They Fooled Me with Poverty

Synopsis

As long as I could remember, I'd known my family was desperately poor. When I started to think I was seriously sick, fear wasn't the first thing I felt. Instead, I carefully asked my parents, "What if it's cancer?" They laughed and told me not to let my imagination run wild. Then, with absolute certainty, they said, "If that day ever comes, we will sell everything we have to save you." I spent the entire night wrestling with those words before making my decision. I couldn't let my illness ruin their lives. When I swallowed a whole bottle of sleeping pills, I "saw" that they were smiling and laughing together in a lavish mansion in the heart of the city. In that moment, everything fell into place. The poverty that had shaped my childhood, the hardship that had made me force myself to be obedient, sensible, and never ask for too much, had all been part of a carefully orchestrated lie. They were pretending to be poor. However, I actually died.