On Sexual Abuse of Male Children: Mike Tyson speaks openly

 

On Domestic Violence: :Patrick Stewart

 Violence and Abuse Touches Everyone

From the Flower Bed of Eden, to Hell

 

Part One

Living on the Flower Bed of Eden

“You are living on the Flower Bed of Eden!”

Andrew Howard to Little Sara, age five

Arkansas, 1962 

The Flower Bed of Eden

Arkansas, February 13, 1987

Thunder rattled the windowpanes two stories high, and lightning split the sky; it was as if the whole world was in turmoil that night. My nerves were keyed up as tight as piano strings, and in a sudden moment of stillness and silence it felt as though my heartbeat was amplified ten times over. He was over a hundred pounds greater than I, nearly a foot taller, and I knew he could move his muscled body into unbelievable sprints.  Rain started falling in torrents, while the storm raged outside. I was not afraid of the storms of nature; it was the storm inside this night that I knew I might not survive.

Anticipation was so great that I wanted to scream at him to get it over with, and true to my expectation he lunged for me, and my body did not disappoint me, I flew down the stairs two at a time in my bare feet. He stalled for mere seconds to enjoy his pronouncement of a death sentence upon me:

 “I AM GOING TO KILL YOU-YOU GOOD FOR NOTHING BITCH-STONE DEAD!”  He screamed.

It was February 13, of the year 1987, the night that I disappeared into a February rainstorm with five children and no place to go. I was twenty-nine years old.

Many people asked of me since that day, many ‘whys’ and I gave many answers. It takes a lot of ‘why’s’ to make a life, mine being no exception. Maya Angelou said ‘you can’t know who I am until you know where I have been’; until you know the circumstances and people who contributed to the making of me, you cannot know me. We all are complicated mixes of many other people and life events. We are all of everything that has ever happened to us. If we suddenly got amnesia, we would cease to exist as who we were, except in the memory of others. My pain is me, and thus my life that once was, is what made me now. I am the hungry little girl who sat in the sand over sixty years ago waiting to be rescued by an ancient old man. I am Sara Niles, and this is my story.

The Deep South, 1957

I was born in the bowels of the South where willow trees hang low over ponds and creeks surrounded by the lush growth of woody fern. My beginnings were in a place where knotted old oaks twisted their knurled boughs upwards, their majestic leafage allowing slithers of light to penetrate the shadowy forest floors to lend peeks upon the backs of huge Diamondback rattlesnakes; their gargantuan size owing to seldom meeting the sight of the eyes of man, if ever at all.  I was born where the bottomland hoarded teems of wild boars known to rip hunting dogs open from end to end, and where the narrow little graveled roads twisted and wound their way past humble mailboxes, usually the only evidence of habitation miles into the forest. These humble country homes were usually only accessible by traveling down dirt, tire-rutted roads with strips of ragged grass running down the middle, like frazzled, green ribbon. This was oil country, Smackover, Arkansas, where a 1920’s oil boom produced one of the world’s biggest oil fields that created oil wells that were scattered every few miles; their slow prehistoric movements signaling that the owners were receiving money.  Neighbors lived far apart on beautiful little farms or in ragged shacks, with a Cadillac and a television, or neither plumbing nor electric power lines.  Depending upon which neighbor you were, you had plenty or nothing at all.

The #Narcissists' Code 85: Does the #narcissist miss you or regret what ...

ABUSE Presents itself in Many Forms

 ABUSE  is a broad, general term that can denote behaviors that are barely detectable, such as passive insults wrapped in humor, sarcasm that seems harmless, but was meant to sting. Abuse comes in many forms from insidious looks meant to condemn, a form of psychological abuse, to absolutely terrifying abuse that can't be mistaken for anything but what it is. The categories in which abuse occurs is never limited to just one, because most abusers use all:

Emotional: Can use subtle or direct methods to Minimize, Invalidate, Ignore, Ridicules, Overly Critical, Demanding, and violates your boundaries

Psychological: Makes you feel bad without you knowing why, plays mind games, is not trustworthy, gaslights you, projects blame, creates bad roles in family, creates division between siblings, and other family members or friends

Mental: Make you feel Stupid, questions your judgment, calls you crazy and forgetful when you accurately remember details about their behavior

