Dysfunctional Relationship Dynamics - A Book Review: Not Gender Specific

» shrink - Not Gender Specific

Thank you so much for your article. If you have the time, here's my take on the domestic violence deal from both a personal and professional standpoint.

Domestic Violence: Not gender specific
Domestic violence has recently come out of the closet as not only an issue of women surviving physical and emotional abuse, but some men coming to the understanding that they too have unwittingly become victims within that same cycle of violence. What we have come to understand through the documentation of power related crimes is that gender has no borders within the genre of domestic violence. The descriptive nature of the progression of the violence cycle is curiously similar between women and men.

The victims in either scenario unwittingly surrender power and control to the person the think they are in love with. The curious part of this is that those involved in this web of deterioration think that the person, who is the perpetrator, is the best that they deserve. They have been told, or have had the perception for so long that they are not worth the space they exist in, that they believe they deserve no more than what they are getting.

State laws are changing today to allow males to be included within the spectrum of domestic violence victims. Anyone who has been fortunate to come out the other side of domestic violence will allude to the fact that they thought they were to be eternally stuck in the degrading, debilitating situation they were in with their significant other.

The motivation to come out alive has to develop from within. They must begin to understand that no one…no one has to endure the dehumanizing interactions they have endured. Empowerment comes from awareness and awareness happens when we become teachable. The willingness to be taught may be the last of the feelings of hopelessness. When nothing else has helped, then escape through transcendence first, and then actual physical separation from the virulent situation has to transpire. In the case of domestic violence victims, ignorance is not bliss. Education and the awareness that others have also survived, is paramount to survival.

If you want to not only survive the insanity of the cycle of violence, but also come out to a higher plane of homeostasis, then your self-image must change. Become willing to become teachable. Learn to understand that you deserve better than this. Your life will change when you make the informed decision to change it.
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Brad Benjaminson
MS, BS, C.A.T.S.
http://bradbenjaminson.blogspot.com

-- posted by shrink