Murder Suicides

04/17/17 Lisa Simeri, South Bend, Indiana




If you, or someone you know is being abused by his/her intimate partner, please call (or have them call) 1-800-799-SAFE.

Friends and Family

Just beginning this resource page, but I stumbled on a great page that another fellow Blog Talk Radio posted on her blog -- http://lucyannmoll.com/Safe%20At%20Last.pdf. It certainly has a lot of good information on that *.pdf file.

More friends/family resources will be added to this post very soon. (My posts will often be a work in progress.)



If you, or someone you know is being abused by his/her intimate partner, please call (or have them call) 1-800-799-SAFE.

Self Care for Caregivers of Trauma Victims

Attended a workshop/retreat for advocates on Monday wherein the author of TRAUMA STEWARDSHIP: AN EVERYDAY GUIDE TO CARING FOR SELF WHILE CARING FOR OTHERS, Laura van Dernoot Lipsky, not only gave a talk/discussion from her book, but also provided us with a copy of her book.

She speaks to the feeling of a caregiver/advocate not feeling that they can ever do enough, which can easily apply to friends/family members:

"The belief that 'I am not doing enough and I should be doing more' is widespread and often a powerful influence on our lives. As children, what messages did we receive about sustainability and lengevity? Did we get the word that "It's a long road - take good care of yourself, prioritize your health and your well-being'? Or did the repeated messages lead us to internalize the oppressive lesson that 'No matter what you do aor how you do it, it won't be enough'?

Nobody is immune from circumstances that instill a sense of inadequacy. Almost everyone has had to withstand negative teachings to some degree. At the same time, certain people are likely to receive these lessons more often and in more ways than others. Many of us are members of one or more social groups for which the oppressive messages are continually reinforced.

We can view this notion of scarcity and 'not enough-ness' from a larger framework of systematic oppression. Oppression is most commonly felt and expressed as a widespread, if unconscious, belief that a certain group of people are inferior. We often attribute such bias to individuals. But when such feelings as racism, sexism, homophobia, and classism are codified into law or integrated into the functioning of social systems, this become systematic oppresion.

. . .

A particularly powerful component of internalized oppression arises when victims come to believe in a notion of scarcity. They oppressor creates a climate in which people fear there is not enough room for everyone, and so they begin a desperate attempt to conform to the oppressor's ideals in order to survive. This can happen on an individual, group, community, or even societal level. People accept the negative stereotypes that say they are not good enough, and they begin to strive, largely unconsciously, toward a rigid idea of what my be acceptable. They may also attempt to impose their externally derived standards of right and wrong on other members of their communities, often quite harshly. Within targeted communities, this dynamic can contribute to pervasive and brutal strife. On an individual level, it creates people who are never able to feel that who they are is enough. These people may seek protection by striving for the trappings of an idealized life in which they might someday measure up as 'enough'. This looks different for everyone throughout the world, and yet at the risk of overgeneralizing, we can see some persistent themes." (pages 59-61)

Inside her book, she gives ideas of overcoming this feeling; after all, taking care of others begin with taking care of oneself!

If you, or someone you know is being abused by his/her intimate partner, please call (or have them call) 1-800-799-SAFE.

Archived Radio Shows - 2/20/2010 through 3/27/2010

When I was doing the shows through Real Life Radio Network, these are the archived shows from those days 2/20/2010 through 3/27/2010:


02/20/2010 - BEYOND WORDS LIVE! MALE SURVIVOR OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/rlrn/2010/02/20/beyond-words-live-an-oral-history-project


02/27/2010 - BEYOND WORDS LIVE! MY OWN PRISON
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/rlrn/2010/02/27/beyond-words-live-an-oral-history-project


2/28/2010 - BEYOND WORDS EXPOSE!
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/rlrn/2010/02/28/beyond-words-expose


3/6/2010 - BEYOND WORDS LIVE - NATIONAL LYMPHEDEMA AWARENESS DAY
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/rlrn/2010/03/06/beyond-words-live-an-oral-history-project


3/20/2010 BEYOND WORDS LIVE
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/rlrn/2010/03/20/beyond-words-live-an-oral-history-project


3/27/2010 BEYOND WORDS LIVE - MEET DEBBY TUCKER
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/rlrn/2010/03/27/beyond-words-live-an-oral-history-project


I wanted to supply you the links to those shows too since they also cover a variety of domestic violence issues, as well as an introduction to the discussion about Lymphedema awareness.

Love to hear your feedback.


If you, or someone you know is being abused by his/her intimate partner, please call (or have them call) 1-800-799-SAFE.

As Talked About on Oprah - 4/15/10

Gavin de Becker Video on Protecting Your Family
http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Gavin-de-Becker-on-Protecting-Your-Family-Video


Mosaic Method
https://www.mosaicmethod.com/

Fact & Questions re MOSAIC
https://www.mosaicmethod.com/?page=faq


Task Force on College Safety Recommends
https://www.mosaicmethod.com/documents/missouri_report.pdf


Major Federal Research Project Studies Domestic Violence Assessment
https://www.mosaicmethod.com/documents/DOJ_Study.pdf


If you, or someone you know is being abused by his/her intimate partner, please call (or have them call) 1-800-799-SAFE.

February and March 2010 Shows

BEYOND WORD LIVE SHOWS (thus far)

FEB 20 - Male Victim of Domestic Violence (very first show on BTR/RLRN)
FEB 27 - Vietamese Victim of Domestic Violence

MAR 6 - National Lymphedema Awareness Day
MAR 13 - no show
MAR 20 - Rural America, part 1
MAR 27 - Meet Debby Tucker



MAR 28 -- BEYOND WORDS EXPOSE show

This show will be designed to wrap up the shows that we have had so far and some resources that will be useful to the person looking for some additonal information on these issues.

