Smashing Loneliness

Elbert Hubbard, American Author and Publisher is quoted as saying that it’s better to be a round peg in a square hole than a square peg in a square hole.  He goes on to explain that the latter is for life as you’ll presumably stay in that shape for your peg indefinitely, whereas to not fit is to only stay whilst it is comfortable enough, then move onto finding the hole that is a better fit. I’ve been reflecting on this for a while and especially this week again. I’ve always been a shape that doesn’t fit, nowhere that I remember have I felt at ease or well situated. Home, school, work, socially, practically everywhere. Even where I initially get…

Life at Cohort 4 usually follows a peaceful pattern of activities, lunch, laughter and maybe a tear or two as survival takes it’s meandering path onwards. Yet intermittently, our team are required to become involved in advocacy or more active support.  When working with women with lived experience of abuse, financial disadvantage and multiple needs, there can come crisis points and we bounce into action in a very coordinated and organised way. Just so last weekend! One of our women with particular vulnerabilities was targeted by bailiffs for an alleged debt from years back, an inventory of property was gathered after a foot was pushed into the doorway and an entry coerced.  Every item was highlighted for removal; mirrors, pictures, lamps,…

We regularly hear comments from our women about the sense of loneliness and isolation they experience. When women survive abuse, histories of mental ill health or other complexities, loneliness is often something that is not specifically. addressed. Yet we know that loneliness has a profound impact on a person’s ability to recover and to heal.  Research studies inform us that loneliness is key critical to causes of the negative impacts connected to mental and physical ill health (see Campaign to End Loneliness). Dr. Dhruv Khullar, at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, cited evidence of the impact of loneliness on sleep disruption, abnormal immune responses and increased cognitive decline among socially isolated individuals. He calls this “a growing epidemic.” Furthermore, loneliness has…