Recovery for Displaced Individuals
Perhaps they give you a sense of connection? of safety? Personhood? What is the word Im looking for?
The term used for people that no longer have homes or people that have been....Displaced...what is it that happens to them psychologicaly...once they have been displaced?
They may not be entirely homeless;they may have a place to live. But what happens when your...things..things connected to your past...or things which demonstrate current activity and progress towards the future? What is thier sense of time?
I was watching a bit of a documentary about the AIDS pandemic in Africa. There were two children orphaned at the ages of 5 and 2..they were living in their home alone..because it offered them some sense of..maintaining a bit of their life before this happened to them. The 5 year old tended...Cattle...while the younger one played and slept. They were afraid,mostly, they said, of being taken away from their home. Their parents are buried right outside the front 'door'.
I think of so many people in the world..In America..that have been displaced because of financial troubles. And I can't help but wonder how to recover from such an experience. My mom is one of those people. The house she grew up in is now up for sale. The house she raised me in has been occupied by two other families in the last 10 years. Her things from her childhood are being sold to support her and the items she was surrounded with raising us are locked away in a storage garage here in Va. Most of them will more than likely not be salvageable...but...some of them will. Every one keeps telling me to empty it out and throw things away.
but Im afraid to do that...because I don't know what kind of an impact that will have on her. I look around my room..and I see the books Ive been gathering since I was a child. I see the stereo my brother gave me...I see the pictures and photo albums...a bin in my closet filled with my journals. these Things..have meaning. That isn't to say of course..that by any means do I hold objects more important that people. If anything,Im much too eager to let both go...its much too easy for me. But that is another entry...
I just wonder about....these things..because I want to know what can be done to rebuild my mother's life. Once money isn't an issue..what then of her mental and emotional care?
Once people have been displaced and their lives as they knew them has been pretty much Lost. What then? Where do you start? What do they need first? How do you re-establish someone's self knowledge?
Anyone know any books on the subject??
Anyone have any ideas? thoughts?
I'll ponder this as I go to work...maybe someone can hit my guestbook and iron out my jumbled thoughts while Im there...:)
all jumbled and wondering outloud
Peace
the jen
