tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13800260250014561362024-03-08T06:38:05.798-08:00Shadowing AbigailSHADOWING ABIGAIL:
A blog community for the open expression and healing of those who have experienced abuse at the hands of loved ones or trusted authorities. Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15416171117065064583noreply@blogger.comBlogger35125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1380026025001456136.post-16633454663538403472016-08-22T09:08:00.005-07:002016-08-22T09:08:59.590-07:00GUEST POST: Cautions with Prescription Sleep Aids for Those with Depression<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Guest Post:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This story is relevant to
the readers of the Shadowing Abigail blog, because very often, part of the
response to abuse and trauma is disrupted sleep and/or depression. We are not
opposed to the use of medications in treating either condition, and we believe
in removing any cultural stigmas against using medication when necessary, so
that those on their path to healing can freely access everything they need to
get well. However, more and more, cautions are coming out about the
prescription sleep aid Ambien. Victims of abuse and trauma regularly experience
thoughts of doubt, worry, and anxiety, even without medication being involved.
Those thoughts may be amplified, intensified, or, as this guest writer points
out, seemingly normalized when medications like Ambien are being used.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s our desire to share
this story so that you and your loved ones can know what to watch out for and
recognize that it is possible for a medication to have truly negative, harmful
side effects, in which case, it should be discontinued and medical advice
sought immediately. If you already suffer from even mild depression symptoms,
please tell your doctor when seeking medication for sleeplessness. The two
together—insomnia and depression—need to be addressed when a sleep aid is
introduced. Protect your own life and the lives of others and please share this
cautionary tale. Also, remember that there is no shame in needing medication to
address these health issues—and therefore, no shame or stigma in talking about
how you are responding to your meds. Tell your family and friends what you’re
taking so they too can be watching how you respond, in case you don’t notice a
change in your behavior and thinking processes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"This is not the typical
story of abuse for this blog, but I am writing this in the hopes that it will
help someone. I now call myself an
“Ambien survivor.” That may sound silly,
I know, but a couple of years ago I went to a doctor because I was feeling
down. I had passed the Bar and had acquired
the job I had been working toward while in law school, so feeling sad didn’t
make any sense to me. The doctor
diagnosed me as just needing more sleep and prescribed Ambien. In his words, I should take Ambien when I knew
my caseload was going to be particularly heavy the next day. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> However,
as I continued to take Ambien my personality began to change. The day after taking Ambien I was on a “high,”
almost a “manic” mood, kind of like I was on stage. But the low that came the next day could be
crushing. As time went on, the highs and
lows became more and more pronounced. The scary thing was I couldn’t see what
was happening to me until it was almost too late.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> I
thought what I was feeling was normal at the time because it felt normal to me
in what I will call a “drugged” state.
However, I was living in a state of progressively higher highs and lower
lows. I was quickly becoming a functioning
drug addict. I began to hear voices in
my head telling me to do horrible things to myself and to others. The voices became louder and louder and I started
to forget what it was to be “normal.” In
fact, the suggestions the voices were making began to seem reasonable to me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I just wanted to make the
voices stop. Suicide became a very
viable option. I left the office one day
during the work day and went home. As I
lay on my couch, I was relieved that there were no guns in our house. I just lay there and looked at the
ceiling. I wrote one line in the memo
box of my phone; “The loneliness of a
single wave breaking on an empty shore.”
I have never felt so alone and isolated in my entire life. And I also felt completely detached from reality
and almost devoid of feelings. I
honestly believe that if there had been a gun in our home that day I would not
be here to write this. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">That day finally shook me
up enough to figure out that something was very wrong. It’s funny and scary that it took near
suicide to make me realize how out of kilter I was mentally. The interesting thing is that I didn’t see it
because I was living it. I was too close
to it. That day suicide felt as logical
as getting off the couch to get something to eat. There was no emotion to it. It would have been just another act in my
day. It’s hard for me to believe I
didn’t see it before that day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I told my wife and my dad
that I was having serious thoughts of suicide.
When I told them, I know they were taken aback by my matter of fact and
disconnected tone. But they both
listened and took this seriously. They
knew I was not acting or sounding like myself. I scheduled an appointment with
a therapist that day. He called me to do
a phone interview and asked me if I was taking any medications. I told him about the Ambien and he told me to
stop taking it at once. He also said
that I <i>never</i> should have been prescribed
Ambien because I was already exhibiting some signs of mild depression. I later learned of the Ambien legal cases
ranging from sleep driving to suicide. It
turns out that one of the main side effects reported is severe depression on
the “come down.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I asked the therapist why
a GP would prescribe Ambien when I didn’t even complain of trouble
sleeping. He told me that Ambien is the
number one prescribed sleep aid in the United States and doctors incentives for
prescribing it. My therapist said that the fact is that we as humans have bad
days and sometimes we do get sad. He said
that being sad is just a part of life and that too often, doctors may be
willing to cash in on people’s sadness by prescribing drugs like Ambien which
only aggravate the problem. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Now that I am no longer taking
Ambien and my head is clearing, I am able to see how mentally destructive I was
becoming. I see or speak with my
therapist regularly. Through my
discussions I realized part of my problem was the fact that I didn’t like my
job even though I was good at it. That’s
one of the reasons I was sad when I passed the Bar. If I had failed it would have given me an
“out,” but passing locked me in, or so I thought at the time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A couple of weeks after
“getting clean,” I spoke with my boss and told him that I was unhappy in my job. Instead of telling me to “get a dog,” or some
other such Band-Aid solution, he actually created a hybrid position where I
could do more of my work from outside the office and from home. Now I am out of the office more and I get to
go places and do things. I feel happier
and healthier. I now realize that I am
going to get sad and I am going to have bad days. But one thing about bad days is that they end. They don’t last forever—and the voices that
suggest they do are lying. The bad days do end. And this seems like a good
place to end this. I hope this helps
someone. Have a good day. " <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Note: Our guest poster has asked that his name and identity be withheld for the sake of privacy. </span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15416171117065064583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1380026025001456136.post-85354955517146603342015-05-18T19:17:00.002-07:002015-05-22T05:10:01.896-07:00Leslie Vernick: Sexual Abuse in Marriage<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Maybe you've heard it from your church leaders or other wives: There's no such thing as sexual abuse in marriage. Your body is no longer your own. He can do with it as he pleases. No good wife every refuses anything sexual her husband desires. His needs, his needs, his needs...<br />
<br />
That was the main idea behind the Christian objection to 50 Shades of Grey. It wasn't that the storyline was based on abuse, manipulation, coercion, perversion. It was that the sex didn't take place inside a legal marriage. Abuse dissolves with a marriage certificate, right?<br />
<br />
What?!<br />
<br />
If there had been a wedding, then THAT would have been rendered good?<br />
<br />
Sexual abuse within marriage does happen, and it is sinister, damaging, and evil.<br />
<br />
Leslie Vernick on her blog from March 25, 2015, shares one woman's account.<br />
<br />
As we've said before, "Satan is a one-trick pony." This could have been this writer's story, down to most every shared detail. The husband's actions and underlying mindset, the wife's responses, the church's reaction to her cry for help. It's time to bring this into the light so that the next generation does not suffer so.<br />
