Links (weekly)
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1in6 Thursday: Begin By Believing
Believe that the sexual abuse of boys is occurring in your community despite few reported incidents.
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Dear Survivor – A Letter of Encouragement to Survivors of Abuse and Sexual Assault
Similar Posts
Sharing – Stanford prof who changed America with one study was also a liar
This is some interesting reading from Susannah Cahalan related to the closing of mental hospitals in the US. I already knew from my own reading that the closing, while supposedly meant to help patients who were being mistreated in some of those hospitals, created a much worse problem because they were released to be treated…
Link – I couldn’t save my child from being killed by an online predator
Breck Bednar, a 14-year-old boy who loved gaming, was groomed online and murdered in 2014. His mother, Lorin LaFave, was worried – would her pleas for help from police have been taken more seriously if he’d been a girl? It’s a legitimate question. We tend to think boys playing games online are just being boys,…
Sharing – America’s ‘Extremely Punitive’ Prisons Make Mental Illness Worse
This opinion piece from Katherine Kornberg covers ground that might seem familiar to long-time readers, but if you’re new around here, this is the reality of where our mental health system is. Completely under-funded, under-resourced, and as a result? This: “Without the proper community-based mental health solutions, prisons and jails have become a “dumping ground”…
Sharing – What It’s Really Like To Be A Male Victim Of Rape
Men need to hear these stories too. We need to know that various issues stem from being sexually violated that are similar to non-male victims and yet not the same.
Most of all, we need to understand how common male rape is and that we are not alone in being victims.
That message gets lost in all of the messages about how we are supposed to be strong and not be victims far too often, even if it is the truth.
Sharing – 11 Factors That Increase the Risk of Child Sexual Abuse
For example, if we know that kids who don’t understand boundaries, are lonely, live in stressful family situations, and do not have open communication with other people in their lives, are more likely to be sexually abused, what does that mean when a teen comes out and is not accepted by their family? Or when a blended family becomes dysfunctional, or a kid with disabilities is not taught boundaries but kept hidden away from others?
You have kids who are lonely, who don’t feel safe and loved, who don’t understand boundaries, etc.
If a kid who’s lonely and lacking in self esteem is at risk. And a kid who identifies as LGBTQ+ is at risk, can we stop for a minute and consider that it’s not being LGBTQ+ that is a risk factor, it’s how much more likely that kid is to be lonely and lacking in self-esteem?
And thus, the cycle continues. When it shouldn’t. We know what it is about disabled kids, kids from blended families, or LGBTQ+ kids that make them more prone to abuse, mental health issues, and suicide. It’s not their reality, it’s the responses to their reality that create the risk factors. The things that make them more likely to be loners, disconnected from family support, lacking safe adults to communicate with, etc.
So maybe we should focus on being more supportive of all kids?
And, since we’re on the topic and it is June. Happy Pride!
