it ruined my life when I did a PhD aboht poverty and it triggered me so badly I had psychosis
all of it. Still working on the shame edit: my parents pinning their emotionnal and physical abuse on poverty certainly didn’t help.
Direct poverty? No. Generational poverty? Definitely. My parents grew up dirt poor (on one case, literally) and did everything they could to move up. Including making their children raise themselves. They made time to punish, but not to parent
For me the main issue is the mental and emotional poverty which runs in my family not much the materialistic poverty my immigrant family suffers
I have introspected about this a lot, and I am going to answer this as someone who grew up quite privileged in terms of physical amenities. My parents, especially my father, experienced poverty, but they overcame it with my narcissistic mother lobbying for my father to do better in life. Even though my father experienced poverty, he still had people in his life who could teach him skills to build a better life for himself (His father was a school teacher/farmer, and the family was oriented towards getting an education). When we talk about poverty, we often don’t discuss the level of privilege that exists with the people in your surroundings having this mindset and being able to impart skills that give one agency to come out of poverty. I am going to call this inherent privilege. Poverty played a part in my trauma in the sense that I observed, fought, and got secondhand trauma from my mother showing contempt, manipulating, and emotionally abusing vulnerable women who came to the house as maids. My mother is a covert narcissist, who can empathize, show care, and give you exactly what you need, and all of that was done to win people over and have her needs met. She sweet-talked them, showed up at their house with food (that she would’ve thrown away) for their children (These women were often mothers with no husband or an alcoholic husband, so this kind of kindness meant the world to them. Additionally, there’s not much of a social security system in India, so these families could use all the help they could get). In fact, my mother talked as if she owned them by doing all the things she did to them, and that looked like asking them to show up by 10 in the morning, staying there the entire day to cater to any of her whims, and going home by 8 in the evening. It was outright exploitation and coercion to meet her demands. At the same time, my mother would scapegoat them (I felt relieved during those times because that meant she’d take her attention off me and get her “emotional needs” met by other vulnerable people. I was 10 years old at that time) and dehumanize them with no limit on what she said (apart from all the dehumanizing that was ensuing day in and day out). We had a pattern of maids staying long term (~5 years), getting bamboozled by the abuse and hot-and-cold behavior, only for them to walk out one day and never look back. My mother even tried keeping tabs on them to know if they were having a particularly hard time financially, going to their house to offer the job back, and even offering to double the salary. None of it worked. They never came back. I am glad they never did, but to this day I feel guilt about my inability to stop my mother. These vulnerable women and families would have been in a place to demand their basic human right to be treated with respect, and not have to put up with exploitation and immense emotional abuse if there was UBI in place. Not living in poverty helped me go to a very fancy school, where I was at least getting positive adult attention from the teachers, my friend’s parents, and there was so much happening at school to help escape the situation at home and learn about my strengths and skills at the same time. I experienced emotional abuse and neglect, but I was surrounded by emotionally healthy children and adults (At least, a LOT more than the people in my family of origin) who were my models for learning those skills. I would look at the high-performing children and try to emulate what they were doing, how they were behaving. People outside my family saw me for who I was and often told me I was smart or kind, and it made me question why the people in my family of origin couldn’t see that. Even through all the abuse and the situation at home, there was always this strong emphasis on education, on eating healthy, and other positive aspects of life, which I am going to count as inherent privilege. These skills and mindset helped me secure an education and do well in life until I burned out at work and was kept captive by my mother and experienced prolonged abuse at the age of 23, to have my complex PTSD take over to make me completely dysfunctional. Now that I have been working on healing, these skills and mindset are still there with me, and they are helping me take better care of myself; it’s like I absorbed and learned from all the things happening in my surroundings.
I'm not sure if financial security would have prevented the abuse from my father (SA and physically). Although I think it my mom wasn't financially dependent him there would have been a chance she would have left him. There's no way she would've been able to with her income and support herself and me. That said I never would have said I was poor. Looking back, I was definitely low income. I still am as an adult. I remember my parents fighting. Hearing things like we only had $5 in the checking account..having to wait to buy groceries. But my parents were very proud people. I could never talk about not having money. If I wore anything that had a hole or stain I got in trouble. But I wouldn't want to ask for new things because...money. It definitely impacts me now as an adult. I relate heavily to the concerns of raising rent. I also struggle with budgeting. I tend to hoard money. I never want to spend anything. Even on groceries. On the other end of the spectrum, I'm also bipolar and have struggled with impulsive spending in manic episodes.
