To think the rich/poor divide is so unfair

[Mooshamoo]

I know people who were born into lovely comfortable families.

These people had enough money. They also had two supportive caring parents. No worries or stres at all..Every one of those people went on to college, and went on to have really good jobs. They have a good social life, they get to socialise with people who also came from comfortable families.

I came from a troubled family. My father abandoned us. Which left us in poverty. So we had no money. I also had no emotional support whatsoever. My mother was an emotional mess and couldn't cope on her own with anything, I basically had to be her mother from a very young age. I had a lot of emotional worries and stress. As a young woman, early twenties, I remembered seeing other young women enjoy nights out. I never got to have anything like that as I was just struggling to survive.

I didn't have support to achieve anything in my life, and I ended up in dead end jobs and I still now don't have a lot of money, I don't have good relationships. I don't have great friendships, as I find the rich affluemt comfortable people don't want to socialise with me. I remember one person saying to me "oh is that a shitty little job that you do".

And if I socialise with people from a similar troubled background to myself, these peollw have so many problems of their own, that these never turn out to be good healthy friendships for me. We just add to each others problems. For example we will sit with each other and one person will say "I lived in foster care and it was horrendous, the family were abusive" I will say "one time i lived in emergency accommodation as a young woman and it was awful". Our lives were so bad that to be around each other, we just make each other sadder and worse.

It just feels like being trapped in a cycle of poverty and suffering that's not fair and there is no way out.

It's luck of birth.

OP, you sound very articulate, and very aware of your situation, which I think shows you have won half the battle. The fact that you recognise this means that you are in a great position to do something about it. There are plenty of free resources for further education, courses etc, or even apprenticeships. The fact that you are able to articulate yourself so well I think opens up many opportunities for you. I would say, go for it, and don't let your past hold you back.

I’m not sure I agree with your post. Sometimes growing up with no money and no emotional support can spur you on to make more of your life.

My father left us. We had no money. My mother had a breakdown and really wasn’t a great mother at all. I had zero support, had to be a mother to her, went completely off the rails and fucked up my a-levels as a result.

But I pulled my shit together, got myself to uni in order to escape my shitty life, then got a good job, a shitty little flat but worked hard and took every opportunity offered to me and created as many opportunities as I could.

Jump forward a decade or 2, I live in a £1.5m house, earn £200k+ a year, my kids are privately educated, and from looking at me and my lifestyle most would assume I had a very privileged upbringing.

Haven't you said previously that you were teaching English in Spain OP. So to have been able to have done that you must have had a decent education and had opportunities like other people.

I do think I have the psychological blocking thoughts aswell of:

"I'm not worth anything. I can't do it. Ill never be able to get there. I'm not able to do it."

holding me back aswell.

One of the people I admire most started at the bottom in a fast food chain with no qualifications, worked their ass off and started progressing up the ladder until they managed their own store.
It's hard to have self belief when you have never had anyone believe in you.

Try cbt. I found it useful for breaking the cycle of u helpful thoughts and focusing on the things I could chnage

Yanbu OP. The sad thing is I think people who come from privileged backgrounds literally cannot understand why some people can't afford the same things they can and seem baffled when I can't spend the same on holidays, or why I've not bought a house yet or whatever. It's almost like they blame it on me. Sadly my parents didn't give me help towards a house and rent is too expensive to save. Yet they look at me quizzically when I state such things.

YABU - but not very unreasonable. I get it. But you are wasting yourself fighting against the variances of luck.

The thing is you have to take personal responsibility for now, the present.

If you and your friends are sitting around trading sob stories, then of course you feel hard done by. But if you are able to be positive, live without resentment, and look for opportunity then it can get better from here.

Do some online CBT or personal mental health mastery and see if you can spot some opportunities for yourself to make things better.

No, 40 isn't too old. One of the regrets of my life is that I didn't try to get on a 4 year medical course when I was 40.

Could you afford the OU? I just looked at accountancy because it was top of their list

your comment is very naive. It is very easy to study hard when you have your own room, a full belly and don’t have to clean/look after sibling while your parents are either out working or off thier heads on something. Very different situation when you share a room with 4 others and have no table space to do homework, have to look after toddler siblings, and go without dinner some nights. The stress of poverty even as a child can be all consuming.

@2dogsandabudgie i went to teach English in an after school academy in Spain for a while yes. They call the role a "teacher" but you don't need a teaching degree to do it. They just want native English speakers to sit there and talk English to the kids

You don't need a degree to do that. You just need to be a native English speaker.

I did it for a change.

The pay was extremely bad and It was not possible to live on. The money I got teaching in Spain was less than I get now on job seekers allowance in Ireland .

I just want to get out of low paying jobs

You are unreasonable to equate being Rich with having two loving caring parents. Rich people can have abusive childhoods too. They just generally hide it better.

Yes life is unfair. I was born into poverty, both my parents were dead by the time I was 18 and I was homeless. I did have a job which at least allowed me to find a house share and pay my bills. You know what made a difference to me? This might sound crazy but a childhood spent reading novels where people had to struggle through adversity to get where they were. Like Jane Eyre or The Little Princess. I decided I’d rather be the heroine of my own life rather than a victim. So you can’t help your circumstances-but you can imagine a better life and see what can be done to create it. Use whatever help is there whether from friends or agencies. I’m comfortable now-but I remember the days of poverty and struggle very well and am very glad my children didn’t spend their teenage years bereaved and unsupported. However, those times make you into a person who can be resourceful and full of hope. Look at someone like Angela Rayner. Her start in life was terrible-yet look what she has achieved. Try not to be bitter about other people’s circumstances-it will stop you leading a full life.

@HelpMebeok I didn't say that all rich people have supportive parents though. If you look back , I was talking about people that I know.

I already explained we came from humble beginnings.
I also worked 0500-0900h from the age of 12 while continuing at school.

If you did enjoy that, you can get some great jobs in China/Japan with a DELTA teaching qualification.

I agree with you op as I feel the same tbh

I think you are generalising a bit too much about "rich" people not understanding what its like. Not every rich person has always been rich. I am very fortunate that now I have a very comfortable life and I am extremely grateful for that.

However, my childhood was completely different. My dad was an alcoholic who was in and out of prison, he ran up huge debts and left us with nothing. My mum was a full time teacher who worked bar jobs in the evening to keep a roof over our heads. We had no money for any extras, it was just survival for many years. I also had the stress of my dad turning up and being violent/trying to break in etc

As PP's have said, the one factor that can level things is education and the opportunities it gives you. It was my way out and I was very lucky that I could take advantage.

I just wake up and think Im such a failure , i've made so much of a mess of my life, and my employment history is so sporadic and all over the place.

And I'm 39 and it's too late and I'm not worth anything and if I start in some direction, I don't know which way to go or where to start, or would I be able to do it.

Which I know is not getting me anywhere! I need to start in some direction.

@Mooshamoo open uni?

you can get student finance for it now and it can be paid for through student finance as well

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

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.

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.

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

@HectorGloop I didn't mean all rich people don't understand what it is like. I said some. I meant the ones that are rich from birth. They only see what they see. They don't have the understanding really of why people are poor. I'm not angry at rich people for being rich. I just wish that some of them would have a little more empathy.

I remember having a conversation with a very rich woman that I know when I was in my twenties. . I mentioned to her once that id been extremely poor as a child. And that I still had a really hard life now in my twenties. She wasn't empathetic.

She said "but my parents were rich because they worked very hard".
She implied that she thought poor people just didn't work hard enough.

I said to her "it's not all about working hard! My dad left my mum and didn't give us any money. My mum worked hard and we were still poor"