Now, I've never been one to say you shouldn't worry a little about what kids are doing online, just as you shouldn't worry a little and be careful about what they're doing anywhere they are. I've also never been one to buy the hype about how the internet is just full over predators and nothing else for kids.
Turns out, maybe there's something to the fact that the internet is not any more dangerous that any other gathering place for kids. I'm not the only one saying that the fear is largely unfounded.
Again, like I said, you want to be involved with what your kids are doing, but just because there was a big story on the news about Myspace or some other internet site, it probably isn't really any more dangerous than anywhere else your kids go.
This actually came in as a comment on a previous post. When I read it to decide whether to approve it or not, I thought that it wasn't really related to that post, but it certainly was related to the blog overall, so instead of keeping it with that post, I'm posting it here.
If you're interested in taking a look, and providing some feedback, please do!
I am not an abuse survivor myself, but I have created an online role-playing course which you may find interesting. It helps school teachers rehearse talking to a child whom they suspect of being abused.
As many abuse books attest, it's not easy to handle a conversation like this. Abused children are scared to talk, for good reason. Yet teachers are legally required to report "reasonable suspicion" of signs of child abuse. I'd be interested in feedback on this course. Anyone can go through the free trial (120+ pages of interactive dialogue) at http://www.hownottotalk.com/abuse. Help us make it better. Let us know if this course is helpful. Thank you!
This book review was sent in from our anonymous correspondent over in England. He also passed along this note:
Just for reference Childline, a free telephone number for abused and bullied kids to call for help and a listening ear, began in 1986, but within the past year, it was brought within the umbrella of the 100+ year old National Society For The Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC). I think that's the only reference that non-Brit survivors might not understand immediately.
Matt Lowe's book takes the autobiographical route of all 40+ years of his life, providing a before, during and after account of grooming and child abuse on a longer term scale and the frightening ease of routine with which that happened and continued. Being a bookseller's son it shows on the page that Lowe has the writing part in his blood - he takes great care to bring his childhood haunts and stomping grounds to life to illustrate his first 20 years, and also the "waterboarding" drip-drip corrosive effect of grooming, enticement and outright emotional blackmail employed by his abuser to continue his acts.
Most importantly for survivors, Lowe also describes the steps taken to not just get help in great detail but also the career paths which opened up for him as a result. It flashes back and forward from past to present but it's quite easy to follow and once I reached 100 pages out of 350, I decided to finish it in a single night even if it couldn't be called a novelistic page-turner.
Most importantly for the casual reader without any "baggage" on the subject, Lowe doesn't simplify or spare his own or anyone else's perceived failures or missed opportunities throughout any of his life, not the way his entire family was conned by the abuser in question, to how it continued after the years of grooming with his abuser trying to call his crimes a relationship in order to "keep" him, to the childhood isolation from family and breakup of his proper adult relationship and readjustment to plain fatherhood. It doesn't talk down to anyone else who was brainwashed and manipulated over a long period at the same time as being sexually abused.
Nowhere is there a hint of "poor me" to this book on the first reading. I essentially read it on two long sittings. I was waiting for the books's release and bought it to keep. There's no need for a second volume as it covers the author's life right up to where he is at the time of printing last year. It's a great book for British male survivors but in giving an uncompromising account of some the therapeutic steps involved, makes itself useful to survivors worldwide. I picked this up at the perfect time, one year into my healing process when I'm thinking about life after therapy, whenever that is, and The Family Friend also gives one man's view of how you move on.
Whenever it's published in your home country, look it up but give it the time it deserves, it's by no means a flick-read.
Want to have a book review posted? Feel free to pass it along to me if you don't have your own blog to post it to, I'd be glad to spread the word!
I finally found the time, and the correct bit of code "magic" to get the new Blogroll tool setup and running properly. Now I can get around to finally making updates to the lists!!
I went through tonight and removed a number of blogs that had either gone away, or not been updated in quite some time, and added a couple of new links that I remembered off the top of my head. I still need to go back through my emails and comments from people I've talked to about adding, or just wanted to add as a thank you for commenting here. I'm sure I'll still manage to miss a couple, so if you don't see your blog, let me know.
Also, if you have any suggestions for bloggers who are survivors f cancer, depression, or some disability, leave a comment so I can add them in the appropriate list as well!
Thanks!
It's up over at Survivor's Can Thrive. From my first glimpse, it looks like there is a ton of good stuff to read over there. Maybe more than I'll have time for!
Check it out!
Tags: CarnivalAgainstChildAbuse
Ever since Marj mentioned that she was giving this month's edition of the Carnival Against Child Abuse a love theme, I've been struggling with what I wanted to say about love. Obviously, with tomorrow being Valentine's Day, the idea of romantic love is in the air, but that is only really part of love. A small part at that. I'm lucky, I have a wonderful wife to share that kind of love with every day, so while the day is a nice chance to show my appreciation for her love, I don't love her more on this particular day that I do every other day of the year. The day really isn't that big a deal.
On the other hand, love is a big deal. Even if you're not lucky enough to have a spouse or partner who you will be growing old with, it's important to have love in your life, wherever it comes from. Not necessarily romantic love, again, that's only a small part of the love that plays such an important part in our lives. The love of family and friends is equally, if not more, crucial to survivors.
