Are You Sitting Down?
Hello Bellis Community,
As we gear up for our end-of-year appeal, I understand that the most poignant reminders of the importance of Bellis support comes from the experiences of the women who participate. We have a handful of women who are willing to share their stories with you for our upcoming appeal, but to begin, I write to you on my own to relay an experience I had this week.
I am fortunate to continue to serve as a facilitator for our Tuesday in-person group. Most of the time, this group is made up of women who come to us from a local alcohol and drug recovery program. Occasionally, women from the broader community participate as well. Over the past two weeks, we've had the pleasure of welcoming 'Sara' to our group.
Sara described how she had been circling around Bellis for the last year or so, working up the courage to participate.
Sara joined one of my cohorts this summer for about five minutes to “prove to herself” that she could do it, but we didn’t see her again until two weeks ago. I told her I admired her courage and was so very happy to see her again. She smiled softly, bowed her head, and settled into one of the chairs in the Bellis living room.
During that first in-person attendance, Sara cried in relief, surrounded by women who get it. She described the pain of having no one who understands her experience, and lamented not having attended sooner, unaware it would be this cathartic and healing. Yesterday, she came back to Bellis, stating in her text to the warmline that “the emotions were too intense not to come back.”
As she got comfortable in the circle of women, with her cup of hot coffee and a crocheted blanket, she commiserated with the other participants about how she felt when the order for her TPR came down. Sara said, “The State of Minnesota told me I wasn’t worthy of being a mother.”
Sara took this statement and applied it to every area of her life. She didn’t feel worthy of anything. Sara went on to describe how she didn’t sit in a chair for over a year because she didn’t feel worthy of the comfort a chair would bring her, so instead she stood, or sat on the floor.
Imagine the emotional state one must be in to not feel deserving of a chair.
Sadly, this is not the first time I have heard women who come to Bellis describe their absence of self-worth, self-love, and purpose because of a loss of custody of their children. I had a woman ask me if it is ok if she goes to see a movie. Others have told me that they restrict their food intake because they don’t feel like they deserve to eat.
If women catch themselves in a brief moment of joy, they will quickly replace that feeling with guilt for “enjoying” themselves. Women who come to Bellis find themselves in a perpetual state of self-flagellation, thinking that they never deserve to experience anything good ever again. Not only because of the story they tell themselves, but because of what they have been told by others.
We are a punitive society. One that believes that the only way to salvation is through punishment. Also, retribution “feels” better. When someone affronts us, it is an instinct to retaliate. But psychologists will tell us, no one ever did better by making them feel worse.
We must ask ourselves, is constant berating and shaming beneficial or detrimental to our well-being? Does it cause us to rise above our negative behaviors or does it drive us to a self-fulfilling (or limiting) prophecy? I think the answer is evident, yet we have people who question whether or not the women Bellis supports are “worth” it.
As the ONLY organization the country that supports people who have had a termination of parental rights, a transfer of custody, or similar circumstances it is clear that people do not value the support given to Bellis participants. People are far less likely to support someone if they believe that their circumstances are the result of an “immoral” or “illegal” act. But if we build upon the well-known premise that people act how they feel, should we not examine what has led people to behave in ways that lead to the loss of custody of their children? I can assure you that the explanation is long, messy, complicated, and filled with trauma - much of which occurred when they were children themselves.
Still, does any of this determine a person’s level of worth? In case you need to be reminded for yourself, you have worth simply because you are alive. No other reason. Your worth does not increase or decrease because of who you are or what you do. Every person is deserving of love, compassion, empathy, and has inherent worth.
If we all believed in our own worth and that of others, would we not work tirelessly to ensure that this message was sent and received?
Imagine a world where we held each other and ourselves with grace for our mistakes, however egregious, and supported one another to get to a place of honoring and working from this inherent value.
For most of our participants, Bellis is the ONLY place where they have been able to lift themselves out of their shame spiral. Despite often desperate attempts to find support elsewhere before learning about Bellis, they have been unsuccessful.
There are tens of thousands of people living in the US who question their worth every day because of the choices they have made that have resulted in the loss of custody of their children. To allow them to sit in a space of shame and isolation only brings down the collective well-being, creating more mental health crises, addiction, and violence. Instead, let us go a step further into understanding the human narrative, offer support instead of condemnation, and watch us slowly, but surely rise.
If this writing has impacted the way you feel about people who have experienced a termination of parental rights or a transfer of custody, please consider a donation for Bellis programming and share this with your network. The only way to combat this false narrative is through education and awareness, empathy and generosity.
Thank you for your consideration.
Written by Kelly Tronstad, Executive Director of Bellis
