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Child Abuse
I've been living back in the UK since Nov 3rd last year after five years abroad.
Since then, the news here has been very focused on paedophilia and child abuse in general: Madelaine McCann, Baby P. (now known as Peter) and others.
At first I was really pleased to see all the coverage. I learnt years ago in A level Sociology that the UK had one of the worst child abuse rates in the world. I always wanted to see it tackled. In fact I'm currently applying to be a telephone counsellor for Childline. While I'm on the subject I'd like to highlight the fact that Childline are crying out for volunteers to do 3-4 hour shifts (day, evening, night) just once a week. Apparently the training is top notch and they're starting an SMS and email service now.
But I am sick and tired of seeing outside court shots of women yelling they want to bring the death sentance back, newspapers focusing on 'life means life' and how the family of one convicted paedophile would rather see him dead anyway: This is not news. It is not the 'act' he has committed it is a value statement and it took up the whole front page of the Express yesterday.
a) I do not believe people are evil. I believe their actions are at times. Branding the whole person 'evil' addresses none of the issues and actually gives us a very warped view of the problem.
b) It is a well-known view that former abused children sometimes go on to abuse themselves, having deadened themselves to the pain of abuse and subscribing to the false childhood view that 'parents are always right' and not wanting to admit what happened to the self and that the parents had it wrong. This is very powerful. Being brought up as an abused person and then going through life without abusing, is a statement that you know what happened to you was wrong. Which is admitting you were abused and starting a whole process of healing and unheaval.
So those who were abused at a time when things like Childline didn't exist and children grew up only realising it wasn't normal when they started talking to peers etc. may never have received help. Those who were abused in a very wide sense of the term and made to feel powerless by the opposite sex etc. and can now only feel their sexuality in relation to those who are children and cannot refuse them etc. never got help.
I think child abuse is horrendous. Don't get me wrong. I think it is so horrendous I want to understand it so it happens as little as possible. I just think that there is a logic behind things and it's not all about labelling people and throwing them into jail. How would that help a victim? To know they're banged up because they're inexplicably evil? Like it's a random affliction with no logic.
I'd like to say I have never been abused although I do have feelings of having been exploited that I won't go into here.
My opinions are purely my own and are borne of my training in psychotherapy and the literature I read. And the personal experience of a few people very close to me.
What do you think?
I recently blogged on this too if you'd like to leave comments on there too. Link is in my signature.
Since then, the news here has been very focused on paedophilia and child abuse in general: Madelaine McCann, Baby P. (now known as Peter) and others.
At first I was really pleased to see all the coverage. I learnt years ago in A level Sociology that the UK had one of the worst child abuse rates in the world. I always wanted to see it tackled. In fact I'm currently applying to be a telephone counsellor for Childline. While I'm on the subject I'd like to highlight the fact that Childline are crying out for volunteers to do 3-4 hour shifts (day, evening, night) just once a week. Apparently the training is top notch and they're starting an SMS and email service now.
But I am sick and tired of seeing outside court shots of women yelling they want to bring the death sentance back, newspapers focusing on 'life means life' and how the family of one convicted paedophile would rather see him dead anyway: This is not news. It is not the 'act' he has committed it is a value statement and it took up the whole front page of the Express yesterday.
a) I do not believe people are evil. I believe their actions are at times. Branding the whole person 'evil' addresses none of the issues and actually gives us a very warped view of the problem.
b) It is a well-known view that former abused children sometimes go on to abuse themselves, having deadened themselves to the pain of abuse and subscribing to the false childhood view that 'parents are always right' and not wanting to admit what happened to the self and that the parents had it wrong. This is very powerful. Being brought up as an abused person and then going through life without abusing, is a statement that you know what happened to you was wrong. Which is admitting you were abused and starting a whole process of healing and unheaval.
So those who were abused at a time when things like Childline didn't exist and children grew up only realising it wasn't normal when they started talking to peers etc. may never have received help. Those who were abused in a very wide sense of the term and made to feel powerless by the opposite sex etc. and can now only feel their sexuality in relation to those who are children and cannot refuse them etc. never got help.
I think child abuse is horrendous. Don't get me wrong. I think it is so horrendous I want to understand it so it happens as little as possible. I just think that there is a logic behind things and it's not all about labelling people and throwing them into jail. How would that help a victim? To know they're banged up because they're inexplicably evil? Like it's a random affliction with no logic.
I'd like to say I have never been abused although I do have feelings of having been exploited that I won't go into here.
My opinions are purely my own and are borne of my training in psychotherapy and the literature I read. And the personal experience of a few people very close to me.
