|
Shoshanna - A reason to get up in
the morning
Shoshanna came from a disturbed
and emotionally abusive home in which she always felt different,
never accepted by her parents or her older siblings. A poor
performer in school, she was labeled "stupid" by
teachers and peers and spent most of her childhood and youth
escaping to a self-contained fantasy world of her own making.
Her parents compounded this with their their frequent emotional
attacks on her, berating her distance and dreaminess. At the
age of sixteen, in a desperate attempt to escape her life,
Shoshanna moved to the south of the country. Without money
and looking for work, she soon became involved with street
gangs and the hard drug scene, living in temporary squatter's
quarters and eating meals in shelters for the homeless. Offered
shelter and hope by missionaries from a local cult, she joined
their community where her last vestiges of self-confidence
and personal self-worth were totally destroyed.
Shoshanna ran from the cult and moved
back to the north of the country desperately wanting only
to have a stable home life. Several months later, at the age
of eighteen, she married a man she had only known a short
time who had come from a background similar to her own. Both
she and her husband found their relationship impossible as
neither of them had the emotional strength and interpersonal
tools to make the marriage work. They were about to separate
after several months of marriage when Shoshanna realized that
she was pregnant with their first child.
Shoshanna arrived at the New Start Hostel,
four-months pregnant, extremely depressed and determined to
get a divorce. Barely functioning, Shoshanna expressed having
no reason to get up in the morning and used her bed as a safety
zone to avoid her life. She felt no connection to her unborn
baby and lacked the most basic ability to care for the simplest
of her own personal needs.
In the New Start Hostel Shoshanna found,
for the first time in her life, a supportive, sheltering home
where she was encouraged to consider her situation and offered
a therapeutic program to help her get herself back on her
feet. Given a regular schedule to discipline and orient her
day, she was taught basic life skills toward caring for herself
along with the particular skills she would need as a mother.
We helped Shoshanna identify her own personal talents and
taught her how to put them into action in her life. Shoshanna
arrived with minimal training in computers and, through a
personalized course at the New Start Hostel, gained training
as a medical secretary to help her toward the goal of being
able to support her and her child.
With intensive therapeutic help, Shoshanna
and her husband decided to try to work out their relationship.
They moved into an apartment close to our home and, together
with us, have worked hard to develop a healthy approach to
marriage and family living. Several months after moving back
together, they shared the birth of their son who, with them,
has settled into family life. Shoshanna was able to find a
very good job that, aside from helping with the family income,
further builds Shoshanna's self-esteem, sense of responsibility,
and feeling of contributing to herself and her family.
Shoshanna told us that our intervention
saved her life! She had nowhere to turn and had lost all hope
of ever finding direction in her life. In our home, for the
first time in her life, she found a supportive family situation
that gave her the courage to face her life and work on improving
it. In the New Start Hostel, she learned to appreciate herself
and now approaches life with a more realistic, and even enthusiastic,
attitude. She developed skills of self-care and acquired the
skills needed to pursue a vocation. Her husband was helped
to reevaluate their relationship and together, they learned
interpersonal communication and relationship skills that saved
their marriage. Now, Shoshanna tells us, she has myriad reasons
to get up in the morning!
|
