The lingering effects of childhood and early adulthood poverty.
I have been in therapy for the entirety of my 20s. My therapist has continuously encouraged me to find security within myself, and It feels impossible on a nervous system level. I grew up in poverty, and I think that looming feeling of that instability that comes with it has stayed with me. My mom was single with four children working a minimum wage job. We relied on food stamps, charity programs, the church to get by, and thanks to eviction proceedings we were able to secure low incoming housing. Despite growing up poor, I will say that we never grew up hungry. We had times where our electricity and gas was cut off, and we had to shower at relatives houses or rely on propane stoves to cook, but I’m blessed to have never experienced food insecurity; however, my housing always felt unstable. After finally securing low income housing our family was displaced by a house fire. That was a very destabilizing period of my life, my entire family lived in one hotel room. We would rotate saying with friends or family sleeping on their couches. Not only was this devastating emotionally, but it was also ruined me financially. Things that felt commonplace and easy for others, felt Impossible and daunting to me. I filed for bankruptcy, I worked hard to pay off my first car, increased my income painstakingly, secured my own apartment, and tried to finish my bachelors degree simultaneously. I’m now in a place with my car paid off, although it’s on its last leg, I have a loving partner, and I finally have my name on an apartment lease; however, I feel so lost. Idk if it’s a by product of being in survival mode for so long, but I have no idea what I want to do with my future. Every decision I’ve made up until this point was about survival. I’m almost done with my bachelors degree in psychology. I originally Intended on being a mental health therapist, but with some form of stability now I realized that career path choice was more about better understanding myself, and less about genuinely wanting to pursue it as a career. I live in a perpetual state of anxiety worried that everything will crumble around me and I’ll lose everything. For those that have been through something similar, how did you learn to find security post poverty?