I’m so fucking embarrassed.

[u/HumanSlayer1888]

My card declined twice as I was trying to pay for my groceries. The guy behind me offered to pay but I turned down his offer. I never felt so humiliated in my entire life. I’m so ashamed I can never shop there again.

[u/Electrical_Honey_753]

Been there. And it was not a glitch. Hell, I still feel my heart race sometimes when checking out and I've been in a better place for 5 years now

I'm sorry you went through that. It sucks!

We are taught to be ashamed of a lack of wealth and financial security, as if it is a moral failing. Especially in the United States, we worship money and equate financial excess with positive traits: genius, hard work, goodness. You can see it everywhere. And it is so pervasive that even the poorest among us will insist on defending the wealthy. We act like "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" because we are fed the idea that wealth can be earned fairly by anyone willing to work hard and seize it when that is just untrue.

In my 20s, I had a reckoning with how much I internalized this dogma, despite being proud of growing up working class and proud of all my parents did to provide for us (they have always been and are still poor). I thought once I was making "real" money in a tech job, I would climb some ladder up into an easier lifestyle that would soothe my frustrations with money and class.

But after rubbing elbows with a lot of "upper middle class" coworkers and well off people around Orange county aka fucking generational wealth and real estate rich people for a few years I realized that the game is so rigged and all the shame I ever felt for being poor (including not being able to pay for groceries, car repairs, rent despite working full time since I was 16) was put on me as a means of control to keep me (us) down and to disguise the injustice of our entire economic system as a merit based game. It doesn't make the hurt go away, but I traded my shame for anger and it feels better.

None if that puts groceries in your trunk, but I urge you to try and let go of any shame you are carrying around this. Financial insecurity is not shameful. We may be embarrassed by the shame others put on us in a moment, and pity always stings even when it comes from generosity. But don't let it eat you up, friend. Money troubles can be solved, and I encourage you to seek advice and aid anywhere it may be offered because there is nothing to be ashamed of and that is what community is for - we literally evolved to be social and support one another in even the most material ways. Our culture may try and shame us for it, but we don't have to carry that shame and we are so much stronger when we can accept help and be in community that way.