Empowering destitute people towards transforming communities

6.2Understanding the ways in which destitute people try to protect their dignity

We can protect our dignity in many ways in threatening situations, and all of these ways are familiar, even to those of us who have been spared such harsh crises as destitution in our own lives. We can rationalize our circumstances, deny what is happening to us, or stubbornly hope that things will get better. We can resign ourselves to what is happening or adopt a reduced set of expectations or a diminished self-image in order to deal with brutal realities in our lives. In particular, however, when human beings find themselves in difficult situations from which they cannot physically escape, they often attempt to escape psychologically. This takes the form of distancing themselves from both the situation and from other persons who share their current crisis (Seltzer & Miller, 1993:66).
Distancing mechanisms represent one key example of how destitute people cope with their situations. No value judgment is implied in recognizing that people distance themselves from their life situations. Such defence mechanisms are perfectly normal.
Seltser & Miller (1993:66-74) continue their reflections by listing some “distancing mechanisms” as a way for destitute people to cope with being destitute, and a means to try to regain some semblance of dignity. These mechanisms deserve greater attention if we desire really to understand destitute people.

6.2.1Denial as a means of distancing

Although denial is, properly understood, a separate form of protection, it can be seen as one end of a spectrum of distancing responses. What better way is there to put distance between the self and its present painful condition than to deny that the condition exists at all?
Of course, people can hardly deny that they are living in a shelter or on the streets or that they are dependent on welfare to feed their children. But it is quite possible to refuse to deal with the situation, to either ignore it or deny its significance entirely. Whether someone can continue to do so for an extended period of time, or without serious threats to other elements of personal well-being, is another question.
Asked how she was handling her present situation, a woman responded by saying: “I don’t really know, I don’t even think about it really. I just say, some way, somehow, we’re going to get help – we’re not going to sleep in the streets, we know that, that’s how I feel.” When we asked whether she was anxious or depressed, she said: “I don’t really think about my problems, I don’t really think about them at all. I don’t really feel anything sometimes.” She is not so much denying the fact that she is destitute as the fact that this situation is affecting her in ways that she must think and feel about. All of us have experienced situations that were simply too painful to think about and have engaged in some form of “psychic numbing” as a response.
People who are deeply in denial are likely to continue making very significant mistakes in judging which parts of the world are really under their control and what is likely to happen next. As a result, the longer people remain in denial, the longer they remain victims.

6.2.2Minimizing the situation

Just short of denial, we find people struggling to minimize their situations. They recognize that something is wrong but adopt an “it isn’t so bad” attitude. This perspective allows them to believe that they are not in particularly bad shape, and thereby they diminish the gap between how they view themselves and the reality of the situation they find themselves in.
For example, a woman residing in a shelter bristles at the very term “destitute,” even though she admits to having stayed outside occasionally: “I haven’t had to be destitute, really. It’s just been overnight in a hotel, or whatever, camping out in a campsite or something……But you know, you work it out.” The act of redefinition is crucial; if I am not “really” destitute, then I am better off than those people who are.
It should be clear that both denying and minimizing reality can undermine a person’s ability to live out a responsible and ordered life. However protective and soothing such mechanisms may be, they are likely to be ineffective in making the problems disappear. Indeed, it is more likely that they will become ways to escape from confronting the hard choices and work that are usually required to turn one’s life around.
Precisely because dignity is tied so closely to our ability to make decisions, to take control, and to lead predictable lives, these defense mechanisms are further steps in undermining an already fragile sense of worth and meaning. People are unlikely to take a destitute person seriously or to view that person as a stable and responsible adult if they perceive that s/he is unable or unwilling to face problems. Even more significant, the latter are unlikely to be able to view themselves with a sense of dignity and self-respect as long as they cannot face what is happening to them.

6.2.3Isolating the present

A somewhat more sophisticated approach is similar to minimizing but is better able to accept the situation for what it is, in all its seriousness and discomfort. This response involves isolating the present as a distinct and clearly heterogeneous part of the flow of one’s life; although the situation is bad now, it is only temporary, and things will “get back to normal” very soon.
We especially saw this sort of response when parents discussed how they tried to explain the situation to their children. A father says that his children are dealing fairly well with being destitute. He attributes their stability in part to his attempts to assure them that things will change for the better very soon. He reports that he keeps telling them, “Understand, we’re here for right now, it’s not going to be forever, we’re going to move, don’t worry your mom about ‘I don’t like it here, I don’t want to be there,’ because it will only make things worse.”
The comments of destitute individuals often reveal a deep insistence that their present condition does not, and will not, define or confine them in the future. As observers of their lives, however, we might react by praising them for their optimism while wondering if there isn’t and element of self-deception involved here. The ability to view the present as an aberration can lead to the inability to see broader patterns and, therefore, to take more radical steps to change.

