🍽️ “We Have Food at Home” — and Other Inherited Lies
I was raised in a "we have food at home" family.
But — and here’s the kicker — there often wasn’t. Not real food. Not nourishing food. Not the kind of food that fills your belly and your heart at the same time. What I got instead was a lesson in survival masquerading as self-sufficiency.
I learned early that you don’t ask for more. You don’t expect help. You don’t get seconds. You do it yourself, and if you fail, the failure is yours alone. And if someone offers you something — anything — your first instinct better be to say no. Because needing is weakness. And receiving is shameful.
This kind of upbringing doesn’t just shape your pantry. It shapes your perception of value, worth, and relationship. It hard-wires the expectation that you’ll be denied. So when the world offers something freely, a part of you flinches. You question the motive. Or worse — you assume it’s not for you.
Projection, Perception, and Prejudice
Humans survive by projecting forward. It’s a natural function: we take our past experiences, run them through a forecast filter, and try to predict what will happen next. In its lightest form, it’s caution. In its hardened form? It becomes bias.
But here’s what hit me:
The judgment we pass is never about the object of our gaze —
it’s about the lens we’re using.
When someone assumes I’m “greedy” for accepting help…
Or “lazy” for struggling…
Or “flirtatious” just for being kind…
That says nothing about me. It says everything about what they’ve seen before. What they expect. And what they’ve projected onto me — because of their own training.
Perceived Theft: The Echo of Deprivation
This is where it deepens. When people carry unexamined scarcity — especially emotional or generational — they begin to perceive other people’s gain as their loss. That projection becomes a filter:
A woman in confidence is seen as arrogant.
A poor person receiving help is seen as undeserving.
A soft-spoken person is seen as manipulative.
And when someone like me says something bold — especially something that names patterns — that old deprivation script can start to scream:
"Who does she think she is?"
"She’s taking something that isn’t hers."
But I’m not stealing.
I’m just not starving anymore.
Soft Rebellion
So here’s what I’m practicing now:
Receiving without apologizing.
Naming systems without internalizing blame.
Offering kindness without flinching at how it’s received.
It’s a soft rebellion, but it’s real.
Because when I said “we have food at home” — what I really meant was,
I was taught that survival is enough.
But I’m learning now that thriving is not a luxury.
It’s a birthright.
