To think the rich/poor divide is so unfair

I think CBT is a good idea as you need to change your mindset. My df died when I was a young teenager my mother was disabled and died not long after. I then got in a relationship to an extremely abusive man who I was told by SW if I didn't leave my baby could be removed. So I looked to what I could do not what I couldn't, did 2 post grads ( not at the same time!) while working full time being the sole carer of a young child. It was difficult but I did always have the belief that things would get better and they did, not overnight. You can change your life but to do so you need to believe in yourself, no one will care about you more than you care about yourself.

I understand the lack of self belief and the imposter syndrome (I have not researched this myself! Just heard it mentioned and resonated with me). Am finally at university after a lot of hard work. I do placements and all the comments at the beginning is I must improve confidence. Where does the lack of self belief come from? I always think, where do I begin to explain that?

It's so hard but please try to believe you are worth. Because you really are! Plus 39 is young. You have plenty of time. Make you entering your 4th decade the decade this all changes!!

The immigrant example by pp is interesting, I’m descended from mixed refugees who were scattered far and wide and there is a strongly ingrained attitude in both my parents’ cultures that education is lifelong, along with expectations around professional attainment that unconsciously drive me today. It is not at all the same sort of poverty that OP describes.

This is so insightful, so eloquent- I can't help thinking that both you and the OP would be very thoughtful and interesting friends to have, full of understanding and intelligent compassion. You are both very expressive writers too, who have somehow managed to educate yourselves in spite of your difficult lives.

It is so so hard to change to a positive outlook. I am a rich person with a negative and destructive self image and approach to life. I battle with it every day and am stuck in a spiral of terrible thoughts, blaming my situation and my many difficulties and losses for my current lousy life. I am also consumed with self loathing over how I have wasted the privilege of my early years.

I am so sorry, OP for the insensitivity of the rich people's comments. Horrible, and also pitiful and so stupid.

I hope you find a way to hoist yourself out. I know how hard that is, even with money and advantages in life, can hardly imagine how difficult poverty makes it for you.

OP a few days ago you said in a post that you were in a customer service role. So are you working or not?

The Back to Education Allowance is only for unemployed people, and you can only get it after a several months of being unemployed. If you applied and were rejected it may be because you haven't been on it long enough. You can appeal it I believe.

Have you done a degree previously? If not you would be eligible for free fees, although you would have to pay the 'student contribution' of about 3000 per year, although I believe if you are not earning much you can apply for a grant towards that. Look into SUSI grants and see what you are eligible for.

No that is not correct. We are lucky to have a great education in this country but it is not accessible by all. Young careers, SEN, health issues, volatile hosuehold situations, mental health, intellignece all factor in. What if your mum could not or would not teach you to read?

Do you imagine that just becaise yopur situation was favourable, everyone else's situation is?

I qualified in my chosen profession at 39, 15 years after most of my colleagues. Having been abandoned by my father weeks before sitting my final exams at school, I left a failure and was struggled to find work that suited my abilities for a decade.
Approaching the age that many of my long-term friends are planning a well-funded retirement, I have another fifteen or twenty years to work.
I realised the gap between us when musing to a friend that life would have been very different if I'd had a parent or relative willing and able to lend me £5,000 if I needed it. My friend replied that their dad would have lent them the money, no questions asked - but as they never borrowed it we were equal.
Good luck.

OP, what do you want to do? Is it possible you could get in touch with the National Careers Service and get support/ideas from them?

Have you had counselling? I wonder if that would help you figure out how to be ‘unstuck’?

Life is unfair and poverty isn’t always understood by those who live in affluence. However, you have agency and can make changes. It doesn’t mean you haven’t got barriers in the way but you need h thy r help to get you on the track you want to follow.

You should look at the biography "Poor" by Kaitriona O Sullivan. She is an individual who came from poverty to now having a PHD. I'm sure she's on socials if you looked her up also

Yes, it is true. We're very lucky in this country to have excellent free education. We were poor, but I still went to university, as do my own kids. All my mum had to do was teach us to read, talk to us and make us think and take us to school. Just like me with my own kids.

Cost us nothing

I was born poor. My mum didn't work, my dad was a research scientist, and I had 3 siblings. We had very little money. Free school meals, no central heating, black and white TV handed down from a relative. Tea after school was a single slice of cheese on toast.

What we did have was a literate childhood. We went to the library a lot and had books and comics picked up at jumble sales (my mum was brilliant at jumble sale shopping. Almost every present and item of clothing came from a jumble sale. They don't seem to be a thing any more. Killed by eBay and vinted I expect).

We also had cheaper university. We got a full grant (I remember mine being 750 a term) and a loan but no tuition fees. My parents paid nothing in addition to this. I had to buy my own clothes, toiletries etc, pay my rent, pay my transport home. I paid for my own driving lessons by working at a pub evenings and weekends. Financially, my parents stopped being responsible for me after I turned 18. I thought it was normal at the time but now I think it was a bit weird to have a 20 year old living at home in the holidays, learning to drive and once or twice my Mum subbed me for lessons but I had to pay her back. She didn't provide the sort of financial safety net that I definitely provide my kids.

