💸  What it means to have grown up in a family with financial struggles

Growing up with financial struggles meant money worries were a constant backdrop to your childhood—every purchase, bill, or unexpected expense created a family crisis.

You grew up in a world where there was never enough—never enough money for basics, never enough food in the fridge, never enough certainty about next month. Your body learned to live in a state of chronic alertness, scanning for signs of the next financial disaster. You became fluent in the language of scarcity: reading your parents' worried faces, understanding which bills meant lights staying on, knowing that wanting something meant being selfish.

Even if your finances are stable now, your nervous system still carries the cellular memory of that insecurity. You learned to need less, hide what you wanted, and take care of yourself because resources were always stretched too thin. The fear of returning to that desperate place never fully leaves—it lives in your body as a constant, quiet panic about the future.