My story.
When you grow up in poverty, you second guess many things you do, including whether your work is good enough, whether you are doing good enough in life, or if your family, friends, and especially the company you work for believe in you and your vision.
I think, and this is my opinion, that it is this way because many of us who grew up in poverty and those who had a chance to break these cycles of poverty are now in different financial, social, and career stages that we never been in. We are now trying to function in what we feel is a new or different world, even if we have been doing this lifestyle for over 30 years.
When you never thought you would be in companies that depend on you, you never thought you would hold the job you have/had or even work with the people you work with; it becomes scary but exciting. Especially when you try to be yourself, but some may not understand your way of thinking, speaking, and even your vision, so again, your back to prove your worth even if you do not have to, but you can't help it.
When you want to show your family a better life, a different outcome, and put all this pressure on yourself, it can also be scary but creates a person full of drive and maybe even an overachiever, which may be an excellent way to show others they can make it but also can be too much and have you burn out. The work and life balance is off scaled.
The other part is that you always want to do your best and be your best at what you do. It is hard to hear from those you love, who work with you, or who oversee your work any negative feedback. Even things as small as saying you can do something better feel like a threat and makes one insecure about who they are. It is natural for those who grew up in poverty to think and feel defensive and anxious as if they will lose their job, stability, self-worth, and even themselves!
It is hard to feel and know hey "you are good enough" and that you do not have to work harder than everyone else because you are amazing. It is hard to remove the constant thoughts that you will lose your job, stability, and yourself, if you are not the best at everything you do.
Many may quit their positions, marriage, and even anything challenging to feel in control of their environment and not feel they failed in life or possibly get fired. Instead of facing their thoughts, expressing their feelings, or wanting to hear the truth from others because they prefer to walk away and keep their peace and control of the future. They want people to love and believe in them. Having hard conversations and listening to things they may want to avoid especially hearing about your weakness. Many do not realize that the reality may be your thoughts and perception are not what others think about you. Their thoughts could be that you are intelligent, a go getter, and loving and not that you would be fired, and they never planned to leave you; they love you, your ideas, and who you are.
I speak from my experiences and cannot speak for others, but our upbringing can bring these feelings, emotions, and many self-sabotage. I grew up in poverty with abandonment and trust issues due to all I experienced in life, especially in my childhood. The many challenges we may face today, and I faced as I was born in a family from the same country but with a different lifestyle and culture, a family with young parents who met at 14 and married at 16 and had four kids, a family who spoke no English but had the drive to move to the "States". A family that grew up in homes with lead, terrible insulation, lived with an infestation of rats and roaches in the house, someone who had to move every few months, someone who had to eat what was available, someone who had to eat it if we liked it or not, Someone who had to eat it even if you had to push the roaches to the side because dumping food was not an option. Someone who depended on Government Social Services- food stamps, rent paid, and lights on was not always available. Someone who had to sit for hours at a food pantry in the cold weather, freezing rain, and whatever it took to keep the family fed. How we could not wait to receive the Government cheese, a treat.
Someone who had to learn English, someone who had been bullied because no one understood the English language, someone who dealt with constant domestic violence, police in the home, and afraid to sleep many nights.
I am talking about someone who had to deal with teen pregnancy and everyone telling you how you will never be anything in life, how College was for the rich and not an option for me/us, how going to the ER was our doctor because no one knew better. I am talking about those of us who stole food from the stores to have food and tried to win every radio contest giveaway to eat something special. I am talking about those who won or stole food and felt they won a million dollars.
I am talking about us who had to add extension cords from your neighbor's house to ensure we had the refrigerator on and did not spoil our food and at least one light available to see. I am talking about us who had to go to Kmart and Hills and steal clothes to be warm and not have cheap one-layer sneakers in the winter. I am talking about us who had to walk miles when our parent car broke down, so we rode our bikes everywhere. I am talking about us, who everyone considered a misfit and a menace to society.
I am talking about us who felt we had to sell illegal items to survive. I am talking about us who had no family member to ask for help if we were in a money bind because we all were in the same broke boat. I am talking about us who partied, drank 40 ounces, and smoked to forget about all the bad things we had to do to survive and not think about our lifestyles. I am talking about us who joined gangs because we did not know better but knew we were protected and had our basic needs met. I am talking about us who had to miss School to help our parents translate documents and help them with appointments so we could get our rent paid and food stamps. I am talking about us who were told to go back to our Countries, and our English was not good enough, to stop speaking our language, and that we were ghetto and not good enough to be here.
I am talking about us who were disrespected by authority, bullied by them and hurt by authority and thought they were here for us. I am talking about us who quit School because we did not understand the material and did not understand why we were learning about the past when our lives at present was a mess. I am talking about us, who may have slept on floors, shared rooms with multiple family members, had to join job corps, and have even eaten at the homeless.
I am talking about us who everyone counted out, but we never gave up on us, and GOD never gave up on us and helped us break all those curses, broke all those myths, broke all those negative ways, and turned our lives around.
Even with turning our lives around, we still are mentally stuck on how to not ever be in that place again and how to learn to be us without feeling like someone can take our peace, joy, and hard work away.
We now have to work on being comfortable working with people who did not grow up like us and speak a different social language and are more confident because they grew up knowing what to do. They grew up with stability and privilege and had someone they could depend on if life threw them a curve ball. How do we not have anxiety when they say you did something wrong, provide us feedback, or create an avenue of security. Still, your trust in your abilities gives us/you fear to try to advance and be the best you can be because in the back of your head, you are weak, but in front of everyone, you have to be strong, confident and try never to fail, never make a mistake and never looked at as who you once felt you were.
Even though we been through a lot we did make it through many obstacles, created the way for others, choose a better road and now we have to learn to work on us. To work on being confident us, yes, we made it us, we can do this us, they believe in us, and we believe in us!
Hope your enjoyed as God had this in my spirit and I felt that I had to share!
