abuse – Page 5 – The View from a Drawbridge

I have a dear friend with an IQ of 170. He also has a heart as big as all outdoors and is generous to a fault. I love him to pieces. But as with many geniuses, he is lacking some indefinable something in the social realm. He doesn’t seem to see things as they are.

He has a childlike sense of justice. He reminds me of me when I was 8 years old. I’d whine, “But that’s not fair!” and my mother would say, “Life isn’t fair.” That would drive me insane.

Don’t get me wrong. I haven’t fully evolved past that little 8 year old inside of me. When someone gets after me about the unfairness of life, it still makes me grit my teeth. I have a well-developed sense of moral outrage when I see someone’s human rights being violated. I absolutely hate it when a good person gets taken advantage of. And woe betide the individual who abuses an animal in my presence.

But my friend takes it to a whole new level. He actually thinks that since he works hard and does a good job, if he reasons with his boss he’ll get a raise. He’s certain that he can’t be replaced and that his value will be recognized. He’s sure that if someone breaks the law and you are the victim, some lawyer whom you can’t afford will step up and volunteer to help you. All you have to do is ask. He believes that if you need assistance in one form or another, some social worker will magically appear and completely set aside his or her entire caseload to solve your problem. Being ripped off by an unscrupulous landlord? Simply call the housing commission, tell them your story, and they will swoop right in and straighten her out, and you can go on living on her property, happily ever after. She’ll even bake you a cake on your birthday. If he were the boss or the lawyer or the social worker or the landlord, all would be well. But he can’t save the world, as much as he’d like to.

I would love to live in his world. Everyone would play by the rules and go above and beyond for you, and the trains would always run on time. Politicians would actually give a shit. Old ladies would always be helped across the street, no one would have to lock their doors, drivers would never run red lights, and there would be no stray cats.

It sounds wonderful, but it must be exhausting for a 60 year old man to expect the universe to function that way and have to face constant disappointment. I’d much rather hope for the best but leave room for delight if it actually happens. It’s a messy, unruly, out of control planet, but at least the sun still shines equally upon us all.

There just never seems to be a super hero around when you need one.

[Image credit: wallsave.com]

Blue Explains Why You Should Support Rescue Orgs

Hello, my name is Blue. This is me with my best friend Devo. I’m going to tell you my story and then ask you to do a few simple things. I hope you will listen.

I’m 9 years old, but it’s a miracle that I’m alive. You see, I was born into a puppy mill. For the first 6 months of my life, I lived in a cage, up to my chest in feces and urine. There were 33 of us in that horrible place. The crying and howling never ended. We were starved and abused and we never saw daylight, never experienced even the slightest amount of affection or caring. On the rare occasion when our captor chose to feed us, she would simply pour the food into a big pile and let us fight over it. Only the strongest and the least sick would survive.

One day our captor decided that she deserved a vacation, and the person she hired to take care of us had enough of a conscience to let us out of the cage. For the first time, we left that room and had the run of the house. But she didn’t have the courage to do more than that. Finally, weeks later, a neighbor, hearing the howls, smelling the smells, and noting that no one had been there for weeks on end, was kind enough to complain to the authorities, and this is what they found.

As you can see, that brown carpet used to be blue.

It was so soaked with our urine that our rescuers had to wear gas masks to enter the house because the amount of ammonia made the air unsafe to breathe. And yet that’s what we had been breathing our whole lives.

As you may have noticed, we were pretty thin and had a lot of health issues when we were found. Thanks to their excellent care though, we were soon healthy again, and were adopted by loving families.

I can’t speak for the others, but I can say that the emotional scars still remain for me. When my mom, the person who usually writes this blog, first got me, I was so unused to the great outdoors that I wouldn’t go into the yard to do my business without her being right beside me the whole time. And even then, if I heard the slightest sound, like a car backfiring several blocks away, I would bolt screaming back into the house and shake in a corner for hours. It took me 6 months before I could enjoy the sunshine and even think about playing. Now I love to play with my friend Devo. We race all around the yard and have a lot of fun.

To this day, though, I’m scared of strangers, especially men with belts. Belts terrify me. I don’t even like them if they are lying around untouched. The story behind that is something I choose to keep to myself, but I bet you can guess.

