☕ A Little Reading Time, Just for You
Estimated Reading Time: 20 Minutes | A QueenB.Divine
Don't crypto on my mental health
Notice this. Your time is valuable, and so are you. That's why I've included a little reading guide to help you plan your time, settle in, and get the most out of this personal journey. This isn't a race to the last paragraph. It's an invitation to slow down, reflect, and perhaps discover a little something about yourself along the way.
Choose Your Reading Experience:
Your Reading Style
Time to Set Aside
☕ Quick Read
14–17 minutes
📖 Comfortable Pace
17–20 minutes
❤️ Slow & Reflective
20–24 minutes
🎧 Listen & Reflect
23–27 minutes
A Little Advice From QueenB.Divine: Grab your favourite drink, find a comfortable spot, and give yourself permission to be present. Some stories are meant to be read. Others are meant to be felt. This one might be a little of both.
You don't have to finish it in one sitting. Take what speaks to you, pause when something hits home, and return whenever you're ready. After all, investing twenty minutes in a story that might change how you see your own worth isn't such a bad investment, is it?
Your time. Your pace. Your perspective.
Because self-love and self-care will get you there.
— QueenB.Divine
I Was Dumped Before I Knew My Worth: The Childhood Bear Market That Changed My Life
By QueenB.Divine | Blunt Reflections | The Grade Six Chapter
What being dumped, childhood trauma, emotional abandonment, and learning about cryptocurrency taught me about self-worth, money, and knowing when to walk away.
Notice this. Have you ever been dumped so badly that you started questioning whether you were worth keeping in the first place? I'm not just talking about somebody breaking up with you, blocking your number, or deciding you're no longer worth their precious time. I'm talking about being dumped emotionally, mentally, financially, and sometimes by the very people who were supposed to protect you. The kind of dumping that doesn't come with a goodbye, a suitcase, or even a decent explanation. One day, you belong. The next, you're trying to figure out what the hell happened to your value. And here's the million-dollar question: When do you hold on, when do you let go, and when does being dumped turn out to be the very thing that saves your life?
Well, I've been dumped. More than once. And before you start feeling sorry for me, don't. Because I'm about to tell you something I've learned about investing, cryptocurrency, relationships, childhood trauma, and the stock market of life. Sometimes the things we fight the hardest to keep are the very things bankrupting our self-worth. And sometimes what looks like the biggest loss on paper becomes the beginning of something you couldn't possibly have imagined.
But before we get into all that, how are you doing? Seriously. How's your mindset? Are you hanging on to something that's been dragging you down, or have you finally started cleaning house? I hope life is treating you well. And if it isn't, I hope you're at least remembering to treat yourself well. Because one thing I keep coming back to, whether we're talking about money, relationships, or getting through another goddamn Tuesday, is that self-love and self-care matter. Not the fancy bubble bath kind, although I'm certainly not against a good soak. I'm talking about the kind that makes you look at your life and ask, "Is this worth what it's costing me?"
And here's something funny. This is actually take two. I recorded this conversation once already, listened to where it was going, and decided to dump the whole damn thing. Gone. Out. Goodbye. It wasn't feeling right, and instead of hanging on to something simply because I'd invested time in it, I started again. Imagine that. A whole lesson in letting go before I'd even finished talking about letting go. Life has a sense of humour, doesn't it? Sometimes the smartest investment you can make is admitting something isn't working and giving yourself permission to begin again.
Now, let's go back to grade six. If you've been following my journey through the grades, you already know grade five wasn't exactly my finest financial quarter in the stock market of childhood. I failed. I repeated the grade. And at the time, I'm sure it looked like I'd fallen behind. But something interesting happened. The kids who had been bullying me, the rivalries, the competition, the people I couldn't seem to get ahead of, they moved on. And there I was, getting another opportunity to learn without quite the same crowd breathing down my neck. I had a little more experience, a little more understanding, and perhaps a few more cents in my head. Pun intended.