<br />
Read Leslie's blog here: <a href="http://christiancounseling.com/blog/">http://christiancounseling.com/blog/</a><br />
<br />
And just from my experience: Be encouraged. My marriage took from me all my innocence, but God has restored my purity. I am his and he has washed from me all the filth of that relationship. Healing is long and seems slow to me, but it is happening. The purification, however, is a sealed deal. I am his and he is mine and nothing can separate me from his love that is mine in Christ Jesus.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15416171117065064583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1380026025001456136.post-71433839894385243452015-05-18T18:32:00.001-07:002015-05-18T18:44:34.733-07:00Imposed Widowhood<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I was combing her baby-fine wisps of hair upward away from that sweet freckled face when, in the mirror, she cut her too-large-for-her-petite-face eyes upward to catch mine in the reflection.<br />
<br />
"Mommy, are we a widow?" she asked, with absolute honest innocence.<br />
<br />
The matter-of-factness in the statement felt like re-bar through the gut. I didn't cry. Yet. But I felt my shoulders sag as I thought about how to answer her--how to give this tiny one the bitter reality that she ought to, ought to, ought to be protected from.<br />
<br />
"Well, according to the Bible, yes. I think we are. We say "widow." But the Bible just says, "a woman without a man."<br />
<br />
It was enough. She seemed satisfied. But I keep thinking on it. Am I satisfied? In a way, I think we both can be, because our Father God is love, and he declares that he loves the fatherless and widow, and judgment on the wicked sends. But it's hard to believe it, because so much of the so-called church has no love for us.<br />
<br />
We've been condemned very recently. I cannot return to the danger, destructiveness, uncertainty, objectification, dehumanization, intimidation, dishonesty, theft, and agony we lived through. Almost all my adult life was spent under that and I have been set free by God when I would not free myself. I cannot prostitute myself to gain anything in this material world--not financial "blessing"; not the good opinion of the judgmental in "the church." But that was what was held before me earlier this week. Return to your former prison. Go back to Egypt. There's garlic and onions waiting for you if you do, but it you don't, no help for you!<br />
<br />
Religion that is pure and undefiled, before God the Father (that's OUR Father) is this: to visit widows and orphans in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.<br />
<br />
Gradually, God is taking from me every idol. I pray the children see it and my own forced surrender will help them hold more loosely as they mature. Every good thing can become an idol. Every. Good. Thing. And sinful, power-hungry men and women can play upon us in our weakness, to blur the lines between real righteousness and worshiping the creation instead of the Creator and Giver of all Righteousness in his Personhood. I've been there. It is a daily spiritual battle not to return.<br />
<br />
He called us out of horror and into widowhood. He will gently lead those who have young. Can I embrace this imposed widowhood despite how hard it is, how contrary to all ideals? If I have him, his favor, his presence, his promises, yes. Even this. Even, "Mommy, we are a widow." If she knows he loves the widow, she knows more than I could ever give her in an intact but severely broken household.<br />
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15416171117065064583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1380026025001456136.post-70562660414497107742015-04-30T18:48:00.001-07:002015-04-30T18:48:19.066-07:00A Cry for Justice Responds to Bethlehem Baptist Church<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A Cry for Justice acknowledges the sermon from Bethlehem Baptist Church, promising a change in the church's formerly lax and even supportive view of domestic abuse. After a legacy of soft discipline and "no-divorce-ever" policy under John Piper, the words coming from the BBC session seem to note a radical change in position. But is it? A Cry for Justice wisely asks some very direct and specific questions to "root out" the practical application. Be sure to read the comments for more response from BBC's own representative.<br />
<br />
http://cryingoutforjustice.com/2015/04/30/john-pipers-old-church-is-admitting-to-fault-in-how-it-has-addressed-domestic-abuse-and-making-changes/#comment-63156<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15416171117065064583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1380026025001456136.post-49916645305399607482015-04-28T18:28:00.002-07:002015-04-28T18:28:40.809-07:00A Strong Statement Against Abuse from Bethlehem Baptist Church<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: proxima-nova; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">"We, the council of elders at Bethlehem Baptist Church, are resolved to root out all forms of domestic abuse (mental, emotional, physical, and sexual) in our midst. This destructive way of relating to a spouse is a satanic distortion of Christ-like male leadership because it defaces the depiction of Christ’s love for his bride. The shepherds of Bethlehem stand at the ready to protect the abused, call abusers to repentance, discipline the unrepentant, and hold up high the stunning picture of how much Christ loves his church."</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: proxima-nova; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: proxima-nova; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">There is nothing passive in this statement. "Resolved to root out all forms of domestic abuse..." There is nothing victim blaming. "The shepherds of Bethlehem stand at the ready to PROTECT the abused..." There is nothing here that excuses abuse, but recognizes it for what it is, "a satanic distortion of Christ-like male leadership because it defaces the depiction of Christ's love for his bride."</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: proxima-nova; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: proxima-nova;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">All church leaders and the women's ministries that support the church should read this and take seriously the awareness that abuse is a satanic distortion. Praise God! He is opening eyes! Previously, John Piper was very soft on abuse, reluctant to risk ruffling the feather's of men's egos even to suggest that an abused woman should escape an attack if she could--but calling her to endure it until she could seek help from the church another day. I am staggered to see how much God has been working since those statements were made. Praise! Doxology! </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: proxima-nova;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">Read the article here. Includes a link to the complete sermon.</span><br /><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2015/04/28/hyper-headship-and-the-scandal-of-domestic-abuse-in-the-church/</span></span></span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15416171117065064583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1380026025001456136.post-82242560117702664052015-03-11T20:30:00.003-07:002015-04-01T19:06:12.015-07:00Leslie Vernick: It takes time and maturity to recognize an abusive marriage<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Leslie Vernick writes about the long process of opening eyes toward the reality of abuse. For some, realizing the reality leads to knowledge of the relief (and allowable option) of divorce under abusive circumstances.<br />
<br />
It can take decades for the scales to come off our eyes when we have lived with abuse, when we desire to be godly and have God's favor, to see a whole home in the way that we envisioned it in our youth. Co-dependency and fear, self-judgment and the judgment of others slow us down, drive us further into abusability.<br />
<br />
Leslie's entry here may help other women open their eyes and act for their own well-being sooner, limiting the destruction. (In some cases, that limitation early enough in the relationship may even lead to a saved marriage.)<br />
<br />
Read her blog here:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://leslievernick.com/shortening-the-abuse-learning-curve/" target="_blank">Shortening the Learning Curve</a></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15416171117065064583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1380026025001456136.post-53503142372221225752015-03-03T17:42:00.001-08:002015-03-03T17:42:08.692-08:00Find Shadowing Abigail on social media<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Shadowing Abigail is now on<br />
<br />
tsu<br />
(Join and follow at https://www.tsu.co/ShadowingAbigail )<br />
<br />
Facebook<br />
https://www.facebook.com/shadowing.abigail<br />
<br />
and Twitter<br />
