Family vacation when my kids were about 8 and 10. We don’t vacation every year, more like every 5-8 years. Trip to Lake Erie. The kids loved the amusement park there. We found ourselves with an unscheduled day at the end of the week and asked them if there was any place in particular they’d like to revisit. My son mentions the amusement park we’d enjoyed earlier in the week, but also that we could go after 4PM because it’s half price. This is still hard to unearth.
I Have about 15 teeth left at 57. $250 for an extraction vs thousand for root canals,crowns etc. With no insurance and a family it was more cost effective to have it pulled. Of course I waited till they absolutely blew up with infection before I sought help. Did that too many times to remember. Sadly,it got easier to say “pull it” as time went on.
Like Peggy Sue’s Granpa,I wish I took better care of my teeth. 😎✌️
Just clicking the heart doesn’t seem right after reading this post. I find I have tears dripping into my tea as I read this, waiting for my son who is the same age as your own to finish getting ready for school. Please. Please don’t ever stop writing.
That is so relatable. We like wine but even after doing vineyard tours around Napa have never found anything regardless of price and £/$5 a bottle is fine for us. Beer though... When I was about 8 I chipped a front tooth. Eventually got an abscess. Went to dentist and got root canal. It was the days when drills had those cords driving them. For six weeks I had to go and get the root drilled, no injections, just bear it and stop crying. Dentist was a sadist. Scarred me for life. I fear the dentist to the point where I have fainted more times than I can count. Found a dentist that understood and was great, still fainted and dreaded every moment.
I was born in 1963 and had a HORRIBLE dentist, he later lost his license due to drilling and surgery that were NOT required...in other words he drilled holes into kids teeth that didnt even have a cavity!! He was a true sadist, would leer at little 5 year old me and ask "does it hurt?" and when I said it did he replied "goooooood". Yep. He instilled in me a terror of dentists that remained firmly inlace until I was almost 40 and was told I needed a root canal. I was close to hysteria, stated sobbing and told my new dentist all about my childhood dentist. She became very upset and said that there were therapeutic modalities even in the 1950s to avoid pain during the procedure and that y old dentist was truly a sadistic prick. I relented and made the appointment and arrived (I didnt drive) at my appointment shaking like a leaf. Imagine my surprise when the worst part of the procedure was the initial Novacaine injections!!!!! I am blessed with good teeth (Thank you, tooth God) but I am borderline fanatical about brushing and flossing.
The part you wrote about money is also something I can relate heavily to. I ran away at 16 due to being raped and my wonderful (insert sarcasm emoji) parents telling me I deserved it. I was living on the streets, eating out of (thankfully back then) unlocked dumpsters. The irony of it was my Dad was the CEO of Sentry Insurance. Talk about the Black Sheep of the family. I had dropped out of High School. After a few months I decided to call my mother, I had to borrow the change for the call, and she commented "Oh, we all thought you were dead.." How heartwarming! She then hung up on me. I went back to my group of other homeless folks, and said, where do we go to get a GED around here?? They directed me to the place and I went the next day.
This. All of this. I get it, so deeply, even though I’ve rewired my neurons in the opposite way - as my Mama’s lifelong sacrifices, just as you describe them, meant I could follow my dream & get a top education & make good money without selling my soul. But her neurons, like her parents’ & all other peasant serf generations’ before them, never got rewired even though she could be more comfortable now, and afford that $50 cake. Instead, she’ll still save & scrimp to be sure there’s a padding for the unforeseen, and ultimately she’ll send it to me, unasked, because she lives her unfulfilled dreams vicariously through mine now.
We had a terrible relationship until I was in my 30s - both suffering compound, untreated PTSD & having been abused by narcissists and predators all our lives, we were a mental health mess. And there was only me and her. Forced together in abject poverty & misery - and yet, at Christmas I always remember the best gifts she managed to get me: a beautiful hand knitted jumper she managed to hide making from me, even though we shared a bedroom in a 50m2 flat. A pair of second hand Atomic skis she had to save for. A desk for my school work.