Most crucial of all, of course, is love of yourself. For survivors this is a huge struggle. We don't often see ourselves as lovable. We don't look in the mirror and see movie star good looks, don't judge our character to be upstanding, know there are always smarter and more talented people around, etc. But I'm here to tell you, that's not love at all.
One of the best definitions I've ever heard of real love, I heard many, many years ago in a church teaching. The speaker was talking about the classic Biblical passage about love (Love is patient, Love is kind, Love believes all things, etc....) and was specifically talking about the idea that so many people tell him they don't love themselves. He disagreed. He finds very few people in the world don't love themselves if you get down to the core of what love is. His response when someone talks about not loving themselves was this "Did you shower today? Brush your teeth, have some breakfast?". If you did, you love yourself.
At the very core of love, is meeting needs. You love yourself by taking care of yourself. The only people in this world who don't love themselves, are the people who don't meet their own needs. I was one of those people when I was in the midst of major depression, because I didn't believe I was worth taking care of.
By the same token, the people who truly love you, are the people who are there to help you meet your needs. Again, be they a spouse, partner, family member or friend, they show love by being there to help. Friends, and family members, who only strive to take from you, don't love you in any deeper sense.
If you take anything away from this rambling, let it be this. Loving yourself isn't about heaping praise on yourself, or repeating phrases. It's about understanding that you are as worthy of being taken care of as any one else in this world. Any tool that detracts from that core goal, is useless, in my book. Taking care of yourself is the most important thing you can do in life and should be the main focus of every day. If you get up, go to work, feed yourself, clothe yourself, etc. then you are loving yourself. It's not warm and fuzzy, but love isn't hardly just the warm and fuzzy stuff.
Secondly, to really love someone is to look out for their needs. To be ready and willing to help them however you can. Again, it's not about the warm and fuzzy stuff. I love my wife. I do that by taking care of myself, taking care of my work so that I have a job to help pay our bills, listening when she needs to talk, laughing when she is silly, crying when she's in pain, just generally trying to help her be the person she wants to be in any little way that I can. Very few of those things give me a warm and fuzzy feeling. I don't get a warm and fuzzy feeling every time I pay our rent, help one of her friends with a computer problem, straighten up around the house, or help her run errands on a weekend. I assume she doesn't either when she comes home and starts dinner, or spends an evening ironing. Those aren't highlight-reel moments in our relationship, but they involve just as much love as Valentine's Day, a wedding day, anniversaries, etc. In fact, I would argue they involve even more love, because in those moments, we are doing the things we need to do to take care of us. That's the core foundation of love. Not the gifts, cards, poems, candlelight, or other romantic tricks of the trade. The every day work and thought that goes in to meeting needs.
This month, as survivors, let's strive to do three things, in this order. See ourselves as worthy of our having needs met, learning how to take care of ourselves, and striving to love other people, by giving them what they need from us.
One of the interesting facts you'll learn if you ever read about, or take a class in networking, is that you can make a huge impact on another person simply by listening. The reason, of course, is that hardly anyone ever takes the time to listen to another person, so all you have to do is try to listen and give your attention to someone else, and you will stand out in any crowd.
As a chronic sufferer of low self esteem, this was pretty good news. It meant that I could make an impact simply, but it came with a somewhat startling revelation as well. Naturally, the flip side of this lesson was that, most of the time, people take no notice of you at all. What you say, how you look, etc. usually isn't given a second thought by people. That can be somewhat disconcerting, to know that in public situations, most people in the room pay absolutely no attention to you.
On the other hand, that can be somewhat freeing as well. We constantly second guess ourselves, criticizing every last detail of every social interactions, assuming that surely every misstep was duly noted by every other person in attendance. The reality, though, is that most of them don't notice or give a moment's thought to the things we spend the whole evening beating ourselves up over.
So, the next time you have to hit a party or other large social function, relax, make the fact that most people there won't even notice you, work to your advantage. Then, instead of constantly finding your faults, you can freely pay attention to others and increase the likelihood that they will remember you, as a confidant and successful person, because you didn't need to make yourself look good, you paid attention to them!
Tags: Socialinteraction, listening
Hi there, remember me? :)
OK so it hasn't been that long since I posted anything over here, but I can't help but feel a little like I've been neglecting things over here. It's true, I've been working head-down in technology for a while now, and really haven't had time to put together too many coherent thoughts about anything other than work, or personal tech projects.
As always, those of you who follow both my blogs, saw the number of recent posts and topics over on the other side of me increase, just as the number decreased on here. That's to be expected. Sometimes, you just can't be everywhere all the time. :)
It's also been somewhat interesting to me, that as I incorporate some of the various social networking sites into my online "brand", that a number of survivors have been reaching out, either by sending me notes, "friending me" or even following me on Twitter. The reason I say this is interesting, is that I get to sort of see the two worlds, that exist on the two different sites I author, meet in one place.
I don't mind, obviously, being known as a survivor. I wouldn't have started this site if I did. On the other hand, I like being more than that. We're all more than that. Being a survivor will always be part of us, but it's not all we are. We are people, with all the varied interests, talents and faults. I feel like that combination of who I am should be expressed, without having to be dominated by one thing. Hopefully, I can keep it that way!