🍽️ What it means to have grown up with hunger and material deprivation
Growing up with hunger meant there was never enough—never enough money for basics, never enough food in the fridge, never enough certainty about where you'd sleep next week or whether your needs would be met.
You may have mastered invisibility—hiding hand-me-down shame, laughing off empty fridge jokes, and pretending you chose this lifestyle. While other kids worried about which snacks to choose, you learned to calculate whether your family could afford milk and bread in the same week, developing remarkable resourcefulness but also chronic scarcity anxiety.
You may find that even with financial security now, you flinch at grocery store totals and hoard supplies "just in case" because your body remembers hunger it can't forget. Luxury feels like a betrayal, and that voice whispers "Who do you think you are?" when you spend on yourself, because you carry a core belief that you must constantly prove your worth through hard work and sacrifice.