walkingman

A young child suffers repeated beatings from his father. A young wife is repeatedly called a whore, a slut, and a bitch by her husband. An elderly mother is repeatedly forced to go hungry by her adult son. A divorced mother of three is forced to weekly perform oral sex on her boss in order to keep her lousy clerical job. A puppy given as a present many months ago has now grown into a dog which spends its life tied to a chain in the backyard with little or no food, water, or shelter. All these are real cases of abuse. The form of abuse may be different but they all qualify as abuse. The first is physical abuse. It is also an example of child abuse. It is horrible. Too many people want to pretend that it does not exist. No matter how much you want to pretend it will not go away. When you see it or live it, you will know that it is real. It does not go away. The child blames himself and wonders what he did wrong. It is his fault. The first time I saw the pictures I threw up and had a real hard time getting the images out of my mind. They are still there and they do haunt me to this day. But seeing the damage in person was even worse. Then you cannot vomit, you cannot flinch, as you are the childs advocate. You get angry and want to have five minutes alone with this so-called parent. Then you realize that you may be prone to violence but you are not like that parent. You can control yourself. But you wonder where were the others? How come no one came to this kids aid? The young wife is afraid of her husband. He uses words to emotionally abuse her. He may never lay a hand nor leave a bruise on the outside but he is leaving plenty of damage behind, it is just all on the inside. His words cut and they cut deep. He knows how and where to cut and she is his victim. It is an insidious form of abuse. It is much harder to prove but sometimes these guys mouths prove to be their downfall. They cannot stop the talking no matter who is present to hear their drivel. Elder abuse is on the rise at the population ages and as more people are faced with what to do with older parents. The economic downturn has only increased the problem. It is too expensive to put the parents in a nursing home and so they are cared for at home. But they still require lots of care, time and money. It is easier to drug them and make them more docile. Take their Social Security money and use it for your needs instead of theirs. After all they are just old people waiting to die. A shameful way to repay your parents and it shows little respect for the elderly. One day we will all be old and look at the example we are teaching our kids. Heaven help us. Sexual abuse has no place in the work place, in the home, or anywhere else. It is just plain wrong and nasty. I can represent the victim in the work place but cannot handle the kid cases. I get too angry and too passionate. The images and the stories just overwhelm me as a father and as a human being. I cannot conceive as to why anyone in their right mind would do such a thing. To me it is just sick. Then we get to animal abuse. Before you are going to adopt an animal think about it. Are you prepared to make the sacrifices needed to raise that animal? Too many people love the cute puppy or kitten and forget that this tiny animal is going to grow up into an adult dog or cat. Then what? Are you ready to deal with this animal? Too many times the answer is no and the innocent animal suffers because someone did not plan ahead. I think too many of us turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the abuses and abusers around us. We must not allow them to prosper and thrive in our world. We need to stand up to them and get rid of them. Often someone who is an abuser carries out more than one form of abuse on his victims so we must vigilant to root out all abusers.