Abuse

  It’s a loaded word and an uncomfortable topic that is surrounded by fear, silence, shame, and more. Almost every American will face some form of abuse towards themselves , and half as many will be the abuser. At some point in your life, everyone will be touched by abuse in some form and on some level. Maybe it’s you, a family member  or  friend, but maybe it’s a witnessed act from a stranger or the kid in your child’s class. 

  Abuse takes many forms…verbal, emotional, mental, financial, physical, and sexual. Abuse can impact men , women, children, adults, domestic partners, the elderly, and animals. Abuse can happen across all cultures, races, social classes, and economic statuses. A nurse faces the same statistics as a heiress , judge, or cashier. While women are at a higher risk , with 1 in 3 women experiencing some form of abuse in their life, and men facing a slightly lower chance with 1 in 4 men experienceing some form of abuse in their lifetime.

As much as I , and every other other son of a bitch out there, would like to see abuse, cruelty, violence and all other various forms of pain being inflicted on others stop, we don’t really live in a society to make that happen. Because the reality is that half of the human population are absolutely loving, kind, amazing examples of humanity and compassion. the other half are absolute shit and there is no method or reasoninging that goes into which one of them you will encounter and deal with throughout the course of your fucking day. Which always serves as the remibnder hat we can’t stop pain, hurt, cruelty or abuse. We can’t single handedly stop oppression and fix every wrong….hell we can’t even get half the people on this spinning rock to agree on a mutherfucking thing, let alone work together for any common good or to stop or end a goddamned thing.

So what can we do?

The best way to help end or stop abuse is to do our best to help ourselves and others recognize it, destigmatize it, support each other, and simply be there to have awkward conversations. To lead with kindness and offer an ear when we have nothing else. To give our best to teach oursleves and those closest to us how to recognize red flags, how to talk about them,  how to prevent and identify types of abuse, how to report and support acts of abuse. (I hope it goes without saying that we should never put ourselves or others at risk for violence)

  We may not be able to always help, we may not have the chance or safety to intervene, but we have t do our best to be informed, aware and available be a safe harbor when we see somone struggling.

…until next week