Feeling invisible as a First Gen student
No one talks about how invisible and lonely it is to be a first gen student. I think about how lonely it felt to learn as a child. Coming home and not being able to explain any of what you learned to your parents bc they just simply didn’t understand. Eventually I learned to be self sufficient and only rely on myself. It was hard as a child. Academic validation became my only form of being seen. My sense of worth as a daughter depended on my grades and how well I could do things by myself. I’m the youngest and the first one to go to college. The only one out of my friends to go to college too. No one understood me when I was breaking down from not being able to handle work AND school. They thought I was being weak and a cry baby but I was simply just struggling with the fact that I had no one to lean on and no one to understand me. Thats when I got super close to God. He’s the one that picked me back up and encouraged me to keep going. To this day, it still feels lonely to know that I’ve been able to accomplish much more than those around me. My accomplishments don’t even feel like accomplishments.
How has being first gen or even second gen affected you all?