https://twitter.com/ShadowingAbigai<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15416171117065064583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1380026025001456136.post-4091315070099196142014-12-18T06:02:00.003-08:002014-12-18T06:02:47.338-08:00A Voice for the Abused #6: Lundy Bancroft<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Why-Does-He-That-Controlling/dp/0425191656/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418910617&sr=1-1&keywords=why+does+he+do+that" target="_blank">Why Does He Do That? by Lundy Bancroft</a><br />
<br />
This book has been recommended to me numerous times. I have not yet read it, but I have been spending a little time over at the author's blog, <a href="http://lundybancroft.blogspot.com.au/" target="_blank">Healing and Hope</a>. There is much there to validate what the abused actually experience. There is much there to help initiate opening the victims' eyes to the reality of the abuse she is experiencing. I wish that one person in my sphere had known of Lundy Bancroft's research and conclusions somewhere in the couple of decades of my abusive experience. No one did, or at least no one directed me to these truths.<br />
<br />
The helplessness and hopelessness of being in an abusive marriage is that everyone expects the victim to be able to resolve the problems. "Why can't they just work it out?" outsiders ask. "Throw them into a little counseling; it's all about miscommunication; she pushes his buttons; he has deep insecurities and she needs to accept that she took on that baggage when she chose to marry him."<br />
<br />
None of those comments recognize the reality of the belief system an abuser is operating from. None of them recognize the deep, deep, deep dishonesty that the abuser will perpetuate to achieve his goals. None of them realize that even those speaking such comments have fallen under the manipulation of the abuser who has charmed them with a false, contrived persona.<br />
<br />
But Lundy Bancroft seems to understand, and lights are going off all over the place as I read his blog entries. I highly recommend his blog for anyone who IS abused, who knows someone who is abused, who wants to help the abused and/or the abusers, who sits in a pastor's or counselor's role either professionally or by nature of circumstances.<br />
<br />
Do not presume to think you understand the reasons for abusers' actions until you read some of what Lundy Bancroft is saying. Most counselors, pastors, and even friends are getting it wrong. I would venture to say that ALL of the abuse victims who stayed in their relationships long enough to be harmed are also getting it wrong. He is not just angry. He is not just fearful. He is not just insecure. There's something deeper going on and getting to that is not an easy task.<br />
<br />
Flee from evil. The best thing you can do for an abusive man whom you love is make him face the consequences of his abuse so that he can be brought to face the reality of his belief system. You cannot love it out of him. You cannot quietly serve it out of him. It will not get better over time without a great deal of highly trained professional involvement and something radical to open his mind to raw honesty about how he thinks of himself and others.<br /><br />I was so naive. I was so blindly optimistic and hopeful. That cost me deeply. </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15416171117065064583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1380026025001456136.post-17019593137821526172014-11-24T20:40:00.001-08:002014-11-24T20:40:07.805-08:00Injustice Is Not "After God's Own Heart"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A woman I know was excommunicated from her church this week.<br />
<br />
Why? Had she committed adultery and refused to repent? No.<br />
Had she abandoned her maternal responsibilities to pursue some fantasy of mid-life? No.<br />
Had she recanted on her faith in Christ alone for her salvation? Definitely not.<br />
<br />
No, but she did what she felt was following God's call in her life and separated from her emotionally abusive, intimidating, manipulative husband. After more than two decades of holding on and enduring, hoping, praying, and even seeking the church's help for change.<br />
<br />
She is now being treated as if she were an unbeliever, when her faith is more tested and possibly more strong than that of those who sat in judgment over her.<br />
<br />
We call this blog "Shadowing Abigail" because Abigail was a woman in the Old Testament who knew what it was to be married to an abuser. And yet, Abigail somehow did not lose herself. God was with her and he led her to step out of what is commonly considered submission to act contrary to her abusive husband's desires.<br />
<br />
Is she called "contentious"? No. Not at all. She is called "my Father's joy."<br />
<br />
God saw his daughter Abigail. He knew her suffering. He knew the harm that man Nabal (which means "fool") had done and would continue to do to God's daughter Abigail, his joy. And God did not endure it patiently forever. When the time was right, God said, "No more," and he killed Nabal.<br />
<br />
God did not look on Abigail with judgment and contempt and punish her for the "sin" of not obeying her abusive husband. He did not cast her out when she took action outside of her husband's foolish, harmful, and intimidating plans. She did what she needed to do in order to protect herself and others under the care of her household.<br />
<br />
But God did not only free Abigail from her abuser. Freedom is a wonderful thing for those of us who have lived long years in oppression. God did one more for Abigail. He made her the wife, not just of another man, but of the very man whom God had called "a man after God's own heart." David. King David would become the husband of Abigail.<br />
<br />
David was far from being a perfect man or a good husband. We can read of his failures. But we do know that David loved God and had an understanding of the heart of God. With the power of a king, David could have refused Abigail. He could have seen her as rebellious and cast her out, like our rulers in churches too often do to the damaged and desperate daughters whom God has chosen to liberate from their bondage. But those rulers are showing that, at least in that instance, they are not men "after God's own heart."<br />
<br />
A man after God's own heart understands that it was never God's intention for women to be trodden upon by the men who are supposed to love them, cherish them as their own bodies, and image God to them with sacrificial, servant hearts.<br />
<br />
A church ruler who does not nurture and envelop a hurting, abused woman when she comes to him for help must realize that he is imaging the fool and the enemy and not the God of love and compassion who delivers his church, his people, his daughters too, and gives them himself.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15416171117065064583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1380026025001456136.post-4125971344526351132014-11-13T05:24:00.002-08:002014-11-13T05:24:58.255-08:00So What DOES Make a Relationship Work?Marriages with domestic abuse rarely last until natural death parts the partners. Those that do make it to that point usually sacrifice the personality, spirit, and mental health of the abused. That's hardly a marriage to hold up to the light as an example of "making it," and rightly so. Such is not what marriage is supposed to be, not even in a world tainted in every corner by sin.<br />
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So what does it take for a relationship to work, if persevering through abuse isn't ever going to come to the fruition of a stable, loving, mutual partnership?<br />
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This article compiles the results of relational research that reveals it is possible to have a good relationship, and it doesn't come from being a better housekeeper, or giving up your career to make your spouse feel like he's more successful than you by worldly standards, or having sex on demand every time, all the time. It doesn't come from being supernaturally, spiritually strong enough to take every slap, curse, lie, manipulation, oppression in silence and submission.<br />
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Many of us who have managed to break free of abuse, when asked, will say that the single most important trait a person we would be attracted to again would have is kindness. Over and over again, kindness comes up as the essential characteristic.<br />
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The science supports that. Kindness is key.<br />
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<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/lasting-relationships-rely-on-2-traits-2014-11?utm_content=bufferdc881&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer" target="_blank">Two Traits for a Lasting Relationship</a><br />