But we got through it, and only in adulthood could I truly fathom the depth of her love (which she mainly showed me with money, which had more strings & control than ever being regarded as a “gift” by me), and how different my life would have been without her wishing me to get out of the multigenerational trappings of trauma & poverty.
Thank you so much for so clearly articulating trauma, this one both familial, individual & societal, and waking others up (hopefully) to what inequity & poverty does to us, collectively. I’m glad you’re getting your tooth fixed.
As I continue to process, this piece is weighing heavier on me than others.
It began with how my financial struggles and sacrifices had affected my brains wiring. My struggles have never been remotely close to yours even though there have been plenty along the way. I’ve reached a crossroad in my life that will most likely make financial struggles more likely in my future when I’m on my own. Until that day arrives, I’ll be trying to tie up as many loose ends as possible, and tend to as many overdue items as I can (my own dental issues among them), to get them settled and out of the way beforehand.
I’ve now turned my attention to how your struggles and sacrifices have affected you. I’ve read a lot of “your story” throughout the years. This one pains me the most. You are worthy of good things. You are worthy of great ones.
It upsets me that because of what you’ve been through your thoughts otherwise have become so engrained in your being. I don’t know what happened in the 10 years prior to your year of the phoenix, but you seem to have spent the last 10 years trying to be a good man, a good friend, a good son, and most importantly, a good father. You’ve been fantastic at the most important part. I bet you’ve been pretty fantastic at the other stuff too.
I very much want this to be your year. I hope putting your experiences and feelings into words is truly cathartic for you in addition to the help you obviously provide to so many others.
Like I already said, you deserve good things. Great things. You are most worthy. Your suffering deserves to heal.
I hope someday you’ll be able to say “I feel so much better now. Thank goodness that’s over with”. I very much wish this for you.💜
This has been a great read, and a mind changer. Definitely calling my dentist tomorrow and hopefully get my molar checked out and preferably pulled this week, even if it costs my entire paycheck.
"There was a time in my life when my friends and I all “invested” in a friend’s independent film mostly because we wanted to support him despite knowing it was more donation than investment."
I don't know Hoarse. Never have. Never will.
But real, or imagined, I *feel* like I know him.
I feel like somewhere in that life up-and-down of choices that he made, I'm in there somewhere.
I want it to work for him: to be able to write, which is vastly different from being a writer.
When your son prompted you to jump off the cliff so to speak and write, I wonder if he is aware of what an impact your writing has.
That said, poverty is soulless. It inflicts pain at every level. Took me years to grasp the intricacies of extracting myself from that mindset. You go without for so long it does alter your perception of needs. Real needs.
As to you story, did the same avoided the fear of the bill that could destroy our lives and by the time I found my footing It has cost me significantly. However, I can bear the cost now unlike in the past when it would have affected my kid’s very existence.
Though having had stretches during college where I had to live off $15 a week and not being able to pay my rent for several months, I can’t say I’ve been where you and obviously many commenters here have been.
The prolonged, enduring poverty that simply doesn’t leave room for *anything*, even taking care of one’s health - and that ultimately reroutes your brain to permanently deny yourself.
So, I don’t feel like I’m entitled to write much, but there’s something I have to say.
Reading this entry makes me angry. So FUCKING angry. I-could-cry-angry.
We live in the 21st century, luckily in what we call the western civilized world. The rich part of the world. And yet, we allow our societies to produce poverty to the extent described in your post.
There’s so much that Germany makes easier on poor people, even though there is still poverty. At least we - like most other western countries - have universal healthcare that is accessible to even those without or little money. So, basic health care for acute and emergency situations is covered for everyone.
But the U.S.?
It’s the *one* social, human enigma I was never able to understand. Sure, historically, politically, I could explain why the U.S. makes health care a matter of money instead of a basic human right.
But as a human? A modern human of the 21st western civilization? An empath?
I. Just. Cannot. Fathom. It.
A society’s motivation to invent a phrase like „lifetime caps“? What motivates a society to slap a price tag on a human beings life?
This dichotomy of a rich country no affording itself universal healthcare was the reason why I immersed myself in the health care debate so much back during the primaries in 2019/20 - I didn’t want the unicorn, but a pragmatic approach to health care so at least some of it would come to pass. Finally.