What do you think?
I recently blogged on this too if you'd like to leave comments on there too. Link is in my signature.
0
Comments
Sara,
During the earlier part of last century, "criminals" were always thought to look "different". Bigger this, smaller that, none of this....Crime was a genetic factor. People couldn't accept that the murder, rapist, child molester, was just a person caught up in a totally fu*ked up situation who made totally fu*ked up choices. No longer do we try to prove they look different, we now try to prove they have no morals, no boundaries they won't cross. They are still "viewed" as different from you and I by way of they are in fact labeled "animals"....Though this of course gives animals a bad name. People can not/ have trouble identifying unless we put a label on it. We label ourselves often enough, usually through a socio-economic position to find out who we are conversing with. Where they "fit" into the scheme of our "world". Who's the dominant, who's the submissive. So don't be too surprised when the media labels them and people want them dead. Its just human nature....
Mary
Because they can then avoid recognising their common humanity with us. They become "the other", the recipients of projections of our own Shadow.
as many of you know, the Jesus story is still enormously important to me and, at its centre, is the story of the crucifixion. It is nonsense preached by self-satisfied clergy that Jesus was "innocent": he was obviously guilty as charged and died among other guilty men. The real Christian message is that the Christ is present among the perpetrators and the victims, 'reconciling' all without exception, just as the BuddhaDharma implies that there is ultimate liberation for all. If this were not so, the bodhisatva vow would be nonsense, wouldn't it?
My own experience is that the mass-murdering abuser is just like you and me. I used to have breakfast in a Gloucester cafe alongside a local builder who, later, turned out to be our worst killer. He was funny, charming, helpful and good company - at the breakfast table. It made it even harder to sit, as was my task, with the police officers and civilians who had to deal with the discoveries in Cromwell Street and Much Marcle, and to understand their anger, confusion and hurt whilst still remembering that Fred was my human brother too.
Does that mean I agree? Of course not, I think that’s it’s just as disgusting to see mass media portray someone as a heartless monster because of one act as it is for the person to commit the act. Ultimately I think that it breeds hatred and misunderstanding of criminal offenders and does more to hurt the situation than to resolve it. You're not the only one that shares a frustration with this topic. I work for psychiatric services in the U.S. and I see good people thrown into bad situations all the time. Most lay persons would be shocked to know just how far the average person will go when given the right set of situations.
~nomad
Gah! I need to learn to type faster!!!! You beat me, Simon. :cool:
~nomad
Splitting off from and projecting onto the Other the unintegrated parts of ourselves, the hated and despised aspects we refuse to own, is so deeply inculcated in our Western psyches. Such a slow process of unlearnin minute by minute --
Mary
I completely agree that we are terrified of our being just as capable of doing evil and our collective need to show 'we're not one of those'.
I am increasingly frustrated by peoples' lack of honesty and authenticity. It's a real pain at the moment.
Then I'm seen as someone who wants to constantly examine the underside of the carpet when everyone else wants to get on with their lives - but I can't live in a society, a family, a world that seems to me like a house of cards.
I think I will always battle for the truth and understanding, against damaging taboos. Incfreasingly I think it's what I was made for!
What I want to say to you:
You are loved and you have a lot of love to give. For now you must surely feel numb and indifferent to life but here you will find a home and many people who will hold your hand through this. Most people confront what you are contemplating at some time and for most people it becomes a turning point.
This is the point where you may say to yourself: This life isn't good enough anymore. I am worth more. I am not living as I want to. I am worth living for.
I think that by posting this you are saying 'look at my life. this isn't right surely? i wasn't meant just to endure this' To my mind if you're saying that then a tiny part of you is saying 'I want to live but things have got to change'.
Please do go to the temple. But post on here and feel the support of the amazing, down-to-earth people here who have lived a great deal and learnt from it too.
Remember you are loved. In time you will feel that warm love and nothing will hurt you or take it away.
Peace,
I truly doubt that you were some awful person in another life: we all have been and may be again. But the good news of the Dharma is that there is, truly, a way out of suffering.
This is not just some flimsy hope for some uncertain future life beyond the grave. This I can tell you from my own experience. I, too, have been tempted (and tried) to take my own life more than once and I may be again - depression is a constant companion, a shadow that follows me; but I have learned that it is only a shadow, not a real thing. The sun does come out again.
The Third Jewel of Refuge is the Sangha, the community of loving friends. May you find it here and elsewhere in your life.
Welcome again.
