Being put away when society doesn’t want you
Adults and children are being put away in one country or another as I write this
This is number 17 of fifty pieces of poetry and prose written by Peter Limbrick as a monument to adults and children who have lived and died or are living now in inhuman situations. They are all inspired by real experience.
Put Away
Can you imagine being committed to one of these
institutions?
If you come as a baby, you will not know how different it is
from a normal sort of childhood. You will grow up without
mothering or fathering, without emotional attachment to
anyone.
The people who look after you will come and go in shifts
and will have a variety of cultures, languages and accents.
They will each have their own ideas about what to do with
you when you are naughty, about how much time to give
you to eat your meals, about managing your crying at
bedtime.
Your growing brain, hungry for stimulation, will turn to
finger-sucking, hand-biting, eye-poking, head-banging and
whatever else you might resort to in the absence of
parental love, caresses, songs and games. You will have no
chance of developing self-esteem or feeling that you are a
wanted and valued child.
If you are admitted as an adult you might have had loving
parents, might have been known by a wider family, by
people on the street, in a club or centre.
You might have had a place in the world with familiar
people and routines, respect for what you wanted to eat or
drink, choice in clothes, favourite TV programmes, songs to
sing along with, and birds, fish, cats or dogs for pets.
Perhaps your parents could no longer cope as you grew
heavier, became more obstreperous, developed some
unwelcome sexual habits. Or perhaps they died.
One day you are at home with everything that is familiar
and the next day in an institution where everything is
unknown and frightening. No familiar faces, no one knowing
who you are, what you like to eat and drink, what you like
to do. No more bedroom of your own.
No one to come when you cry for mum or dad.
The other 49 pieces can be seen here:
In Mind - a written monument to all people with intellectual disability. (Items 1 to 10)
In Mind - a written monument to all people with intellectual disability. (Items 11 to 20)
In Mind - a written monument to all people with intellectual disability. (Items 21 to 30)
In Mind - a written monument to all people with intellectual disability. (Items 31 to 40)
In Mind - a written monument to all people with intellectual disability. (Items 41 to 50)