I’m rambling and I’m sorry.
I know this is only in part about health care.
I hate that poverty reprograms people’s brains.
I hate that we in the western world allow it to happen.
I hate that you & commenters here know it first hand.
We could eradicate it all. Hunger, poverty, low living standards. Diseases.
God knows there’s enough money in the world to do it.
No one should have a reason to know what this feels like. Should have experience enough with it to write a hugely eloquent Substack entry about it.
The fact that it’s still in existence, especially in the western world, just makes me so fucking angry.
And yet, as a society, we’re not nearly angry enough.
Ps: hope the tooth was taken care of and the pain is over. At least this one ❤️
This really hits home for me. Frivilous spending in my 20s, a moving truck and all my possessions stolen, a $30K tax bill assessed on my spouse 6 months after we were married, laid off in 2009 and took a year to find a job making less than half what I had been, debt consolidation. I, and then we, got through it all. So when my back molar cracked down the center, I was given the option of a bone graft and implant ($7,500) or a 30 minute $60 extraction, I didn't even stop to think. I don't need that tooth, and I don't miss it. The only debt we have now is a mortgage that we've been able to pay down the principal so it will be paid off in 5 years. Those crises taught me the value of prioritizing needs over wants.
I feel seen - if only a little bit - a mere shadow of that understanding of existing beyond survival.
I used my engineering skills to fix my own cars, not out of fun like the Cruisers and their classic cars, but out of necessity because doing it myself was 1/4 the price of having the garage do it.
Another day I will share my escapades at Rutgers Dental School trying to get my tooth fixed.
Wow, been there. During law school and during my divorce. For me it is more of an ebb and flow. As my husband (2nd) and I near closer to retirement I know that the third big ebb is coming in the future. And I will be fine. Because I am comfortable shrinking my life down having done it before. Good luck on your tooth and my advice is ride the ebb and flow knowing you can survive both!
All of this.
This resonates.
Family vacation when my kids were about 8 and 10. We don’t vacation every year, more like every 5-8 years. Trip to Lake Erie. The kids loved the amusement park there. We found ourselves with an unscheduled day at the end of the week and asked them if there was any place in particular they’d like to revisit. My son mentions the amusement park we’d enjoyed earlier in the week, but also that we could go after 4PM because it’s half price. This is still hard to unearth.
I Have about 15 teeth left at 57. $250 for an extraction vs thousand for root canals,crowns etc. With no insurance and a family it was more cost effective to have it pulled. Of course I waited till they absolutely blew up with infection before I sought help. Did that too many times to remember. Sadly,it got easier to say “pull it” as time went on.
Like Peggy Sue’s Granpa,I wish I took better care of my teeth. 😎✌️
Just clicking the heart doesn’t seem right after reading this post. I find I have tears dripping into my tea as I read this, waiting for my son who is the same age as your own to finish getting ready for school. Please. Please don’t ever stop writing.
That is so relatable. We like wine but even after doing vineyard tours around Napa have never found anything regardless of price and £/$5 a bottle is fine for us. Beer though... When I was about 8 I chipped a front tooth. Eventually got an abscess. Went to dentist and got root canal. It was the days when drills had those cords driving them. For six weeks I had to go and get the root drilled, no injections, just bear it and stop crying. Dentist was a sadist. Scarred me for life. I fear the dentist to the point where I have fainted more times than I can count. Found a dentist that understood and was great, still fainted and dreaded every moment.
I was born in 1963 and had a HORRIBLE dentist, he later lost his license due to drilling and surgery that were NOT required...in other words he drilled holes into kids teeth that didnt even have a cavity!! He was a true sadist, would leer at little 5 year old me and ask "does it hurt?" and when I said it did he replied "goooooood". Yep. He instilled in me a terror of dentists that remained firmly inlace until I was almost 40 and was told I needed a root canal. I was close to hysteria, stated sobbing and told my new dentist all about my childhood dentist. She became very upset and said that there were therapeutic modalities even in the 1950s to avoid pain during the procedure and that y old dentist was truly a sadistic prick. I relented and made the appointment and arrived (I didnt drive) at my appointment shaking like a leaf. Imagine my surprise when the worst part of the procedure was the initial Novacaine injections!!!!! I am blessed with good teeth (Thank you, tooth God) but I am borderline fanatical about brushing and flossing.
