We Were Too Poor for Trauma
Wij hadden geen geld om ons een trauma te permitteren.
How the phrase ended up in my little notebook
“Ik herinner me dat ik het zinnetje neerschreef na een discussie met Karin, toen ze me al lachend vroeg waar het allemaal misgelopen was in mijn jeugd. Mijn jeugd was de meest normale die er was, met liefhebbende ouders en relatief weinig zorgen. Wat ik wel wist, en met mij vele boomers en ‘Gen Joneses’ is dat er geen , maar dan ook totaal geen aandacht was voor ons mentale welzijn. Dat werd weggelachen.”
“I remember jotting down that sentence after a conversation with Karin, who asked me with a teasing smile where it had all gone wrong in my childhood. My childhood was as ordinary as they come—loving parents, few real worries. What I did know, though, and many boomers and Gen Jonesers will nod along here, is that there was absolutely no attention, none whatsoever, paid to our mental well-being. It was something to laugh off.”
I’m not blind for the fact that, nowadays, trauma is a kind of currency. We unpack it in therapy, we brandish it in HR meetings, and we curate it for our “Life Update” reels. But looking back at the linoleum floors and the flickering fluorescent lights of my childhood, I’ve realized something jarring: we weren’t just broke; we were too poor to afford ourselves the luxury of a psychological breakdown.
Trauma, as it turns out, requires a certain amount of “white space” in a life. It requires the stability to pause, the resources to reflect, and a safety net to catch you when you finally fall apart. When the electricity is one missed payment away from being cut, you don’t have “complex PTSD”—you have a double shift at 6:00 AM.
The Survival Tax
Growing up in a household where the primary language is logistics - how to stretch the milk, which bill to ignore this month, how to fix the car with duct tape and a prayer - there is no room for “processing.”
If something devastating happened, you didn’t go to a darkened room to recover. You went to work. You washed the dishes. You looked after your younger siblings. The adrenaline of survival is a powerful anesthetic; it numbs the sharp edges of emotional pain because the body is too busy screaming about physical needs.
We didn’t have the vocabulary for our hurt because we couldn’t afford the silence required to hear it.
The Delayed Bill
The irony of being “too poor for trauma” is that the bill eventually comes due. It just waits until you’re finally “safe.”
Years later, when I finally had a stable apartment and a fridge that stayed full, the ghosts I thought I’d outrun finally caught up. It’s a common phenomenon among the working class: the “Collapse of the High-Functioner.” Once the crisis ends, the nervous system finally feels safe enough to stop white-knuckling and start weeping.
Suddenly, I had the “luxury” of the trauma I couldn’t afford at twenty.
The New Middle-Class Virtue
There is a strange, subtle class divide in the way we talk about mental health today. The modern wellness industry suggests that if you aren’t constantly “doing the work” of healing, you are somehow failing.
But for many, “the work” is simply staying employed. For those still living paycheck to paycheck, the stoicism that looks like “denial” to a therapist is actually a highly sophisticated survival mechanism.
We weren’t avoiding our feelings back then. We were just prioritizing our breathing. And sometimes, simply staying upright is the most revolutionary thing you can do.
Without wanting to sound cynical, it sometimes seems like trauma is the ultimate social currency. We wear our triggers like merit badges and treat our therapy breakthroughs like Coachella headliner announcements. But looking back at my childhood, I’ve realized something: we weren’t just broke. We were too poor to afford the luxury of a nervous breakdown.
Trauma, you see, has a high overhead. It requires “processing time,” “safe spaces,” and “emotional capacity.” When you’re living in a house where the primary structural support is a stack of unpaid utility bills, you don’t have “capacity.” You have a bus to catch.
The Adrenaline Discount
In our house, if you had a panic attack, someone would inevitably hand you a vacuum or a dish towel. It wasn’t that my parents were heartless; it’s just that “finding your center” was a hobby for people whose checks didn’t bounce.
We didn’t have the vocabulary for our wounds because we couldn’t afford the silence required to name them. We were practicing a very specific kind of blue-collar mindfulness: being “present” only because the future looked like a debt collection notice and the past was too tired to talk back.
The Luxury of a Crisis
My mother didn’t have “anxiety”; she had “the nerves,” which she treated with a cup of instant coffee and a cigarette before heading to her second job. We were too busy white-knuckling the steering wheel of survival to notice the engine was smoking.
The problem with being “too poor for trauma” is that the trauma doesn’t just go away. It just sits in the corner of your psyche, accruing interest like a predatory payday loan.
Years later, when I finally reached a point of middle-class stability—the kind where you buy organic kale and own matching socks—the bill finally arrived. It turns out, you only get to fall apart when you have a floor to land on.
The Stoicism of the Stressed
There’s a certain modern condescension toward people who don’t “do the work” of healing. But for the person working twelve-hour shifts, “denial” isn’t a psychological failing - it’s an essential utility, like water or heat.
We weren’t repressed; we were just budget-conscious. I still have a lingering respect for that younger version of me. The one who was too busy keeping the lights on to notice the house was haunted.