I also still have a lot of issues with food. At feeding time, even though I have my very own bowl now, and Devo is the only other dog in the house and he is very kind to me, I’ll take a mouthful of food, run into another room, eat it there, then come back for more. I learned my lesson well. Where the food is, there is usually the danger of being attacked by other starving dogs. So it’s best to grab your share and run away.

My mom will sometimes tell me, with tears in her eyes, that I don’t have to be afraid anymore, but I’ve seen too much to believe her. But she lets me do what I need to do, which is really nice.

She also gives good cuddles, by the way, so I tend to stick to her like glue.

So that’s my story. I hope you will help me so that no other dog has to go through what I did.

Never buy a pet from a pet store. Ever. The vast majority of pet shop animals come from mills. If you support them, you encourage them.
Whenever possible, get your pets from rescue organizations such as your city’s Animal Care and Control department, or the Humane Society, or a rescue organization for a specific breed. There are so many of us out there who need your love.
Please also support these organizations through donations or volunteering your time. They need all the help they can get.
Please spay or neuter your pets. They will live longer, healthier lives, and they will not bring more animals into a world that already has too many.
If you absolutely insist on buying your pet from a breeder, make sure it is licensed, and take the time to actually inspect the facility. The WHOLE facility. Yes, there are responsible breeders out there, but many are not. Make sure you aren’t supporting a puppy mill. It may even be that my captor started out as a responsible breeder, and then got overwhelmed or mentally ill. We’ll never know. But it’s important that you monitor your breeder carefully, and if he or she is a responsible one, that shouldn’t be a problem.

If you have given a pet a loving home, thank you. If you’ve lost a pet that you loved a lot, I’m sorry. But I hope you will adopt again. We need you.

Killer Instinct

I have a confession to make. I’m a killer. And I don’t feel the least bit of shame. I’ll do it again, I guarantee you. If a cockroach or a brown recluse spider stupidly breeches my line of chemical defense and enters my house, there to potentially bite me and rot my flesh or ruin my food or spread disease, that sucker is going down.

Upon first sighting, my mind goes all primal. The only thought I have is, “Kill it, kill it, kill it!” I used to then scream for my boyfriend, but the last two I’ve had have been absolutely worthless in this bloodthirsty realm, so now I just try to get above my panic and then go into heartless hunter mode until the deed is done.

And woe be unto the flea who makes the mistake of trying to feed off one of my dogs. There’s nothing more satisfying than hearing a flea’s little body snap between my finger nails. Take that, you blood sucker!

I don’t get people like my boyfriend who find it morally wrong to kill cockroaches. I think nature trumps morality every single time. If you encountered a hungry mountain lion in the wild, do you think he’d feel the least bit guilty about feasting upon your entrails? Most assuredly not. And then the vultures would come and nibble on the less desirable bits, and the worms would devour what’s left.

Rats will even eat their own, leaving hantavirus in their wake, so I have no problem with deadly rat traps. I also don’t mind those who humanely trap and relocate higher mammals, even though many of them spread disease, too. This is partly because I know deep down that this territory I inhabit used to be theirs, and partly because I know if I were locked in mortal combat with a raccoon, I’d most likely lose.

I’m not all bad, though. I have been known to pull my car over on the side of the road to let a lizard hop off my windshield, and I’ve helped more than one turtle cross a highway. I’ll put out birdseed in the winter, and I get heartily annoyed with people who let their cats outside, thus depleting the songbird population. I also let ladybugs fly away home.

And I think people who abuse animals should be locked away forever, in conditions identical to the ones they imposed upon their innocent victims.

So where is the line that I draw? If you will intentionally kill me or make me sick, then you are fair game. I’ll kill you every day of the week and twice on Sunday. If, on the other hand, you are simply trying to live your furry or scaly or slithery little life, and we’ve crossed paths merely by chance, I’ll do my best to help you on your way.

So yes, I’ll kill, and feel no remorse. I think those who refuse to do so would be much better served feeling guilty about doing the things that animals do not do themselves, such as polluting or embezzling or pedophilia.

Perspective.

“We Accept the Love We Think We Deserve”

That is one of the main messages in the movie The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and it really hits home for me.

