Wow, Happy Crafter, what a well-written post! It honestly makes more sense than your first thread.

You seem like a nice person, so I'll give you an insight of my experience.

I didn't know I lived in poverty until middle school. My parents worked SO HARD to give my brother and I the best life possible, more often than not sacrificing their own needs. My parents later would tell the story of how all they could afford for Christmas was one jacket, and it was during the coldest winter "in history" where they lived, and after Christmas the weather quickly warmed up, so they spent most of winter freezing just to say they had something to give each other for Christmas. And I don't remember the entire conversation, but my Dad was dropping me off at school, maybe I asked him for some money, I don't remember, but I remember him sadly telling me "I'm sorry, we can't, we're poor". Up until that moment I NEVER knew there were ever financial struggles in our family. I never knew how much my parents struggled until that moment and even then it wasn't until after high school when my parents opened up about how hard it was to support us. They worked so hard to make sure that my brother and I never felt poor, and we never did, we always thought we had the absolute best possible childhood.

Money as an adult is something I've always struggled with, especially during manic phases. I could save up hundreds, sometimes thousands of money for months, and blow it all in a week on a whim without even a second thought as to my end goal. Yes, that I can definitely blame on my bipolar, but I've done exceptionally well at overcoming this. The past three years I've worked so hard on correcting this behavior, it seems like I'm getting a handle on it. You should have seen me this year, I tried so, so hard to be diligent about saving. Every paycheck I set money aside. I had weak moments, but nothing so drastic that I screwed up my plans entirely. It wasn't easy, and it was on a step above minimum wage salary, but I saved up enough money to take a few months off of work.

I think I experience more stigma for my mental illness than I do for my poverty. I don't consider myself in poverty anymore, just a lot of struggling because I don't have an education and never had a passion. I've found my passion and plan to go to school so I can follow my dreams.

Your post was very inspiring. I'm very interested in what more you have to say.