I'm often confused by discussions around poverty, addiction, and crime because they seem to focus heavily on society and not much on individual responsibility

[YourWaryPlumBalonz]

For context, I'm autistic, grew up in a low-income household, and my dad was largely absent and neglectful. He rarely showed up, wasn't particularly involved, and wasn't much of a support. Despite that, I never got involved in crime or drugs.
Instead, I used the support that was available. I got help from charities, received government support related to my disability and employment, and eventually found a professional job. It wasn't easy, but there were people and organisations willing to help.
So what I'm struggling to understand is this: if support exists, why are so many problems framed primarily as society's fault rather than the responsibility of the individual?
I'm not saying circumstances don't matter. Clearly they do. But there seem to be plenty of people who experience poverty, disability, family breakdown, neglect, bullying, etc., and don't end up addicted, committing crimes, or repeatedly making self-destructive choices.

You’re really on one these past few days with your threads about how everyone’s living their lives all wrong and you’re the only one who can see it, OP.

If you’re generally interested and not just rage-baiting, you could do a sociology degree at the Open University rather than asking randoms on Mumsnet to explain things to you.

Because, unlike with you OP, the more ‘support’ you offer some people the more childlike and dependent they become. Necessity is an amazing motivator, and it’s about getting that balance right.

Do you write your OPs using chat gpt? They’re written so well, then we get half a sentence if that in answer to the occasional response by someone.

…everybody is not you, so you can’t judge everyone by your experience.

Yeah, this is all very distasteful.
You've already made clear your lack of empathy, your unwillingness to allow for any human frailty, so there’s no need to march around declaring these things!

Their experience is likely different to yours. Just because two people could describe themselves as having grown up in poverty, for example, doesn't make the experience the same.

You should feel proud of what you accomplished without feeling the need to put down others who didn't make it. Their life was likely harder than you know.

Exactly. Saved me a job responding.

Addiction isn’t a lifestyle whim.

”I used the support that was available. I got help from charities, received government support related to my disability and employment, and eventually found a professional job. It wasn't easy, but there were people and organisations willing to help.”

And your mum gave you £100,000.

I’ve never need the support of charities or organisations or government support OP why have you? I don’t understand why you needed help and couldn’t just take responsibility for yourself.

I didn't say it was? Assuming you responded to the wrong person there.

Is it possibly because literally every expert in these fields understands that society is the most important factor?

I think you should educate yourself in earnest rather than wasting time on polemics.

🤔

Your experience doesn’t represent everyone. Socioeconomic factors do shape outcomes, and people don’t have equal access to support or opportunities. Not everyone has the same chances, and it’s naive to assume your apparent success means others have simply made the wrong choices.

Ah shite, all those actual experts who, you know, research stuff...could have saved themselves the effort and just tapped you up.

God that was such a wonderful first reply and so satisfying to read. Nicely done @VoltaireMittyDream .

which i cant touch until i buy a house

How do you function with so much confusion? Is there any aspect of society that you do understand?

I'm guessing this helped too:

long sotry but family memebr gave money to mum, who then gave some to me
e.g. 200k, mum gave me half

And i dont understand why people who got support still failed

You have a thing which is called ‘survivor bias’ or ‘winner’s bias’. In other words, you have got through a hard start in life and look at all the things you did and infer that the things you did, on your own, no one else, are the reasons you succeeded.

This is a natural human impulse, but also a pretty stupid one that anyone intelligent can rise above.

Because the fact is, there were some opportunities handed to you along the way. Whether nice teachers who helped, or a kind supportive parent or grants - (i don’t know i wasn’t there but i CAN say for sure things will have happened), as well as some blind luck and chance which will have happened for you to succeed.

Firstly, people born well off don’t need to rely on either opportunities or luck - they already have those things. So i’m assuming you can understand if you have a system where a bunch of people have a headstart in the race for uni places, jobs etc, it’s not especially fair to begin with. And then, as an intelligent person, you may be able to reflect with some detachment about all the things that had to go right for you to get where you are today. And imagine where you’d be if those things hadn’t worked out.

By the way i’m autistic and also got myself out of poverty.

But on the way I had

a brilliant mentor in my a levels
some really devoted teachers in secondary school
a library card
a grant to help me go to uni
some blind luck (story for another day but it really was luck) getting an amazing graduate job

^^ if i hadn’t had those things i’d still be where i started, like most of my schoolmates are. I’m not better than them. They aren’t worse than me.

Shame as most autistic people i know are both empathetic and able to see the ‘truth’ in things.

That money could go towards a deposit.

So you can spend it on a house/flat and either have no mortgage or a massively reduced mortgage.

That is a huge helping hand and to dismiss the importance of that is very poor from you.

You understand that £100k for a house is very very different to £0k and no house right?

Congratulations on being better than me i guess.

(That's sarcasm in case you can't tell)