Listen to thisChildren and youth at risk enter programs with enormous amounts of pain and unhappiness, much of which they have been carrying around with them for many months and years. However, their painful feelings of rejection, hurt, worthlessness and despair often remain hidden beneath surface behaviours including bullying, withdrawal, scapegoating and violence. As such, many workers fail to address the pain, and instead, respond to difficult and unpleasant behaviour, sometimes with anger or rejection. When a young person is sad, Child and Youth Care workers might think they are being helpful by saying things like, “Don’t worry, you'll be fine” or “It’s not so bad” or “Don’t cry” or “Of course your mother loves you”, as though the child can “get over it” through sheer willpower. It is as though the pain must be done away with as quickly as possible, and the process of healing must be instant. Perhaps the worker’s words are well-intentioned, but often, they do nothing more than give the message “I don’t want you to be sad”, “Your feelings are wrong”, “Your pain is unacceptable so please don’t show it to us”. When emotions are unexpressed, they do not miraculously disappear; they can remain inside until the emotional pressure becomes so great that self-control is temporarily suspended.
Perhaps, it is time to think about how comfortable we are with others' pain, for it is only through healing – itself a painful process – that young people will truly be able to move on with their development. Kind words and opportunities for new experiences without deep inner healing may be as effective as trying to fill a bucket with water without mending the holes in the bucket first. Such healing is a key in the emotional development of young people so that they become able to acknowledge and value their own feelings, whether positive or negative, and to learn how to express them appropriately.
The Invitation
I would like to invite you into the pain of an adolescent, thrust into a
world where everything is unfamiliar. This is the pain which needs to be
healed, the pain which requires great courage from the Child and Youth Care worker. Read on if you are willing to face this challenge.
I’m Angry
This morning, I woke up in an unfamiliar place, a place where the people
are strangers to me. I don’t want to be here. I am filled with dread. I
think the strangers expect me to be “more settled” now that I have
returned to school. I feel as settled as a volcano which is about to
erupt! I’m angry and resentful and I know I’m going to hate that school
today as much as I did yesterday. I never said that I wanted to go
there. They told me it would be my choice, but it wasn’t. They lost
patience because I took too long to decide so they decided for me. And
now my sadness and pain has turned into something else, something which
makes me want to hurt others, something which will show them that I am
in control.
I’m Invisible
Perhaps, it would have been different if they had been willing to touch
my pain. I know they must have seen it, because I have cried so many
tears that my eyes look like those of the broken man who sits slumped
outside the bottle store. I am sure that the emptiness inside me must
cause every sob to echo like raging thunder, so why don’t they hear it?
They go about their business as though nothing has changed, except that
everything has changed! Am I the only one who knows it, who sees it, who
feels it? Why won’t they help me to scream, to cry, to grieve?
Why don’t they hold me and tell me “It’s OK”? Why won’t they wipe away
my tears and comfort me. Instead, they walk around me as though I exist
as a collection of bones and muscles and skin “but without the ability
to feel. I think I must have become something dangerous. I have
disappointed them because I’m not as strong or adaptable as they
thought. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to cope. I don’t have the energy
to try any harder. I’m using everything I have to prevent myself from
dissolving into the nothingness inside of me. The vacuum sucks me
inwards, tempting me to succumb to something terrifying – something so
raw that I suspect it will result in madness or death or maybe something
even worse. But nobody can see it.
Perhaps, the horrible thing inside me terrifies them too. Perhaps, they don’t know what it is or how to be with it. Perhaps, they are frightened because they have spent so long avoiding their own pain. Perhaps, a glimpse of mine might cause them to dissolve into their own nothingness or madness or death. So we dance around each other making sure that we never really make contact – just in case we spread the dangerous thing to each other.
I’m Scared
They’re calling me again. I have to get ready for school so that I don’t make the others late. I have to leave the warm haven which is my bed –
the place where I am safe – and enter the unsafe places, the places
where the strangers look past me, or ask me questions which I don’t want
to answer, or don’t know how to answer. I have to put on that ugly
uniform which makes me look like one of the others, when I know that I
am not one of them. I am an alien, a person who doesn’t fit, something
that can’t be understood. I have to eat my breakfast, the food that
tastes like nothing. Perhaps, if I eat enough it will fill the gaping
hole inside of me.
I’m Alone
On the way to school, the strangers try to make conversation with me
about today’s classes or sights that they find interesting along the
journey. I mutter a response in a feeble attempt at politeness, but
their words are intrusions into my world. I want to be left alone with
my thoughts. There’s a familiar song playing on the radio and I’m reminded of happier times, times with people who knew me, when the world
made sense, and I knew my place in it. I find the strangers' conversations an insult to my past, a past which is both my comfort and
my pain in the present. I wish they’d just keep quiet. I have only a few
more minutes in the car. As much as I hate the journey, I don’t want it
to end. When we get there, I'll have to get out of the car and join the
throng of faceless uniforms, talking about what they watched on
television last night, or laughing at shared jokes, or planning outings
together. They talk of people and places that I’ve never heard of, and I
don’t understand all the words they use. Can it really be that we speak
the same language? I don’t want to speak like them, or have their
conversations because that would be a compromise, an indication that the
strangers are right, and that everything I know to be true is, in fact,
a lie. I cannot betray my past by venturing too far from it. The ground
is uneven and I know that if I fall, my carefully-constructed exterior
might disintegrate to reveal the shameful thing within. The safest thing
is not to get too near, in case they invite me even closer and realise
that I am something foreign, something incomprehensible, something that
doesn’t really belong here. I think I'll go and stand somewhere and try
to look as though I’m waiting for someone. If I look impatient and keep
glancing at my watch, they wont see that I am totally alone. they’ll
think that I too have friends, that I fit in, that I have a life, that I
am more than a shadow. they’ll think that there is someone coming to be
with me, to talk and laugh with me. they’ll think that I am one of them,
and that I am acceptable. So, I'll stand there waiting for my fictitious
friend, hating myself for my deception, yet clutching at my
differentness, and desperately wanting the bell to ring so that I have
somewhere to go, a place where I’m supposed to be, where my absence
might be noticed.
My Hope
But perhaps, today will be different. Perhaps, someone will see me, the
real me. Perhaps, someone will see my pain and loneliness and they will
recognise it and call me a little nearer. Perhaps, there is another
misfit who will stand waiting for nobody and see through my pretence.
Perhaps, there is someone who is able to look upon the twisted mass
inside me without turning away in revulsion, but instead, cup it in
their hands and heal my aching wounds with tenderness and understanding.
Perhaps, that person is you?
This feature: de Nim, S. (2004) Child and youth care work as healing. Child and Youth Care, 22(11), pp.30-31