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<br />"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, KINDNESS, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness. and self-control." -- Galatians 5:22, ESVAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15416171117065064583noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1380026025001456136.post-70876053562409091332014-11-03T07:24:00.003-08:002014-11-03T07:24:26.416-08:00Quivering Daughters: A resource for rebuilding the abused<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.2000007629395px; text-align: -webkit-center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"It is a grave disservice to the heart, soul, body and spirit of a woman when she is given the subtle message that the truth of her own pain is not as important as the reputation of the ones who inflict it." -- Quivering Daughters</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.2000007629395px; text-align: -webkit-center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Lots of good information for defining and understanding abuse, abuser tactics, and abuse effects on this site, but all of it wrapped up in this truth as well:</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.2000007629395px; text-align: -webkit-center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.2000007629395px; text-align: -webkit-center;">"</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.0200004577637px; text-align: justify;">It is important to reach an understanding of words and what is meant when terms are used. But while one could argue definitions all day, please remember that meanwhile, there are some desperately hurting individuals in this world who need healing."</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Knowledge comes with responsibility--to speak, to act, to defend those who cannot defend themselves. We are here to help, to break bonds that harm and to bring healing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Quivering Daughters website: <a href="http://www.quiveringdaughters.com/">http://www.quiveringdaughters.com/</a></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15416171117065064583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1380026025001456136.post-29791562185796051462014-10-30T19:01:00.001-07:002014-10-30T19:01:17.345-07:00The Snake in the Grass that No One Else Can See<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It's rare to find anyone else who understands narcissism and the abuse and crazy-making that comes from years of it. Unless you live with it, it's unlikely you'll know much at all about it. And even if you do live with it, you may never know what it's called. That was my case. I lived with it for over a decade and a half before finding out it was a real condition with a definition and very consistent set of characteristics. Once I saw the package, though, lightbulbs went off everywhere. What a solid fit.<br />
<br />
So it was surprising and encouraging today when I met someone who knew something about this condition and what it is like to live in it. Her husband had been married before to a narcissistic woman. He too had experienced the shift in his own thinking--the desperate need for stability and security, the questioning of self about everything, the lack of rational foundation for any discussion, the shifting sand, the depression and anxiety--that women under abuse generally experience. Even a man can be so manipulated and destroyed when he loves a narcissistic abuser.<br />
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She said he went through much counseling to recover, and one of the affirming illustrations his counselor gave him brought me some affirmation and comfort today as well. He compared life with a narcissist to the following:<br />
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Say you are standing in ankle-deep grass. At your feet, your partner is a venomous snake. The snake is writhing and striking your heels, and you are trying to dodge and move and avoid the bites--but you are bound to the snake and so you cannot actually run away from it. You must stay with it and try to evade the harm it wants to do you. Meanwhile, the people around you see only you, dancing and jumping, crying out, flailing. They don't see the snake in the grass at your feet doing this to you. They look at you, point, and turn away, muttering, "Crazy! That one is crazy!" And it is sort of true. You are being driven mad and no one gets close enough to see what's really going on just out of sight. Occasionally the snake will slither out, with its cunning smile, and a perfect demeanor, when in view of others. And they will say, "Oh look, what a lovely snake. It's so well-behaved and interesting." And the narcissist is affirmed. The ploy works. But back into the grass he goes, and when out of sight, the torment begins again.<br />
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The only way to regain your sanity, says the counselor, is to get away from the snake. Others will see and they will judge. They won't volunteer to live with a snake at their own heels, but they will judge you for setting yourself free.<br />
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My sound mind is returning. The friend I saw today said she could tell. She could see joy in me now--something she had not seen in the three years we've known one another. She says she can tell I was made for joy, and I was.<br />
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When speaking of slaves, the Apostle Paul encouraged them to "gain their freedom" if they were able. There was a time when women were not able to gain their freedom from abusive men, though those men were instructed by God to return their wives to the wives' fathers' homes if the man was going to abuse and not protect and provide for her. There are still cultures in our world today in which a woman is not able to gain her freedom. But in my culture, that is not the case. I am able to go free, and one thing I am noticing now: It is easier to face the judgment of those who don't understand when I have my own sanity than it was when I was on the brink of cracking. There is strength in freedom.<br />
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It isn't easy, but it is better.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15416171117065064583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1380026025001456136.post-30731001056414929642014-10-17T17:36:00.000-07:002014-10-17T17:36:15.016-07:00She just told me she's abused at home. What do I do?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
After finding out that I was suffering all manner of abuse under my husband, a woman who considered herself in a position of spiritual authority over me asked, under false pretenses, "Oh, how can I pray for you?"<br />
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I ventured out to trust her, and shared with her a very intimate "secret" that was causing me much guilt and shame. The abuse had become so bad, and I so broken, that I could no longer be intimate with my abusive husband. I thought I was the one who needed fixing. I told her she could pray for me to be able to give myself to him again, because that is what married people do.<br />
<br />
But she wasn't really asking about how to pray for me. She wasn't really concerned about me at all. She had prepared in advance a verbal and emotional attack against me and the inquiry was simply a way to get my attention so that she could launch into a tirade against me, telling me it was my fault, that I was causing it, that I needed the accountability of a mature woman (namely her) to keep me in my marriage, that my refusal to give myself physically to my husband was manipulation to try to make him leave the marriage and exonerate myself by claiming abandonment, even that I should count it joy to die in my abusive marriage as a martyr for her view of righteousness.<br />
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Kicked when I was down? You bet. Satan worked through that woman that day to take me out again when I thought I could go no further, when I had tiptoed into trusting someone I thought had good intentions. I can still taste blood in my mouth from it, even though she never actually touched me. She might as well have. <br /><br />There truly ARE appropriate ways to respond to a person who tells you she is suffering abuse. It is so very difficult and shaming to admit to it, and by the time we are forced to tell it, we are usually so incapacitated by its effects that we are approaching death. (My counselor calls it detachment, preparing to die.) We are hopeless in our hurt and sense of being trapped. Yes, Jesus is the only Savior of my soul, but it IS his will to act through his people to save others in a temporal sense, and abused women may just need such a temporal savior too.<br /><br /><a href="http://leslievernick.com/" target="_blank">Leslie Vernick</a> has some fine bits of advice for the person who hears a cry from an abused person. Knowledge comes with responsibility. You don't have to cross over to the other side of the road from a sense of helplessness. If apathy, then you have to stand before God and confess that. But helplessness can be solved. Read what Leslie has to say. It's not nearly as difficult as it seems to offer real, life-saving, soul-saving help.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.leslievernick.com/pdfs/Five-Things-You-Can-do-To-Help-Someone-that-Has-been-Abused-FR.pdf" target="_blank">Five Things You Can Do by Leslie Vernick. </a><br /><br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15416171117065064583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1380026025001456136.post-28218604175625202422014-09-22T05:30:00.003-07:002014-09-22T05:30:54.488-07:00A Reason for PraiseThe media is finally condemning domestic abuse.<br />
