My mother did a lot to keep us fed, clothed, housed when we were growing up. She wasn't happy, but she wasn't sad either.

I asked her once, decades later, how she coped with it all, and her answer still freaks me out sometimes.

She said she didn’t know she was a person who had choices, or could think about the situation she was in. She just did as she was expected to.

She’s in her 60s now and is far more in tune with her emotions, thoughts and feelings than I remember her when I was a kid.

She was virtually in catatonic autopilot most of her life, because no one encouraged her to think.

There's a quote from Helen Keller in this vein, after she was taught to communicate, though I can't find the full text:

"When the sun of consciousness first shone upon me, behold a miracle!"