[Antimachides]

Half my childhood I grew up in poor conditions. The stress of everything just drenches you. People traumatizing each other, young and old, in their stress and grief. The poor dull each other. Dulled minds are handed down. Poverty is not just economic fact, it is a state of mind.

[wnevets]

This has been my experience as well. Every day simple things are just harder and more stressful.

[robg]

How were your sleep patterns? I'm frankly amazed we don't consider that stress and sleep are two sides of the same physiological coin - the autonomic nervous system. Sleep is quite simply the recovery from stress and the damage caused.

[lev99]

I think that's an over simplification of sleep. I'm citing the large amount of scientific discussion on the nature of sleep and what happens as the source of my doubt.

[robg]

Rest and recovery is by definition the parasympathetic nervous system and the work on the glymphatic system is showing the often studied views of sleep don't account for the common cause of garbage removal.

[Antimachides]

My sleep patterns back then were unregulated so I would regularly stay up late into the night, like every kid wants to, doing anything I wanted. Now my sleep 2/3AM to 10/11AM lol.

[hyencomper]

Good to know that you got out of it. Every cloud has a silver lining - people who experience childhood adversity are more intensely creative. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.0011...

[amrx101]

Yes. I remember in my high school there was some essay to describe the childhood. The writing was meant to be nostalgic and what not with happy memories. My writing was filled with stress, pain and anxiety. School shoes wearing out, how will I get new school shoes? Growing up, damn, how will I get new clothes?

[tomp]

Did you escape? If yes, how?

[tinyegg]

Yes. I began working illegally at fifteen, I was lucky my boss didn’t bother to look at the age I wrote down on my application. I was able to buy clothes and food. At sixteen I got a second job and still went to high school. I was homeless and lived with my boyfriend, I did as much homework as I could and pulled C’s that year. My mother and her boyfriend bought a house and then decided they had enough room for me to live with them. My father was missing and presumed dead. I worked and spent my free time at the library and the gym. Being home meant subjecting myself to verbal abuse. I saved my money and moved to Silicon Valley right after my 21st birthday. I became a bioengineer and now I’m a stay at home mother and married a programmer. You can escape. Work, save, study and stay away from family members. Join a gym, use ear plugs. Live in your car/van in a nice town if you must. Do not stay around others in a poverty mindset. Get a cup of coffee in a cafe in a wealthy part of town, observe how they interact and emulate them. Go to free meet ups to be around people in a higher social class. You’re going to be working harder than anyone else around you for a while, that’s ok. Follow advice from early retirement blogs, take any shortcuts you can to success, don’t waste time getting a degree. Don’t do anything risky with your health or money. You can take risks in a few years. You can make it out. If there is anyone reading this in a terrible situation I can offer more advice.

[Antimachides]

Switched parents to the one that wasn't doing drugs and had good work and no mental health issues. The kids I remember from that time probably didn't see an escape route in their own lives. A lot of their parents were shits. Some of them were straight chaotic evil. Some, if you put their minds into their children's bodies, they could fit right in and assume their children's roles. Children raising children is a sure way to harm brain development. Also, beating them. Saw a bit of that. Makes me sad to think where those kids might be now.

[chaosbutters]

The typical answers are: education, military, sports, entertainment. You either need to work hard in education or go join the military and survive or be naturally gifted in sports/music.

[fao_]

> or be naturally gifted in sports/music.

Almost all of the people I have seen called 'gifted' in music are ordinary people that were given the chance to develop in music, both through their parents, and through things like council-funded music/orchestral programs, etc.

[empath75]

All the people I know who have been successful in music worked their asses off at it. It takes a special kind of personality to practice by yourself for hours and hours in search for perfection while still having he ability to connect with other people emotionally.

[erikpukinskis]

That’s interesting, I had never considered the contradiction in that.

[zuck9]

> be naturally gifted in sports/music

By this are you referring to ease in college/scholarship acceptance?

[EarthIsHome]

Maybe the commenter was not as poor for the other half of their childhood.

[PebblesHD]

Yes, similar to the other responses I found work wherever possible and moved away as soon as I was able to afford it. Having a safe place to then study and focus on school while working made a huge difference, as did eating properly and getting somewhat reasonable amounts of sleep. Its amazing how much other people can notice your mood drop when you haven’t slept or eaten properly and it just becomes another thing they can single you out over...

[tinyegg]

It’s also important not to be singled out as having money available, but I found this to be the case only around other people in poverty with a poverty mindset. It’s best for others in this environment to consider you out-group. If they consider you in-group they will sabotage and belittle your attempts to escape. It’s a delicate balance of seeming different but also poor. If other poor people find out you’ve been saving money they’ll try to take it. They have an odd view of what “having money” is. My mother is almost sixty and thinks if she has five hundred dollars then she has “a lot of money”.

[tomp]

What do you mean by "eating properly"? As in, "enough", or more like, "not McDonald's"?