Welcome to the forum lonely87, you are truly among friends here. And you didn't get here by accident. That which you are seeking, is causing you to seek. There are indeed many here who will help you understand the world around you. You don't have to be a Buddhist to gain from the Dharma, for unlike most of the world's major religions, which promise a salvation in an after-life, The Noble Eight-Fold Path promises that salvation in this life!
Stay, share, talk and absorb, there is much here.
Namasté
Les
I hope you are able to find freinds to help you establish a sitting practice. I have found that just meditating daily, using very simple vipassana techniques, has helped me regain balance in my life and opened my heart to compassion and metta or loving-kindness.
I will keep you in my thoughts as I meditate this week and hope that you find healing and peace of mind.
Love
Mary
I cannot begin to tell you how much Buddhism could help you re-structure your thoughts, and in turn your words, and then your actions, and so then, your life!
But let's not move too fast, shall we?
First and foremost, the fact that you are still here, still alive, is testimony to a strength you may not even know you have, let alone admit to.
It's good to have you here.
Trust me, when I honestly tell you that, even though you might have come here seeking some kind of support, explanation, reason for what is.... you are just as valuable to us, with your insight and experience. You teach us to grow.
we, in our small ways, will try to help you do likewise.
Nice to meet you!
You will find many helpful people here, who not only understand you pain, but will believe you. You may discuss these issues in the forum, or if they're too personal, in private PMs with them. Listen, check out what they say, and if it rings true, investigate their suggestions. There is much love here... help yourself to it.
What do you think you should be doing?
Quite simply, meditation is about calming the mind, and gently, gradually, bringing the rushing, tumbling, incoherent, self-harming, rambling thoughts to a quiet flow of contemplative whorls.....
It means gradually slowing the torrent of whitewater mental flood to a little stream you can dabble your feet in.
As Les quite rightly pointed out, this is no overnight success story, or immediate 'fix'.
It takes personal discipline.
But start small.
Three minutes.
I mean it!
here's something to have a go at, if you want:
sit in any way you want, be calm, be silent, and keep your eyes open.
Then, look at a picture, and examine every single detail, in miniscule scrutiny.
But don't have any running commentary in your head.
For example, if you look at a picture of a lady in a yellow flowing dress, see the yellow flowing dress.... but don't think "it's a yellow flowing dress".....
just 'see' it.
Look at every fold, every shadow, every tone..... but describe nothing in your head.
In time, don't fix on anything.
Just gaze, and let your eyes see everything you look at, but with no 'words' in your head.....
When this becomes easier, then you could progress to sitting with your eyes closed. And as thoughts arise, just look at them, and let them go, without lingering on the 'picture' they paint.
See how you get on with that.
When you have mastered this, we'll go on to moving mountains and joining continents back up.
Seriously. Enjoy yourself.
Meditation is meant to be liberating and calming, so make efforts, but don't strain yourself to the point that it becomes an ordeal.
Lonely, I found meditation very helpful after a very short period of time. There must be hundreds of benefits I have never even glimpsed but I'd like to say that it doesn't necessarily take ages to reap the benefits.
If things are chaotic, knowing that you can control and offer yourself, the gift of peace is immensely reassuring.
Really glad you're here. Now will you stay?
When you are in the place where you are right now, it seems like you are the only one in the world who is suffering like you are and that you must be a horrible person for you to have gone through what you have gone through. I think the first step is to realize that you are not alone. Many others have gone through similar suffering and emerged from it much stronger. I urge you to seek out a support group of some sort (depends on where you are and what's available) so that you can share openly with others what you have experienced. That will go a long way towards helping pull you out of this.
Yes, Buddhism can help, but Buddhism is not a panacea to the world's ills. It won't solve all your problems, and you may still burn your toast even when you're enlightened! I think it is important to take advantage of the support groups and professionals out there who are there to help you. That doesn't mean I think you should give up on Buddhism, just don't expect it to be a be-all and end-all solution to everything.
That said, and looking at this thread from a broader perspective, while it is true that the things that happen to us are really nothing more than a reflection of our own mind, it is also extremely important to remember that everyone, I repeat, everyone has all sorts of mixed karma. As my teacher says, when you see a news story about someone committing a horrible crime, such as the rash of fathers who have murdered their families lately, you should think that you have done much worse in the past. Everyone has. We have lived, as the Buddha taught, countless lives, and in that limitless time we have had plenty of opportunity to do everything you can imagine. In fact, I'd say it's safe to say that anything we can imagine we've done at some point, bad or good. So it does no good whatsoever to demonize those whose negative karma is ripening right now because, as has been pointed out, they're no different from us in reality. If they're a demon, so are we. What is required is compassion, both for them and for ourselves.