Anyway, long story short, I think poverty doesn't help but support, attitude, aspiration, family culture are at least as important. We had nothing as kids and we all earn decent wages now, own our own homes, are professional people.

Yes, it's true that your circumstances at birth impact on your life going forward. But they don't determine it. "Oh woe is me..." is never good look. I was born in a poor family, in a poor area. I have 3 degrees, a professional and well paid role, friends from all walks of life... It isn't a perfect life, because there's no such thing. But I'm happy with it, and I accept that there have been ups and downs, and successes have sometimes come with costs.

Your birth may present certain odds. But you determine how you deal with those and change them.

Quite separately, yes, there is a huge gap between the rich and the poor. That ought not to be the case, and society could be organised differently. To do that collective change is required, and a will to do it. That will is not there. So pull yourself up or not, that's your only choice.

Do you really be;lieve everyone can, just like that? Many professional careers don't pay well. Not to mention that everyone has different levels of intelluigence, health etc etc.

Much of what you say is true, but I think your biggest barrier at the moment is you.

Do you want out enough to go after it? Have a honest look at what is stopping you- internal / external barriers.

You write a lot about what the job centre says you can’t do, but not much about what you will do to achieve what you want.

The job centre is not the best place for career development.

Would you study part-time and get a part-time job to cover what’s lost in JSA? With this you still get help with housing and council tax.

You’re already familiar with poverty, so a few more years of grinding in the vain of bettering yourself is worth it.

Some counselling would help, but if free sessions are hard to come by, join an app like Action for Happiness that offers free seminars and improving your mental health.

If you are poor, take advantage of your free education. Work hard and be rich.

It won't stop the shoes that gave you bunions from being too small, or the taunts about your second-hand clothes, but you can have a lot more as an adult.

It is this negative thinking that is holding you back, not your upbringing in poverty.

I honestly believe there has never been more opportunities open to people as there are today. E commerce and technology allowing everyone to work from wherever they are has advanced social mobility no end.

The first step to you changing your life must be changing your negative mindset. Maybe listen to some podcasts to try and break this.

A lot is what you choose to make of your life and how you choose to confront challenges.

I'm married to the son of a refugee. Some of the family arrived in UK in the clothes they stood up in, not speaking English or having any contacts, or money or anything. Kids were stranded in a war zone and ultimately spent years in prison camps. Arrived after the war not having seen parents for so long they didn't recognise them, traumatised and speaking neither English nor their parents mother tongue.

Within 2 years of being here both children won places at grammar schools and went to Oxford and Cambridge respectively - and whilst having not insignificant mental and physical health issues (unsurprising when you have lived your earliest years severely malnourished, under constant threat of death and in extremely traumatic circumstances - including the murder of their caregivers) they have become very successful.

When I look at what they went through and how they managed to pull themselves up to have happy, fulfilling and successful lives, then I can't see why it should not be possible for anyone to do the same. We live in a country that offers free education to all.

Glad I'm not the only one who noticed how well the OP expresses herself and how insightful she is into her circumstances. I have no qualifications to state this but you come across as someone who could potentially become a counsellor or life coach. Have you looked into these careers? Just a thought x

It sounds like you have had things very challenging in life and currently in a difficult situation. Getting back into education sounds tough in Republic of Ireland. Can any charity's advise you?

People who are not particularly affluent can have backgrounds which perhaps won't trigger you as much. There is a middle ground. Everyone in life can be carrying a trauma. I know few people who don't. I have to say when I returned to education I did just have to smile at the carefree 18 year olds who parents adored them and provided them with everything. Not a care in the world. I limited what I said about my own life to them. Just spoke about theirs. They was lovely girls but had zero comprehension about never having a holiday abroad or having to watch your money.

A few of the young ones I made friends with from similar backgrounds got it. We didn't trigger each other though. Just got it and moved forward together. Maybe it's the fact your not in a place you are happy with. You talk to people who also feel stuck or people who have never been stuck. Surrounding yourself with people who are also trying to improve themselves may help. You can bond over making things better. Not over how rough it has been.

Whilst I agree that the rich/poor cycle is inherently unfair, I do think as an adult you have to take responsibility for where/how you end up.

My sister and I were brought up in an impoverished single parent household and both of us experienced horrendous abuse (of different forms). Effectively, we were dragged up.

I repeated the cycles of my parent and have had a chaotic, unhappy adulthood. I'm ND and have had chronic mental health and physical problems since my teen years. I've achieved very, very little.

My sister, by contrast, who had the same upbringing but is a different person, broke the cycle of intergenerational trauma by various means and is what might be deemed as successful by society's standards. Some of it has been luck, some of it sheer hard graft with a mixture of opportunism and resilience.

Is she happy? No. Does she struggle? Yes. Does she have a lot of money? Yes.

Going through life blaming my awful childhood for my tumultuous adulthood has done nothing more than keep me stuck.

I created my own chains, exacerbated by a society not tolerant of people who fall off the conveyer belt of material acquisition and social acceptability.

Could you retrain in data, there are always jobs in that sector