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I've never much been in favor personally of making celebrities out of athletes. It seemed like a risky move to me, just as putting any human being on a pedestal for worship and intense adoration is likely to be. But if our culture did not make celebrities out of athletes, it is very possible that our same culture would not be seeing the progress it is finally seeing now. People are beginning to pay attention to the horror and prevalence of domestic violence. Finally.<br />
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The attention and outcry are getting louder. People are realizing that just as those Boston citizens could say, "I had no idea he could do something like plant a bomb at a marathon. He seemed like such a normal guy," or those Cleveland citizens could say, "But I lived next to those guys for ten years; I ate barbeque in their backyard. I had no idea they had kidnapped women in the bedroom upstairs," or those Oklahoma City residents could say, "But Tim seemed like an average guy to me," they too can say, "I had no idea that normal looking family man was a brute and a beast and a sociopath with the wife who stuck by him for so long."<br />
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Domestic violence is a type of terrorism. It depends on the same things to flourish: secrecy, privacy, outward appearances, threats, intimidation, the element of surprise.<br />
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And God hates it. Women are just as much a part of his "treasured possession" as believing men. He uses women as the very symbol of his own Bride, the church, whom he himself died for. He loves women fiercely and jealously and he will not remain patiently silent and merciful forever toward the men who harm his daughter, or the men in authority who will not come to their aid. It is these men in authority to whom Jesus was speaking when he told them that God did indeed allow for divorce, but why? Because their hearts were hard--the leaders', the men's hearts were hard. God allows for divorce in order to protect his daughters because men will not repent, have empathy, use their power for the good of the women they are to cherish and care for as their own bodies and as Christ loved the church.<br /><br />It is to these abusive men, who have forgotten the bride of their youth, to whom God says he hates--the men who did not love their wives but instead created an unthinkable rift with them, these men who clothe themselves with violence (Malachi 2:16). Yes, God hates the rift in relationship that is divorce, but he gives permission for legalizing that divorce in order to protect the woman who is being destroyed by her faithless husband. <br /><br />Your maker is your husband! And he will not forsake you. He is coming. He is coming back. And he is not coming as a lamb this time. He is coming as a GROOM and as a WARRIOR.<br />
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The trumpets are being sounded. Men of the church, are you listening? John Piper, are YOU listening? Will you use your power, your authority, your influence to defend the widows, where God's heart is, or to keep them in oppression, fear, and turmoil forever? <br />
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The evidence is clear. Abuse is wrong. The dividing lines are being drawn. The martyrs crying out, "How long?" are heard, and God is moving in his church. His justice is sure. We who have cried out and had our cries fall on deaf ears are heard. That's reason for praise!<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15416171117065064583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1380026025001456136.post-58905963428139041892014-09-21T20:00:00.000-07:002014-09-21T20:00:19.346-07:00A Voice for the Abused #5: Boz Tchividjian<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Another prominent voice in the church speaks out against spiritual abuse of church authorities who deny, rename, and compel women to stay in abusive situations.<br />
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John Piper, are you listening yet?<br />
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/goog_2042951945"><br /></a>
<a href="http://boz.religionnews.com/2014/09/12/whyistayed-churches-support-spousal-abuse/">http://boz.religionnews.com/2014/09/12/whyistayed-churches-support-spousal-abuse/</a><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15416171117065064583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1380026025001456136.post-2055034310016101222014-09-21T19:57:00.002-07:002014-09-21T19:57:21.918-07:00#WhyIStayed #WhyILeft Follow on Twitter<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Follow Shadowing Abigail on Twitter:<br /><a href="https://twitter.com/ShadowingAbigai" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/ShadowingAbigai</a><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15416171117065064583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1380026025001456136.post-5667892938444438682014-09-17T05:38:00.000-07:002014-09-17T05:38:02.047-07:00After the Monster: Struggles of an Abuse SurvivorWhy is controlling, manipulating, threatening, intimidating, and sometimes even physically destructive abuse so damaging to the personhood of the victim? Why don't we just bounce back when it ends? What is it like to be the survivor of an abusive relationship--both emotionally and practically?<br /> <br />
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This writer sometimes thinks that no one else can possibly understand the internal turmoil that was caused by years and years of abuse. Every day is a battle to hold onto truth and to chase away the lies that robbed me of my identity, dignity, stability, joy, and worth. <br /><br />I'm told it gets better with time, lots of time. I'm also told that it is normal to be standing where I am now and not be able to see the end result of healing that I'm hoping for. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, depression, unexplained anxiety, self-doubt, fear of disapproval, fear of personal expression... these things are conditioned in and reach into the whole person, but I am told they will be chiseled away a little at a time and that one day, life won't be so unmanageable.<br />
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I'm not there yet. I want someone to understand what it is like to be me. Pastor Dave Orrison does a good job of explaining what this place in life is like for me and other survivors like me. <br />
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You can read the entire piece <a href="http://graceformyheart.wordpress.com/2014/09/05/the-monsters-legacy/#comment-7475" target="_blank">here: The Monster's Legacy.</a> The "monster" he refers to is not an individual but the condition of narcissism and sociopathy (anti-social personality disorder) that is the seed of much abuse in intimate relationships.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"Inability to make decisions, fear in personal relationships, nagging
false guilt and shame, broken connections with others, depression,
anxiety, and loneliness. These are some of the normal internal
struggles. Then there are the external struggles. Financial stresses,
custody and visitation issues, the need to find a job or the loss of a
job, the physical consequences of stress, and so much more. When you
look back at the end of a narcissistic relationship, you usually see a
wide path of destruction."</i></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15416171117065064583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1380026025001456136.post-31662387118355548732014-09-16T08:06:00.001-07:002014-09-22T05:32:34.259-07:00Sociopaths in the Church<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Most of us go through our lives unaware that we are living and functioning alongside sociopaths in our communities on a regular basis. Until we finally identify that we are living with one, that is, and then, it is as if our eyes are finally opened and we can see how others are able to appear so normal to the outer world while deeply harming the people closest to them in secret.<br />
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Sociopaths are in your church too. Church is an easy place for them to hide and thrive. This article helps explain how that comes about and gives some valuable input into how to separate and then reunite in our thinking the appropriate ways to show grace and hold accountable those with this disorder who are harming others.<br />
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This is a "must read" for anyone. Victims of sociopaths will find encouragement here. Those who have escaped victimhood can find light to shine into the darkness for the victims in their midst. God put us in churches to help one another. Those under the control of a sociopath need love, fellowship, support, and ears to hear the horror they have experience and the emotional void they have a starvation to fill. <br />
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Be the church. Educate yourself about Anti-Social Personality Disorder and how it harms others. Start <a href="http://graceformyheart.wordpress.com/2014/09/12/in-the-church/" target="_blank">here: Anti-Social Personality Disorder in the Church</a>.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15416171117065064583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1380026025001456136.post-26979012040013024502014-09-15T18:11:00.002-07:002014-09-15T18:11:28.908-07:00Discipline or Abuse: Adrian Peterson in the news<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
