Why I can’t afford to fail…..

From very young age, I learned that not being finacial independant is extremely dangerous.

I learned this through my mother.

Whenever I would ask her why didn’t she just leave my abusive father, she would scold me for even asking it. In her blaring voice, she would remind me that she was just a housewife, and if she left him, she would end up on the streets. Nobody would take her in. Then, she would cut her eyes toward me and say “And you wouldn’t look after me either. You would abandon me too.”

I was the child in this situation.

In her mind, leaving her husband meant risking everything in her life. Even if that meant staying in a toxic marriage and letting her children endure that abuse too. Her survival was the only thing that mattered.

This was a repeated horror of a conversation that replayed like clockwork. It always came up in the aftermath of a brand-new set of abuse initiated by my father, right after he had finished taking ‘one of his moods’ out on us. I would endure the regular ritual of him threatening me to write to the solicitors to evict me, as I was a financial burden to him.

The idea of being cast out onto the streets, unwanted and helpless, was too paralysing to think too deep about. I refused to imagine it, yet her deepest fears quickly became my horror. It kept me awake at nights, but during the days, I used that terror as motivation. Motivation to survive. It was a reason to ace my exams, go to a top university and read for a top degree, and finally land the best possible job. I constantly told myself that on the other side of this success, the nightmare would finally end.

So failure was never an option. Mistakes were forbidden. And to cope in the meantime, I would fantasise the perfect picture of my dream flat in London. Where nobody could further threaten me to . I made a solemn promise that I would never allow myself to end up unwanted on the pavement. No matter what.

That was the starting point of my dysfunctional relationship with the concept of risk. Being a failure, making mistakes, not getting that ideal job. Anything that carries the slightest risk of leaving me unwanted and cast out is catastrophic. Without a safety net or another soul to depend on, the stakes were high.

And honestly, death sounds far more merciful than being abandoned on the streets.