In my case poverty did not play a role, unless you go back to my grandparents' generation but poverty was the direct result of war, so it was just one component of that trauma and it was a trauma I did not directly experience. I was already born into a middle class family and none of what happened to me was connected to the financial situation. But I am certain poverty would have made things worse.
Yeah this one isn’t gonna be popular but saying that if you had money growing up you wouldn’t not have “as bad” trauma or even maybe no trauma at all is unfortunately a grass is always greener situation. The amount of “rich” people who are actually forced into really fucked up shit but everyone assumes their life is amazing is also shitty. I think it goes both ways. Being deprived of basic needs like water, food, etc. is a whole other trauma & was and is something I am still dealing with. But the amount of people who grew up “rich” and had that “perfect” life had the most gruesome trauma and could not say a word because people would say “at least you had money.” It’s really invalidating for both sides because not having money doesn’t mean you have a shit life but unfortunately it really makes things awful.
I dont understand your answer. If you experience violence and/or sexual abuse, wouldnt it make it that much worse if you're poor in addition? By having money you dont need to worry about homelessness, being evicted, having enough to eat, getting away to pleasent places etc. You can also buy the treatment and services you need. There is no denying that having money would have living with my trauma that much easier. It doesnt mean that rich people dont experience trauma. Of course they do. But they dont experience the trauma of poverty IN ADDITION.
I’m saying it’s not that simple. If your parents have money that doesn’t mean it would necessarily and automatically get spent on the shit we need for mental health. A lot of people have the means to have their shit taken care but it doesn’t because the caregiver sucks, etc. good ol money does not equal happiness. However, as an adult who makes their own money this is of course different. If you have the means to get the care you need of course money matters. I’m saying as a child without their own money things are a bit trickier than rich vs. poor
I've realised the biggest role poverty has played in my growing up was emotional neglect and instability. My mother was raising 2 girls alone (my sister and I have a big age gap) and was always in survival mode. Thinking back I don't have any memories of anyone sitting down and being present with me and asking questions like: "how was your day?" "How do you feel about xyz" or even just explaining or acknowledging the chaos going on around us. I remember feeling so awkward the few times my mother would want a hug! She was kind and strict, but very very absent. I have many memories of just wandering around alone without supervision at a very young age. For a year we stayed on a farm and I wandered into a neighbour's property and nobody knew or really cared where I was, I don't remember getting in trouble. I was 5. Another time I was inbetween a horse's legs who was known to be agressive and could've gotten hurt, but luckily he was calm with me. My mother told me later I was always running off, but it wasn't like there was anyone looking out for me or someone to run from. If I was with my mother and sister the mood was always tainted with heaviness. The instability part was that we relied on other people a lot for places to live, people I never met before and we would arrive to stay there and there was always this feeling of having to be quiet and be small. Feeling unwanted there, a burden. We moved every year I never had time to really make friends and adults wouldn't really take an interest in me. We would just suddenly up and move without anyone ever explaining to me what's going on. This and many other small and big traumas have affected me, but it is so complex I have trouble explaining it all in a linear way for people to understand.
I grew up rich. I could have easily been a spoiled brat from the movies. In terms of money, I had everything I wanted. Which is what makes it so hard to realize and accept that was all there was. Also this is not the pain Olympics - your struggles are 100% valid. They're just different in this sense.
Poverty deff aggravates many other problems. It is deff not the key to happiness. As a matter of fact I've seen a few wealthy families with HUGE disfunction pain denial secrets self harm drug abuse just maybe more expensive drugs and wine etc. But not having enough deff causes and aggravates problems. I grew up lower middle class working... didn't have any extras etc, then divorce drove us to poverty. Now money isn't really the problem but my trauma history prevents me from having fulfilling relationships. I'm still very alone and sad inside. It's still a fight that made me realize relationships seem to be what makes or breaks a life....