So, is anyone else feeling anxious about the children in the life of Minnesota Viking Adrian Peterson?<br />
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The man has not been tried for a crime of child abuse, and so judgment must be withheld until a verdict or confession is made. However, this writer is anxious and unsettled by what the news is reporting.<br />
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A man with two four-year-old sons by different mothers spends time with those children unsupervised. While in his care, both children receive bodily injuries that are evidenced by breaking of the skin. One is supported by photographs--a minimum of 16 switch marks on the child's skin. The other claims a scar on the face above the child's eye, which occurred when the four-year-old tried to resist the original punishment.<br />
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In both cases, text messages from Peterson affirm that he did cause the wounds while disciplining the children. In one case, he admitted via text that he struck the child in the testicles. In both cases, he claimed to feel bad about the injuries--and called the testicular injury an accident (presumably from loss of control), but he continued to stand by the firmness of his disciplinary choices. <br />
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Can we at least agree that the purpose of disciplining a child is to lovingly redirect or restore the child, and not to punish or inflict a wound or scar? Can we agree that before administering discipline, a parent must examine himself or herself to be careful not to overreact out of anger? These little ones are being shaped under our own hands. If we lash out in rage--and 16 or more lashes with an object can hardly be imagined as controlled action--what are we really teaching? How does one restore trust and love after something like that? <br /><br />Withholding judgment is turning out to be hard. Pray the little ones get the support of knowledgeable adults who will speak for them. Pray for truth to be told. </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15416171117065064583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1380026025001456136.post-88904817079897138842014-08-15T20:04:00.001-07:002014-08-15T20:04:48.347-07:00One of Those Nights<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It's one of those nights.<br />
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One of those "will I make it through tonight" nights.<br />
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The Internet is presently flooded with commentary about depression, suicide, mental illness, personal choices, seeds of faith and faithlessness, courage and weakness. Robin Williams, beloved comedian and actor, took his life a few days ago. After 63 years of fighting it. A few people think they have the answers. Many others want to share what those few have to say. I feel like they are trying to analyze me at the same time, and each article I read is a reflection of myself.<br />
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I don't know his story. I only know my own, and tonight's a night I don't want to own my story. Tonight's one of those nights.<br />
<br />
Ten months ago, I sat in my car in my driveway, engine running, alone. I sat for a long time. The garden hose was just outside, sprawled languidly across the front landscaping bed as if no one cared to tidy it up. That's because no one truly did. I saw myself over and over again, with the hose, the exhaust pipe, a cracked window, and me. I know I sat there for most of an hour. I don't remember how I got out, or even why. I just know somehow, after a time, I didn't do what I saw, and I was inside again. <br />
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All the TED Talks in the world are not enough to shake it when depression wraps you in its Ring-Wraith embrace. That kind word someone offered three days ago? Gone by now. What do I need to snap out of it?<br />
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I know it is different for everyone. Again, my story, not yours. But I need time and purpose, and time is always there, ticking on so very slowly. The awareness of how slowly it moves does nothing to help, but time itself does function to move me through the stage to another side. Just hang on. But purpose. That's a big one. My marriage failed. It was doomed from the start, but nothing I could do could fix it, not even giving myself up completely into it. It never got better. In my head, I cognitively, intellectually know that the problem is a deep pyschological one that is not my own. But the message of all those years is that it was me--not good enough, not lovable, worthless, a disappointment at best and a disgust at worst. A vessel of wrath--wrath poured into me until I cracked and crumbled. Did I make it out alive? I'm still not sure.<br />
<br />
And this is one of those nights.<br />
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Just the tiniest thing sparked it in me: a suggestion of a way to participate, be useful, be in camaraderie with others, dangled, then taken away again. It was not by ill will that it was taken again, but practicality, but the stool was kicked from beneath my always-so-precarious foothold and the doom descended like an executioner's hood. Why'd that have to happen? You know the answer: useless; worthless; not lovable; not a part of the camaraderie; not a part of the team. Tolerated at best, but never loved.<br />
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The whispers are insidious, and persistent, and what my head knows my heart cannot believe. It became too ingrained. <br /><br />And this is one of those nights. </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15416171117065064583noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1380026025001456136.post-86443685785558817142014-08-12T09:54:00.003-07:002014-08-12T09:54:45.750-07:00Personal Testimony: The Man She Loved Held a Gun to Her Head<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Why do we stay?<br />
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We think we are the ones chosen to help our very troubled mates. We don't want to give up on the people we love. We think we are alone and will be unsupported.<br />
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If you are being abused by your husband or boyfriend, please hear this: You are not alone. One in three U.S. women will experience domestic violence or stalking. But you must get away. You cannot heal your abuser. You must protect yourself.<br />
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Leslie Morgan Steiner speaks in this TED Talk about her own domestic violence experience. She, like many, does not look like a "typical abuse victim." Most of us don't. As she says, it happens to everyone, regardless of race, religion, income, or educational levels. It often happens to the women who seem confident, capable, intelligent.<br />
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Pay attention to these important pieces of information:<br />Over 500 women between the ages of 16 and 24 die each year at the hands of boyfriends and husbands. (Do not be one of them! Let's change this number radically!)<br />There is a pattern: 1) Seduction; 2) Isolation; 3) Threat <br />
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Does he seem too good to be true? Does he act as though you are the ONLY thing he needs? Does he conform himself to all your expectations? This is the seduction phase.<br />
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Does he try to draw you away from your community, move you to a strange place, or keep you from going out with others or have others in your life? Isolation is critical for the abuser.<br />
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Once he has charmed you and isolated you, the threats and violence can get worse.<br />
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Sometimes the three phases occur very quickly or simultaneously, but almost always, all are present.<br />
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Finally, keep in mind that separation may not be enough. Once an abuser loses control of his victim, he may feel he has nothing to lose in destroying her completely. At the first instance of abuse, call the police. Enlist others who will support you so that he knows there are witnesses. In this writer's case, enlisting a prominent person in the community who would firmly say to my abuser deserved that he should be in jail and WILL go to jail if any type of threat, intimidation, or contact occurs again has helped to give some additional security. Don't try to go it alone. Police, pastors (the ones who will listen), adult male friends and family members to back you up (though you will probably be called an adultress for having adult male friends), co-workers. Let people know. It is an intensely private issue, but we are not meant to live in isolation. There truly is safety in numbers.<br />
