We’re all in solitary confinement here in debtor’s prison.  Shame is the wall that separates us from our fellow similarly afflicted brethren.  Our reward for suffering in silence is to hear our own stories reiterated to us like we didn’t live through it. 

We get the news on a Tuesday afternoon with meetings on our calendars put their by people who knew we were out the door.  We hold our heads as high as possible while security escorts us out.  We go back to our apartments.  After a sleepless night we rise and dress as if we are going to work, lest our roommates suspect.

Eventually we muster the courage to tell our friends and family.  Cliches fall on deaf ears.  Our roommates shrug, continue their gambling and drinking and remind us in no uncertain terms that rent is due on the first employed or otherwise.  Our confidence is not kept.  Everyone knows.  We move out in the middle of the night.  A roommate offers an insulting price for a priceless possession, reminding us of a disputed $50 debt.  We fade away.  Time passes.

Then one day in a different city, in a different job in a different life we get a call.  It’s the roommate.  Now his office is empty.  Now he can’t make rent.  Now he must sell his material possessions.  Yet he tells the story like its new.

He talks about his family.  We had families.  But we stay silent.

He talks about his girlfriend.  We had significant others.  But we stay silent.

He gropes like a blind man for someone to blame.  We were angry too.  But we stay silent…

Even when somehow the venom is directed at us, years later, hundreds of miles away.

Therein lays the greatest insult.  It’s not that they couldn’t see your pain.  It’s that they saw it and didn’t care.  They distinguished between themselves and us.  We must have done something.  We weren’t good enough or smart enough.  We couldn’t hack it.  What happened to us could never happen to them.

Forgive your roommate, classmate or acquaintance.  Not because they don’t know what they are doing.  They know, they just can’t help it.  It’s the only way they can sleep at night.  Think of where you were a day, a week, a month after it happened and give them time.

I won’t say it’s not personal, because it is.  Unfortunately this is a journey we each take alone.  It’s like the difference between a sleeping man and the newly deceased.  You have to see for yourself.