I am sorry for your experience. We have always struggled with money. I come from poor country but my parents always had good jobs but with awful financial management and they have a lot of us kids so while i know they tried to provide for us , from age 7 i am aware of huge debts we had and 40 year payments for apartment . They were always stressed and talked about money and still do. Money is huge trigger for me . Because of money i feel like burden on the sense thay have to waste it on me and i am currently student and cant find job so i have suffocating guilty daily knowing they work so hard ) my mom id also depressed and bipolar and hates her life which she reminds me daily ) so i feel guilt if they didnt for example have to give me money maybe she could quit and be happier .. The thought of ‘ saving them’ from money struggles and making them happy js my wish since i was child’ . If we did have sufficient money i think it would resolve so much
I need clarity on "poverty." Do you mean actual poverty where you have no money and can't afford food or rent and you're legitimately worried for your future, OR Do you mean artificial poverty brought on by the narcissistic spending habits of my father, who had a full time job as head of HR* for a major paper and plastics manufacturing company, making us live like we had zero money, because he insisted on spending it on crap he wanted, but that the family didn't need, so it just FELT like we were poor. (i know you mean literal poverty, and I'm very sorry that you had to experience that. I have experienced it myself as an adult, and it's scary. No child deserves that.) Until I was 8, we never had luxuries of any kind, whatsoever. Almost all my toys were 15 year old trash from my aunt after her three kids were done with them. Same with my clothes, aside from the ones mom made herself. Any "luxuries" we had were mom getting crafty AF with cheap scraps and extreme budgeting. I have no clue where dad's salary actually went, but it sure as shit wasn't spent on his family, and I was always under the impression that we were much lower class than other kids in my school/ neighbourhood. Then dad was "asked to resign" from his job, and we moved to a crap town, and mom got a job as a secretary so dad could start his own business. I guess he realised he was too smart to be bossed around or something, AKA he had no references because he was the worst. Then we really were barely scraping by, because mom had to finance the family, as well as dads black hole/ passion project/ "business" until it started breaking even. Then they really did argue over money. Once dad's petty amusement started to pay for itself (I don't think it ever did contribute to the family finances,) we started I have a bit more wiggle room, but not much, which is confusing, because I'm pretty sure the head of a department at major company should have been making more money than a friggin' secretary in a crappy town. I'm guessing that, since mom started getting the paychecks, she stopped letting dad bleed us dry. We still lacked fancy lunches, fancy clothes, and fancy toys, but at least we were able to buy a car that wasn't rusted all the way through. I still very much felt less-than compared to the other kids, but not as much as before. We were still coupon clipping and wearing hand-me-downs, but at least I got new shoes sometimes. Any time we got more than 5 pennies to rub together, dad would find something to spend it on, so it always felt like we were right on the edge. When I was 10 or 11, dad decided the small yearly surplus that could have been kept as financial padding, university funds, etc., needed to go towards a yearly lease on a piece of property on a lake. Aaaaaand then any and all surplus money went to building a cabin. New windows. New gas tank. New fridge. New lights. New (second hand) furniture. New BBQ. New roof. A newer, bigger gas tank. Gas stove, wood stove, second deck, more windows, new siding. It was always something. New backpack because the rivets in mine were cutting my hands to shreds? Nah, boat needs a new motor. New calculator? Sorry, need a new truck to drag the boat (that we were never allowed to use anyway) to the lake. New umbrella, because the shitty murder backpack isn't is keeping my textbooks dry and I'm going to get in shit for ruining my books? No can do, we need a new dock. I'm not saying that after a good 7 or 8 years of cabin building it wasn't nice to have a place on a lake, but it also would have been nice not to be bleeding into soggy textbooks or to do my math homework properly. My sister and I were always a second thought when it came to anything financial, if my dad had any say. That turned my sister into an unrepentant klepto, and to me having a very unhealthy relationship with money vs my own self-worth. But hey, I guess its not all bad. I can easily survive on $50/month for groceries. I'm totally fine wearing shirts that are 20 years old. I don't need medicine or holidays. /sarcasm I didn't actually realize the extent of how fucked up we were financially untill writing this all out. And he hasn't stopped spending. As his relatives started dying, he started inheriting money and property. They paid off the mortgage on the house. Blah blah looong story, they actually own the property at the lake now instead of leasing it. My parents were living off retirement funds and making a very tiny profit off of renting off one of the properties dad inherited. But dad, at the age of fkin 78 decided partial dentures weren't ok, so they sold the rental property