Palzang
I am in favor of limited application of the death penalty. But I think it would be highly detrimental to sentence child abusers/pedophiles/rapists to death. At least with the threat of the death penalty, the perpetrator will be less likely to kill the victim in addition to abusing them. If the death penalty was administered to rapists, then there would be no sense for a rapist to ever let a victim live.
What issues though? If someone commits crimes that are universally deemed as being heinous (murder/rape), they are called evil. It's just a word that people have come up with to describe people who commit those crimes.
I know what you're saying but I'm not sure I understand what bearing that has. A person's childhood, however much it impacts their future, should not be used to explain away certain bad behaviors.
It's a terrible tragedy, but still not an excuse. For every victim as a child who becomes an abuser, there are dozens of others who went on to live perfectly normal lives. Same thing with alcoholics or anyone whose parents grew up with certain vices.
If you wouldn't throw them in jail, what else would you suggest? Counseling? Therapy? In addition to jailing maybe.
A lot of what I would say to you has already been said, so I won't trample over the same ground. Instead let me welcome you. Pally is correct, we all "suffer" to various degrees, and seeking help in those times is always the right thing to do. If you ever feel you are struggling with the whole suicide thing, never hesitate to PM me. I've been their more than once, I've been hospitalised more than once and I have come out a stronger person.
Cheers,
I can only imagine the horror of the things you've experienced in your life but I would believe you if you told me about them because I understand how this world can be. It can be very, very bad. Human suffering has no bounds and we suffer in ways that are, at times, almost incomprehensible. That's what happens here in this world. That's the way things are sometimes.
But things aren't always that way and although we are often the products of our experiences we also have the ability to transcend those experiences, sometimes in ways that seem miraculous. Some people just seem to rise up from the worst possible brutalities and it never ceases to amaze me. In fact, it's those people I think of when I'm full of self pity because they snap me out of it. I can say, "If they can survive atrocities like that with their humanity and compassion not only intact but strengthened, then I can survive this and be the better for it." Those are the people that inspire me to keep going.
And you might be one of those people because the one thing you and they all have in common is the innate wisdom to reach out when in despair. They reached out, sometimes blindly, and someone somewhere took their hand. Not usually at first either. It probably took a few tries before someone responded to their suffering with kindness and compassion because just as you said, they were too busy with their own suffering to take on someone else's.
I hope we can be the hand that touches yours and tells you that you're truly not alone, that you're never alone, no matter how much it may seem that way at times. I hope we can give you enough hope and support to hang on just a little while longer because you never know what's coming around the next corner.
In the end the choice to keep going is yours although now that you have a child I imagine you'll be taking that into consideration. If for nothing else, you have your child to live for and there's no greater gift a mother can give to her child than a healthy parent. A healthy, peaceful, joyful mind and heart are absolutely possible for you and you already know that otherwise you wouldn't have reached out. So now all you have to do is find it and as Les wisely and truly pointed out, it's not that far from you because that which you seek is causing you to seek.
I'm going to look for some good links about meditation and I'll post them in a new thread for you as soon as I find them.
Welcome to the forum and I'm very happy indeed to meet you.
Throwing people in jail is not productive. It's hugely expensive on an entirely practical level and highly unhelpful, to put it mildly, on a holistic level.
You cannot, absolutely cannot, stop things happening in society without examining their causes. Unless you stumble upon the solution by accident which is less than satisfying and for human beings able to feel, express and analyse their emotions it's a bit lame not to use these faculties.
Just labelling black sheep is at the level of animals, rejecting a weakling in a pack/ herd... etc.
Universally branding people evil is not just 'a thing we do', it's something we do, like everything, for a reason. In this case to make ourselves feel good, pure, like 'proper' citizens. More pertinently, like we couldn't do the same.
Understanding why people abuse (and those ex-victims who don't) is not the same as condoning their actions. It is nothing like it.
Yes, I definitely would suggest psychotherapy (not counselling, something with depth and structure) and living under some kind of surveillance in a jail where the abusers are made to work, exercise, do therapy and get better but not do nothing all day, in total sloth and introspection. Rights come with responsibilites, I don't think these people know what their responsibilities in society are and maybe see themselves as children attracted to other children.
If they don't see themselves as adults and don't assume caretaking responsibilities then we have to caretake them until they become fully functioning adults.
My opinion of course.
Palzang
Whatever these themes are and however they affect you, I send you all my love and prayers at this time.
Make sure you tell your friends here when you need support.