I’ve found myself thinking about what it means to be strong more and more over the last year. Sometimes in the context of my personal life, sometimes in the context of being a woman (hang in there, boys, I’m not a raging feminist) and sometimes in the context of our service users.
Today I met a man who made me really focus on my own strength and I found myself comparing that strength to that of the women I have worked with over my career. The timing was poignant; I had just learned that one of the women I worked with in a Leeds based service a few years ago, had been found murdered.
I’ve had a varied career, one that has made me laugh for so many different reasons; the amazingly complex people I have had the sheer privilege to work with and support, who have shown me all aspects of their lives from the inside out, and given me the insight that I now have to run a service. The early days in the Prison Service gave me a very stark choice to make; either “man-up” and learn to manage the incredible sexism, or get out and change my career path and aspirations. The latter was never a real consideration for me and the rest, as they say, is history…
So, you could argue that in facing just about everything my professional and personal life has thrown at me (much of which I am utterly responsible for!), it’s made me strong. I have the strength and self-belief to tackle things head on, to swallow down my fears, and to walk into a room smiling with my head held high, when often, inside, I am shaking and fighting the urge to retreat to the safety of my room, like a petulant teenager who pretends to be in a bad mood, rather than admit that she is scared.
But that’s not the kind of strength I’m talking about. It’s false. Here I’m interested in the real stuff, the Heinz version of strength rather than the watered down, own-brand variety.
The women we work with at Simon On The Streets have always fascinated me. They are frequently the toughest cookies we support and, I’m afraid to say it ladies but, often the most complicated.
Not complicated because they’re women, and they happen to have a different set of hormones to men, but complicated because they are able to, and do, bear children. Complicated because we have a thriving demand for prostitution*, and complicated because we still live in a world where society expects women to conform to a stereotype of being pretty and lovely, and demure and gentle. We demonise those who don’t conform, who are a little rough around the edges and we judge. Oh how we love to judge.
One of the features of our work at Simon On The Streets is our focus on empathy and empathising. For me, I’m good at it, but more and more I have found that being good at it can actually be one of the biggest barriers to the interactions I have, particularly with some of our women.
I have two children. They are funny, challenging, beautiful, incredibly hard work, but they are such an integral part of me that I cannot imagine my life without them. The thought terrifies me, makes my heart beat faster, makes my palms sweat, and makes my throat go tight. So, when I am talking to the women we work with, and I’m using all my training to try to promote the development of some motivation and aspiration for something better, my ability to empathise gets in the way. Here’s why. These words are hard to write…
If, God forbid (I don’t believe in one, but I’m hedging my bets here), I lost my children, I can honestly tell you that there is no way on this earth that I would want to continue with my life. Simple, no great analysis needed, I just wouldn’t. My purpose for being would be gone. End of story.
The women we support have often lost children. Some have died in childhood, some have been still born, and some have been removed at birth because their mother was unable to parent (often due to their own chaotic lifestyles, abuse, personal traumas and circumstances). For me, it’s largely irrelevant. I can’t imagine how it feels to lose a child through any means, and I don’t believe that being unable to cope as a parent makes the loss any easier to bear.
So, sitting with some of the women we work with and hearing them tell me about the loss of their children, either through death or circumstance, devastates me. It stops me being able to work effectively. I can empathise but I can’t convincingly work with them to achieve aspiration for something better because I can’t truly believe that I would be able to do that either. I am so thankful for my amazing staff team who can, and do, do this so very well. I leave it to the experts now…
If I was them, and somebody offered me a syringe with something in it that promised to take away the pain and despair I was feeling, I have to tell you that I would probably take it. And not take just enough to last me for a few hours, but take enough to send me into oblivion, never to return.
So. Strength. It goes without saying. It’s not me who has strength, but these amazing, tenacious women who carry on, carry on fighting, carry on trying, carry on through each and every painful day that comes their way.
I’m asking you to look behind the women you see on the street. Take a moment to consider what their story might be, because I guarantee you there will be one, and more often than not, children will feature. I’m desperately sorry that this week, someone chose to take the life of the lady I worked with earlier in my career. She was a strong woman and she fought hard.
They are all strong, stronger than you or me, and I for one, am full of admiration for them.
*Of course men feel the loss of their children too, I will never try to diminish that, and of course men can be prostituted just as women can. In our client group however, the stark difference is that for men, the decision to prostitute themselves is usually theirs, for women, that’s not so often the case.