Jacqueline Elliott on growing up shy with an inattentive mother and hating when people pitied her. Sympathy made her uncomfortable. She didn't want to be seen as worse off than her siblings.
Chapters
Throughout my whole life. I was just that shy girl growing up. I was sick of who I was as a kid. I was the kid that everybody felt sorry for because I didn't have the perfect mom that was never there. She never took care of us as kids. And all these moms were always like, man, I wish you were my kid. That's what they told me all the time. I wish you were my kid. And I was like, man, this really sucks. I mean, a lot of people sympathize with people, and they want people to feel sorry for them. I'm the complete opposite. I hated that as a kid. I hated when people felt sorry for me. I hated that they thought that I had it so bad and worse than everybody else in my family. I hated that. So as I grew older, that was the complete opposite of what I wanted. I didn't want anybody to feel sorry for me. I didn't want anybody to think I had a bad life. Some of you guys are telling people things to make you feel sorry for them. That's the outside world. The reason why you're here is because you don't need that in your life.