A window into LandWorks

“One of the highlights at LandWorks is eating together, everybody sitting at the table eating together. I never had that as a child and when I went to school in *, in primary school, we used to have these big, long tables and we’d all sit opposite each other and be servers and that was a really nice time for me. My school was my safe space … my primary school, not secondary school, that was horrific. Yeah, I really love the fact that everybody does a bit of everything and how we clap for the person that’s cooked and we all take it in turns. I just think it’s really … I like fairness and justice and everybody sharing and caring, and no-one’s better than anybody else, nobody’s too good to do the washing-up, you know, everybody gets involved and everything’s equal and everybody’s treated fairly. So I really like the whole meal aspect of being able to sit down socially and eat with other people. I think that’s what normal people would have had in their lives. So I like that…

Also, the acceptance, I’ve always had to walk around with this huge, massive front, like a really big hard faced exterior because I’ve been through a lot and it’s very, very exhausting having to carry this huge sort of persona around all the time for self-protection, and it becomes your identity and you don’t really know how or what to be anything else because you’re just in that survival mode all the time. Coming here has broken that down for me. I don’t have to be like that, you know, I’ve cried more here than I’ve cried at home, which is saying something, and I’m able to cry. I’ve had tantrums here and what I’m learning at the moment is about trauma. You go back … when things … I hate the word ‘trigger’, I really hate it, I can’t think of another word … when you’re triggered you go back to the age you were from the trauma, so I’ve gone back to being a child or a very early adolescence when you act like a total little brat, and I’ve acted like a child here quite a few times, like tantrums … no, no, I’m not doing it. I have, I have, I’ve had some right outbursts and it’s because I feel … this is like the childhood I wanted…

So this place has given me so much self-acceptance and self-worth, you know, and being able to learn so much from Holly … this is really enriching to my passion now, this has cemented my passion, what I want to do … I’m obviously mainly focussing on the ‘field to fork’ concept of the market garden, learning how … Holly has just been invaluable [and] I feel useful here because I’m of use to Holly and I feel like I’m good at it. You don’t get this opportunity to be around all these types of people in one place where everyone’s such a good teacher and everybody’s … it’s a really rare place. I know that and I’ve just got to be grateful that I’ve been part of it, and I’ll take LandWorks within me and continue to feel what I felt here.

Also, Becca. Becca’s been incredibly helpful, particularly May as well. She’s just been fantastic, and Holly’s great as well, you know, you can really talk to Holly. She’s such a good listener. She’s very open-minded. Now I think in ways that a lot of people don’t think, you know, people think I’m very woo-woo, and I am, I’m a woo-woo and a lulu, I don’t give a shit. I can be as woo-woo and lulu, she doesn’t judge me. I think she secretly agrees with me on some of the points. So, I feel like I’ve been massively supported with the mental health aspect. [LW or outside] No, no, it was LandWorks, and they have helped me with, you know, little tit-bits that you just … like council tax and my electric … these things, they build up, they build up, they build up, and you think I can’t face it, so even having somebody, a professional body who’s got a bit of oomph to say I’m a professional person talking on this person’s behalf… The thought process and the care provided here is well thought out.

Also, I found it really nice to be around other people here on placement with criminal records … if that’s not un-PC, I’ve gone onto things I probably can’t say … but they’re not bad people and it’s made me think no, we’re not bad people, we just made bad decisions. I can’t speak on behalf of everybody, but I reckon a good 90% of people probably come from a very difficult childhood. So as perverse as that sounds, I found comfort in that coz sometimes you’re around people who have had these lovely lives and nothing bad’s seemed to have happened, and I just feel a bit detached from them, like they don’t understand, so here I feel I’m understood. It just keeps going back to the word ‘acceptance’, so I’ve accepted who I am, and I feel I’ve just been so lucky to be part of it all and I just hope I can just go on and keep all this stuff within me and practice it out there.

I need to go off and do really well so I can come back and then I can say to the new people, I started here and I wanted to kill myself, I didn’t think there was any point in my existence, you know, I was broken and then I come here, you know, with all the support I’ve brought myself up and now I’m doing this … like all the other people do when they come back and tell everybody … like the one-armed potter and Jarvis, so I wanna be one of them people that comes back and does that. So I’ve got to do well now so then I can come back and say look, and make everyone proud of me, and that’s like we changed that person’s life, and then that’s infectious coz it shares onto everybody else and gives everybody else hope. So yeah, it’s all been extremely positive. I really can’t think of anything as an improvement.

I’ve got to get that in my head, it’s not bye, bye, that’s it … it’s I’m leaving but it’s not goodbye”