Actor, comedian, and writer Robby Hoffman plays the role of Randi in Season 5 of Hacks, currently streaming on HBO and Prime Video. In recent interviews across the media, including in the New York Times, Hoffman, who identifies as non-binary, described the emotional after-effects of growing up poor with brutal precision.
“When you’re poor, and you grow up, it’s the opposite of people who grow up wealthy, who enjoy a discrete wealth when they’re older. They like cashmere, but no logo, you know. They’re whispering. I’m still screaming.”
People laughed because it was funny. But it is also psychologically accurate.
Some people move through the world with a quiet assumption that life will hold. Others move through it as though stability could vanish at any moment.
- Even after success
- Even after money.
- Even after external proof that things are now different. Because growing up poor does not only shape finances.
- It shapes the nervous system. The body learns what to expect from life.
Children raised in financial insecurity are often exposed to a level of unpredictability that adults later underestimate.
- Parents worried about bills.
- Arguments over money.
- Food being stretched.
- Broken things not replaced.
- Fear around heating costs.
- The humiliation of not having what other children have.
- The constant awareness of what cannot be afforded.
Children absorb far more than adults realise
A child’s nervous system is continuously asking: Am I safe? Will my needs be met? What happens if something goes wrong?
Can I rely on the people around me? When uncertainty becomes chronic, the body adapts to uncertainty. The nervous system becomes more alert. The brain scans for problems sooner. Stress hormones activate more easily. The child learns to anticipate loss, disappointment or instability before it arrives.
This is not weakness. It is adaptation.
The body is learning the rules of the environment.
Why success does not always create safety
One of the strangest experiences for adults who grew up poor is discovering that improved circumstances do not automatically create calm. The outside changes faster than the nervous system.
Someone may now have financial stability, a successful career, and a comfortable home while remaining deeply vigilant internally. Many continue to live with a persistent sense that things could collapse unexpectedly.
They may:
- Overwork constantly
- Struggle to relax
- Panic about money despite having enough
- Feel guilty spending on themselves
- Fear wasting resources
- Stockpile excessively
- Become hyper independent
- Find rest emotionally uncomfortable
Others move in the opposite direction, spending impulsively, using visible success to distance themselves from earlier shame.
Both responses often come from the same underlying experience. Scarcity.
People who grew up with stability often carry an unconscious expectation that life will continue to support them. There is usually less urgency about proving worth or securing safety because safety was modelled early on.
But when security felt fragile growing up, the body may continue preparing for a threat long after the original circumstances have changed. The nervous system can remain organised around survival.
The hidden psychology of overachievement
Many adults who grew up poor become exceptionally capable. They are often hardworking, observant, adaptable and resilient under pressure.
Some develop strong social intelligence because they learned early how to read moods and atmospheres quickly. Others become highly ambitious because achievement has become psychologically linked to safety. Some become fiercely self-reliant because dependence once felt dangerous. These qualities are frequently admired.
But survival-based competence can become exhausting when it never switches off. The adult may no longer know how to rest without guilt. Pleasure may feel irresponsible. Slowing down may trigger anxiety rather than relaxation. For some people, success never fully feels like success because the nervous system immediately moves the goalposts again.
Enough never feels enough. Not because they are greedy. Because the body still remembers instability.
The emotional effects of shame
Poverty often carries shame alongside deprivation. Children become aware very early when they are different from their peers.
- Wrong clothes.
- Missed school trips.
- Not inviting friends home.
- Feeling embarrassed by parents’ financial stress.
- Watching other children move through the world with ease while feeling permanently exposed.
These experiences matter psychologically. Especially when they happen repeatedly during development. Many adults raised in poverty continue carrying a sense of being “less than” even after outward success.
Some become perfectionistic. Some overexplain themselves socially. Others feel fraudulent in professional environments despite obvious competence. Some remain deeply uncomfortable around wealthier people.
The original emotional wound is not simply: “I had less.” It becomes: “I was less.”
That distinction matters.
Because shame is not only remembered cognitively. It becomes embodied.
Why the body stays alert
The fight-or-flight response is designed to protect us from danger. But when a child grows up in a context of chronic stress, uncertainty, and emotional tension, the nervous system can become calibrated to vigilance as a baseline state.
This affects more than mood. It can influence sleep, digestion, concentration, relationships and physical health. Many adults raised around financial insecurity report difficulty fully switching off.
- They remain mentally “on.”
- Always anticipating.
- Always preparing.
- Always scanning ahead.
The body learns that safety is temporary and vigilance is necessary. Over time, this can become so familiar that people mistake survival mode for personality. They describe themselves as driven, independent, or highly productive, without recognising the internal pressure that underlies those identities.
The problem is not ambition itself. It is when the nervous system no longer knows how to feel safe without pressure.
Relationships and emotional survival
Growing up poor can shape relationships, too.
- Some people become intensely generous because they know exactly what deprivation feels like.
- Others struggle to receive help because needing support once felt humiliating or unsafe.
- Some remain emotionally guarded in relationships because vulnerability feels risky.
- Others become highly sensitive to rejection, criticism or exclusion.
Again, these responses usually make sense in context. The nervous system adapts around whatever helped survival earlier in life. What once protected someone emotionally may later restrict closeness, ease or trust.
Can these patterns change?
Yes. But not usually through positive thinking alone.
You cannot simply instruct a nervous system shaped by years of instability to suddenly relax.
The body changes through repeated experiences of emotional safety. This is why therapeutic approaches grounded in neuroscience and memory reconsolidation can be so important. Many survival responses linked to poverty are not conscious decisions. They are learned predictions about how safe life is likely to be.
As those predictions update, people often notice subtle but powerful changes. They stop catastrophising small setbacks. They rest without panic. Money becomes less emotionally charged. Relationships feel safer. Pleasure no longer immediately triggers guilt or fear.
Most importantly, the body stops behaving as though survival depends on permanent vigilance.
Final thoughts
Robby Hoffman’s line about ‘still screaming’ captures something many people recognise instantly in themselves.
Childhood poverty can leave adults who appear outwardly successful yet remain internally organised around scarcity, alertness and emotional self-protection. The body learned early that safety was fragile. That learning does not disappear simply because income changes. But survival responses are not fixed personality traits. They are adaptations.
And what the nervous system learned through experience can also be updated through experience. Because eventually life should become more than managing threat. Eventually, the body deserves to experience safety too.
Does this resonate with you?
Many high-functioning adults still carry survival patterns shaped by early instability, shame or emotional insecurity. Therapy grounded in emotional safety, neuroscience and memory reconsolidation can help update those old nervous system predictions rather than simply managing symptoms.