So, was failing grade five really a failure? That's a question I've carried with me for years. Because when people ask, "How do you stop feeling like a failure?" I wonder whether we're sometimes judging the outcome before we've even lived long enough to understand it. Repeating that grade didn't magically fix my life. But it changed my surroundings. It gave me a little breathing room. And although I couldn't see it at the time, it would eventually connect to events that shaped the next ten, twenty, and thirty years of my life. Funny how something that feels like a setback can become part of the road that moves you forward.
That's something I'm discovering again as I learn about investing and cryptocurrency. Now, don't get excited and think I'm about to tell you which coin to buy, because I'm still learning, and I'm certainly not handing out financial advice. But I am fascinated by the language of money and how closely it resembles the language of life. Dumping. Holding. Losing. Recovering. Risk. Value. Fear. Patience. Good Lord, if that doesn't sound like a description of some of my relationships, I don't know what does.
I remember watching the cryptocurrency market during those early months of my learning journey, when everything seemed exciting and everybody had an opinion. One minute, prices were climbing, and the next, something started dropping. And my first thought was, "Dump it! Oh my God, it's dumping!" Then, wouldn't you know it, a little while later, the price would move in the other direction. Not always, of course. Sometimes things keep falling, and sometimes they never recover. But it made me realize how quickly fear can convince us to make a decision before we've understood what we're looking at.
And isn't that exactly what happens in life? Somebody disappoints us, and we're ready to cut them off. Somebody leaves us, and we decide we're unlovable. We fail at something, and suddenly we're questioning our entire existence. Or worse, we stay invested in something harmful because we've already given it so much of ourselves. That's the part nobody likes talking about. How do you know when to stop investing in a relationship, a dream, or a version of your life that keeps costing you more than it's giving back?
Well, I wish I could tell you I had that figured out in grade six. I didn't. Not even close.
Because while I was learning that failing a grade didn't necessarily mean failing at life, something much more serious was happening at home. My mother informed us that a gentleman would be moving into the house and becoming a more permanent presence in our lives. Just like that. Information dumped on a group of children who had no real say in the decision. No opportunity to investigate. No understanding of what this new arrangement would mean. Just a new person entering our world, and we were expected to adjust.
Now, imagine somebody buying a stock with your entire life savings without telling you what company it belongs to, who's running it, or what the risks are. That's the closest comparison I can make to how I remember that experience. We were children. Four girls and one boy still at home, with the oldest having already left. My mother worked, and she wasn't home much. This gentleman was a part-time security guard. And what looked from the outside like another adult entering the household became something far more damaging than any of us could have anticipated.
You see, not every addition to your life is an asset. Sometimes what appears to be a gain becomes an enormous loss. And sometimes the people making the decisions aren't the people who end up paying the highest price.
That man did not belong in our home. He took advantage of opportunities to harm us, and he did. I'm not going to dress that up in pretty language or pretend it was some wonderful character-building exercise. It wasn't. It was wrong. Children should not have to become experts in survival because the adults around them failed to provide safety. And I want to be very clear about something: what happened to us was not an investment mistake made by children. We didn't choose it. We didn't deserve it. And no amount of positive thinking could have made that situation acceptable.
But as a child, you don't necessarily understand those distinctions. You just feel what's happening. You absorb the fear, the confusion, the rejection, and the silence. And slowly, without realizing it, you can begin treating somebody else's harmful behaviour as evidence that something must be wrong with you.
That's where the real financial damage to my self-worth began.
By the time grade seven approached, I felt as though my personal stock had become completely worthless. Imagine that. A child looking at herself as if she were a failed investment. I felt I'd been born into the wrong family, the wrong circumstances, the wrong life. Everything seemed wrong. And somewhere in that mess, I started believing that perhaps I was the problem. I wasn't looking at myself through the eyes of a child who deserved protection. I was looking at myself through the eyes of someone who had been made to feel disposable.
And that brings me to another question people ask: Why does childhood rejection affect adult self-esteem? Because the way we're treated when we're young can become part of the story we tell ourselves about who we are. When love feels conditional, when safety disappears, or when your feelings are repeatedly dismissed, you may grow up questioning your value long after the original circumstances have changed. You might become somebody who works too hard for approval, stays too long in unhealthy relationships, fears abandonment, or confuses being needed with being loved. Not everybody responds the same way, but childhood experiences can leave patterns that take time, support, and awareness to understand.
