Posts tagged abuse

I recently participated in an online bullying and cyber bullying conference for the anti-bullying advocacy organization called www.cybercitizen.org. I gave a live webinar presentation on elder bullying, also known as elder abuse.

I really enjoyed participating in this event and who like to take this opportunity to thank Brian and the organizers at cybercitizen for reaching out into communities and helping educate people on a full-spectrum of bullying topics which the conferenced helped raise awareness for.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to talk alittle about the topic of elder bullying: Some things you should know about elder abuse: Abuse can occur in many ways, most commonly through finanical manipulation and stealing, but also occurs from neglect, physical abuse such as beating or restraining, or emotional abuse such as teasing.

What may suprise some is to know that elder abuse is most commonly conducted by the adult children of these elderly persons. They may abuse their aging parents for many reasons, any of which is not accepatble of ocurse, as abuse is never justified. Some reasons though include difficult reactions to the emotional experience of their parents aging and the fear, guilt, confusion, and such that goes along with it.

Want to learn more about what I have to say on bullying and abuse topics? Check out my videos here: http://markdworkin.com/video-store/.

You may also be interested in these articles from my website: http://markdworkin.com/articles-problems-solutions/bullying-abuse-trauma/

I’m aware that when we talk about bullying and abuse we usually don’t think about the government and its role. However, it’s time to speak out against governmental abuse of our teenagers, and young men and women in their 20’s and 30’s. I am talking about our brave military heroes who are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, and God knows where else they will be fighting. You might ask, how can you consider this abuse when these people volunteered to serve their country?

Someone might think that this argument has merit, after all they knew that there was a war going on, and they knew that they would be in harm’s way. However, I don’t think there was any expectation that they would be sent back for many tours of duty in a war zone. I never served, so I can’t tell you firsthand what it feels like to be under threat 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But I worked at the Bronx VA medical center in the 70’s and the 80’s, and I can tell you that we were not equipped to handle our brave warriors who fought and were wounded in Vietnam. Instead, we were taught to look for signs that our combat veterans were trying to get service-connected disabilities so that they wouldn’t have to work. How’s that for caring? Starting with Kennedy, LBJ, and Nixon, we threw our kids into a lot of fire. The only thing that has been reasonably helpful is that due to the war in Vietnam post-traumatic stress disorder became a legitimate psychiatric diagnosis, and has since helped many people get the help they need and deserve.

Today we now have something 10 times worse than before. Not only do we have all volunteers from all branches of the military involved in dangerous combat situations, but we are pulling from the National Guard and the Reserves to go back time and time again to face the danger of being killed by a roadside bomb or direct fire. If this were not bad enough, consider how little the Veterans Administration is actually doing for our kids. In 2011, there were approximately 250,000 claims filed for post-traumatic stress disorder. I doubt that the Masters of the Veterans Administration, regardless of political party, will do much to serve this population, or give them their rightful disability pensions.

How can you send the child to a war zone 5, 6, 7, times and not expect him or her to come home severely psychologically scarred? I doubt that anyone in the National Guard ever expected to be called to duty in these kinds of situations. When you force someone to do something that may get them killed, and they are virtually powerless to protect themselves from our own government, it is abusive.

Take that example and then add to it. How many of our children who serve the country with integrity, respect, bravery, and loyalty have to come home in wooden boxes, or emotionally and physically broken? I know from my friends who still work at the VA that the needs of those who served are not being adequately met. Since my area is mental health I can only talk about those 250,000 who are not being well served. Every VA in the country should be hiring trainers in various forms of trauma treatment; and these trainers should be on staff until all mental health clinicians are competent in many forms of trauma treatment. But that costs money, and the government has already spent quite a bit on throwing them in line of fire, so why should they care about the suffering that comes afterwards when the government has no more use for our brave warriors?

This is the way it has been and this is the way it always will be. If you’re not making money for us for protecting our vital interests, why should we care about your well-being? We used you, and we don’t need you anymore. Go away. If this isn’t abuse on a massive scale then I don’t know what is.

By the way, I have a secret way of ending the war in Afghanistan. Would you like to know my secret?

• Institute the draft again, and I guarantee that within the year, the war will be over. Until that time let’s all wage a letter writing campaign, and the protest movement to demand that our government live up to the responsibilities of Abraham Lincoln. You may not know it but he started the Veterans Administration. The motto, “to care for he who has borne the battle,” must be reinstated, otherwise Lincoln’s vision will be nothing more than window dressing.
• If you want to fund the VA: make it illegal for CEOs of banks, and anyone who was bailed out in their social welfare system to take anything more than a one dollar salary, and no bonuses whatsoever. While we are at it, let’s throw out all for-profit lobbyists who advocate for their special-interest groups who make obscene amounts of money, and instead of funding the rich through laws that are bought and paid for by the lobbyists, let’s give the money to the Veterans Administration to help the kids who have been severely wounded while serving our great country. Without them these corporate criminals won’t be able to keep up their shenanigans.

If we can do this, imagine the emotional lives we could save. Also without funding the VA properly and without adequate care and attention for those who’ve served, imagine how many lives will be ruined forever. Think of how many many less children would turn to drugs and alcohol to quell their pain. Think of how many less domestic violence cases there would be. Imagine how many children of these brave warriors will not be traumatized by their fathers and mothers who suffer from post-traumatic stress.

Mr. Obama, Mr. Romney, Mr. Santorum, Mr. Gingrich, Mr. Paul, members of Congress, where are your voices on the subject? Why are you not screaming out about this gross inequity. These are our children, not just mine, not just yours. Whoever is elected has a moral obligation to protect, defend, and help heal these brave boys and girls we have put in such danger. Where is your moral compass? Where are your ethics? Or are you only in this for the money?

This is a gross governmental abuse of our children and I personally hold every elected official responsible, as they serve US, they are supposed to represent US. Shame on all of them.

I grew up as an only child. My grandmother lived with us, and she was practically deaf and blind. I found out later in my life that it was the checks that she got from the government that helped us live through difficult times. My father didn’t have a steady job from the time I was five years old until I was 17.

This created an enormous amount of stress in my home, which was a two-bedroom apartment in the Bronx. My father was 45 years old when I was born and my mother was 35. They weren’t really prepared to have a child, so as soon as I was old enough to stand, I was told that I was expected to be their perfect little man. Of course you can’t make a child into a perfect little man without doing some harm. What made it even worse was that anytime I disappointed them, or made my father irritated, or wouldn’t give into my mother’s guilt trips, I would be severely punished.

My father was way too free with his hands, and I had to suffer a number of physical beatings. However that wasn’t the worst of it. Besides being yelled at, the worst thing my parents did was to shun me for any small infraction. Imagine, I’m four years old, I have no one to talk with or play with, and the only people who can talk, see, and hear are my parents. Now imagine how it felt to be shunned by them. The shunning could go on for days until I couldn’t take it anymore and I had to humiliate myself by apologizing for things that these days I can see were just the workings of being a little boy.

As I grew I rebelled. In my era it was sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll. And I took part in all of them. Then I stabilized and I met and married my wife of almost 29 years. I made a promise to myself that I would never touch either of my sons. I also promised myself that I would never take my temper out on any of the three of them. I’m proud of myself because I kept my promise.

I’m sure there are many of you out there who were not as lucky as I was and had it much worse. I’d like to know what your stories are. If you need to reach me you can e-mail mark@MarkDworkin.com. You can also visit my website, www.MarkDworkin.com and read more about what I write about the subject.

Peace