National Domestic Violence Hotline
http://ndvh.org
1-800-799-7233

National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline
http://loveisrespect.org
1-866-331-9474

National Coalition Against Domestic Violence
http://ncadv.org
(303) 839-1852





SOME BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS:


WHAT DOESN'T KILL YOU MAKES YOU STRONGER: TURNING BAD BREAKS INTO BLESSINGS
by Maxine Schnall


NOT TO PEOPLE LIEK US: HIDDEN ABUSE TO UPSCALE MARRIAGES
by Susan Weitzman, PhD


THE DANCE OF CONNECTION
by Harriet Lerner, PhD



A WOMAN LIKE YOU: THE FACE OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
by Vera Anderson (1997)
This is just a great book to read a sampling of other survivors' stories.



TRAUMA AND RECOVERY: THE AFTERMATH OF VIOLENCE FROM DOMESTIC VIOLENCE TO POLITICAL TERROR
BY Judith Lewis Herman, MD (1992)

Of particular interest in this book is the section entitled, "Diagnostic Mislabeling" (pages 116-117) and goes on to say:

This tendency to blame the victim has strongly influenced the direction of psychological inquiry. It has led researchers and clinicians to seek an explanation for the perpetrator's crimes in the character of the victim. In the case of hostages and prisoners of war, numerous attempts to find supposed personality defects that predisposed captives to "brainwashing" have yielded few consistent results. The conclusion is inescapable that ordinary, psychologically healthy men can indeed be coerced in unmanly ways. In domestic battering situations, where victims are entrapped by persuasion rather than by capture, research has also focused on the personality traits that might predispose a woman to get involved in an abusive relationship. Here again, no consistent profile of the susceptible woman has emerged. While some battered women clearly have major psychological difficulties that render them vulnerable, the majority show no evidence of serious psychopathology before entering into the exploitative relationship. Most become involved with their abusers at a time of temporary life crisis or recent loss, when they are feeling unhappy, alienated, or lonely. A survey of the studies on wife-beating concludes: "The search for characteristics of women that contribute to their own victimization is futile. ... It is sometimes forgotten that men's violence is men's behavior. As such, it is not surprising that the more fruitful efforts to explain this behavior have focused no male characteristics. What is surprising is the enormous effort to explain male behavior by examining characteristics of women."

While it is clear that ordinary, healthy people may become entrapped in prolonged abusive situations, it is equally clear that after their escape they are no longer ordinary or healthy. Chronic abuse causes serious psychological harm. The tendency to blame the victim, however, has interfered with the psychological understanding and diagnosis of a post-traumatic syndrome. Instead of conceptualizing the psychopathology of the victim as a response to an abusive situation, mental health professionals have frequently attributed the abusive situation to the victim's presumed underlying psychopathology.

An egregious example of this sort of thinking is the 1964 study of battered women entitled "The Wife-Beater's Wife." The researchers, who had originally sought to study batterers, found that the men would not talk to them. They thereupon redirected their attention to the more cooperative battered women, whom they found to be "castrating," "frigid," "aggressive," "indecisive," and "passive." They concluded that marital violence fulfilled these women's "masochistic needs." Having identified the women's personality disorders as the source of the problem, these clinicians set out to "treat" them. In one case, they managed to persuade the wife that she was provoking the violence, and they showed her how to mend her ways. When she no longer sought help from her teenage son to protect herself from the beatings and no long er refused to submit to sex on demand, even when her husband was drunk and aggressive, her treatment was judged a success.

While this unabashed, open sexism is rarely found in psychiatric literature today, the same conceptual errors, with the implicit bias and contempt, still predominate. The clinical picture of a person who has been reduced to elemental concerns of survival is still frequently mistaken for a portrait of the victim's underlying character. Concepts of personality organization developed under ordinary circumstances are applied to victims, without any understanding of the corrosion of personality that occurs under conditions of prolonged terror. Thus, patients who suffer from the complex aftereffects of chronic trauma still commonly risk being misdiagnosed as having personality disorders. They may be described as inherently "dependent," "masochistic," or "self-defeating." In a recent study of emergency room practice in a large urban hospital, clinicians routinely described battered women as "hysterics," "masochistic females," "hypochondriacs," or, more simply, "crocks."

See another related article, "Blaming the Victim: Domestic Violence and the Codependency Model", by Greg Dear, http://www.angelfire.com/zine2/narcissism/Codependent.html

and, yet another related article, "Are women who live with abusive partners codependent?", by Clare Murphy (July 8 2009) http://www.speakoutloud.net/tag/codependency/


FAMILY AND FRIENDS' GUIDE TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: HOW TO LISTEN, TALK AND TAKE ACTION WHEN SOMEONE YOU CARE ABOUT IS BEING ABUSED
By Elaine Weiss, MD (2003)

This is an excellent resource for someone who may know of someone that is going through a domestic violence relationship.


MEN'S NON-VIOLENCE PROJECT
http://mensnonviolence.org/about/

THE PIXEL PROJECT
http://www.thepixelproject.net/vaw-facts/about-violence-against-women/


*************************************************************************************
(in regards to the Lymphedema issues discussed on March 6th)

The National Lymphedema Network (NLN)
http://lymphnet.org
http://www.lymphnet.org/lymphedemaFAQs/legislation/actionAlert/LE_Act2010.htm << (specifically with information on HR4662)

Lymphedema Community
http://lymphedemacommunity.com















If you, or someone you know is being abused by his/her intimate partner, please call (or have them call) 1-800-799-SAFE.