Social Exclusion

I decided to drop my youngest to school on foot this morning. I went for a walk and browsed in some shops. An overwhelming feeling of anger and sadness kept washing over me as I tried to distract my mind by looking for a Christmas jumper for him for school Santa dash in a couple of weeks.

The anger and sadness makes me want to scream! To shout from the roof tops;

IT WASN’T ME!!!!

The simple question from the Trauma therapist yesterday; ‘Do you still meet up with Friends?!’ Not a loaded question on her part but ever since I have ruminating thoughts of incredible sadness and abandonment.

I have been a support worker for several years and worked with the most complex people in society. Those with severe and enduring mental health issues, offending history, substance misuse and offending. Those who are ‘Socially excluded‘

The Wikipedia definition is:

‘Social exclusion is a multidimensional process of progressive social rupture, detaching groups and individuals from social relations and institutions and preventing them from full participation in the normal, normatively prescribed activities of the society in which they live.’

I realise I am now in this category. I have become by default ‘Socially excluded.’

Not long after my husband was arrested, he told me that he’d never felt like he ‘fitted in’ in school, college or work places. Suffering from social anxiety he struggled to interact in group situations. I told him that the irony was due to his offence he had now ‘Socially excluded’ himself.

Never did it occur to me that by default I would be too.

As part of the assessment process with clients in my current job there is a question I have to ask which I do so very sensitively. Do you have a next of kin? I always say,

‘Is there anyone you would like to put down as an emergency contact?’

Quite often the answer is, ‘No.’

Infact once I remember someobody, an elderly guy with Schizophrenia, saying ‘Can I put my G.P?!’

Can you imagine that? Your G.P being the only person who may care if something happens to you?!

Where has our human kindness and compassion gone?! Why do we just write people off so very easily?!

The women I have met through this journey, many of us say we could never live with ourselves if we just wrote our Husbands off. Many of us now have Husbands in prison. We have been effectively ‘abandoned’ by many family and friends. Now we are facing the biggest trauma of our lives with little support. Thank God for the forums where we have managed to connect with eachother.

Their crime was NOT ours.

Their actions were NOT ours.

Their behaviour we will NEVER condone

To love someone unconditionally (see my previous blog) I feel should be commended.

I feel that it’s INHUMANE to write someone off because they made a mistake. Especially those who own their mistake and are paying for it. How can people ever change if they are not reintegrated into society?!

Being ‘Socially Excluded‘ is unfair and unjust. If you are reading this and there is someone you know who you’ve walked away from because you cannot find it in your heart to forgive them or try to understand their journey then I urge you to put yourself in theirs shoes.

Think of how it feels to feel unloved, unsupported and abandoned.

I can tell you: It hurts like hell.