Family Separations

I typed and erased this post too many times to count. My mind and thoughts are scattered with so much that I want to say but it’s hard to write into words. I still think this is important for me to at least convey to my little niche of the internet so here are my thoughts (scattered and jumbled) at what is going on with immigration at the moment. 

Lately, and especially this week, I’m been feeling defeated. I actually don’t know if defeated is even the right word or if helpless is more fitting but I feel like I don’t deserve to just live my life (go to work, go to the gym, cook meals, read, binge watch Netflix….etc) when there are families being ripped apart. When there is an influx of ICE roundups in my own backyard. How can all these immigration issues be happening around me and I’m just living my normal life?!? It just doesn’t seem right.

 It seems like a day doesn’t go by that I don’t read or hear about “X” number of people being detained, multiple ICE raids or now, children being separated from their own family, only to be put in a “facility” that resembles more of a prison than anything else. 

The heightened fear from all the news, headlines and spewed rhetoric from our inhumane, egotistical, self righteous president are all too real for families and people living here without papers. 

What do you think is going through their minds when they hear about the massive ICE raids in a Tennessee meatpacking warehouse? or in an Ohio Landscaping company? 

Or what about when they hear through a local radio or a local organization that ICE has been spotted at a certain place in their neighborhood?

Most people would either just listen/read about this and move on with their day. Or for the more sympathetic bunch, they become outraged or upset at that moment but then the issue quickly dissipates into an after thought. I guess what I wish to convey is that those people are the lucky ones. I wish they could just “walk a mile in these people’s shoes” so they could understand BUT I know that it’s just not possible. Making someone understand the everyday fear, feeling like your holding your breath hoping that nothing happens or understanding the emotional and mental toil this takes on a person is just not possible until you experience this as part of your everyday life. 

Just today I saw a picture of a little girl crying while she stood a few inches away from her mother that was being searched. Looking at that picture on my screen and I can’t help but just start to cry. It’s so sad and infuriating because I’m transported back to almost two years ago when I found out my dad was detained. As an adult, I was instantly filled with fear and sadness. I cried almost every day and I was so scared to what was going to happen to  him. That was me as an adult. I comprehended the situation. I didn’t have to stand next to him while he was being handcuffed and searched, but I still cried. I understood what happened and still I was filled with fear, uncertainty and sadness. 

Seeing that picture of the girl (and all the kids that were separated from their parents) makes me emotional because I can only imagine what she is feeling. How much this will impact her psyche? How confused must she feel?. At least I knew what was going on. At least I had a home to come to. A mom to hold me when I was kneeing on the ground crying. She doesn’t have any of that. She doesn’t have a home. Instead OUR GOVERNMENT will put her in a facility where she will not be able to go outside with the exception of only two hours. Where she will not know anybody. Where she will have to go to sleep in a room overpacked with children  similar in age. Those are just the things we do know will happen. What about all the other unanswered questions like what will happen to her in a couple of months? Will she suffer from some sort of PTSD? Will she ever be reunited with her parents? Who will hold her when she is crying?  Will she be a victim of sexual abuse that happens so often in these situations? Will she ever understand what happened? So many lingering unanswered questions.....

Every single day we are inundated with similar stories, pictures and reports. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about this. I circle between being angry, sad and helpless. Tears are a never ending stream. I’m reverting back to a time that I thought I had left behind. A time when I was in the trenches of a very dark ever consuming hole verging into a deep depression. Thinking that life maybe wasn’t worth living because I couldn’t picture a life without waking up and seeing my dad in the morning. These images and reports are ripping apart a wound I thought had heeled. 

I can’t stop thinking about it. What can I do? This thought is a constant loop in my head. It just doesn’t seem right that I can go about my every day life. What can I do? How can I fight back against this?

I have no answers. I guess that’s why I feel helpless, fearful, infuriated and sad. This just hits too close to home.