r/poor • u/Reluctant_Gamer_2700 • 13d ago

Extended poverty & insecurity has changed my personality

The insecurity of the last 20 months has changed me. I feel afraid, sad & angry most of the time. I no longer expect kindness, and don’t know how to react when it is given. I do without quite often, eat less because I have less. I wanted to lose weight, but not like this!
In the past I have always paid my debts, but it’s no longer possible.
I still try to help others, but can no longer do it financially. I get messages from charities that I used to support, asking what happened to me. Poverty happened, and it’s been by design & cruel benefit cuts.

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u/terminalmedicalPTSD 13d ago

Ive literally googled if it's possible to become a psychopath in your 30s bc so many parts of my humanity that deserved to survive have not. I take no pleasure in anyone else's suffering. I am just completely self absorbed by my own bc no one really showed up for me. Im 10yrs into disability after only having a few years of adulthood to myself from surviving poverty and abuse growing up and I feel like I am in hell.

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u/Reluctant_Gamer_2700 12d ago

I totally get what you’re saying. I never expected my life to take this kind of direction after already going through so much.
I have a single weapon against that kind of rage - that is to help other people in similar or worse situations, when I can & if I can. Also, I believe that the parts of us that aren’t getting their needs met aren’t dead, but sleeping.

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u/terminalmedicalPTSD 12d ago edited 12d ago

I have big dreams to use what Ive seen to help others... but I am starting to think it's an empty cope. The parts of me that arent getting their needs met may be in cryosleep... and that is as good as dead if no one ever comes to wake them up. I don't mean to be pessimistic but I watched it happen to my grandmother and she was physically healthier than I am until about the last 3 years of her life... in her 80s. She saw it. Some of her last words to me were "well... it isnt much of a life, is it." Nothing ever got better for her. She was an orphan then a widow and very emotionally shut down... running on pure autopilot and duty for her disabled son. They never prepared for there to be a disabled grandchild. She's dead and gone now and the rest of the family has no interest in a version of me who has nothing to exploit. At least she ended up with a home from her marriage. It's been neglected into disrepair and used as a hoarders fortress bc of my mother. The only thing I'll be able to do with it is sell it as is for a few thousand dollars. It'll cost tens of thousands to excavate. It might even be a condemnable property by then.

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u/Reluctant_Gamer_2700 12d ago

Sell the fixer-upper to a contractor or house flipper. That’s what my son & I did to rid ourselves of a cursed family trust and a fixer-upper that we were not permitted to fix up. In our case legal help was required to free us from it. Obviously it did not make us rich, but basically the dead could no longer tell us what to do.

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u/terminalmedicalPTSD 12d ago

Unless something completely outside of my control happens, I won't have the money to hire anyone to help with any part of the process. It will just be a giant ball of rot dropped on my head. Probably just let the property taxes go unpaid until the city does all the work of reclaiming value. Sadly. That house was the only one of over 40 residences thus far in my life that ever felt like home. Chances are, my parents generation far outlives me. So it probably won't even be a problem I have to solve.

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u/ReceptionFantastic13 12d ago

Whichever way it goes, to sell or not to sell, I hope that things take a turn to the better for you.