I Was Fed With a Silver Spoon But It Ain’t Stainless

“What do you have to worry about?”

My father’s innocent, yet condescending words were an attempt to console me during one of my recent anxiety spells.

For six days, I was confined to my room — only getting up to use the bathroom and to drink water (I wasn’t eating). The thought of getting out of bed was anxiety-inducing. So I stayed in bed — neglecting my hygiene, ignoring phone calls and texts and not going to work.

This was one of the worst anxiety spells I’d had in months.

To provide some context, these spells were a result of having Bipolar Disorder II and are triggered by hypomania — periods of extreme highs and lows.

When I’m high, I’m super driven and ambitious…to a fault.

Eventually my body crashes because I’m not sleeping well (yay for adopting the “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” mantra!!!) and naturally my body can only operate at a high motor for so long.

And enter stage left — the low, which looks like what I described above.

As a result of stretching myself too thin and setting unrealistic, self-imposed deadlines and expectations during my highs, during my lows, I end up canceling those plans, missing those deadlines and wallowing in self-pity.

And add a dash of self-imposed isolation from my family and loved ones.

But during my last anxiety spell, unlike previous ones, my family and loved ones were more involved and knowledgeable of my day-to-day battle — which was bittersweet.

“What do you have to worry about?”

“Nothing…”

“God doesn’t operate in confusion son. How does that saying go? ‘If you’re going to worry, why pray? If you pray, why worry?’”

“You’re right.”

Sound advice but once again for the umpteenth time in my life, I was undermined.

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I grew up in a three-story home in a quaint Dumfries, Virginia suburb.

My parents both grew up in Suffolk, Virginia in dated, single-parent, undersized homes.

Quite a stark contrast in upbringings.

And my dad made sure we knew it too — especially when we slipped up.

I remember one of the conversations we had at the dinner table during our Luanda, Angola tour. We were talking about moving back to the U.S. for good after living overseas for more than a decade.

“We’re going to have a big ole house in the suburbs. Y’all are gonna have your own rooms, king-sized beds and flat-screen TVs,” my dad said with a mouthful of spaghetti.

My brother and I turned to each other, wide-eyed and teeming with excitement.

We were oblivious of growing-up-in-luxury’s double-edged sword.

So, we’re in the U.S. now and living as my dad promised.

And I loved it — at first.

But being imperfect beings — and kids for that matter — my brother and I would slip up academically from time to time and sometimes we didn’t clean the house and tend to the yard to my dad’s military-grade-detail liking.

This is when we felt the growing-up-in-luxury’s double-edged sword’s strike.

“Y’all are some of the laziest, most spoiled kids I know. How many of your friends have king-sized beds?”

Our heads hung low, looking at the ground.

The berating and reprimanding continued — he attacked our character for our upbringing and the things he gifted us.

We never asked for a life of luxury.

And the pressure of being perfect because of this lifestyle was overwhelming.

The jealousy from family, classmates and off-hand comments from my friends was belittling and frustrating.

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I. DID. NOT. ASK. FOR. THIS. LIFE.

I’m thankful to God for my upbringing, but if I knew it came with persecution, jealousy and pressure, I would give it all up in a heartbeat.

It was exhausting to be the product of two parents who wanted better for us, but also wanted us to be The Joneses, especially in the eyes of my father’s mother and siblings.

Growing up, my dad had dreams of travelling the world and his dreams were undermined.

This was something no one in his family had done before and because of this, his family enacted the age-old crabs-in-a-barrel mentality to bruise his dreams.

But he was determined to make his dreams a reality.

Now more than a quarter-century later, having travelled to more than 90 countries, owning a three-story home, luxury cars and having a family of his own, he told-you-so’d his family.

He beat the odds and escaped Suffolk’s small-town mindset.

But man, the chip on his shoulder…

Coming from where he came from, his struggles and disparities were tangible and obvious. Because of this, he refused to allow my brother and I to grow up the same way.

But on the flip side, because he took the liberty to provide a comfortable lifestyle for us, he felt my brother and I didn’t have room to complain or to be less than perfect in his eyes.

And this has been ingrained into my psyche to this day.

Alluding to the conversation my dad and I had at the beginning of this piece, my problems and emotions were constantly undermined.

My frustrations of being labelled as privileged because I was indoctrinated into a lifestyle I didn’t ask for, having nights contemplating taking my life because I felt inadequate and frustrated and constantly being told I took my upbringing for granted, weren’t serious concerns in my dad’s eyes because I had a bed — a king-sized one at that.

Because I had a car that I didn’t pay for.

Because I had a flat-screen TV in my bedroom.

Because I had my own laptop.

Because I had both of my parents.

Because I grew up in the suburbs.

Because there were people who were far worse off than me.

So when my anxiety spells came around, I tried to fight them by myself because I felt my mental warfare was pale in comparison to everyone else’s problems.

I chose not to burden others with my problems and suffered in silence.

But over the years, I’ve learned to take accountability for my life.

I can’t control what happened to me in the past, but I can dictate how my future will unfold (of course God has the final say).

I can’t wallow in self-pity and frustration.

I can’t view the trials and experiences I’ve endured as works of the enemy, but rather as opportunities for God to refine my character and to force me to rely on Him that much more.

In response to those reading this thinking, “But did you die though?” — stop invalidating and undermining the experiences of others based on their upbringing.

Because you’ll find most of us who grew up favorably, have had a target on our backs our entire lives for a lifestyle we didn’t choose.

Sterling