personal experience reflects the power of this group!
P. Myers (mpwr@u.washington.edu)
Mon, 5 Jan 1998 14:02:33 -0800 (PST)
I wanted to share a little of my last few days with this family of ours...
here, the politics of division have become less influencial... another
time, I might not have reached out...to my discomfort, and more...PatM
The most (or, to me, one of the most) damning components to poverty and/or
homelessness...actually any personal crisis situation, is the difficulty
one experiences (understandable) to focus on what will help in the long
run. The survival issues get pushed up front, and obliterate perspectives
and the development of plans, strategies and actions, one or all of which
could shorten the time spent in crisis; or one's feeling of aloneness; or
a realization that action, even when one knows one is at one's most
helpless... Those perspectives and affiliates that get ...what?...buried
...in the needs experienced as most immediate and crucial, are those very
issues and resources that lead to real curative action... long term fixes,
as it were.
This discussion list, and the sense of cameraderie (sp?) that has
developed for some of us, can, I know, provide just such internal
emotional "spaces" for clear, comprehensive thinking, in the teeth of fear
and worry.
Example: I recently felt endangered. I wrote a listfriend from this
area, asking if I might have a temporary safehouse with her, and received
immediate, warm and loving assent...this is a person I would never have
known without this list (and you know who you are, and I thank and love
you for your caring and support...things seem to be ok, now...).
Without her and others like her, from this list, supporting me from great
distances, and helping me by listening to me think though my fear and
confusions, I might have felt safer spending several nights at whatever
shelters had room, rather than staying where I am.
This now seems possible, since my listfriend's offer gave me the "comfort
space" to think clearly about what I needed to do, and my other friends'
patient caring ear helped me go over and over and over my options while I
tested my value and worth as a human being...a commodity I had also almost
lost.
I know that the above sounds a bit cryptic...but I think it illustrates
what I'm trying to say...if not...sorry, gave it my best shot! My point
is that I would have had many fewer resources during a time of real
personal crisis, had not this particular list existed... hpn...this group
of people, and my sense of belonging here, was directly responsible for
giving me the emotional space in which I could consider options; test the
reality of the danger I felt imminent, and make a thoughtful decision.
So, if there's any way I can help hpn in future, count me in, too!
PatM