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<a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/leslie_morgan_steiner_why_domestic_violence_victims_don_t_leave" target="_blank">Leslie Morgan Steiner on Why Abuse Victims Don't Leave: A TED Talk</a></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15416171117065064583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1380026025001456136.post-81386442176277595162014-08-08T10:47:00.000-07:002014-08-08T10:47:09.055-07:00A Voice for the Abused #4: The Gospel Coalition Reviews Justin & Lindsey Holcomb's book<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Is It My Fault? Hope and Healing for Those Suffering Domestic Violence by Justin and Lindsey Holcomb<br />
Moody Press. 2014. $14.99 retail.<br />
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Voices are gathering in God's church to speak out and recognize how offensive domestic violence is in God's eyes. Scales are beginning to come off. There is hope.<br />
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I admit. I have a dream. I have a dream that one day homes will be safe places, as they were intended to be. That one day, men will lead with hearts of service and love instead of power and fists and handguns and threats. I have a dream that one day, if violence and abuse does still occur, churches will feel like safe places for women to run, to tell the truth, to be heard. I have a dream that one day, pastors and church leaders will stand in protection and covering over the abused women in their congregations, rather than putting on their coats and hats and leaving the building to go back to their own lives after telling her just to do better. I have a dream that one day, horrors will end.<br />
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These are the steps it takes to get there. Little by little, exposure is happening. God is moving his creation forward. This is progress. Praise him!<br />
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<a href="http://thegospelcoalition.org/article/is-it-my-fault" target="_blank">The Gospel Coalition's review of the book above can be found by clicking here.</a><br />
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Please read and share. And if necessary, buy the book for your pastor or deacon board, women's ministry group, etc. <br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15416171117065064583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1380026025001456136.post-63693209493494458412014-08-04T19:10:00.002-07:002014-08-04T19:10:41.048-07:00How Should the Church Respond to Reports of Marital Abuse?Marital abuse is possibly the most difficult form of abuse to expose and receive help for. That is largely because it occurs in very private settings between two adults. Of course we all know that any two people bring their own sin and shortcomings to any relationship, but what must be recognized is that abuse goes FAR and AWAY beyond the normal parameters of regular relational missteps, and it is almost never a response to anything the abused could have done differently to prevent it. Abuse originates within the abuser.<br />
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It is NOT simply out of control anger. It is a deep-seated need to overpower and harm another person, and in most cases, the other person is the person most intimately related to the abuser. Most psychologists believe that the reason for this is related to the abuser's own subconscious self-loathing, and so his malicious behavior is enacted upon the individual most intimate to himself--usually his spouse.<br />
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Churches simply are not equipped, in most cases, to help abused women. The reasons for this are many. Most Christians have been graciously spared from a personal knowledge of abuse. Many conservative churches lean toward patriarchalism--in which a man can rule over his family any way he sees fit, and women are strongly discouraged from ever speaking out against their husbands in any way, no matter the circumstances. In many of those settings, it is expected that the man speaks for his family, and the woman or children are not even considered to be voices for their own stories. To be so would be to deny the ritualistic external applications of "male headship." Women in these settings fear to speak out. No one wants to be the contentious woman, and every one of us who ventures to ask for help will be labeled as such before any help will ever be offered, no matter the actual facts. It is a knee-jerk reaction to abuse, "If he attacked you, you must have deserved it," and it is a lie. But it is a lie that a woman, already in a broken and weakened, usually paralyzed and debilitated state, must somehow find the strength to face and add to all the other accusations against her if she is ever to have hope to live free of her torment.<br />
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If the church is going to be Christ's Body on Earth, then the church simply must wake up to the reality of marital abuse and the slander against God that it carries. God reveals his relationship to his church as one of marriage. If marital abuse is accepted or swept under the rug, what are we saying about God? Would any pastor or church leader, or women's ministry leader, or young woman's mentor ever think of standing before God and calling him an abuser? To justify male abuse in a Christian home as a form of headship authority is to blaspheme the God who instituted marriage and called himself the Groom. <br /><br />Elisabeth Klein has some valuable thoughts on the matter of what too often does happen in churches and what ought not to happen in churches. Her first-hand experience parallels far too many, including the experience of at least one here in our group. Please read and share this with your church leaders, male and female, even if you are not aware of marital abuse in your congregation. Prepare. Be ready, so that you can recognize the crime and help the wounded. This is the heart of God, to bind up the brokenhearted and to visit the widows (and their children) in their time of need. Do not turn your back on these women as they are being slowly murdered at the hands of the ones who stood before witnesses and God himself and took a vow to "cherish and nourish" her as his own body. Do not support the vow-breaking violation of abuse by undermining the victim. <br /><br />God stands for justice. He despises the rift in relationship that is divorce when men cover their garments in violence, but he most certainly can still use the legality of divorce for the good of his beloved women when their husbands have sought their harm. Churches must be willing and able to run to the rescue of their women--heirs to the promise of God's grace right alongside men--if they wish to continue to stand in God's favor. <br />
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<br />Churches: Wake up to Abuse by Elisabeth Klein<br /><a href="http://www.elisabethklein.com/church-wake-up-to-abuse/">http://www.elisabethklein.com/church-wake-up-to-abuse/</a><br />
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Follow the link above to reach Elisabeth's article and begin to prepare your church to be instruments of mercy and change.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15416171117065064583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1380026025001456136.post-58276459011000779732014-06-09T16:57:00.001-07:002014-06-09T18:29:06.051-07:00For Better or for Worse: A FlashbackWe woke that morning to a surprise snow. Everything was covered. Not a blade of dry grass poked through the dense new blanket. And it was still falling.<br />
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By 10:00am, there was at least eight inches everywhere, more in the drifts. Our suburban street wouldn't see a car that day.<br />
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Not a car, no. But moments before dawn he had risen, somehow sensing the night before that the snow might come. <br />
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When it snowed, he always left us. I remember once when the oldest child was just a toddler, she proudly shared with another child how she loved to play in the snow with him. I wonder if she remembers at all. It was so long ago, then.<br />
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On this day, he was gone before anyone else awoke. Gone in that truck that could handle the mess. Gone to the business park miles away. He would affix a plow blade to the front of the truck and spend hours upon hours driving in circles, pushing the accumulating fluff to the tarmac's edges, clearing the asphalt field for the businesses that would not open that day, for the customers that would not come.<br />
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At mid-morning, I helped them all into puffy, down-insulated suits, hats, scarves, tights, socks, boots, and whatever mismatched gloves and mittens I could find, and out into the wonderland they went. It was just our own backyard, but together, they could play until the cold crept through the layers and they needed me, cocoa-provider, to rescue them, peel from them the ice-chip-coated, sopping garments and thrust steaming, creamy mugs into their red hands. <br />
