Learning to See People
When I was a kid, my mom and I played Punch Buggy.
The rules were simple.
Whoever spotted a Volkswagen Beetle first got to call it out.
“Punch Buggy!”
Before long, it seemed like Beetles were everywhere.
Of course they weren’t.
I’d simply trained my brain to notice them.
Years later, I learned there was a name for that.
The frequency illusion.
Once something becomes personally meaningful, your brain starts noticing it everywhere.
I thought it explained Beetles.
I never imagined it would explain people.
Before I became a shelter resident, I worked in shelter support and outreach.
I met people in crisis.
I listened to their stories.
I tried to help where I could.
I thought becoming a shelter worker would teach me about homelessness.
Becoming a shelter resident taught me about people.
Now, when I walk through a shelter, I notice things I never really noticed before.
The woman whose swollen knees make every step look painful.
The man lowering himself carefully into a chair.
The walker that’s used as much for resting as it is for walking.
The brace hidden beneath a pant leg.
The prosthetic.
The dressing peeking out from under a sock.
The tremor someone quietly hopes nobody notices.
These aren’t unusual sights.
I just never understood how common they were.
My own health changed the way I looked at the world.
I’d already lived through an amputation, broken toes, and wound care.
Recovery teaches you to notice things most people never have to notice.
Recovery teaches patience.
Sometimes healing moves forward.
Sometimes it doesn’t.
Sometimes you split your toes open and start another round of recovery.
Somewhere along the way…
I stopped seeing wounds.
I started wondering about the person carrying them.
I started seeing people.
Then I realized something else.
Not every wound bleeds.
Some wounds never appear on an X-ray.
They’re carried in silence.
Grief.
Trauma.
Fear.
Loneliness.
Shame.
The weight of losing your health.
The weight of losing your home.
The weight of believing nobody sees you anymore.
Those wounds deserve healing too.
It wasn’t just my own recovery that changed me.
Once I started noticing, I couldn’t stop.
I began seeing how often illness is mistaken for intoxication, disability for laziness, and desperation for choice.
The stories changed.
The pattern didn’t.
One afternoon at a ballpark, someone yelled across the park at a man they assumed was high on meth.
“Take your drugs and leave or I’ll call the cops!”
The man’s friend shouted back.
“Call the fucking cops!”
“I want you to call the fucking cops!”
“There are no drugs here!”
There weren’t.
He had Tourette syndrome.
Someone saw movements they didn’t understand.
They decided they already knew the story.
I’ve seen versions of that more than once.
Not always Tourette syndrome.
Different circumstances.
The same mistake.
We stop seeing the person.
I once overheard someone looking around a shelter.
“They belong in a hospital, not here.”
My first thought was simple.
If only.
If only there were enough beds.
If only people qualified.
If only waiting lists weren’t months or years long.
If only needing help meant getting help.
For many people, it doesn’t.
For many of the people I’ve met, the shelter isn’t where the story ends.
It’s where the waiting begins.
It’s the waiting room.
Waiting for housing.
Waiting for surgery.
Waiting for rehabilitation.
Waiting for disability supports.
Waiting for mental health care.
Waiting for addiction treatment.
Waiting for someone to finally say,
“We have somewhere for you.”
Until then…
the shelter becomes the waiting room.
Sometimes the sidewalk does too.
My foot isn’t the story.
It’s the lens through which I learned to see other people’s stories.
I can’t show you the people who changed me.
Their stories aren’t mine to tell.
Their photographs aren’t mine to publish.
They trusted me.
I intend to keep it that way.
So instead…
I open myself up.
I show my X-rays.
My dressings.
My scars.
My healing.
Not because they’re extraordinary.
But because they’re mine to share.
If my story helps protect theirs…
while helping you see them differently…
then it’s worth telling.
Because every dressing belongs to someone.
Every limp belongs to someone.
Every tremor belongs to someone.
Every scar belongs to someone.
Every invisible wound belongs to someone.
Every wheelchair belongs to someone.
Every careful step belongs to someone.
A person.
Not a stereotype.
Not a headline.
Not a file.
A person.
My foot changed how I walk.
It also changed how I see.
⸻
Editor’s Note
To protect the privacy and dignity of others, identifying details have been changed, omitted, or combined. The experiences described are drawn from my own work in shelter support and outreach, my own recovery, and my experiences as a shelter resident. The medical images accompanying this dispatch are my own. I share them because they are mine to share—not because my story is more important, but because the people who changed how I see the world entrusted me with theirs.
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