我那个时候已经 自顾不暇了
“I wasn't able to take care of myself then.”
THE DIALOGUE REEL
“you would have been hurt more heavily.”
我 那个 时候已经 自顾不暇 了
“I wasn't able to take care of myself then.”
我把你留下并不是
“Leaving you behind wasn't…”
“Please don't hate me; I was barely surviving myself back then.”
In Chinese family dynamics, parents rarely say a direct 'I am sorry' to their children; instead, they explain external hardships and personal helplessness (Ku-chu) to solicit empathy and heal estrangement.
LEARNING CHUNKS & PARTICLES
too busy with one's own problems to attend to others
A useful idiomatic phrase used to explain why you cannot help someone else due to being overwhelmed by your own difficulties.
at that time / back then
A common temporal marker used in spoken Chinese when reminiscing or recounting past events.
Marks a completed state and reinforces the finality and gravity of the speaker's past difficult situation.