The part you wrote about money is also something I can relate heavily to. I ran away at 16 due to being raped and my wonderful (insert sarcasm emoji) parents telling me I deserved it. I was living on the streets, eating out of (thankfully back then) unlocked dumpsters. The irony of it was my Dad was the CEO of Sentry Insurance. Talk about the Black Sheep of the family. I had dropped out of High School. After a few months I decided to call my mother, I had to borrow the change for the call, and she commented "Oh, we all thought you were dead.." How heartwarming! She then hung up on me. I went back to my group of other homeless folks, and said, where do we go to get a GED around here?? They directed me to the place and I went the next day.
This. All of this. I get it, so deeply, even though I’ve rewired my neurons in the opposite way - as my Mama’s lifelong sacrifices, just as you describe them, meant I could follow my dream & get a top education & make good money without selling my soul. But her neurons, like her parents’ & all other peasant serf generations’ before them, never got rewired even though she could be more comfortable now, and afford that $50 cake. Instead, she’ll still save & scrimp to be sure there’s a padding for the unforeseen, and ultimately she’ll send it to me, unasked, because she lives her unfulfilled dreams vicariously through mine now.
We had a terrible relationship until I was in my 30s - both suffering compound, untreated PTSD & having been abused by narcissists and predators all our lives, we were a mental health mess. And there was only me and her. Forced together in abject poverty & misery - and yet, at Christmas I always remember the best gifts she managed to get me: a beautiful hand knitted jumper she managed to hide making from me, even though we shared a bedroom in a 50m2 flat. A pair of second hand Atomic skis she had to save for. A desk for my school work.
But we got through it, and only in adulthood could I truly fathom the depth of her love (which she mainly showed me with money, which had more strings & control than ever being regarded as a “gift” by me), and how different my life would have been without her wishing me to get out of the multigenerational trappings of trauma & poverty.
Thank you so much for so clearly articulating trauma, this one both familial, individual & societal, and waking others up (hopefully) to what inequity & poverty does to us, collectively. I’m glad you’re getting your tooth fixed.
As I continue to process, this piece is weighing heavier on me than others.
It began with how my financial struggles and sacrifices had affected my brains wiring. My struggles have never been remotely close to yours even though there have been plenty along the way. I’ve reached a crossroad in my life that will most likely make financial struggles more likely in my future when I’m on my own. Until that day arrives, I’ll be trying to tie up as many loose ends as possible, and tend to as many overdue items as I can (my own dental issues among them), to get them settled and out of the way beforehand.
I’ve now turned my attention to how your struggles and sacrifices have affected you. I’ve read a lot of “your story” throughout the years. This one pains me the most. You are worthy of good things. You are worthy of great ones.
It upsets me that because of what you’ve been through your thoughts otherwise have become so engrained in your being. I don’t know what happened in the 10 years prior to your year of the phoenix, but you seem to have spent the last 10 years trying to be a good man, a good friend, a good son, and most importantly, a good father. You’ve been fantastic at the most important part. I bet you’ve been pretty fantastic at the other stuff too.
I very much want this to be your year. I hope putting your experiences and feelings into words is truly cathartic for you in addition to the help you obviously provide to so many others.
Like I already said, you deserve good things. Great things. You are most worthy. Your suffering deserves to heal.
I hope someday you’ll be able to say “I feel so much better now. Thank goodness that’s over with”. I very much wish this for you.💜
This has been a great read, and a mind changer. Definitely calling my dentist tomorrow and hopefully get my molar checked out and preferably pulled this week, even if it costs my entire paycheck.
This is a great piece. You’re very good at this.
Kept re-reading this line:
"There was a time in my life when my friends and I all “invested” in a friend’s independent film mostly because we wanted to support him despite knowing it was more donation than investment."
I don't know Hoarse. Never have. Never will.
But real, or imagined, I *feel* like I know him.
I feel like somewhere in that life up-and-down of choices that he made, I'm in there somewhere.