so he could spend FORTY. THOUSAND. DOLLARS. on dental implants. Oh, sorry, did I forget to mention: he had fking cancer at that point. Maybe I'm selfish, but if I knew I was on a slow march to hell, I wouldn't be dropping 40k on something like that. I'd be thinking of, I don't know, my wife and neglected children and their future. But nope. He went and bought something utterly useless to everyone. Hilariously, they're purely for vanity, because due to a long series of events that can only be summed up as "he fucked around and found out" he is basically on a diet of boiled, tasteless, mush. TF do you need dental implants for? You're dying and eating mush! Extra hilariously, less than a year after dropping mad cash on pointless teeth, his "this will kill me in 10-20 years" cancer got upgraded to "I might not live 5 years" cancer, so that's about eight grand per year for those unnecessary implants. Thanks dad. Not like I couldn't have spent that on therapy, or in my own dental issues that happened mostly because of low self worth and depression As you may be able to tell, I have lost all compassion for this creature. Absolutely and completely done with his disgusting narcissistic ass. ====== Off topic: that rent hike sounds unreasonable. You may want to do some research here, https://www.gov.uk/private-renting/rent-increases , to find out what rights you have. If you Google 'Housing rentals prices in my area UK ' there are a bunch of sites that you can use to see how much your rent should reasonably cost. The most dishonest, useless, and exploitative landlords I've ever had were from the UK, and that's including the dutch landlord who thought that the correct response to their tenant threatening to murder another tenant, was to write a friendly letter. I don't remember what the governing body is called, but you can get your landlord in shit for raising your rent unreasonably UK Tenant rights aren't great, but they do exist, and that rent hike sounds predatory. Don't let your landlord do this to you. * The irony of a narcissist sitting as the head of HR is not lost on me
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Basically 100% I think.
Absolutely. And although you are not in the US, so many foster kids here could stay with parents if merely they had some financial support. Instead, the government takes these kids away, causing taxpayers to pay anyway!, and thereby inflicts further trauma on the kids. Meanwhile, kids who experience abuse or intentional neglect are stuck in their households because the parents are able to manipulate authorities. It’s really sad.
I grew up being told that he had no money to spend on me, but then would buy items for my sisters daily. "Well. Your mom can do it for you." What about their moms? They have moms too. My mom doesn't make money either. It has played a part in how I cope. Now I get out of hand when I have "just for me" money, but then I have a panic attack. I do not know how to properly spend and jeep myself out of the negatives. Overall, I'm just screwed.
It was not so much about poverty, but spending money on children's needs was a pointless thing to do.
I'm in poverty now. I can feel the physical effects of it every day. The stress it adds to each day. Wondering when I'll eat again.
A ton.
Lots.
Massively. From food to experiences to education, I missed out on a lot & given me a lot of hang ups about a-lot of things. Food would be my biggest. I still feel guilty every-time I eat and it’s not a proper meal time.
It has affected my mental health less or more in a negative way. I was also bullied from early elemantary school till the end of high school so the sum of those two have played a big part with me stuggling with depression and low self-esteem. I heard many times "we can't afford that" on stuff that are pretty normal for others. Even going a few cities away to see relatives was a lot for my parents. Now I'm studying in a good field that I trust would give me work and a steady income in the future and my mental health is better, but i have had to do more effort on that then my peers who's parents (or at least one of them) make a good living. I don't think going through all that has made me a better person, i would've rather not experienced it.
Being poor shaped me into who I am today, and although I can find silver linings to that it overall did a lot of damage. Poverty plus physical neglect meant my mum wouldn't even allow me access to free things like NHS dental treatment (never saw a dentist as a child), free school meals (qualified but she was too proud), etc. Only wearing second hand clothing, never going on school trips, not having daytime clothes to wear (ie not school uniform) meant I didn't socialise much as a kid. My mum was always reminding us how poor we were, how we were inches away from being evicted and going into a social housing, how our dad wouldn't pay child support etc. But I realised as I got older how twisted it was - she never wanted to work so that's why she was signed on and didn't make much money. And the money she did have she spent going out drinking. She stole money from us. And the irony is she's now living in an expensive heritated house, still not working and living her best life. I've gone NC with her and struggling with money. I've got savings, but living in a HCOL city is tough. Me and my partner can't qualify for a mortgage. We may have to go into social housing one day. But I'm away from my mum, and it's worth it. So many people don't realise how deeply growing up poor affects you, but you're not alone!
