The Woman with a Plan

In my pre-PhD life I worked as an unqualified social worker. I was based in homeless hostels for people with alcohol addiction and mental health concerns, family assessment centres, and a domestic violence refuge. I loved my job 90% of the time. I loved meeting people I probably would have never met otherwise. I loved feeling like I was earning every penny of my wages. I loved being able to do something that changed every day. And I especially loved that it gave me a sense of control over the feeling of helplessness I get when I think about how much bad there is in the world.

Working in those places gave me perspective, purpose. When I had residents ( NOTE* apparently this is a non-PC term, however I had several residents tell me that they thought the "appropriate" term Service User made them sound like customers in a brothel. I am going with them on this one) tell me how much I had helped them, I almost always responded that they didn't realise how much they helped me. And I meant it. You can learn so much from listening to someone talk about their life, how they cope with what they are given, what they think/don't think when they act. Not only that, but when someone trusts you with their life - usually at one of their most vulnerable points - if you are smart you recognise it as an incredible gift. I imagine that many people think those of us who do such work are selfless. Some are. Personally, I think I got a lot more than I gave.

But work like that has its shelf life. After almost 10 years of taking on everyone else's pain, the cumulative burden became a little heavy. I envied my colleagues who were able to leave work right on time and shut the door on the hostel and everyone in it. I would stay behind for hours, go in on my days off, and phone back and check on people from home. If I was dealing with a particularly difficult situation (pretty much once per week) I couldn't stop thinking about it. I lost a lot of sleep.

There was anxiety as well. Not just the anxiety you get from being responsible for people's recovery/safety/resettlement, but the anxiety that comes from seeing incident after incident happen before your eyes. In my final year of work in a homeless hostel, I intervened in: more overdoses than I can remember; one attempted hanging; two attempts at slit wrists and countless threats of self-harm. I saw a resident (with whom I had been working for nearly two years) have a psychotic break and lock me and herself in the kitchen on Christmas Day. She wielded a knife and threatened to kill several people in the hostel. The same woman later began to hear voices telling her to kill me - which led to her being thrown out of the hostel and onto the street. I still don't know what has happened to her. Four of our ex-residents died within six months of each other - two of which were violent and sudden deaths. The final straw for me was when a resident who had been asked to leave for assaulting one of the staff broke into the hostel and threw a switch blade at the door of the office where I was standing, and then returned to wait outside the hostel with another knife for hours. No one was hurt, but I was fairly broken.

By the end of that year, I could hardly hear a door slam without jumping. I started to see residents as potential threats instead of people who had been given a rotten start in life and were trying to survive. I knew it was time to go, and I was extraordinarily lucky to have an escape plan. I love what I do now, and the thought of going back to over night shifts, drunken brawls and suicide attempts holds little appeal. I thought doing research into social problems that could eventually contribute to policy change would make me feel involved in the bigger picture, but there is no guarantee I will be able to change anything at all. Working in an office all day leaves me wanting. Worse still it leaves me feeling as though I am not doing what I always swore I would - take action.

I have been trying so hard to think about how best to use the time I have to make some positive impact. First I joined Amnesty International. It was a good concept, but in Belfast consists mainly of middle-aged and middle-class women talking a lot about what the ills of the world are and writing the occasional letter. I got the impression it was a bit like going to church on Sunday is for some- you do it because it is the good Christian thing to do and not because you feel compelled to be there. I am grateful for their efforts, every letter is making a change, but it wasn't for me. Next I tried to get involved with campaign to raise awareness about homelessness. Unfortunately that group was so worried about losing their government funding they were unwilling to challenge any of the problems - therefore making their activism somewhat inactive. My only alternatives were the Socialist Workers Party or the Anarchists. No harm to either, but they both tend to be a bit exclusive and extreme for my taste.

I was motivated and under stimulated. All dressed up and nowhere to go.

I hate when people complain about something and do nothing to fix it. But day after day I felt I was becoming one of those people. I needed a plan. The result is my current project - the development of a social activism network in the city that will hold databases of interested parties, raise awareness about issues through information sessions, and try to "cross-pollinate" the existing groups to improve numbers and organisation. I am really excited. My head is buzzing all the time with new ideas. Our eventual goal is to gain access to a space in the city centre which can act as a non-profit cafe, hold English classes for immigrants, have public meetings to keep people informed, and generally be a base camp for social change. Max is excited too, and really should be given credit for me organising anything at all. Once again he saves the day with the simplest of phrases: "if there is nothing out there that lives up to what you want, why don't you just create what you want and invite everyone else to your party?"

I love my husband.

We have just held our first planning session and networking and organising is already underway. It turns out there are a lot of people out there who wanted the same thing. They just didn't have a cool punk of a husband to tell them what to do. Updates to follow.