Trying to find closure

 

Dear Bloggers,

 

“This wasn’t supposed to happen! Tell me why this has happened!” These are the spoken words of countless bereaved parents and boy or girlfriends that had a great day out in the old town of Brugge. Travelling by ship to the main land of Belgium. Townsend Thoresen was well known by lorry drivers and regular travelers that numerously crossed the channel with these ships throughout numerous years mostly foot passengers travelled for one pound due to an ad in The Sun — a never-ending and always present wound in the Souls of those who have buried their loved ones. After nearly 38 years, I returned to the place where the disaster with the Herald of Free Enterprise occurred. And the moment will never leave your brain many first responders have still some mental scars from this.

 

Disasters such as hurricanes, earthquakes, transportation accidents, or wildfires are typically unexpected, sudden, and overwhelming. For many people, there are no outwardly visible signs of physical injury, but there can be nonetheless an emotional toll. It is common for people who have experienced disaster to have strong emotional reactions. Understanding responses to distressing events can help you cope effectively with your feelings, thoughts, and behaviors, and help you along the path to recovery. And we are easily forgetting about the rescue teams that have to live with all the things they have seen and heard. The endless sounds of sirens and alarms that are going of constantly. These memories are hard to deal with for many and some of them cannot cope afterwards and get mentally stuck and some even take their own lives.

What are common reactions and responses to disaster?

Following disaster, people frequently feel stunned, disoriented or unable to integrate distressing information. Once these initial reactions subside, people can experience a variety of thoughts and behaviors. Common responses can be:

• Intense or unpredictable feelings. You may be anxious, nervous, overwhelmed, or grief-stricken. You may also feel more irritable or moody than usual.
• Changes to thoughts and behavior patterns. You might have repeated and vivid memories of the event. These memories may occur for no apparent reason and may lead to physical reactions such as rapid heartbeat or sweating. It may be difficult to concentrate or make decisions. Sleep and eating patterns also can be disrupted—some people may overeat and oversleep, while others experience a loss of sleep and loss of appetite.
• Sensitivity to environmental factors. Sirens, loud noises, burning smells, or other environmental sensations may stimulate memories of the disaster creating heightened anxiety. These “triggers” may be accompanied by fears that the stressful event will be repeated.
• Strained interpersonal relationships. Increased conflict, such as more frequent disagreements with family members and coworkers, can occur. You might also become withdrawn, isolated, or disengaged from your usual social activities.
• Stress-related physical symptoms. Headaches, nausea, and chest pain may occur and could require medical attention. Preexisting medical conditions could be affected by disaster-related stress.

How do I cope with this?

Fortunately, research shows that most people are resilient and over time are able to bounce back from tragedy. It is common for people to experience stress in the immediate aftermath, but within a few months most people are able to resume functioning as they did prior to the disaster. It is important to remember that resilience and recovery are the norm, not prolonged distress. There are a number of steps you can take to build emotional well-being and gain a sense of control following a disaster, including the following:

Give yourself time to adjust. Anticipate that this will be a difficult time in your life. Allow yourself to mourn the losses you have experienced and try to be patient with changes in your emotional state.

Ask for support from people who care about you and who will listen and empathize with your situation. Social support is a key component to disaster recovery. Family and friends can be an important resource. You can find support and common ground from those who've also survived the disaster. You may also want to reach out to others not involved who may be able to provide greater support and objectivity.

Communicate your experience. Express what you are feeling in whatever ways feel comfortable to you—such as talking with family or close friends, keeping a diary, or engaging in a creative activity (e.g., drawing, molding clay, etc.).

Find a local support group led by appropriately trained and experienced professionals. Support groups are frequently available for survivors. Group discussion can help you realize that you are not alone in your reactions and emotions. Support group meetings can be especially helpful for people with limited personal support systems.

Establish or reestablish routines. This can include eating meals at regular times, sleeping and waking on a regular cycle, or following an exercise program. Build in some positive routines to have something to look forward to during these distressing times, like pursuing a hobby, walking through an attractive park or neighborhood, or reading a good book.

When should I seek professional help?

If you notice persistent feelings of distress or hopelessness and you feel like you are barely able to get through your daily responsibilities and activities, consult with a licensed mental health professional such as a psychologist. Psychologists are trained to help people address emotional reactions to disaster such as disbelief, stress, anxiety, and grief and make a plan for moving forward. To find a psychologist in your area, I did work on myself over more than 35 years. Lately I went for psychological help and I went back to where it all happened. 37 years after there are hardly any traces left of the things that have been printed in my brain forever. The night before I went there my brain was going back to the dark and cold night on the 6^th of March.

The searchlights in he sky and the screaming and crying people in the helicopters and ambulances. The Belgian army guys and firefighters and the Red Cross people who all worked with everything in their powers. It was like a bad and totally crazy movie in my head and I was in doubt if I should go there. Somehow there was something that calmed me down and told me this will bring you towards closure.