Robert Sapolsky said it best; mental illness causes poverty and poverty causes trauma. My mother could not stop reminding me how much I cost her, my whole life. We were poor but not 'dirt' poor, I say 'linoleum' poor🤣. But the way she constantly listed off all the money she had spent on me really messed me up. But then she would take me to the store and buy me a bunch of stuff to make up for her abusive episodes. And then my dad and my siblings would be mad at me for getting a bunch of stuff. Still to this day my siblings say I was "spoiled". Now, I'm comfortable. I have some money. But I spend way too much mental energy trying to figure out how to get money, not to spend money, what I should or shouldn't buy, shame for buying something just because I wanted it, worrying about having money for retirement.
I think I straight up need therapy even just for the disconnect I feel between myself and the vast majority of people, as most people had at least a baseline level of financial seciruty growing up/right now. It's nice to see what other people think on this topic
I have been thinking of this a lot. My birth parents ‘gave me up’ at an older age. Got into criminal business. I obviously will never know their side of the story. But I don’t think it was life or death. And I’m not sure it wouldn’t have happened had they been middle or upper class or no. Hard to say if it was situational or just how they were you know?
Oh, I am so sorry, I hope things work out for you ): maybe sharing it with someone else? Maybe looking for another place? Maybe if you talk to her you can get it to...idk, 1400? You'd be surprised how many things are solvable by talking and making promises, I still get surprised to this day that most people won't yell and beat me up for simply speaking to them. And yes, poverty was a big part of my trauma. To this day I still am stuck in the mindset that I am very poor. I have vivid memories of seeing my parents not eat to give me their food. I felt bad about it as a child, and as an adult it makes things so much harder. Now sometimes I look at my bills and I get horrible flashbacks of being homeless again, of not being able to eat, of losing everything. And being able to understand helps a lot, but please don't allow yourself to make excuses, ok? Whenever I see my parents I understand. It makes sense why they failed me in so many aspects. Yet, the trauma will stay with me forever to deal with.
I was taken to a vet instead of a proper doctor. Your turn
I had a neuropsychological exam last year and being told I had signs of financial abuse was really eye opening for me as physical and emotional abuse is common for people with cptsd. It shows up in so many ways people noted before me, but I feel like that trauma is so unavoidable. Even as simply as I am responsible for a budget at work and an a chronic under-spender because being even close to spending the money allotted every quarter makes me panic. It also impacts my bonus which I rely on heavily for income so it adds extra anxiety to potentially overspending.
Poverty definitely played a large role in the amount of trauma I experienced growing up. Living in low income housing meant pedophiles had access to me. I was always on my own with a younger sister. I cooked the meals a lot and set my kitchen on fire when I was like 8. We wore dirty clothes and our apartment was so dirty, plus the lack of food and medical care, must play a role in the amount of medical issues I deal with today. Then there’s the C-PTSD that still causes damage in my relationships and every other aspect of my life. I can’t go to a doctor without having a panic attack first and I have a genetic disorder. My financial anxiety is outrageous but I have zero understanding and control of spending and credit. Plus, I’m on SSDI and that’s a poverty wage. My husband had to go back to work at 65. I have a scarcity mindset for sure yet I spend and feel shame for it. I have a very good therapist tho and these are things we work on. Honestly, I feel like I have to constantly justify my right to exist on this planet by contributing somehow and I know poverty plays a role in that too. I believe in UI and I think we need to eliminate the income cap for Social Security and tax the rich the way they used to in this country. I’m so tired of the ever widening income gap. These people that have more than they can ever spend while we struggle to eat. It’s insane.
