By late 2017, the inflation rate exceeded 50 percent a month. It was a turning point: economists signaled that we were officially in hyperinflation. Inflation is bad, but hyperinflation is a totally different game.

Hyperinflation hits the poorest the hardest. Venezuelans have reported losing on average 24 pounds in body weight. Nearly 90 percent now live in poverty. In the slums of Caracas, I visited mothers who have gone from reducing their children’s portions to having them skip meals altogether.

Marilyn Alma, a mother of three, had to give up custody of her eldest child because she can no longer feed him. One week, a dozen eggs cost Alba three days of wages; the next week, the cost doubles. Eggs, the cheapest source of protein, are now a distant dream for the vast majority of people. Ms. Alma, who had once been a staunch government supporter, told me, “Maduro betrayed this country.”

The professional class has also been affected. In middle-class neighborhoods large supermarkets previously stocked with imported goods are now half stocked with cheaper versions. Professionals can only afford two or three food items, and retirees often must leave behind products they can no longer afford. Their life savings and pensions are suddenly worthless.

Hyperinflation has also meant a brain drain. Young engineers or doctors are now working as waiters in Bogotá, Colombia, or as store clerks in Lima, Peru. “The worst part is that they send back money to help us,” Melani Delgado, whose two sons have left, told me recently as she fought back tears. A part-time dentist, Delgado said she could once afford to send her children to private university on her salary. Today remittances are fast becoming a lifeline for those left behind. “This government broke up the Venezuelan family and turned parents into parasites,” she said.

If you belong to the dwindling minority that has access to dollars, you can somewhat offset the rise in prices with the surge in the black-market exchange. You may be able to survive, but it’s impossible to plan for something that changes every day. To adapt to the destruction all around you.

For those with access to dollars, living with hyperinflation is demoralizing. At 6,000 bolívars (the equivalent of $2, or one third of the minimum monthly wage ), a pound of butter is obscenely expensive. Paying $30 for a 17-ounce bottle of olive oil feels criminal. Today this bottle costs the equivalent of five times the minimum wage, but that’s likely to change tomorrow. “Beating the system” feels like you are eviscerating your country’s economy.