The Stress of Poverty Can Make You Ill

 

I'm poor. Not what my family would call 'dirty poor' but still pretty poor. Yes I have a roof over my head (where I live rent free, only paying utilties) a car that is thirteen years old, internet and cell phones. We have food, but also $10,000 in debt and I'm unemployed. My car had been repossesed and I sold my house at a loss of what its worth to get out from under the mortgage payment before I couldn't afford it anymore.

Here's the thing, I don't need some job managing people or climb the corporate ladder. I'd love to afford to live just by being a cashier at a supermarket or something.

So let's talk about my teeth. My parents were poor too, and taught me nothing about saving or investing or living frugal (except meals, I'll mention that later). When I was fourteen my mother decided that it was time for me to have braces. The cost would be $4000 paid over the two years I would be wearing them. My parents put down a down payment and never gave the orthodontist another cent. When I was sixteen I attended the last appointment, the one where the braces were to be removed. The orthodontist refused to remove them until my parents paid the remaining balance.

Now let's go on a little tangent of a rant here. Granted this was 1997 but what kind of company punishes the child because of the parents? I didn't have a job at 16, and minumum wage was still $4.25 it would take months for me to earn enought money to pay off the bill.

So I left the orthodontist office for the last time. Eventually the bands popped off my braces and then the wires and I was left with exposed brackets on my teeth. I stood in front of the mirror with a pair of pliers and removed my own braces. In doing so I cracked every tooth. Also because I never got a retainer my teeth have moved back partly to where they were before.

Now fast forward to 2025, most of my teeth are broken, before they were cracked, then they eventually splintered and broke into pieces over time. Without dental insurance I can't afford to have them fixed. Most of the time they don't bother me, except for the fact I have an ugly smile and on occasion when they get infected, like the past week I've terrible tooth pain in one of my molars. It's infected but once again I can only take ibuprofen and wait it out.