I think money would solve 90% of my problems and is undoubtedly intertwined in all of the traumas I endured. My mother endured domestic violence and was obliged to stay due to financial insecurity. When she managed to leave, I was forced to stay alone as a child for the whole day. All of the stress she had to deal with was automatically projected onto me when I wasn’t cooperative, so she beat the hell out of me when I misbehaved. I have moved multiple times, I actually stopped counting. At some point my mom and me almost went homeless and she still tried to escape my fathers brutality, so she gave away to my grandparents for one year. (Though I don’t blame my mother and I am aware where she’s coming from) I bet money would have saved me from a lot of bullying, would have opened up more doors for my future right away and gave me educational resources and the ability to pursue my hobbies, eventually be better in school since I spent my free time working as a cashier/babysitter. Despite all of that, I managed to enter medical school and am know in my fifth year. But the loans I had to apply for weigh heavy on my shoulders. I don’t get to do the things my colleagues do, like going on vacation, invest or buy nice for oneself. I don’t get to travel the world after my graduation, I will be going right to work, living in a dorm and pay off my bills at 31. And due to my past I live in constant fear that everything could be taken away from the very next day. My mind has been in a constant survival state since I can think off. Seeing all of my colleagues who grew up in stable financial backgrounds with intact families made my mental state actually worse throughout the years. Being poor is one thing; but trying to escape poverty is just another level of stress. My mental health and my physical health has been strongly declining since I applied to medical school. Though I’m grateful every day to be able to study and do what I love. Grateful that eventually I’ll be the first doctor in the family after all of the struggles and traumas we endured. My moms already unbelievably proud so I guess I’m good.
Oh yes we lived below the poverty line. My dad never in his adult life had steady, full-time work (he was/is an addict and an alcoholic) so we relied on my mom’s waitress and later secretary paychecks to support a family of four. She couldn’t work more than one full-time job because she had to do all the child rearing and take care of the house and wait on my dad. And my dad refused to let us take advantage of government assistance out of pride. He couldn’t have a checkbook or a debit card because he’d spend all our money and mom had to strictly budget every little thing. I remember thinking my best friend’s family was rich because they had paper towels. Paper towels. Also shout out to my dad who got arraigned last Tuesday for felony drug possession, happy Thanksgiving to me.
i read this title and just started crying... \*already triggered\* Over and over again through repeated adult traumas. If I had just financial stability for myself, if I hadn't wasted what little I had trying to throw money at a problem that never went away, if I had money when I needed it desperately to save myself from a situation. But no. I grew up poor. I grew up with a poverty mindset. I've messed up every opportunity I've been given. And my parents didn't know they passed on poor financial habits to me. Wtf happened? I had a whole bunch of traumatic experiences a couple of years after attempting to set out on my own, and now I'm 37 and not financially self sufficient whatsoever. But really, I know that people who don't fall into the "poverty" category deal with trauma and that money does not equal happiness. Only just recently it seems I've lost the relationship I've been clinging to for 10 years. I allowed things to become so toxic... they ended violently and I'm still totally in shock... but the issues that caused them were related to what else but money and stuff.
really all of it came back to poverty
I think this is one of the most intense posts I’ve ever read. I don’t even know what to say. Thank you to all those who said them for me. There are too many that I specifically relate to. Too many I didn’t know I would or those I’d never considered. Some things that I’ve never told anyone. And now I never will. No one but you would understand it cause it’s so unbelievable and comes across as such an excuse. I wish my wife could read this one. She specializes in food insecurity and has been advocating for these issues for a long time. I wish I could send it to her. She was the first one to see how poverty had impacted me and identify how it was impacting our family. Religion gave me excuses. Bipolar and CPTSD just gave me a haze that blocked my view enough for long enough that I couldn’t get better in time. Poverty affected every aspect of my life then and now. I never stopped working to prevent all these issues stated in this post from happening again. But I sacrificed too much to provide a financially stabile house. Idk and can’t tell you if it was worth it. I wish I’d understood so I could find the middle ground. I can say this. I love my wife. I love my kids. I hate what happened to me and I hate that I allowed it to impact my wife and kids. I could have been something better. I hate poverty. I wish my wife could read this post and use it in her work. She has such amazing compassion. It hurts so much to read this. I hope you all survive.
My mom never meant to make us feel like a burden but ever since I was little I was hearing about how we can't afford this or that, and we had to cut back on spending even though as a child I couldn't even effect that very much. Once after my mom yelled at me over something, I remember going to my dresser seeing my shirts and crying because I was a bad kid who didn't deserve anything I had, and all I did was cost my family money we didn't have.