The National Institutes for Health says:

Social connections might help protect health and lengthen life. Scientists are finding that our links to others can have powerful effects on our health. [They] can influence our biology and well-being.

Although the NIH refers mostly to our connections with family and friends, I believe the connections available through LawYou can contribute positively to social wellness, as well.

LawYou’s service model has three pillars: Connection, Education, and Advocacy.

Connection is listed first for a reason: The opportunities we offer to connect people experiencing similar circumstances help alleviate the psychological stress that stems from feeling like they’re alone in their struggle. Alleviating that stress makes it easier for them to focus on education.

Attorneys have their resources for connection: law firms, law school alumni groups, bar associations, etc. They know that these connections can make them better lawyers.

Pro se litigants should have their own resources for connection, as well, and for the same reasons. LawYou offers that.

And connecting with members, either through our Association for Pro Se Advancement or in our Facebook group, has shown me that my legal education and litigation experience do not exempt me from many typical pro se experiences:

• My pro se cases have not received impartial treatment from judges.
• Because the events which led to my lawsuits were traumatizing, and because working on the lawsuits triggered my trauma, I have had to deal with feelings of panic and doom in order to work on my cases.
• I was not paid to represent myself, so first I had to earn a living and then I could work on my cases in my spare time. This meant I often had to request extensions of time, and the pleadings, motions, and briefs I finally filed read like drafts.

So when I tell members that I get it, I understand it all because I have lived it, too, they are “heard” and can turn away from their feelings of aloneness and they can trust me with their anxieties. When that happens, my own suffering has found a purpose.

Which leads me to a memory.

I saw a psychologist a few times as I was finding my way out of an abusive relationship. I remember explaining to her that my experience would feel incomplete unless and until I could use it to help someone else, and I recall that she scrunched her face in disapproval. To this day I wonder what she found so difficult to comprehend. My own path out of abuse was lined with gifts of experience and understanding given to me by others. It seems only natural to want to pass all that along, laying down a stone or two of my own, helping someone else get their footing on their own path out of abuse.

All of that is about connection, flow among people. And despite that psychologist’s disapproval, I pay it forward by empathizing with others. And with every outstretched hand that eases distress, my own suffering finds purpose anew.

And so for this Social Wellness Month, I thank those who years ago shared with me their experiences of leaving abuse, and I honor everyone who steps up and shares with others in the hope that the sharing will make easier another’s path.

Cheers!

–Sherri