Everybody Needs a Third Place
As adults, we create meaning and belonging for ourselves in a variety of ways. The first place we do that is at home, with the people we live with, our family or roommates. Our second place is at work with our colleagues and collaborators. We serve different roles in our home and work lives, but they both provide meaning and a sense of purpose. If you’re an individual with a disability who requires functional support at home and at work, you may experience your first and second place differently than others do. Your workday hours may be filled with day programs and medical appointments. Your home may not feel particularly home-like. Individuals with disabilities report feeling isolation and loneliness much more than nondisabled adults. Meaning and belonging counteract and balance out those feelings.
When we describe where people with disabilities live and work, we often use terms like setting or facility, instead of home or job. In the long-term care vernacular, settings are places where services are delivered, which means that your role in that place is a recipient of care. While that care may be necessary and essential to maintain health and safety, it can also be stigmatizing and change how you view yourself. Without regular access to an additional space, a “third place,” your whole identity revolves around being a recipient of services in your first and second places.
A third place is an opportunity to be something more than a person who needs support. It’s a place where you meet people that have a shared interest or passion. It’s a place where you might go for self and community-care. You likely go to this place on a routine day on a regular and consistent basis. If you aren’t able to go at your usual time, someone from the third place may contact you to check on you, or reach out to say they missed you. Depending on your need for social connection, you may have many third places or you may only have one or two. The quality is far more important than the quantity.
Examples of third places include faith communities, fitness centers, volunteer groups, sports clubs, online communities, special interest groups and more. Meaning and belonging come from a sense of connectedness in a shared activity or interest. We meet people at our third space that we don’t live or work with, and they see a different side of our personality than others do. We may be able to take on roles in a third place that we’re not able to or are comfortable with in our first and second places.
If you have a third place, try imagining how your life would feel without it. If you only went to work and came home everyday, and could only interact with the people directly around you in those environments. Now imagine that some of the people in those environments are only there because they are paid to be there, they don’t always want to be there, and there is a different person in that role multiple times a year. Imagine that you’re not given a choice of who you live or work with, and you’re expected to adapt every time there’s a new person, even if they are rude or unkind to you.
This is the life that many with disabilities are expected to live. They may be placed in a setting where their roommates are selected by someone else. They are given one option for where to go during the day, and they don’t have the choice to stay at home instead. This lack of autonomy and spaces where you can build genuine connections and explore personal interests is what leads to those feelings of isolation and loneliness, negatively impacting a person’s health and well-being. So, let’s remember that everyone needs and deserves to engage in and enjoy a third place. And let’s do what we can to help those in our lives and communities find and access that space, or spaces, where they can be their true selves, grow that vital sense of meaning and belonging, and thrive.