Political activist and Yes Bar owner Suzanne McLaughlin explains why she'll be taking to the streets in Edinburgh this week as part of Social Bite's CEO sleep out
MY father was a violent drunk. A bully. A victim of his own circumstance, I’m sure, but I find myself unwilling to care.
My mum rescued me from a life with this man and I grew up poor, but I was warm and happy and secure. In the end, all my father inflicted on me was a serious lack of self esteem.
My stepmum, wee sisters and my little brother didn't fare so well. Always a dreamer and a sensitive soul, my little brother took to heart all the vitriol that spewed from the mouth of this bitter, small man who was so pitifully aware that he was the architect of his own destruction and miserable life that he delighted in inflicting pain and misery on everyone around him.
Difficult teenage years, older sisters already away and a teenage flirtation with drugs and alcohol coupled with undiagnosed depression left my brother on a downward spiral from which he has never recovered.
Difficult teenage years, older sisters already away and a teenage flirtation with drugs and alcohol coupled with undiagnosed depression left my brother on a downward spiral from which he has never recovered.
Sofa-surfing with friends led to nights lost in chemically or alcoholically-induced happiness, but eventually to homelessness as he desperately tried to self medicate.
He has a way out, he always has had and he always will have, but to be homeless is more than the absence of physical shelter. It can literally be to feel lost; without warmth, safety or refuge. To be afraid.
My brother doesn't recognise me anymore and I cannot tell you how hard the loss of this loved little boy has been on my extended family and, in particular, on my beautiful sisters who try relentlessly to rescue and save him, and who constantly suffer crippling self-doubt about whether they do enough to try. They do. They really, really do.
He seems content in his own way, but he is lost to us. I wonder if he ever thinks of the dreams that won't come true and all the places he has never been and all the love for him that he doesn't see.
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I recently hugged him and looked into his beautiful blue eyes, but they were locked away in a place that he will never let me share. I really wish that I could get in there, but he is so far gone and so broken.
I will not know how my brother feels by taking part in this sleep out. I won't know how anyone homeless feels by doing this. All I can do is raise cash and help to raise awareness.
I am grateful to Social Bite for finding a way for me and others to do something, because for so long I have been devastated by the inability to do anything other than write a cheque.
Homelessness is an indication of how broken our society is, our attitudes to mental health, the erosion of our social security, the selfishness of the "I’m all right, Jack" mentality that I never cease to rail against.
Homelessness is to all our shame. It is not only a personal tragedy for my family, homelessness is a societal tragedy of human beings stripped of dignity and our collective respect.
Those who are homeless spend so much of their soul on simple survival that there is nothing left for self care. Living in a constant state of crisis must make it impossible to get healthy or fit or sober or find mental health care, apply for social security entitlements or address any physical needs, much less think about happiness.
Homelessness is to all our shame. It is not only a personal tragedy for my family, homelessness is a societal tragedy of human beings, vulnerable to inclement weather and violence, stripped of dignity and our collective respect.
We can end it, we can and we must end it, but to do so, the very first step must be a fundamental recognition of the humanity we all share, regardless of where we sleep each night.
So on Thurday night I will sleep out in Charlotte Square, Edinburgh, together with 100 other CEOs. We are a privileged bunch and, because of that, all able in our own way to help promote change.
We can end it, we can and we must end it, but to do so, the very first step must be a fundamental recognition of the humanity we all share, regardless of where we sleep each night.
Please donate if you can and share my story, and please never walk past a homeless person. If you can spare some cash, give it. If you can give a moment of your time to look that person in the eye and say hello, do it.
He may not be my brother, but he could be. For sure, he or she is someone’s baby brother or sister, some mother’s baby.
A person.
You can donate to Suzanne’s sleep out fundraiser here.
Picture courtesy of fio.PSD comunicazione
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