“Comfort looks different when the guest-house is your only home.”
I'm writing this from a Starbucks table- laptop open, water bottle, power bank in reach. After being misunderstood enough times, I wrote this for anyone trapped in a ‘nice’ situation that’s killing them.
Here's a bitter lesson I've learned through my life:
People will always assume your life is easy, unless you look like you're in pain.
Café Optics vs. Reality
Now surely someone like me - writing in Starbucks, living in a nice-looking corporate guesthouse has an easy life, right?
I would revel in the comfort, yes, if this wasn't the only place I had to call home, other than an abusive environment where my only parental figure psychologically and financially tormented me until I left with my bags and a job offer.
I managed to get a dev job and I'm barely making it by the skin of my teeth, despite ‘connections’ that should guarantee comfort. But reality's the opposite.
The Question I Can’t Answer
People keep asking, “Heading home to Bangalore this weekend?”
I just say "No."
I've lived through these situations long enough to realize that explaining the truth to most people doesn't invite understanding, it invites confusion, resentment, and projection.
How exactly am I supposed to explain "I don't have a place I can call home without facing psychic abuse and damage." if these same people also assume I am privileged for being accommodated in a relatively good company property?
Short answer - I can't.
Just the same as in the chamber of pain I once called "home", I couldn't speak up about how much I was actually going through, because the risk was not having a roof to sleep under tomorrow.
And that's one of the bitter pills I've swallowed early:
If your pain is severe and real enough to be unthinkable to the average person, then assume a 95% chance explaining your real situation will elicit a negative self-protecting reaction.
They aren't even making a choice to cause you more pain, they simply don't have a frame of reference to understand the rock bottom of human experience, so they project the nearest suffering they understand, flattening it down to " Yeah I get it, hard times." - even if the hardest time they've ever faced looks like your best day.
Why Silence Wins
No soothing advice here. After seeing this too many times, I've learned to bite my tongue when it stings.
But here's something that keeps me going despite the endless misunderstanding:
The few who can carry weight in silence, are eventually the same ones that don't need to speak about it to be recognized.