My whole life, I’ve had a problem with boundaries, or, actually, a lack of boundaries. In essence, I’ve allowed people to step all over me because I was obsessed with being a nice person. Even if someone was unspeakably rude to me, I was never rude back, and I certainly didn’t call them on their behavior. I’ve allowed myself to be ripped off, stepped on, and emotionally abused. As a child in school, when I was bullied or beaten up, I never fought back. I’ve always found it amazingly difficult to say, “No,” “Go away,” “Leave me alone,” or “F*** off.” In short, I’ve taken massive amounts of crap in my lifetime because if people see an opportunity to take advantage, they will do so, and I practically had “WELCOME” tattooed on my forehead.

This lack of boundaries goes hand in glove with accepting the love we think we deserve, because when your borders are kind of fuzzy, you begin to think you deserve the intrusions you suffer as a result.

Ah, but the universe is a wonderful teacher, is it not? It often seems as though the very type of person who needs to be put in your path so that you might learn and grow will be dropped there like an obstructive boulder, and you will be forced to go over, under, around or through that person to get to the other side.

I have to say that being in a relationship with someone with a Narcissistic Personality Disorder can be brutal and devastating, but it can also be an opportunity for growth like no other. When someone in your life knows how to push your buttons and doesn’t hesitate to do so, you learn exactly what your buttons are, and that gives you the opportunity to explore the reason behind those buttons. That can be quite useful.

When you are essentially living with a big old bully, you either learn to stick up for yourself or you cave in under the pressure. I decided to stick up for myself. And now, I must say, I don’t take crap from anyone. I am a woman of steel.

At first I was a little militant about it, a little rigid. I can see how it would have been easy to become a bully myself. But with time I learned to tone it down, and now I don’t push, but neither do I allow intrusions on my boundaries. I’m not afraid to establish my very reasonable rules, and if someone doesn’t like those rules, well, there are plenty of other people out there to play the game with.

The other day one of my coworkers said that she needed me to go through all our grocery bags that we use for trash bags and throw out the ones that had holes. Five years ago I might have done it. I’d have resented it, but I’d probably have done it. On this day, though, I just looked her square in the eye and said, “Uh…no. If you have a problem with bags with holes in them, simply throw them out when you come across one.” And that was that. It was a little thing, but for me it was a triumph, and a hard-won triumph at that.

But all this boundary drawing has had a delightful effect. Many of the people I love are actually behaving much more courteously, and it actually seems like it’s a relief not only to me, but to them as well. People actually like to know where the limits are. It makes it that much easier to travel through life without bumping into stuff. And having boundaries of your own teaches you to respect those of others as well.

So the trick is to determine the kind of love you want, and better yet, the love you don’t want, and then apply the restrictions accordingly, and you’ll be amazed how well your personal frontiers will be respected.

Peace in the kingdom. Maybe it’s not that hard after all.

Why can’t People be Saved?

Okay, before you get all worked up, let me start by saying I’m not talking about religion here. I’m not touching that third rail. At least not in this particular blog entry.

I’m referring to the fact that the older you get, the more often you can see some people’s lives as slow motion train wrecks. You stand there at the platform watching that train go past, wanting to get it to stop, knowing in the very marrow of your bones that it’s about the jump the tracks, and there’s not a thing you can do about it. It’s a horrible feeling.

You feel it when a young girl marries the guy who has “only” hit her a couple of times. You feel it when someone thinks they can handle heroin, or when they take unnecessary risks with their safety or their money. You hear the chug chug chug of the train at family get togethers when Cousin Bobby has had a little too much to drink and is clearly about to tell Aunt Georgina some home truths that he’s been saving up for her for decades. You whisper, “Don’t do it…” but he does.

It’s a natural instinct to want to save people whom you care about. But it’s also a natural instinct for people to want to live their own lives, and unfortunately that includes making their own mistakes. People are not pawns on your own personal chess board. You have to let them make their own moves, no matter how hard it is to watch.

If someone asks for your advice, feel free to give it. If someone wants you to listen, listen. If someone asks you for help, by all means provide it if you can and if you think it will make a difference. By all means assist in the clean up after the fact. But don’t spend too much time on that platform, bearing witness, or someday you might get hit by the debris.

How to Become a Battered Woman

My whole life I’ve looked at battered women with sadness and pity, but I have to admit that I always viewed them with a certain level of disdain. I’d never let that happen to me. Never. How do you get in that position? How do you let someone disrespect you like that, harm you like that, and yet not walk away? I could never put up with that from anyone.

