Part 18 Somewhere to belong

When everyday life is in a mess, regular daily rhythm matters. When you can manage to get out of bed, to take care of your hygiene and daily chores, you have hold of a lifeline. When you establish a connection with other people, the will to live can begin to return. The young person sees reasons to live. The completed housework and self-care also bring joy and a sense of capability. Getting more responsibility for daily chores or for instructing another youth give them a sense that they are trusted. The youth is not only being helped, but can help someone else, or act for the benefit of the entire community.  In this, we are at the core of reciprocity. Reciprocity ties us together through empathy. It creates a sense of belonging somewhere. In your own community, you can find acceptance and recognition. These experiences are not always easily extended to situations outside the community. However, they leave the young people with an imprint of the experience, one that can carry them outside the community, as well:

’So what I’ve learned from this experience myself is something like a community which should last through the treatment and beyond treatment. Or a kind of permanence, a thing that creates security, is maybe one of the most important things.’

 Youth: For me at least because I haven’t learned that bearing of responsibility and that independence because of having such over-protective parents. And this way it can now be learned again, and to take care of myself. So it probably helps with it later when at some point I move to live on my own.

Maritta: Yes. Would that important message to other young people be that you need to bear responsibility? 

Youth: And that you can get help. And that there are people who help. That has been really important, that there is like some place where you belong or you get that sense of togetherness and security and that you’re not alone.

Maritta: Important things.

Youth: Yes.