And sometimes, those patterns show up in your relationship with money.
Think about it. How many people are afraid to lose money because they've already experienced the emotional feeling of having nothing? How many chase financial success because somewhere inside, they're still trying to prove they're worth something? How many hold on to bad investments, unhealthy relationships, or jobs that make them miserable because the thought of losing something feels worse than the damage of keeping it?
I find those questions fascinating because I'm learning that my relationship with wealth isn't just about dollars, coins, or a bank account. It's also about what I believe I deserve, how I respond to uncertainty, and whether I can separate a temporary loss from my personal value.
But there's an important difference between money and people. A stock can lose its value. A human being doesn't lose their worth because someone mistreats them, rejects them, or walks away. And that distinction took me a hell of a long time to understand.
And here's where my story takes another turn. Because just before I turned twelve, I ran away from home. I ended up living on the streets of Toronto. Think about that for a moment. A child who should have been worrying about homework, friendships, and what she was going to wear to school was suddenly trying to navigate a world that even adults struggle to survive. I wasn't out there chasing adventure. I was trying to get away from a life that had become unbearable.
And when I found the courage to leave that life behind, I was, in turn, dumped by the people I had hoped would protect me.
That's a particular kind of heartbreak. Being rejected because you refuse to remain somewhere you're being harmed. Imagine being punished for wanting safety. Imagine trying to save yourself and discovering that the people you thought would reach for your hand were prepared to let you go.
But here's the part of the story that still moves me. When I was at what felt like the lowest point of my life, when I couldn't see anything valuable in myself, there were people who saw something I couldn't. People who offered kindness, believed in me, and recognized that the child standing in front of them was worth caring about.
They didn't buy a worthless stock. They recognized the value of a human being who had been treated as though she had none.
And that's something I want you to remember the next time somebody makes you feel disposable. Being discarded does not make you garbage. Being rejected does not make you worthless. And being abandoned does not mean you're incapable of being loved.
You know that old saying about one person's trash being another person's treasure? Well, I've always found something interesting about that expression. Because the treasure was never actually trash. Somebody simply failed to recognize its value. And I think that's how a lot of us walk through life. We spend years trying to convince the people who hurt us that we're worth something, when perhaps the more important work is learning to recognize our own value without waiting for their approval.
So, how do you rebuild your self-worth after being abandoned? I wish there were a simple answer. A three-step program. A magical affirmation. A little button you could press that would erase the memories and make everything wonderful. Wouldn't that be nice? But that's not how my life worked. Rebuilding meant slowly learning to question the things I'd been taught to believe about myself. It meant understanding that somebody else's inability to love or protect me wasn't proof that I was unlovable. It meant recognizing that survival and healing are not the same thing. I had survived some terrible experiences, but understanding how those experiences affected me would take much longer.
And I want to make another distinction here. I don't believe everything happens for a reason, especially when we're talking about children being harmed. I refuse to romanticize suffering. I didn't need to be hurt to become valuable, and neither did you. What I do believe is that we can sometimes create meaning from experiences that should never have happened. We can learn. We can grow. We can find people who help us rebuild. But the growth doesn't justify the harm.
Now, let's bring this back to the bear market, because I find the comparison fascinating. When investors talk about a bear market, they're generally talking about a sustained period of falling prices and negative market sentiment. Fear spreads. Confidence disappears. People begin questioning what they own and whether it will ever recover. And sometimes, the fear becomes so overwhelming that people sell simply because everybody else seems to be selling.
Doesn't that sound a little like what happens when your self-esteem takes a beating?
One person tells you you're not good enough. Another makes you feel unwanted. A relationship ends. A friendship falls apart. You lose a job. You make a mistake. Suddenly, all those little experiences start piling up, and before you know it, you're emotionally selling yourself short. You stop believing in your abilities. You stop taking chances. You start accepting less because somewhere inside, you've convinced yourself that's all you're worth.