It will still take some time before I can say this is over. 

Although slowly but surely I will get there.

 

The Old Sailor,

The Silent Abuse or the Mind Game

Dear Bloggers,

Today I will write about what is happening in my neighborhood to a person that I love. But her boss is an absolute ….. and a bully from the high end. He is probably brought up with this behavior as he is from a total different culture as the Western European one. He really knows how to bring someone down and abuse them until they are leaving.

Crazy enough the company gives them a free hand to play their game unless someone stands up to him and complains. We have all suffered many forms of abuse during your school time  or at work or even maybe at home but the least talked about is “The mind game” otherwise known as the silent treatment, 

Deliberately ignored to cause harm to another person’s mental well-being, sent to Coventry and it’s one of the most harmful methods of abuse used by abusers who feel that: “If they do not use their hands to physically abuse then it isn’t abuse.”

Wrong way of thinking, I would say.

It is abuse to ignore some ones needs emotionally and make them feel worthless and depressed and will cause long term damage that in many cases can lead to the victims’ physical health being harmed.

To deliberately cause harm to someone by use of the silent treatment, deny a person any emotional care, deny them any praise, starve them of love, affection, compliments, positive feedback, to regularly reject, degrade and deny a person any emotional responsiveness and to ignore a person’s needs is mental abuse or also known as psychological abuse.

It is repetitive abuse that’s aimed at controlling, diminishing another person’s well-being in order to hurt, punish, harm or control them. The silent abuser is able to switch himself off emotionally to the pain and suffering he is causing his victim and will deny he is the problem and he may tell himself or others that he is the victim.

You will stop being a victim when you become the abuser

The abuser is capable of closing down all reasonable sense of emotions and turn into a cold heart very fast as he withdraws into his own world without any care for his victim’s distress.

The abuser will behave in society charming, calm, happy, he will be seen by others as a pillar of society, gentle natured, helpful, kind, caring and fool the outside world into thinking he is abused and his partner is the abuser. This is classic for a mental abuser. They will have their partner labelled as a mental case whilst he plays the victim and saint and makes her the subject of every ones rejection by labelling her with an unbalanced mind.

The true victim will be further rejected not only by her abuser but also by his friends, work colleagues, family and others he is likely to meet. The abuser needs to feel in control and he will seek constant approval from those around him and convince them that he’s the true victim. They will offer him advice and he will feed off their pity which will make him feel even more in control as he plays the victim.

The true victims may withdraw from all social activities, work, stop seeing family, they stop being fun, will see everything in a negative light, stop eating which is the start of dangerous health issues, cry alone, send text terror messages as a means to fight back which only gives the abuser more ammunition to abuse her with as he will use that as a further excuse to ignore and make her look bad in front of others.

The abuser will happily share the text messages because he wants everyone to see him as the victim. The true victim will stop functioning on all levels as the mind games take over her life. She will find it hard to think of anything else but what is happening to her. The victim will fight with her own mind and struggle to work out if she is being abused or is she truly the problem. The victim may start behaving irrationally from the stress caused by the mental abuse.

Mental abuse is not normally seen by anyone on the outside looking in because they see the abuser as a strong, calm, caring and sincere person and will not be able to see the true character behind the person in front of them that they think they know so well.

Do you really know the person standing next to you?

Out of all the abuse I suffered the one part of the abuse I have always struggled with is the “being ignored” because when I begged for the abuser to stop no one listened. The more I was ignored the more it built up an extreme and unlikely intolerance for being “ignored” which has stayed with me as an adult. I left care with that intolerance to the ugly side of human nature that sees many people misuse the silent treatment to harm others.

Some justify this behavior and kid themselves that it’s in some way an honorable stance to take. Ignoring someone briefly when done to express dissatisfaction is very different to the silent treatment. To ignore someone as a regular means to punish, hurt or upset someone as payback or for whatever reason, it is in my opinion and the opinions of experts to be considered one of the worst forms of mental abuse that exists in human nature. It causes irreparable damage to a person’s mind and will see the victim’s behavior change slowly but noticeably when it’s out of control by others who are close.

There are times the abuse continues and the victims show now outward signs to those who are close whilst the mental abuser gets to witness the dramatic and extreme behavior change in direct response to his/her mental abuse in the “silent treatment”.

The silent treatment is a form of punishment and control and the person using it to harm another feels a lack of care and cannot or will not communicate as she/he watches the victim slowly deteriorate from being a lively happy and fun person into becoming withdrawn, reclusive or maybe verbally aggressive to the abuser in a vain bid to stop the abuse of the mind.

The person dishing out the “silent treatment is FULLY aware of the damage they are doing and they are FULLY aware that all they need to do to stop it is to simply talk to the victim. The abuser will not talk to the victim and when he does he will constantly lead the victim into a false sense of security at leisure. Then ignore again.

The abuser will provoke any situation with silence which triggers off the victim who can never work out what has happened to warrant more silent treatment and again the victim finds himself/herself fighting desperately with the abuser in a vain bid to stop her/him giving the silent treatment all over again.

