Community

The word community seems to be a subject of a lot of debate at the moment, especially in the context of the riots in the UK.  I'm personally a bit sceptical when I hear it on the lips of politicians: I think community is one of those weasel words.  Community means having things in common, and the only thing a lot of people seem to have in common is that they are all living near the same bus stop.

I was surprised to hear Julie saying that she wanted to spend more time in the community. I guess this is a phrase she's heard staff use.  I think she means that she wants to go swimming actually - she's been keen to go to a pool for months but the trip is endlessly deferred because she nearly always has wounds that are healing.  If she could get the self-harm under control, that would be another thing she could do.  I'm not sure if she gets this.

I had to try not to laugh, because in my book, she's quite definitely in a community at the moment - as in a community of individuals living together for the common good.  The hospital even has community meetings, and I know that the group interaction is an important part of the therapy.  In fact in some ways, the life she has there is a richer one than the one she left behind when she went in: someone calculated that by the time she goes across to the little school on site, she's interacted with about 30 different individuals as the ward staff change shift and the medical team come in for the day.  At home she would be lucky to interact with 3, and that's if you count her little brother's grunts as interaction.

Sometimes I fantasize about what it would be like if there was a perfect community I could send her to: ideally staffed by saintly monks and nuns who have dedicated their lives to keeping people like her safe.  It would be a place with a lot of quiet areas to meditate in: gardens and libraries.  But since she's a teenager, there would probably also have to be a few noisy and disordered places too, places where the monks and nuns don't have total control.  They do have to be able to grow up, after all.