Physical: Pushes, shoves, slaps, throws things, breaks things, assaults you, Intimidates you, points gun or knife at you, drives fast and recklessly endangering life

Sexual: Forces you to have sex when you don't want to by coercion, ridicules your sexual behavior, compares you to others,  demands unpleasant sexual acts, withholds sex

Spiritual: Violates your boundaries, requests behaviors that violate your standards, disrespects your values, forbids freedom of worship, or non worship, demands you have the same philosophy and beliefs, ridicules your faith, denies you personal time needed to refresh your energy. Sabotages your recreation

Financial: Controls your finances, sabotages the finances, lies about money, steals or hides money, gambles with bill money, Impulse buys large items, makes your stick to an allowance

MYTH: Children in the home are not affected by what happens between the Abusive and Non-abusive parent. 

CHILDREN: See and FEEL what happens in the home. They see the power imbalance and that one parent treats the other like a child. Children see the anxious expressions and they feel the atmosphere; they walk on eggshells with you-from and early age. No One who lives in a Bully Home can ever fully relax.

The CLIMATE in which children are raised becomes an all invasive petri dish that affects their view of Themselves, Others, and  The World. Abuse within the home shapes them and molds them to accept a normal that is not healthy, but is dysfunctional; thus if any type of abuse exists in a home environment as a Pattern Over Time, it WILL affect them. IF even ONE form of Abuse listed above is typical for the family, the family is dysfunctional, no matter how functional they appear outside the home.

The word ‘Dysfunction’ is a broad label that means ‘it does not work right’, or function right, and it is at the root of worldwide suffering and pain, as well as abusive behaviors that pervades generations and corrupts individuals, entire families, and society, like a poisonous pandemic.

 

It Does Not Work Right: Dysfunction

 The Face of Dysfunction systematically examines underlying causes of damaging behaviors and reveals the connection between dysfunction and The Three-Headed Monster, that is the biggest killer of all: 200,000 worldwide (drugs), 1,000,000 (suicide-mental illness), and countless millions of men, women and children are affected by abuse, violence and sexual violation, both in the home, and within the immediate society in which they live.

 

Three-Headed Monster: Abuse and Childhood Trauma, Substance Abuse, Mental Illness

 

Dysfunction begins as covert behaviors, usually within the home, long before it spills into society as overt behaviors that can no longer be ignored or trivialized.  Mental Health issues left untreated or undertreated, lead to reciprocal damage to individuals and families, in often spill out into society when the violently delusional act out their delusions on innocent others, or more often, they kill themselves at an alarming rate.

 

Substance abuse, as well as most addictions is usually a symptom of deeper issues, like the tip of a psychological iceberg, the bulk of the problem lies underneath. The ‘tip of the iceberg, is revealed in many societal problems, such as mass incarceration, extreme violence, sexual exploitation and victimization, as a symptom of the root problem: Dysfunction.

 

The Recognition, Intervention, and Prevention of dysfunction in families will decrease dysfunction in society.  Dysfunction that begins at home, must be stopped at home.

 

The Face of Dysfunction: The Three Headed Monster

Sara Niles

Sara Niles age 10

 

The Butterfly Effect

The best art is produced from the driving force of the deepest passion. Pain creates passion, and passion creates art.  The butterfly effect dictates different outcomes for different choices. We all reach cross roads in life, sometimes daily, but always it results in choice. 

I chose to marry an abusive man when I was only sixteen years old. The reasons culminated in choices made by others, but the end result was I suffered greatly for many years, and I became wise in the ways  that only trauma teaches.

I will never be happy that I suffered, but I am thankful that I have suffered and overcome, because it is the reason I am who I am: The pain and the passion created the drive, that I would have never had in a perfect life. No one should ever suffer; but if we must suffer, make it count.

 

It is my mission to work relentlessly to fight against abuse and dysfunction, and the international, deadly pandemic of domestic violence and homicide.

Almost TEN Thousand Children Expelled without a Parent or Guardian

 

Children were forced to leave the country without any family. The Trump administration has implemented many tough measures to prevent immigration into the country — even by legal means.

https://www.dw.com/en/us-expelled-thousands-of-migrant-children-due-to-coronavirus-rules/a-54902764