Story of the Week
August 30, 2010
The following story was written by Ellen Szita, from Victoria, BC. Ellen was born in England in 1941. At 14 years of age, and with very little schooling, she went to work in a factory. Because she was feeling very unhappy, at 18 years, she immigrated to Canada. She met and married her husband in 1962 and by 1969 she had four children. By 1979 the marriage failed and ended up in a divorce; she then moved with her children to Victoria on Vancouver Island. She lived on welfare for many years because of her lack of academic skills. This was the most humiliating, degrading experience she had ever felt. Ellen finally decided to get some schooling and went on to complete her grade twelve.
Ellen was forty-five when she started to turn her life around and she soon will be sixty-nine and she finds that has had a wonderful life since then. Recently she became a great-grandmother, something she never thought about back at forty-five. And yes, she went out and bought her great-granddaughter four books and many more will come.
Ellen's Story
by Ellen Szita
Many years ago while in a treatment center fighting for a better way of life a young native man said to me; "I need to mend my broken wings and learn to fly again." I angrily snapped back at him and said "Well my wings are totally crushed, so I don't have a chance in hell." As he quietly walked away, he said "No you don't because it’s what you've chosen to, believe!!"
As a young child, my schooling was a very unhappy place for me to be. I was physically and verbally abused by my peers because of my low academic skills. I made very few friends, I felt unworthy. With my low self-esteem and constant rebukes, I'd given up hope of ever learning anything long before I reached high school. I sat and wished the days away waiting to go to work in a factory, which I did at fourteen years of age. My parents also had very low literacy skills. Feeling a complete failure, a mistake to society, at sixteen, I attempted suicide, and having failed even at that, at age eighteen I immigrated to Canada. Eventually, I married and for a long time it was a safe place for me to be. However, I had difficulty in my everyday living. Imagine not being able to read traffic signs, and street names (this left me lost); walking into a restaurant and ordering from the menu (now I'm embarrassed); finding a phone number in case of an emergency, trying to read the label on a medicine bottle in order to give one of my children medication, reading safety instructions (now I'm afraid); writing out cheques, paying bills, reading a lease in order to rent (now, I'm ashamed). Often I was asked to fill out forms, such as applications when applying for a job, making up a resume, applying for a drivers license, filling out forms for U.I.C., and even welfare. Not to mention the fear of entering a bank or library (that left me angry).
The fear of being found out haunted me day in and day out, even sleep gave me no peace. My growing awareness of the need to be educated caused severe depression. When my marriage failed I found myself a single parent of four children, my false world of security gone and my dark secret of illiteracy revealed. Shame and guilt lay heavily on my shoulders when I was unable to help my children with their homework. Only one of my four children graduated from high school. Being a single parent I looked frantically for work only to be fired from two jobs due to my low literacy skills. Between the emotional stress and lack of skills I finally gave up trying and lived on welfare far to long. What I found even more frightening was that this became another safe place for me to be because I knew what was expected of me ... NOTHING. What made me turn my life around, watching my children taking the same path that I once did? Eventually I reached out for help and started at a place called the Victoria READ Society, and they gave me a solid foundation and enough self-esteem to continue on to Camosun College to complete my grade twelve and become a community health care worker. Although I must admit, when finding out I had cancer during my exams at Camosun College, my emotions plummeted and I felt as thought I could no longer go on. I even felt as thought I had brought it upon myself because I was so emotionally stressed out much of the time. However, with all the support I received, I was able to pick myself up and continue in the world to be counted as a human being.
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