The victim’s behavior can change so dramatically he/she is hardly recognized as being the same person. Every time the silent treatment begins the victim is pulled further and further down and the abuser sits back and carries on with daily chores blatantly ignoring the victim whom is obviously so distressed that no normal thinking individual person could sit back and watch such a shocking display of suffering.

The victim may withdraw completely, stop talking i.e. friends, stop socializing, stop eating, start drinking, stop working, start text terrorism against the abuser as a defense mechanism of protection but it never works, suicidal thoughts, self-harm and that’s just a few of the side effects of a victim suffering from mental abuse.

The “silent treatment” otherwise named as “deliberate intent to ignore” or “Attachment” which means absent to cause harm which is where an abuser completely cuts the victim off and the abuser will not budge. They often acknowledge in their own minds that the victim is suffering but do nothing about it and walk away and simply ignore it.

The latter is a very dangerous form of mental abuse.

I have often heard stories of men ignoring their partner after causing her such distress that she has taken to self-harm or attempt to take her own life from where the mental abuse has weakened her once strong mind into a nerve wrecking display of self-doubt and depression. The abuser will hear her calls of desperation and he will empty himself of all emotions and walk away. He will show no emotions as she tries to take her own life. He will convince himself that she deserves it for hurting his feelings by trying to fight back. 

It’s not often friends get to witness the mental abuse of the systematic silent treatment from a partner because it is silent but in some cases friends will witness erratic behavior of the victim and they can’t quite understand what’s going on because the victim will blame everything but her abusive partner. It is rare anyone on the outside of the relationship sees the suffering of the victim as the abuse often like most forms of abuse stays “within the immediate relationship”. The male abusers friends will only see this charming friend they all love because he will do anything for them but seldom do his friends or family witness what he is doing to his partner. They will only see the abusers partner’s displays of distress.

The “silent treatment, ignoring or Attachment treatment” abuser is fully aware of their actions and fully aware they are causing a significant amount of harm to the victim in most cases but there are those who do believe they are the victim. The victim may at times have the odd outburst in front of others or in a public place. The abuser will then inform his family of every little thing his victim partner does as he seeks refuge and portrays himself as the victim in need of support because he has a totally “maniac” partner whose lost the plot.

This form of mental abuse is often used by the man more so than a woman. It is still a common thing in many cultures were man and woman are not seen as equals.

Eventually once the victim has been totally broken down by the mental abuser she will give up fighting back and beg for forgiveness and beg the abusive partner to forgive her. She may well go to the extremes to try and make it up to her man because she has been broken in and is now under his mind control. The man will continue to use this method of mind control and ignore, use the silent treatment or attachment tactics until his partner has been totally exhausted, feels totally helpless and it opens her up to being controlled so the man gets what he wants.

Sadly this form of abuse has seen the deaths of women who self-harmed or attempted suicide as a cry for help and those cries for help ignored by the abuser and have resulted in her death.

Self-harm - deliberate cutting or mutilation of one’s own body including rip hair out, stop eating, stop going out, withdraw from society, cut off their hair, stay in bed, over eat or attempt suicide.

The reason I am touching on this subject is because I found on the Internet a number of women who are going through this same process right now with their partners or have just left such an abusive relationship and sit in silence blaming them-selves.

I also want to touch on this subject because I am a survivor of abusive behavior during my army days and I myself have gone through the mental health process and contrary to what people believe, I still cannot stand people that are not open to me. All because of one lunatic guy my life has changed as I don't trust a lot of people. And still it is not easy to write about this as the guy who attacked me with a combat knife had totally lost his mind. And yes I have been lucky that my mates saved me that day. I got counselling and the attacker got fired.

Let me go back where I was. Men who have been abused as children physically, sexually or mentally or suffered abuse by a parent due to the damaging effects are well known for using the “silent treatment, ignoring and attachment methods to punish and control their partners. These men will convince themselves they are not abusing because they haven’t physically hit the woman and he will convince her he’s very good to her by not saying anything.

He will almost always convince himself he’s the victim and show no remorse at all for the suffering he is causing by punishing and controlling someone he claims to love. These men are often found to not contribute to the relationship they are in and show little or no care or respect for his partner and will continue to expect her to hold the entire relationship together all by herself whilst he laps up the comfort of control and does nothing to help contribute or support the relationship. He will not show emotions when challenged or he may eventually turn to violence.

Regardless of the circumstances, mental abuse and the negative power of the “silent treatment, being deliberately ignored or the attachment abuse is never the less very damaging for those on the receiving end and needs to be address by either the abuser entering therapy or for the victim to leave the situation.

If the man recognizes he’s an abuser he can seek help from a professional help. The victim must seek professional help to get out of such an abusive relationship before she is so worn down it will diminish her life slowly but surely.

When does the silent abuse turn into physical abuse? 

The Old Sailor,