I have unlearned a lot of things in my short time at HealthCare for the Homeless (HCH) working as a Lutheran Volunteer Corps Volunteer.
All that I have seen, all those I have met have changed me.
An uneasiness, however, has grown in my soul in the last three months that I have interacted and observed interactions with the individuals we serve at HCH. I have been questioning my motivation to be here.
I have no formal training in either mental health or social work, or for that matter anything that could be of any use at the moment, and I view my opinion as a very biased and untrained one. That being said, here it is questioned, untrained, unprofessional.
There's you(the therapist) and there's me (the client). We are sitting in a room (your office), I like the way it looks (your knick-knacks spread out here and there), I like the couch I am sitting on (your couch). The therapy ensues, your ultimate goal is to provide an open space where I can share my thoughts and emotions and the things that trouble me daily. I feel comfortable with you, except for the fact that sometimes (outside of the office and perhaps therapy) you treat me like a child. Despite whatever diagnosis you gave me, the fact remains the same: I come to this place with little to no agency, only to have the last strap of it removed by every interaction I have with the people in this place. I come from a place where either (1) I didn't have an agency to begin with, or (2) the agency I had I couldn't handle, or worse (3) it was removed from me by the system in which I live in.
I am no different than you or anyone you know, and the questions hang in the air: would you want to be treated like this? Would you want to feel like you are doing me a favor every single time we talk, that my difficult life is something to be pitied? If you were here in my shoes how would you want to be treated? Am I child you take care of, will you hold my hand and continue to treat me like a different kind of human? Will you remove any strap of dignity I have left by treating me like this?
Am I even worth your time and attention? Not just the helping kind, with the nice voice and all, but the real attention? The kind of attention where you realize that you and I are not that different, where you sit right in front me, look at my face and I look at yours. We can clearly see we are the same, for all you know this could be you in my seat. I deserve to be seen as human and as equal as you, my situation does not dehumanize me. My diagnosis does not dehumanize me.
My run-ins with the law do not dehumanize me, or for that matter my entire history with the law system does not dehumanize me. I am not a source of constant risk to you. What I have done is not who I am. You don't need to be afraid of me. Know it, yeah, I can't even escape it, but don't fear it.
I am not homeless. I am currently experiencing homelessness. But I am not homeless, and homeless isn't me.
I have a name and face. I am you, you are me.
