Radha Krueger
April 5, 2021

I grew up poor. I still feel a shiver of anxiety when I get close to the end of a roll of toilet paper.
What little things trigger you?

Teresa S.C.: Oh this is going to sound soooo bad… But any bareness to any food cabinet or refrigerator. It gives me such anxiety. 😫

Carla G.: An empty-looking fridge or pantry, but especially the freezer.

Nicole G.: i am the same. i kind of hate finishing anything and stockpile tp, dishwashing liquid, toothpaste, etc. and always have a stock of pantry staples.

Aaron S.: Not the same, but I get crazy cognitive dissonance passing by any KFC joint.
As a kid KFC was the magical restaurant we had to drive 40 miles each way to eat at a couple times a year. Since then I’ve of course realized this is your basic fast food joint.
So now any time I drive by one I get warm fuzzies and a hard ick reaction at once. 😅

Leah Linne: It doesn’t happen much anymore, and this is part of why we stopped fostering kids, — When I would serve my kids a bare minimum of food, and they would leave just a bite or 2.

Jesse N.: Any type of debt makes my anxiety cringe because what if all the sudden I can’t pay it.

Rachel N.: People leaving fans/lights on, not immediately closing a door and letting the cold air out, running water longer than necessary

Nathaniel K.: I didn’t grow up poor, but I had a misspent young adulthood and learned to dread any note left on my door, as well as checking my bank balance. Both still make me have to steel myself.

Keith W.: My grandma raised me to act like it was still the depression. She was raised on a tobacco farm in the 30s and 40s in Connecticut with five brothers and sisters and that’s how she raised me. So everything triggers me. I worry about everything but she also taught me that nobody else is going to have your back so there’s that


Radha Krueger
April 5, 2021

There are a lot of people in my life that I have a secret “our song” with.