But here's the difference. The market doesn't owe anybody a recovery. Investments carry real risks, and patience alone doesn't guarantee financial success. Human worth, however, isn't something that needs a market recovery. You don't have to wait for somebody to recognize your value before it exists.
That's a lesson I'm still learning.
And speaking of learning, I think there's another question worth asking. Why do we hold on to things that are hurting us? Sometimes it's love. Sometimes it's fear. Sometimes it's familiarity. And sometimes we've invested so much time, energy, money, and emotion that walking away feels like admitting defeat. In investing, there's a concept called the sunk-cost fallacy, where people continue committing resources to something because of what they've already spent, rather than evaluating whether continuing makes sense. And goodness gracious, haven't we all done a little of that in our personal lives?
We stay in relationships because we've already given them ten years. We keep chasing approval from people who have never offered it. We hold on to friendships that leave us feeling smaller. We keep trying to resurrect something that has been telling us for years that it's finished.
And sometimes we need to ask ourselves, "Am I holding on because this is still good for me, or because I'm afraid of what happens if I let go?"
That's not an easy question. Especially when you've spent much of your life being afraid of abandonment. Because when you've experienced rejection early in life, even unhealthy relationships can feel safer than being alone. At least you know what you're dealing with. At least the familiar pain doesn't surprise you quite as much.
But familiarity isn't the same as safety. And staying isn't always the same as loyalty.
I've also been thinking about how childhood experiences influence our relationship with money. Why do some people panic when their investments drop? Why do others avoid looking at their bank accounts? Why do some of us feel guilty spending money on ourselves, even when we can afford it? And why do we sometimes attach our personal value to the amount sitting in our savings account?
Those questions have become part of a wider conversation about financial anxiety, money mindset, and childhood experiences. And I can understand why. Money isn't always just money. Sometimes it represents security. Sometimes freedom. Sometimes control. Sometimes the childhood we never had. And sometimes, if we're not careful, it becomes another way of measuring whether we're good enough.
But having money doesn't automatically create self-worth, and struggling financially doesn't mean you've failed as a person. You can have a healthy bank account and still feel emotionally bankrupt. You can be rebuilding your finances and have an extraordinary amount of courage, kindness, and personal strength.
I'm learning that financial literacy matters, but so does understanding the emotions behind our decisions. Researching an investment, understanding risk, recognizing scams, and refusing to make decisions simply because everybody else is panicking are practical financial habits. Understanding why fear, shame, or the need for approval influences your choices is another kind of education altogether.
And that education doesn't end when you leave school.
Which brings me back to grade six. That little girl who thought she'd failed because she repeated grade five had no idea what was coming. She didn't know that the family she depended on would become a place of danger. She didn't know she'd eventually run away. She didn't know that strangers and unexpected kindness would become part of her survival story. And she certainly didn't know that decades later she'd be sitting here talking about cryptocurrency, childhood trauma, and the value of believing in yourself.
Life is funny that way. Not always funny in the laughing sense. Sometimes funny in the "What the hell was that all about?" sense.
And maybe that's why I keep returning to the idea of dumping.
Because sometimes dumping means getting rid of something that no longer serves you. Sometimes it means somebody else making a decision that leaves you devastated. Sometimes it means walking away from danger. Sometimes it means accepting that a dream, relationship, or investment isn't what you thought it was. And sometimes it means starting again, just like I did with this very recording.
But I don't want you to confuse letting go with giving up on yourself.
Those are two very different things.
You can let go of a relationship without letting go of love. You can let go of a financial mistake without letting go of your ability to learn. You can let go of somebody else's opinion without letting go of your identity. And you can acknowledge the damage of your childhood without allowing those experiences to write every chapter of your future.
Now, does that mean healing is easy? Hell no. Sometimes healing is messy, uncomfortable, expensive, exhausting, and downright inconvenient. Sometimes it requires professional support. Sometimes it means having conversations you'd rather avoid. Sometimes it means grieving the childhood you should have had. And sometimes it means realizing that the apology you've been waiting for may never arrive.
But your recovery doesn't have to depend on somebody else finally admitting what they did.
That's a hard one, isn't it?
