I didn't have a bad upbringing by my knowledge, my mom wasn't around because she had left to Germany to be with her family since she had none in America, My dad worked in a factory and had to raise me alone but he was never unhappy, he always smiled, even when my grandfather had died. I cried after the ceremony but on the way back he continued to smile with tear in his eyes and told me, " It's Okay Lewis, there's kind people in the world and your grandfather was one of them, when we die the kind ones just sit on their stars and smile at us from the sky." It was sweet but as a 10 year old I just didn't understand it by any means.
We had a small house and I was never really social, not awkward but not outgoing either, I just existed behind everyone because I didn't like attention, I didn't want others to judge me. I just did my school work and let others talk in discussion. I didn't like attention, I was always afraid of being judged. It's likely that because of this I had secluded myself to books and computers because a screen and words couldn't judge, I was open and kind to people on forums because I wasn't visible, I wasn't a target of judgement. On the computer I was able read about sites like the Library of Babel, I was able to learn about underground sites where people would talk about their interests, I wanted to talk to someone so as time went on I got into different interests, Music, Coding, Digital Card Games, Chess, whatever I could just to talk to people who couldn't judge me.
My dad didn't have many modern books since we didn't have enough money to splurge on everything, we had old books by Fredrich Nietzsche, and Thomas Paine that my dad had collected over time. I couldn't ask my dad for an instrument but I could use an old and dirty acoustic bass my dad owned, despite how many cobwebs were in it at the time. I has a rotted chess board with chipped pieces to practice with. I didn't care that we didn't have very much money, no ever judged me if I said I couldn't afford something, so I was never scared of bringing it up. But I can't say all of this was amazing for me, It only limited my social interaction even more, and made my view on others worse as I read books that told me people were born evil, or that good and evil don't really exist, books that told me that everyone is terrible by nature and we just ignore it and judge others instead of embracing it. All of these factors made interactions worse and worse.