But I learned a very hard lesson recently, one that makes me look at battered women in a whole new light. What I’ve never realized is that it’s a quiet, creeping progression. It’s not like a woman gets beaten on the first date and decides that she’s going to live with that person happily ever after. No. You start off as one person, and somehow, slowly over time, you change. Then one day you look up and you say to yourself, “How did I get here?”

You see, it starts off so well at first. You are swept off your feet. You are charmed. You think you’ve found “the one”. You feel loved and protected and cherished and more attractive than you’ve ever felt in your whole life. Your heart is overflowing with happiness, and you dare to dream that you may actually have a bright future to look forward to after all. It’s like winning the lottery when you’ve never even had the confidence to buy a ticket.

That honeymoon stage can go on for a long time. Long enough to really get you hooked. And then one day he breaks through the first boundary. He loses his temper. But not like a typical couple’s quarrel. It’s epic. And all the more so because you never expected that he was capable of such behavior. What happened to the guy you fell in love with? You are kind of in shock. You don’t really know what to think. And the next day he acts as if nothing has happened.

You almost wonder if you imagined it. You make excuses. He was tired. You really were wrong. Everyone has a bad day now and then. Maybe you’re making too much of it. But there have been warning signs. He has spoken of other friends or relatives with anger, and he seems to hold on to that anger without ever moving on. But up until now, it was never directed at you.

Things settle down for a few days, maybe a week, and you really start to think it was just an anomaly. Then it happens again. Only this time, he says something that really, really hurts you. He picks something you’re vulnerable about and he sticks an emotional fork into it and twists. Boundary number two.

This time you’re pretty sure that you did nothing to deserve this. You didn’t realize he felt this way about you. You start to wonder about him, and how he can be so cruel. He saw you cry. He knows he hurt you. You wait for an apology, but it never comes.

The next few days he’s really, really nice to you. He gives you compliments. He makes you feel like you are the most wonderful person in the world. In the back of your mind you try to reconcile this with the cruel things he said earlier, but you can’t.

You tell yourself that he’s being really, really nice because he feels horrible about his behavior, and this is his way of apologizing. Not everyone is good at coming right out and saying things. Men, particularly, are not known for communicating feelings. So maybe this is how he does it. And as he showers you with compliments, you think this is good enough.

But over time, he shows his temper more quickly and more often. You find yourself thinking ahead so that you can avoid things that are likely to set him off. He hates the way you drive, so you let him drive. He wants the towels folded a certain way in the linen closet, and really, is that such a big deal? So you fold them his way.

As you start to accumulate more rules, your ability to function effectively becomes more and more compromised. For instance, he hates to be reminded of things as he’s heading out the door, so even though you know he’s going to forget something, you are hesitant to remind him. But then, he also hates forgetting things, so you are damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Another item on your decision tree is, “Has he started drinking yet?” If yes, abort inquiry.

Don’t misunderstand. You are no shrinking violet. You are not passive during his rages. When he shouts, you learn to shout back. Maybe you even kick him out of the house. But eventually you take him back, because the good times are so good. And he misses you. And maybe you feel sorry for him. You definitely feel sorry for yourself.

It doesn’t help that he can paint such pretty pictures of what your life will be like together. If this one hurdle can be jumped over, everything is going to be so great. The implication being that now he’s under a lot of pressure, but once things get better, he will get better too.

But his behavior is changing. He’s starting to learn from you. He begins to know what things really cause you pain. Do you hate to be considered stupid? Then brace yourself, because he will certainly make you feel stupid when he’s angry. Do you love your dogs more than life itself? Then he will hate your dogs and everything about your dogs and he will imply that you’re stupid for even having dogs.

Then one day he rages about your housekeeping skills, and your first thought is, “Great, now here’s a whole new set of rules, and I’m never going to be able to keep track of them all.” You look forward to a lifetime of desperately trying to keep everything neat as a pin to avoid conflict, and the concept exhausts you.

And the worst part is you watch him behave decently to total strangers, so you know he’s capable of decency. He just chooses to not behave that way with you. Why? What did you do to deserve this? He’ll be happy to tell you. This is all your fault. Nothing you do is right. You aren’t trying hard enough. You are hypersensitive. You’re crazy. You’re the one. And you start to wonder if that may be true.

Unfortunately, by now you can’t talk to anyone about it. You’re too embarrassed and ashamed. You don’t want to scare off your friends, and your family won’t understand why you don’t simply walk away. So you’re completely and utterly alone without any positive validation.

