Cannitta’s Story: Surviving, Not Living (www.lsnj.org)

Christine Cissy White 7/6/181:19 PM

I just saw this video and comment on my friend Heidi's Facebook page and it made me teary. Here's the video:

Here's Heidi's comment:

OMG This makes me crazy! The most often unbroken cycle of poverty. We're products of how we're raised. We don't know what we don't know. The assumption that when you're a poor single parent, you're neglectful or abusive. The inability of some to look at, help and encourage this family like a family unit. The amount of anxiety she endured as a rape survivor with PTSD, wondering who was around her children...every single day. (That part actually makes my chest hurt). The money NJ taxpayers spent paying three separate foster parents...rather than helping one family. The "I'm always ready to fight" mantra of this mom haunts me. That's the mantra of a person who hasn't yet had time to live. She's still checking the locks, looking outside, worrying...and just surviving, even when her mind tells her she's safe, her nervous system doesn't believe it. That's scary. I want to buy and run a home for mom's like this, someday, and help every one of them move from just surviving to actually living and feeling good about that life."
Heidi Aylward

I hope she does because she's been a mom at 16 who is poor and has an ACE score of 9 and who has had to fight to become and to feel safe. We need people like Heidi running programs and organizing support because getting it, having lived it makes one know things those who haven't don't.

Attachments

Hide

Images (1)

Add Comment

Comments (2)

Newest · Oldest · Popular

Carey SippFormer Director of Strategic Partnerships

Here is the link to the video I mentioned, almost as promised. (Said I would post this morning; it is 12:02.) This is an incredible Tedx Talk.

https://youtu.be/kcbu58p0fbA

TEDx Talks

Published on Jun 8, 2016

From his service during the Iraq War, Paul Abernathy first learned about trauma. In returning to the community in Pittsburgh, he saw a broader definition of trauma that required a broader effort at healing. His talk outlines the systematic work to rebuild communities block by block with trauma informed community development. A passionate speaker on the subject, Abernathy's ideas are meant to spread beyond the local zip code and perhaps could offer assistance to areas affected by war, poverty, and oppression. Paul Abernathy is the Director of FOCUS Pittsburgh, an Orthodox Christian urban outreach ministry and branch of FOCUS North America. In addition to graduating from St. Tikhon's Orthodox Theological Seminary and earning a Master's of Public and International Affairs from the University of Pittsburgh, Paul has served as a Non–Commissioned Officer in the U.S. Army and is a combat veteran of the Iraq War. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

7/7/189:03 AM

Carey SippFormer Director of Strategic Partnerships

Thank you for sharing this. I am not going to watch just before I go to sleep. I am so blessed to have that option. To not watch this video. So many people who “live” this video are not living. Chronic trauma is just breathing enough to stay alive. Never getting a full breath. I think that is part of the reason so many people in poverty have asthma. That and mold infested apartments.

So I will watch this in the morning, so I can “sleep well.” And I will say prayers that this mom, and you and your daughter and your friend Heidi all sleep well too. Same for my loved ones, and all of us. Imagine if the world were wired so that if one of us didn’t sleep well, none of us would sleep well?

Or better still - if all of us rest well, there isn’t one who doesn’t rest well. Or go hungry. Or go to bed afraid.

Maybe when the three trillion dollars we spend on healthcare includes 20 percent on prevention instead of 5 percent, we’ll save enough to make sure everyone gets a good education that includes self-care and self-regulation, a job that pays a for-real LIVING wage, childcare that isn’t an unaffordable patchwork mess of hit and miss places, transportation that doesn’t mean a poor person has to spend four hours a day going to and from work. Maybe healthcare will be a right so someone doesn’t have to beg people not to call an ambulance when they are badly hurt, for fear of going bankrupt because of medical bills. Maybe a college education for our children won’t mean we’re paying off student loan debt into our 70s and 80s instead of being able to visit our grandkids. The economic “despairity” and inequality in this nation would likely make our founding fathers quite ill. They didn’t leave a kingdom with fiefs and write a Declaration of Independence to have us, 242 years later, living in a kingdom where 1% of the population owns most of the wealth, and where the sons of the wealthiest and most corrupt people are the only ones who “get ahead.”

Thanks for sharing the video, Cis!

Heidi - I support you in getting your community going. There was a Ted Talk Gail Kennedy posted about a month ago - it was of a minister who was a veteran who had a great idea of creating a block-by-block intentional community of people who look out for one another. I will find it in the morning and post it here. It seemed like a good plan to help people learn how to support each other.

Thanks!

7/6/187:40 PM

Skip to main content

Attachments

Add Comment

Membership Required

Remove From Your Block List

Manage Follow Preferences

Block

Please wait...