Because wouldn't it be wonderful if everybody who hurt us suddenly showed up with a sincere apology and a detailed explanation? Maybe a little financial compensation for the emotional damages while they're at it. I'm kidding. Well, partly.
But the truth is, we can't build our entire future around waiting for other people to become who we needed them to be.
At some point, we have to begin investing in the person standing in front of us today.
And that person is you.
Not the version of you who never made a mistake. Not the version who has everything figured out. Not the version who owns the perfect house, drives the expensive car, or has a cryptocurrency portfolio that makes everybody jealous. I'm talking about the real you. The one who's still learning. Still questioning. Still trying to make sense of things. The one who might be carrying some childhood pain while trying to build an adult life that feels safe and meaningful.
That person deserves your attention.
So here's something I'd like you to think about. If you treated yourself like an investment, what would you actually invest in? Would you give yourself more patience? Better boundaries? More education? Time to rest? A chance to learn something new? Would you stop pouring your energy into people who only seem interested in taking from you? Would you finally stop treating every mistake like evidence that you're a failure?
Because one of the most valuable things I've learned is that investing in yourself doesn't always require money. Sometimes it requires courage. Sometimes it requires honesty. Sometimes it requires the willingness to say, "This isn't working anymore, and I deserve to make a different choice."
And sometimes it requires accepting that you were never the worthless stock you believed yourself to be.
I think about that little girl on the streets of Toronto. I think about how she viewed herself. I think about the people who recognized something in her when she couldn't recognize it herself. And I wonder how many people are walking around today feeling just as worthless because of something that happened years ago.
How many adults are still emotionally living in grade six?
How many are still trying to prove themselves to a parent who never listened? Still trying to win the approval of somebody who made them feel unwanted? Still measuring their success against a childhood belief that they weren't enough?
And how many are so busy trying to recover what they lost that they've forgotten to appreciate what they've built?
I don't have every answer. And I don't pretend to. I'm learning about investing, I'm learning about wealth, and I'm still learning about the connections between my past and the decisions I make today. But one thing I do know is that I refuse to let the worst things that happened to me become the only things that define me.
My life has experienced a bear market. More than one, actually. There have been losses, disappointments, unexpected changes, and moments when I couldn't imagine things getting better. But there have also been people who believed in me, opportunities I never expected, lessons I couldn't have learned from a textbook, and moments of joy that remind me why continuing matters.
And that, my friends, is something worth holding on to.
So, the next time you're thinking about dumping something, whether it's a relationship, a habit, an investment, or a belief you've carried since childhood, give yourself a moment to understand what you're actually letting go of. Don't make decisions simply because fear is shouting louder than reason. Don't stay somewhere harmful because you've already invested years of your life. And don't mistake somebody else's rejection for an accurate assessment of your worth.
Sometimes patience is necessary. Sometimes research is necessary. Sometimes walking away is necessary. And sometimes the bravest thing you can do is ask for help.
But whatever you decide, please don't dump yourself in the process.
Because if there's one thing grade six taught me, it's that losing something doesn't always mean you've lost everything. And being dumped doesn't mean your story is over.
Sometimes it means the next chapter is waiting for you to recognize that you were worth keeping all along.
And before I go, I want to leave you with one final thought. What if the biggest investment you'll ever make isn't in Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, real estate, or the stock market? What if it's in finally believing that the person you've been carrying through every loss, every rejection, every disappointment, and every new beginning is worth investing in?
That's a return I wish I'd understood much earlier.
Thanks for spending a little of your day with me. I appreciate you listening, and I hope something in my story gives you a different perspective on your own. If you've ever been dumped, rejected, abandoned, or made to feel worthless, I'd love to hear what helped you begin rebuilding. You don't have to share anything you're uncomfortable discussing. Even a simple "I'm still learning" is enough.
And if this conversation connected with you, share it with somebody who might need the reminder that their value hasn't disappeared just because somebody else failed to recognize it. Follow along as I continue sharing the lessons from my childhood, one grade at a time, and exploring how those experiences shaped my relationship with money, investing, self-worth, and the world around me.
Until next time, take care of you.
Self-love and self-care will get you there.
— QueenB.Divine
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