domestic violence

How (Not) To Manage Anger: Lessons From My Parents

When we are young, we learn to manage our emotions through the interactions with our immediate caregivers, principally our mother and father. The way our parents manage their emotions leaves a dramatic imprint on our developing nervous system that can last long into adulthood. This is particularly true of strong emotions like anger.

Two common adult reactions to poor emotional management by our parents are to submit or to rebel. We either live the rest of our lives managing our emotions they way they taught us out of fear and submission, or doing the opposite out of anger and rebellion. Neither of these two reactions represent true freedom. A better approach is to make our own choice in each situation but this takes insight and practice, especially if we choose to do things differently from the default programming we got from our parents. (more…)

By Graham Stoney, ago

How To Tackle The Root Cause Of Domestic Violence

The problem of domestic violence has been in the news again, as it seems to be every few months or so. As usual the out-of-control perpetrator is male, the victim female, innocent children are involved and the consequences are devastating for everyone. It’s a story we hear far too often.

While it is true that not all violence is committed by men, the majority of violent behaviour involves men. Violence is not the only form of domestic abuse happening behind closed doors in our society: emotional, sexual and spiritual abuse can be equally damaging. The simplistic innocent-female-victim/evil-male-perpetrator model is not always the full truth. However, the stereotype does tends to cover the majority of domestic violence cases.

Despite the excellent work done on by various organisations working to prevent domestic violence, the problem of men’s violence towards women and children continues to hang around like an offensive odour. How can this be, when it’s in the news so often? (more…)

By Graham Stoney, ago

How to Recover from a Violent or Abusive Childhood

Being abused as a child or being raised in an abusive environment can have a profoundly negative effect on your adult self-esteem. As children we generalize our experiences and assume that the whole world operates the same as our immediate circumstances. If we felt unsafe, unloved, unfairly criticized or hurt as a child by the people who were supposed to take care of us, it can affect our whole perspective on life and be devastating to our self-confidence.

Abuse leaves us feeling isolated from other people, and our true self

Abuse leaves us feeling isolated from other people, and our true self

Domestic violence, verbal, emotional and sexual abuse during childhood are insidious because they destroy our natural sense of trust and color our view of the world and the people in it, making it seem like a dangerous and scary place.

We don’t necessarily need to be the immediate target of abuse in order for it to affect us. I grew up with a critical, dominant mother who was verbally abusive to my relatively [intlink id=”518″ type=”post”]passive and emotionally neutered father[/intlink]. He bottled up his feelings of frustration so they built to the point where he would explode violently.

It was mostly my parents who were on the receiving end of each others abusive treatment, but as a sensitive child I was traumatized by growing up in an environment where I felt unsafe and on edge much of the time.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago