Rough home life doesn’t erase your potential. It just means you’ll need to find your people outside the house too.

Home shapes a great deal and decides less than it appears to. The genuinely harder part is that some of what families usually supply, encouragement, steadiness, somebody noticing, may have to be found elsewhere. That is extra work and it is not your fault that you have it. People do build it, often out of coaches, teachers, friends’ parents, and one or two friends.

Think of one adult outside your house who has been reliably decent to you, and give them more access: stay after class, take the shift they offer, ask them something. If home is unsafe rather than hard, tell somebody with the standing to help.