6.2.4“Class” distancing

One of the most frequent forms of distancing behaviour is for people to claim that they are not really the sort of people who are typically destitute.
The best illustration of this sort of response is to quote Hanna (2002 Popup interview) (Pseudonym):

Just being out in the streets - I’ve never experienced that. I come from a fairly good home, a very good home……I didn’t even know about anything like that to tell you the truth, and I was really sheltered. I didn’t even know what a cockroach was until I was about seventeen; I had never seen one before.

The implications of these sorts of statements are made even more obvious by the mention of characteristics that are closely associated with class identity. For example, education is sometimes mentioned as setting the person apart. One woman believes she has received better treatment from society at large because of her class background: “I went to the right schools, and I got the best education. I lived in the …… area, so it’s a little bit easier for me.”
Intelligence is another personal attribute that people use to disassociate themselves from stereotypes about the destitute. One woman speaks at length about her ability to speed-read, saying that she reads so quickly that she can’t enjoy it. She claims that she has taught herself to read upside down in order to read more slowly, a procedure that creates odd stares when she is reading on a bus or in other public places. Another woman brags that she has an I.Q. of 148, “so how could I be a bimbo?”
Still other people focus on an entire set of lifestyle and personal value orientations that distance them, by virtue of background, from other destitute people.
Another interesting approach can be found among people who have been dependent on welfare for a long time. For them, the key step is to distance themselves in terms of their present orientation, using their past experiences to intensify their self-understanding as people who are no longer willing to live dependently. A woman tells the story of her childhood, when her parents were forced to live on welfare. She recounts the embarrassment of having social service workers make surprise visits to the house at eleven o’clock at night to see if all of the children were still living at home. Her present attitude is clearly shaped by these experiences:

I remember all of that as a child, and I was determined that, no matter what, I would never do that when I was an adult, I would never live on welfare. So far I haven’t, we’ve been on it one time, and that was for a month, and that was just to get medical coverage when I was pregnant with my son. We got the welfare, and we got the medical coverage, and the day my son was born, my husband got a job and he’s worked ever since, and other than the disability thing, we’ve never had to go for help – welfare is fine because there are a lot of people who could not make it, they have no other way, but I would rather do anything else than that.

Once again, we see the clear efforts at class distancing. Welfare is “fine” for other people “who could not make it, they have no other way,” but she is the sort of person who would “rather do anything else than that,” precisely because she has climbed out of the class situation where she must be dependent upon the system.

6.2.5“Scapegoating” the destitute

When carried to an extreme, distancing turns into a form of criticism, of blaming and judging other people for their condition. We are interested here in how and why some of the destitute themselves engage in the business of blaming the victim.
The milder form of such criticism is heard when people insist that they have tried hard to improve their own situations and suggest how unusual this is. Similarly, turning the question of destituteness into one of willpower is a common way to distinguish oneself from others who refuse to make the effort to change their situations. This is an extremely common pattern of thought, usually accompanied by specific criticisms of people who either do not make the effort to improve or who are simply the type of people who are not interested in change.
One woman expresses disdain for people who go from shelter to shelter over a period of months or years, a pattern she interprets as meaning that they have no desire to improve their situation. She notes that some residents spend all of their time in their rooms and need to be kicked out of the shelter completely: “You can’t pamper them. You can give them an inch, they expect a mile. We’ve got a couple who came in….who aren’t grateful at all they’re living in the place free.”
Shelter residents also often draw a sharp distinction between their peers on the basis of the use of drugs and alcohol. Some people adopt a somewhat more sympathetic tone, but the stereotype of addicts and alcoholics (however true or untrue it may be) remains – that these people are unable and unwilling to take care of themselves.

6.2.6Conclusion

Sometimes distancing works, and sometimes it fails. As one woman in Popup admits, there is a point at which you have to recognize that you are, in fact, destitute: “I used to see people going down to this building and standing out, and I used to always wonder what this is, and now I know what it is, because I’m here with them.”
The motives for adopting various sorts of distancing language and claims are complex, but the central point is that destitution threatens the personal dignity of those it traps. Perhaps if destitute people were more convinced that their underlying sense of worth would be upheld regardless of their living conditions or financial situation, they would be much less likely to adopt the various strategies of distancing.
Also, and in particular, missiologically, if destitute people can be taught or helped to view themselves as God sees them, it would contribute tremendously to their sense of dignity, thereby restoring their intentionality towards future goals (that we encapsulate in the word SHALOM).
It is particularly saddening to recognize the extent to which destitute people accept the broader society’s stereotypes of their motives and character. By going to such lengths of distancing themselves from other destitute people they tacitly accept these stereotypes, implying that these are true for others but not for them. Indeed, this may be one of the greatest and most debilitating effects of destitution; in a society that does not reaffirm the basic dignity of each person, destitution becomes a terrifying status that must be denied or reinterpreted at all costs, even at the price of undercutting solidarity with other people in a similar position.