Then one day, finally, he loses it in front of a witness. Boundary number three. Maybe he shouts at you in the driveway in front of the neighbor. And you see the look of shock in that neighbor’s eyes. You remember that look. You used to get that look at first. And suddenly you realize that you are no longer shocked. You’re used to it. You have come to expect it. It has become the norm. When did that happen?

In between all the bad times, though, there are still very good times. And those become all the more precious and poignant because you don’t know when the next bad time will come along. You cling to those good times. You never want to let them go.

Therein lies the problem. In order to hold on to those good times, you have to hold onto the man, and unfortunately the bad times are also part of the man. You feel a thick blanket of depression descend upon you, because you begin to twist yourself into knots trying to figure out a way to accentuate the positive and avoid the negative. You convince yourself that if you can only come up with the right combination of…whatever it is, maybe you’ll get to keep the good guy and the bad guy will go away. But you can’t find that combination, and you therefore feel yourself sinking down into a depressing status quo.

And then one day he crosses boundary number four. A chair gets thrown. Oh, not at you. You’re probably not even in the room. And thank God your dogs aren’t there, either. But you hear the crash, you feel the fury, and you are terrified. Terrified in your own home. Because what happens when he crosses boundary number five?

It is easy to imagine what boundary number five would be like. I will never know if that boundary would have been crossed, because I chose to end things. I’d like to think that it wouldn’t have been crossed because he had no history of ever doing so, but the fact that I couldn’t be sure is what gave me the strength to walk away.

And even though intellectually I know I did the right thing, the insane thing is that I still feel as if I’m going off heroin cold turkey. I miss the good stuff. It was better than anything I’ve ever experienced in my life. I’m in mourning for those pretty pictures of a future that I’ll never have, I’m terrified about how I’ll make it on my own, I practically have a panic attack when thinking of facing the holidays all alone, and I’m lonely to the point of physical pain. I feel lacerated, and I wonder if I’ll ever heal.

I have been to the rim of the abyss and I’ve looked down into it. I didn’t like what I saw. Because of that, I will never ever look at a battered woman with disdain again. Even though I’ve never been beaten myself (thank God), now I understand. I get it.

[Image credit: narcissisticabuse.com]

Feminism: Why does it Terrify You?

Without a doubt, my most polarizing blogs are the ones with even the slightest feminist theme, and that always astounds me. Honestly, if you look at the definition, what on earth could you possibly take issue with?

fem·i·nism

[fem-uh-niz-uhm] noun

1. The doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men.

2. An organized movement for the attainment of such rights for women.

3. Feminine character.

What could possibly be wrong with wanting equal rights, equal pay, and respect? What’s the problem with not wanting to be sexually harassed? Can there possibly be people out there, in this day and age, who think women deserve to be abused either physically, sexually, or emotionally?

The vast majority of feminists aren’t man-hating, bra-burning radicals who expect special treatment. We just want equal treatment. Is that too much to ask? What I find sad it that we even have to ask.

How is it possible that men can see women as inferior when they have without a doubt had mothers, sisters, and aunts? How do you look at those people sitting down with you at the dinner table and think, “this one deserves more out of life than that one.”

I realize this is an extremely complex issue. As long as there are women in the world who are gang raped on buses, as long as female babies are aborted simply for being female, as long as there are forced marriages and travel restrictions and genital mutilation and glass ceilings, there will be a need for a feminist movement. But fundamental equality, for anyone who has even the slightest bit of common sense, should not be something to fear.

I suppose that in any situation in which there is an anticipation of any form of power shift, however slight, someone is bound to feel threatened. But honestly, guys, you have nothing to worry about. We’re not going to make you wear aprons or, God forbid, pink, if you don’t want to. And if we ask you to step up and wash the occasional dish, it won’t kill you.

Everything is going to be all right. Really.

Condom Socks and Other Privately Public Things

As I write this, I am wearing the most comfortable socks I’ve ever owned. And to add to their allure, they have the word “condom” woven across the sole. It’s like walking around with my own little secret that no one would guess unless I chose to reveal it.

These socks were given to me by a dear friend who volunteers as an HIV counselor. It’s one of the incentives they give out when someone gets tested, as I did recently. When they came in, he texted me. “We have condom socks!” and I replied, “For foot fetishists?”

