Being on the Inside, living it
The Relational Worker
How does difficulty start?
Like most things in life, with relationships. Whereas for most people for most of the time relationships are sources of support, for those in great difficulty they are sources of stress.
It starts with a void, an absence of healthy connection.
A worker is explaining the void to me:
Sam came into care roughly four or five years ago. She was living with her dad. Her mom abandoned her. She didn’t want anything to do with Sam. The mom was addicted to drugs. Her dad took the role of the primary caretaker, and then he got into some trouble and was incarcerated. At that time, dad lost his apartment. Sam was bouncing from house to house with nowhere to go. She had two other siblings, but they weren’t in a position to take Sam in. They gave her a floor or a sofa to sleep on for a couple nights. But they couldn’t take her in. Sam couldn’t live with them.
Outside of family networks, there is little respite. Unhealthy friendships, partners who abuse, professionals who let Sam down.
These stories are so common they border on cliché. Listen again. Look underneath the sentiment. The void of connection. No nurture from family. Dad too caught up in his own issues to meet Sam’s needs. Loss of relationships. First her mum, then her dad. Who’s next? Sometimes people like Sam actively distance themselves from unhealthy people. Other times the loss happens through their own actions, women whose chaotic circumstances lead to the removal of their children from their care. There are siblings. But they can only do so much. They cannot get Mum and Dad back, restore the loss, nor give her a home.
What does this void of healthy connection do to the person experiencing it?
It leaves a mark on the sense of self. Most commonly, this is manifest as a sense of shame, a self-evaluation of failure to meet the expectations and standards of others.
Shame means:
I am useless and worthless.
I lost my children.
I didn’t respect myself.
I allowed a man to abuse me.
I am an addict.
I am a lost cause.
I put drugs before my children.
I am a monster, an animal.
I allowed a guy to whip me for £5 to get money for my kids.
I am not worthy of having opinions, not worthy of talking to people.
I am not good enough.
The court said I was a bad mother, a criminal, promiscuous, an addict.
I see it myself in women like me, doing the same things, I can see they feel shame. And they show the things they have done, the things I have done.
This sense of shame is deep and global, it ‘sticks’ onto the person. Being hurt by those who are supposed to love you is deep. Losing your children to drugs is deep. Being abused by someone is deep. Describing yourself as an animal, not a human being, reaches down to the soul. So is being useless, worthless, disgusted, not liking yourself.
Where do all the thoughts and feelings associated with shame go?
They hide from the outside world, inside the mind, part of a continuous dialogue about the failing self. Here’s three young people in conversation with their shame:
Why did I allow myself to get into this mess, do you know what I mean? I don’t even know how it started, and you just get sucked into something. And before you know it you’re right down the toilet.
Why is this happening to me? Why did they do that? Why did you do this? Why?
I felt like, why is everyone leaving me, do you know what I mean?
Shame is heavy on the self, it almost has a physical nature. A worker describes it. Shame is everything here. There is so much baggage of shame that that they can barely walk straight. There are lots of extreme thoughts. I’m stupid all the time. I’m fat, especially within the female realm of things. I am not loved. I’m a bad mother. What am I doing in this country? I thought this would be different. I failed. I failed, right?
Shame stands in the way of the engagement with the outside world. People back away from themselves and others. They build ‘walls’ around the painful emotions. A place to keep these emotions. Here is a worker’s account of a young woman advised to seek counselling: She had the first session, and she came back here and she said…I don’t think I can do this any more. There are things that they talked about, and they’re like things I’ve put in a drawer somewhere and shut it, and I’ve forgotten where that drawer is. And if I open that drawer, when I go to bed afterwards, when I get to sleep,I will never want to wake up.
When the hidden emotions overpower the self, drugs and alcohol provide short-term respite. But eventually the pain comes out. It takes the form of anger and rage.
When others reach out, they are met with skepticism. How will you hurt me?, is the instinct, the question. On the flip side, their repeated experience of being let down teaches them how to assess others. To know if they have to fight or flee the interaction.
They ‘read’ people on two levels. The first is visceral, how do I feel in your presence. The second level is analytical, I watch you carefully. The best helpers recognise this. They see the illusion. It is not the professional doing the assessing. One worker said: It is the other way around. Any person under heavy stress will carefully assess you, continuously, at least on three dimensions: whether you care, whether you understand, and whether you are able to provide practical help.
Sitting on the outside, looking in, we see risks, issues, and problems. We routinely want to fix or count, or both. On the inside, it looks different. The absence of relationships. The pain that fills the void. People relating to their disadvantage.
From the outside we can turn people into passive containers of their condition, and pop a label onto the container. And maybe drop a remedy into the pot. From the inside, people have an active, emotional relationship to their disadvantage. They carry it with them, even if the weight of it becomes unbearable. There is nowhere to offload it.
The combination of risk and void of healthy connection produces shame, distrust of others, and social distancing. The net result is feeling unworthy and unable.
