How do you introduce yourself?
I was waiting in the pharmacy for a prescription when I found myself standing next to an older woman buying insoles for her husband. She glanced down at her hands and said, “These aren’t what they used to be. I used to dissect bodies—and now I can’t even thread a needle!”
She knew exactly what she was doing. “Dissecting bodies” is a brilliant opening line. I laughed and asked whether that was her usual conversation starter.
But it stayed with me.
It made me wonder how we choose to introduce ourselves—and what we choose not to say. I remember in 2009 how people working in banks would add, “but not one of those bankers,” because the profession had picked up so much negativity.
We reveal things selectively. The older woman was proud of what she had done with her life and may have wanted to remind the world around her that being old wasn’t a suitable description. Some parts of our past get spotlights; others get quietly folded away.
One of the things many people choose not to declare is having been homeless. Bernard—not his real name—is one of them. He once ran his own business before a breakdown led him to walk away from everything and live in a shed for several years.
Now he has rebuilt his life. He has a flat he loves. He’s reconnected with old friends. He’s doing things he used to enjoy. But when I see him, I never ask how he is until he speaks first. The association with homelessness still carries shame and painful memories. There is wonder too, because he did things when he was homeless that are so different from who he is as a non-homeless person, especially his ability to survive.
What I’ve seen, time and again, is that when people begin to rebuild their lives, they often want to leave behind any talk of having been homeless. Why? Because it pulls focus. It invites fascination. It raises questions: How? Why? You?
Anyone meeting Bernard today would struggle to imagine him living in a shed. And his story—how he survived, and how he clawed back the pieces of his life—is inspiring. He knows that. He knows the courage and work it took. He’s proud of it.
But he doesn’t want it to define him.
He doesn’t want to be “the man who lived in a shed.”
He doesn’t want his past to become a permanent feature of his present.
And maybe that’s the real art of introducing ourselves: choosing the parts of our story that help us move forward—
and protecting the parts that, while important, take us to places of shame and pain.
If you work in charities or organisations working with people who have recovered from homelessness and its causes, you’ll know that most people talk about those who remain homeless because the successes, and there are many like Bernard, are invisible.
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Written by Tim Renshaw, CEO of The Archer Project.
Image with headline: A man wearing dark clothing and a grey winter hat is sat on the floor of an underpass in Sheffield city centre. His hand is outstretched and his face is turned away from the camera. He is looking at the commuters who have passed him by, as they continue on their journey to work.