No one is certain as to the logic behind these socks, but I suppose a certain number of people like to do the deed with their socks on and this allows them to quietly remind their partners that safe sex is a good idea. And before you ask (because believe me you wouldn’t be the first), no, there is no reservoir in the toe.

I was sitting in the library the other day with my condom socks on, and I started looking around at people, wondering what secrets they wear, even though they’re in public. My sister used to like to wear lacy girly undergarments beneath her Air Force uniform, for instance. And I was looking at the men, thinking, “Boxers, briefs or commando?” when it suddenly occurred to me that a certain number might be wearing women’s underwear. No one would know.

And then there are those who have hidden tattoos. How many of those are cherished, and how many are an embarrassment from an impetuous youth? And prison tattoos. You can spot them from a mile away if they’re not covered up.

Jewelry can be highly personal, too. It can even be out in the open, but you have no idea what its significance might be to the wearer. Take wedding rings. How many are worn with joy, and how many emotionally chafe to the point that one longs to toss them in the nearest retention pond?

And how many victims of abuse are hiding their bruises, cuts and scars? How many people sport needle tracks? How many have visible health issues which they are desperately concealing?

If you’re like me, you look at people every day and you make certain assumptions based on the picture that they present to the world. But when you think about it, it’s such a thin veneer that is revealed to us. There’s so much more that could reside just a few millimeters below the surface. We are all encased in cocoons of privacy, whether it’s obvious or not.

Why I Hate Alcohol

I haven’t had a drink in 30 years. Not even a beer. Suddenly one day I realized that I had never left a bar feeling better about myself. And then there was the time when I was 17 and woke up in the trunk of my car. No idea how I got there. Fortunately the lid wasn’t closed.

Over the years, with the benefit of sober clarity, I’ve come to hate alcohol and everything it stands for.

Because of my father’s love of alcohol, I never got to meet him. I never knew what it was like to feel safe, protected and loved by a father. Because of his alcohol I grew up on welfare, and wound up living in a tent. Because of alcohol I was thrust into a nightmare of sexual abuse. Because of alcohol I never felt confident or self-assured, and was never taught that I deserved good things, or how to choose a decent man to share my life with.

Alcohol not only devastates the drinker, but everyone who is sucked into his or her destructive orbit.

Drunk drivers kill people every single day, and often walk away from those accidents unscathed themselves. They leave children without parents, and parents to mourn their children for the rest of their lives.

I HATE it when alcoholism is described as a disease. Granted, some people are more predisposed to be alcoholics than others, but in my opinion it should be described as a mental health issue or an addiction at most. It’s a disorder in which the individual makes poor choices, and is selfish, selfish, selfish to the point of not caring about the havoc that those choices wreak on family, friends, and the wider community.

I also resent it when people try to pressure me into drinking. They are uncomfortable in indulging in this habit if everyone around them isn’t doing the same, so I get to be bullied, as if I have to apologize for doing what is right for me.

Sure, there are those out there who can drink socially and in moderation. But if that’s the case, why bother? Alcohol, even in moderation, takes away money and time that could be better spent elsewhere. Alcohol is a waste. And those responsible drinkers in question help make drinking seem socially acceptable, and that only encourages alcoholics to remain in denial for that much longer. A certain percentage of society will survive Russian roulette, but does that mean that they should show others who might not be so lucky how to play the game?

Alcohol gives people the liquid courage to be cruel, to be bullies, to be violent and to humiliate the people they claim to love. Alcohol makes you look like a fool. Alcohol destroys families, weddings, reunions, holidays, birthdays, funerals, graduations, concerts, parties, and untold numbers of public events. Alcohol encourages criminality and causes suicides. Alcohol destroys businesses, ruins livelihoods, causes homelessness, devastates relationships and undermines trust.

Alcohol is a fluid wall that you thrust between yourself and the people who want to spend time with you. It’s a sword that you use to strike out at others. It makes you feel that screaming and shouting and hitting and hurting are acceptable. And in the end, alcohol will leave you all alone in the world, with nothing but your own regrets to keep you warm as you survey the chilling destruction that you have caused.

When my father died his cold, lonely alcoholic death, they found in his wallet a picture of my mother on their honeymoon—a woman he hadn’t had any contact with in 25 years. What a sad and pathetic reminder of what could have been. What should have been.

[See also my blog entry, Another Rant About Alcoholism.]

(Image credit: sharecare.com)

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Tag: abuse

Why Are We Shocked?