I was on food stamps for a short while in my 25th year. A broken right hand made it impossible to do my job. I lost my income, and nobody would hire someone with a broken right hand. I couldn’t find another job.

Forty years later, I still remember my social worker’s name, and that every encounter felt like it was designed to degrade me. It was like I was begging for survival, stripped of any dignity. I had to navigate a system that wasn’t built to help me, but to judge me. Each form, appointment, and question was a reminder that my basic needs were conditional, that I had to prove my worth just to eat.

Systems we expect to support people in crisis often do the opposite. They make survival feel like a performance, not a right. They make us feel shame for being human, for getting hurt, for needing help. And in that space, it’s impossible to feel safe, let alone supported.

This experience taught me something I wish more people understood: needing help is not a weakness. It is human. And systems that make you feel less than human are the real problem, not the person standing in line, waiting for a chance to survive.