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But this morning was different. I was there, at the kitchen window, watching. I turned away for . . . what? Moments? Seconds? Long enough. The adventurous five-year-old had hatched a plan, climbed that quickly to the top of the monkey bars, and found how difficult it was to hold on with the slick mitten surface encumbering her grip. She fell. From the wail, I could tell the injury was not inconsequential. My tough girl didn't cry like that for no reason.<br />
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Removing the glove brought even more shrieks and screams, and I knew, but didn't want to know. Her arm was broken just above the wrist. I was as frozen as the terrain outside for a moment as I looked at our road. There was no way I could get out in that.<br />
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Fully nine inches of snow covered everything. Even the tracks he had left this morning were completely gone. City streetcleaners wouldn't think of us for two days at least.<br />
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I grabbed my cell and called him on his. No answer. Voicemail. I left the message. "Please come home. I need to get her to emergency care." I waited. It was swelling. We packed ice. I gave her pain reliever. I called her doctor.<br />
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The after-hours nurse answered. They couldn't make it to work that day either. She was firm and direct with me: "That arm needs to be looked at now. I can't tell you anything else."<br />
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Again, the road. The snow. The phone. Another message. No reply. I kept calling. Finally, I reached him. "When can you come?" <br />
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"No need," he said. "Everything's closed."<br />
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"Hospital isn't, but I can't get there."<br />
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"I'll be there when I can," he said.<br />
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We waited. Hours. He didn't come. His tiny daughter was becoming sick with pain and nausea from it. The snow kept falling, gently now. Barely adding to the depth, just reminding me of its presence. That morning, so lovely. But now, late afternoon, a menace. A gentle, delicate, persistent menace.<br />
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I called again. "I'm still working," he said. Working. That's what he called it. Futile circling and passing by abandoned structures, while her little arm throbbed and ached, and Daddy wouldn't come, even just to give the comfort of his presence.<br />
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The father of some of the kids in the youth group I helped with was a doctor. A country-town doctor. Maybe he could help, understand my dilemma, give me advice I could use rather than just chastising me for not being able to get to professional services. I called. He didn't judge me. Over the phone, he told me what to find around the house to make a splint. I measured, cut, secured the tiny arm as best I could, wrapped, praying all the time that my makeshift device would hold well enough to relieve some of her pain. Ice. Ibuprofen. Alternate acetaminophen. All night long. <br />
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He came home long after dark. She had finally cried herself to sleep. Hours later, I would do the same. <br />
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"Why couldn't you come?" I begged, incredulous.<br />
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I didn't appreciate how hard he worked, he said. Everything he did was for us, never him, he said. Nothing was open anyway, he repeated, forgetting, it seems, the standard E.R. I rolled his angry words around in my mind while I took his sodden coveralls to the bathtub, shook and picked the ice from them, and cleaned up the puddles. I gathered his other clothes from the entryway while he showered, filling the room around himself with thick, comforting steam.<br />
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Later he would tell about the stories he and a friend shared in a fast food joint that had managed to open due to one employee coming in that day. That employee had given him and the other friend, also a "worker" with a truck with a plow, hot coffee and food all day long. They had sat inside the restaurant, sharing tales, eating and drinking, whenever they wanted a break from their big-boy play. While her arm swelled and bruised and I paced and prayed. The one person who could help her, wouldn't. <br />
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She still loves him. Craves him. She always has. It's been more than three years now since that happened. Even that, on top of the brutality he regularly unleashed on me when his inner turmoil had to spew from that churning molten core of fury that he lives with--even that wasn't enough to make me say, "Go." It took years still.<br />
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Last night I got a letter from a woman I used to worship with. A long letter. She felt she had to call me to account for abandoning my vow "for better or for worse."<br />
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This wasn't what I meant. I am not breaking my vow. I've been through every one of those vows, asking, "What did I say? And what did I mean? What did he hear? What did our witnesses hear? What did God hear?"<br />
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I did mean the part about sickness and health--his sickness or health. I did not mean when he caused mine or the children's sickness or loss of health in order to feel powerful. I did mean for better or worse--as terms describing all the unexpected that life throws at us. I did not mean when he was making sure that what could be better was absolutely worse. That wasn't the vow I made. I did mean till death do us part--but a natural death, or an accidental death, or even foul play at the hands of someone else. I did not ever mean that I would stay until the time he determined my death, with brute force instantly, or over long years of wasting and crushing and depriving. <br />
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Tonight, that event in the snow came up at the dinner table. The children were remembering. They did not remember that he would not come. But I can remember almost nothing else. He would not come to her. I remember holding her and trying to be a comfort. I remember my helplessness. Her pain. Her sadness then that he wasn't there. "Where is he? Is it any minute yet?" she asked again and again.<br />
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I can't answer them. I can't tell them why he can't be better. And I can't fix him. But neither can I depend on him.<br />
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I'm all they've got. <br />
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Of course, that isn't entirely true. They have a heavenly Father who cares for us, the widow and the orphans, for that is essentially who we are. They have a God who didn't stay away, who came. And he has led me here. It was time. The suffering was long. The hurts reached too far, into their lives. I should have stopped it sooner. <br />
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Should have.<br />
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There's no use in those words. It is what it is, now. It won't be that way again.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15416171117065064583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1380026025001456136.post-41712315473032831492014-06-05T20:24:00.002-07:002014-06-05T20:24:27.974-07:00You Aren't Crazy. You've Been "Gaslighted"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Gaslighting is a very effective but often subtle form of emotional and psychological abuse. It is almost always present where other forms of abuse (physical, sexual, financial) also exist.<br />
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Gaslighting undermines a person's own sense of credibility. It erodes, so slowly that often one does not notice what is happening. Then, one day, the object of the abuser's gaslighting tactics begins to think she must really be crazy. She no longer trusts herself. She has lost her firm foundation that comes from a sound mind.<br />
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Gaslighting is wrong. It is destructive. The National Domestic Violence Hotline describes gaslighting and its effects at this link:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.thehotline.org/2014/05/what-is-gaslighting/" target="_blank">What Is Gaslighting?</a><br /><br />Have you been gaslighted? If so, you may need help unraveling the mess it has made of your thoughts and perceptions, but you can become discerning and rational again. Begin with the truth and reject the lies. Trust the good judgment you've been given. Make yourself remember what you once knew with certainty to be true. And know that you truly are a reliable narrator for your own life's story.<br />
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These are not new tricks and you are not the first or only person to fall prey to them. Well-meaning women who want to be better partners and spouses, daughters, friends are often the easiest targets for the madness and manipulation of an abuser who uses gaslighting tactics.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15416171117065064583noreply@blogger.com0