Overcoming Financial Trauma

I hate checking my bank account.

At the same time, not checking my bank account only fuels my anxiety and prolongs the dread of making sure I am a financially stable adult. In fact, since 18 years old, I have had to be financially independent and manage my finances on my own in order to survive while away at college. This would not be such a huge deal — except for the fact that I do not come from wealth, and was not raised with any financial literacy.

So what do you get when you are raised in a low-income household with little to no financial education, and are pushed into the world at 18 and expected to survive? Financial trauma. 

Since coming to terms with my position in the world, I have been able to see how it has affected others around me, and the collective burden of financial trauma in marginalized communities.

Friends and I share jokes about being broke and having to be cheap with our expenses. Sometimes we joke about our ridiculous spending habits, or we share our dreams about being able to provide for our families and friends. Many times, we’ve spent lunch ranting about the privileged college students we had to encounter and how all they had to worry about was just being a good student because they have everything else secured for them.

It was frustrating that we felt so much anger towards wealthy students because of all the things they didn’t have to go through. It was especially frustrating when wealthy college students would pretend they were poor because they thought it would be relatable or radical.

Poverty is not something you can cosplay, it is living your life in fear because there is no safety net for you to fall back on. If you fall, then you fall.

According to Dr. Leah Brookner, a professor in the School of Social Work at Portland State University, “Financial trauma, and poverty in particular, can't be fully understood without considering intersecting oppressive systems like racism and classism — as well as untreated mental health conditions, addiction, and substance misuse — which make it harder to achieve social mobility.”

I have particularly noticed that the pandemic has affected this generation of young adults as the impact of intersecting oppressive systems has now crossed paths with more people in the world. People who have not experienced financial trauma in their lives are now losing their jobs, businesses, homes, career opportunities and experiencing the mental health challenges that come with these newfound burdens.

​​Brooker explains that poverty affects the prefrontal cortex, which is what enables us to perform advanced cognitive tasks. "[Poverty] has an impact on the ability of the brain to make executive functioning decisions."

This would explain why so many children like myself, who grew up with financial trauma, have a difficult time with basic tasks and cognitive processes.

Functioning with a brain that has been impacted by poverty is hard, because the world does not leave space for us to recover.

In reality, it shames and blames those struggling. Many of us are told to work hard and hustle our way to the top. Some of us want rest. Screw that, we need it.

I knew that growing up with financial instability would have an impact on my relationship with money. For context, I grew up thinking it was normal to be worrying with your parents about rent when you are 10 years old. I remember saving up any coins I could find in my Powerpuff Girls piggy bank because I knew how important was to my family, which ended up being used for the laundromat.

I will admit, I did not realize the depth and severity that financial trauma had on me. The anxiety and the stress of not having enough money truly impacts so many parts of my identity. From the way I socialize, to the way I feed myself, down to the way I outwardly express myself. I realize that the anxious as well as avoidant attachment that I have to money is something I needed to acknowledge and heal.

The first step for me was just admitting that I experienced financial trauma.

A huge part of validating my experience consisted of holding compassion for my family. It was not any of our faults. We are the byproduct of generations of oppressive systems and blaming ourselves will not provide us with the support we need to uplift ourselves.

From that step, I was able to identify my triggers surrounding finances. I realized that constantly being around incredibly wealthy people in college was harming my mental health and made me feel so much shame. Finding a community of people who share similar financial experiences was vital for me. Being able to set boundaries with myself on spending allowed me to save money when I needed to as well as spend money when I recognized I was neglecting providing for myself out of fear of spending. Educating myself on YouTube was an incredible tool for me to begin to understand ways to build wealth and find financial stability.

In addition, I had the privilege of taking finance and economic courses in college which opened my eyes to how the world operates and I was able to learn financial terminology.

With this insight I was then able to take action and take baby steps to changing my financial situation. I created a pie chart that showed the cash flow of my family’s monthly budget which was useful for us to understand where our money is going and how we could make some impactful changes. My father and I opened Roth IRAs so that we could have tax-free retirement accounts and find ways to have diverse streams of income for ourselves. 

My family also began to seek counseling and professional help to work on our mental health. This includes working through financial stress and our trauma. In no way am I in a place of complete financial security, however, I have taken baby steps to work on my attachment to money and create a judgement-free space for myself to exist in a world that does not want me to reap the benefits of it. Although I hate checking my bank account, I know at the end of the day I have the tools to make sure I will be okay.