Quotes on Social Isolation
Social Isolation (as defined by
the U.S. National Library of Medicine)
The
separation of individuals or groups resulting in the lack of or minimizing of
social contact and/or communication. This separation may be accomplished by
physical separation, by social barriers and by psychological mechanisms. In the
latter, there may be interaction but no real communication.
Solitude vivifies; isolation kills. -- Joseph Roux
In this cry of pain the inner consciousness of the people seems to lay itself bare for an instant, and to reveal the mood of beings who feel their isolation in the face of a universe that wars on them with winds and seas. ~ John Millington Synge
Social isolation is one of the most devastating things you can do to a human being; I don't care how old you are. ~ Rosalind Wiseman
We don't function well as human beings when we're in isolation. ~ Robert Zemeckis
"I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse, perhaps, to be locked in." ~ Virginia Woolf
There are estimated to be fewer than 50 prodigious savants worldwide. If we were brought together, it would be disappointing in the sense of us having different abilities. One thing that would make me feel united with them would be the sense of us having grown up in isolation. ~ Daniel Tammet
There are estimated to be fewer than 50 prodigious savants worldwide. If we were brought together, it would be disappointing in the sense of us having different abilities. One thing that would make me feel united with them would be the sense of us having grown up in isolation. ~ Daniel Tammet
There's a great deal of scientific evidence that social connectedness is a very strong protector of emotional well-being, and I think there's no question that social isolation has greatly increased in our culture in, say, the past 50 years, past 100 years. ~ Andrew Weil
I think in the case of horror, it's a chance to confront a lot of your worst fears and those fears usually have to do, ironically, with powerlessness and isolation. ~Adam Arkin
Part 1: These are quotes from a book that I highly recommend, Rachel in the world: A memoir. By Jane Bernstein © 2007 University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago
ReplyDeleteThat she was beloved did not lessen the chaos her birth had wrought. (p.5)
We took turns holding her and listening to the unearthly hum she made, and we took turns walking away. (p.5)
I hated the treacly language people often used when writing or speaking about children with “special needs,” the ruffled, fluffy packaging, the compression and tidying up of a family’s disarray into neat, predictable little stages. I loved my daughter and accepted her as she was, but I didn’t celebrate her disabilities or love her more because of them, or think she was put on earth to teach me something. (p.6)
The parents of young children are full of tears and rage, consumed with blazing hope and a belief that their love will conquer everything. But we—parents of the older group—are tired. (p.10)
I suppose I’ll never find the exact moment when the change occurred, the precise instant when that woman, that young, hopeful self disappeared. (p.10)
I could not make her understand and was unable to stop trying. No matter what techniques I used, I never won. It seemed impossible to imagine that a dog could be conditioned but not my daughter. (p.132)
Already I had seen aides, counselors, and companions charmed by her for a day, and fried after a month. (p.136)
I kept expecting to be interrupted, kept anticipating it. The expectation of ‘the needle’ [her daughter’s calling her] made it hard for me to think. Sometimes I’d be working and have to use the bathroom. I knew if I did this, it would bring the end of the respite, so I’d resist. (p.138)
During this period, I found myself dreaming for Rachel for the first time in years, not merely advocating on her behalf or fighting for her basic rights, but imaging that I might bring her to a place where she could find comfort and pleasure. The dreams were good. They brought to the fore the love and commitment that had been trampled by the sheer misery of living with her and quarreling over every single thing from sunrise, before my eyes were open, until I closed them to sleep each night. (p.146)
Part 2: These are quotes from a book that I highly recommend, Rachel in the world: A memoir. By Jane Bernstein © 2007 University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago
ReplyDeletePaid staff were her companions, and she had no real friends. She lived with me because there was nowhere else for her to live, hating that I dominated her, railing against my rules. Despite person-centered planning that was meant to put decision making in her hands, despite legislation nominally giving her the same rights as other Americans, she was not part of my community. Rachel could not define ‘freedom’ any more than she could describe the yellow houses, the crisp mountain air, or the scent of lavender (p.154).
I’d fallen into a kind of madness. Don’t water the plants now—you can do it when Rachel is home. Don’t squander covered time by doing the laundry while Rachel is with a caregiver. To consider an evening out, I always calculated the expense—forty to sixty dollars—and the effort involved in getting coverage, especially on a weekend night. In the end, I was always weighing things, like friendship and pleasure, that should never be measured at all. Could I have dinner with a friend? …The simple question exhausted me. It was too hard to plan. (p.158).
Israel [a boy they met without disabilities] was fascinated by Rachel, though he hadn’t met her yet. It seemed to give him a chill to contemplate her life, as if the closeness of their birthdays meant he had barely escaped her fate. (p.177)
[on learning about another mother who had abandoned her adult daughter with mental retardation on the steps of the police station] I could imagine the reasons. Maybe this other daughter screamed day after day or smeared shit on the walls or knocked her mother down. Or maybe she was medically fragile, with gastric tubes and catheters, and when the nurses quit without notice, the mother could not cope. Maybe this daughter’s needs were unquenchable and her ability to give in return nonexistent. Years may have passed this way. Ten and then twenty. It was somebody else’s life, not mine. Some callow, helpless person, not me. The stuff you read in the newspaper—distant, and easily forgotten. (p.208)
‘Maybe there is no right place for her,’ I told a friend later that night. I’d never uttered anything like this before—never allowed myself to think it possible. Always I had believed that her capacity for happiness was her greatest attribute, that she would be content if we could help her fit into the right kind of life. Maybe I’d been deluded and it was all downhill from here. It was the lowest I’d ever felt. (p.221)
No one would ever be as invested in Rachael as I had been since the day of her birth. No one would scrutinize her language as carefully, or listen as closely, transcribing each word, aching to wrest meaning from her utterances, to find the subtext beneath her convoluted sentences. No one would dress her as well or worry as much as I did about the kind of food she ate and whether she got exercise. No one would check the crevices of her arms and the backs of her ears to see if she had a rash, or chase her around the house when she had a blemish, trying to put astringent on her face. No one would fret over her dry skin and put lotion on her legs or kiss her funny feet—not as often as I did, at least. No one would ever search as hard as I’d been searching to find her soul. (p.262)