I want it to work for him: to be able to write, which is vastly different from being a writer.
I want it to work for me. Not as a writer.
I just want it to work.
When your son prompted you to jump off the cliff so to speak and write, I wonder if he is aware of what an impact your writing has.
That said, poverty is soulless. It inflicts pain at every level. Took me years to grasp the intricacies of extracting myself from that mindset. You go without for so long it does alter your perception of needs. Real needs.
As to you story, did the same avoided the fear of the bill that could destroy our lives and by the time I found my footing It has cost me significantly. However, I can bear the cost now unlike in the past when it would have affected my kid’s very existence.
Good luck with tooth, the dentist.
I struggled with how to comment on this.
Though having had stretches during college where I had to live off $15 a week and not being able to pay my rent for several months, I can’t say I’ve been where you and obviously many commenters here have been.
The prolonged, enduring poverty that simply doesn’t leave room for *anything*, even taking care of one’s health - and that ultimately reroutes your brain to permanently deny yourself.
So, I don’t feel like I’m entitled to write much, but there’s something I have to say.
Reading this entry makes me angry. So FUCKING angry. I-could-cry-angry.
We live in the 21st century, luckily in what we call the western civilized world. The rich part of the world. And yet, we allow our societies to produce poverty to the extent described in your post.
There’s so much that Germany makes easier on poor people, even though there is still poverty. At least we - like most other western countries - have universal healthcare that is accessible to even those without or little money. So, basic health care for acute and emergency situations is covered for everyone.
But the U.S.?
It’s the *one* social, human enigma I was never able to understand. Sure, historically, politically, I could explain why the U.S. makes health care a matter of money instead of a basic human right.
But as a human? A modern human of the 21st western civilization? An empath?
I. Just. Cannot. Fathom. It.
A society’s motivation to invent a phrase like „lifetime caps“? What motivates a society to slap a price tag on a human beings life?
This dichotomy of a rich country no affording itself universal healthcare was the reason why I immersed myself in the health care debate so much back during the primaries in 2019/20 - I didn’t want the unicorn, but a pragmatic approach to health care so at least some of it would come to pass. Finally.
I’m rambling and I’m sorry.
I know this is only in part about health care.
I hate that poverty reprograms people’s brains.
I hate that we in the western world allow it to happen.
I hate that you & commenters here know it first hand.
We could eradicate it all. Hunger, poverty, low living standards. Diseases.
God knows there’s enough money in the world to do it.
No one should have a reason to know what this feels like. Should have experience enough with it to write a hugely eloquent Substack entry about it.
The fact that it’s still in existence, especially in the western world, just makes me so fucking angry.
And yet, as a society, we’re not nearly angry enough.
Ps: hope the tooth was taken care of and the pain is over. At least this one ❤️
For the first time, I understand at least a little about poverty. I thank you for that. No need to question any longer, You, Mike, ARE a writer.
This really hits home for me. Frivilous spending in my 20s, a moving truck and all my possessions stolen, a $30K tax bill assessed on my spouse 6 months after we were married, laid off in 2009 and took a year to find a job making less than half what I had been, debt consolidation. I, and then we, got through it all. So when my back molar cracked down the center, I was given the option of a bone graft and implant ($7,500) or a 30 minute $60 extraction, I didn't even stop to think. I don't need that tooth, and I don't miss it. The only debt we have now is a mortgage that we've been able to pay down the principal so it will be paid off in 5 years. Those crises taught me the value of prioritizing needs over wants.
I feel seen - if only a little bit - a mere shadow of that understanding of existing beyond survival.
I used my engineering skills to fix my own cars, not out of fun like the Cruisers and their classic cars, but out of necessity because doing it myself was 1/4 the price of having the garage do it.
Another day I will share my escapades at Rutgers Dental School trying to get my tooth fixed.
Wow, been there. During law school and during my divorce. For me it is more of an ebb and flow. As my husband (2nd) and I near closer to retirement I know that the third big ebb is coming in the future. And I will be fine. Because I am comfortable shrinking my life down having done it before. Good luck on your tooth and my advice is ride the ebb and flow knowing you can survive both!