Violence.
What do you think about violence?
It’s everywhere in our world.
As I’m writing this, there are news headlines about violence and riots in Baltimore Maryland. There have been violent racial riots in St. Louis Missouri making headlines for months. White police have been shooting innocent black men. A black teenager in Oklahoma shot and killed an innocent white Australian man. My news channel just showed a clip proposing that women need to take self defence classes as a basic health requirement. Child abuse, domestic violence, bullying adolescents to death, flogging attacks in social media, women being murdered, men dying in wars, cruelty to animals, convicted drug criminals getting executed in Indonesia, pedophiles abducting and killing children — violence of all forms is mentioned in the news over and over and over.
Ugggh.
Frankly, I despise the violence found in this world.
I realize we as people will always disagree and have opposing opinions and various perspectives. That’s fine. We don’t have to agree. We can each hold true to our own beliefs and preferences. To each his own.
So do we really have to hurt each other when we have different opinions? Do we have to hit? Kick? Punch? Kill? Assault? Rape? Attack? Destroy? Go to war?
I don’t think so. I don’t see the glory or the pleasure in beating someone else up. In my opinion, it’s just flat out wrong to purposefully hurt someone else, “just because you can”. I find that containing and restricting violent criminals is absolutely necessary. If someone refuses to stop hurting others, then remove his or her option of being around others. The criminals can go beat each other up and let the rest of us live in peace and safety. Go take your violent self away from everyone else. Just get outta here and leave the rest of us alone!
If it was only that simple.
I obviously don’t have the answer for how fix to this world problem. I’m venting my disgust about all the ways people choose to “solve” their personal struggles by hurting someone else, by beating down someone else, in some form or another.
It seems to me that it’s a personal choice on whether to be violent or not.
Stand up for yourself, yes. But purposefully attack someone? No.
Life gets stressful, absolutely. Surely we can all learn how to solve our problems without hitting someone else in the process.
That message is directed to internal dissociative parts as well. Please don’t hit or hurt each other in your internal worlds. Your inside world no longer has to be filled with the violent ways of the external world. I understand that many insiders repeat the ways they were taught to behave by their violent perpetrators. However, now that you are becoming your own self and an adult out here in the external world, you can make your own guidelines for your internal world. If you disagree with a violent world, be consistent, and apply your principles of peace towards yourselves as well.
Here are 5 thoughts to consider:
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If you need to quiet a crying child, comfort them gently, don’t hit them.
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If you need to release some stress, try exercising, or drawing, or talking about it. Don’t hit someone else. And don’t hurt your own self either.
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If you have strong beliefs, live your life accordingly. Accept that other people will have their own strong beliefs. Respect each other. Don’t force someone to pretend they believe what you believe.
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If someone else is abusing you, find ways to get away from them. It’s ok and even necessary to leave your abuser. You don’t have to stay close to anyone that purposefully hurts you.
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If you don’t like what’s happening in your life, replace the negative with something you like much better. Your life can be filled with as much beauty as you can put in it. Purposefully surround yourself with peace, beauty, goodness, calm.
In my opinion, if you specifically spend time day filling your life with things that create a genuine smile on your face and in your heart, you will be getting closer to living a life filled with peace and happiness. I like that idea.
Personally, I much prefer puppies over violence.
What do you think?
Warmly,
Kathy
Copyright © 2008-2017 Kathy Broady MSW and Discussing Dissociation
I find any form of violence very disturbing. Verbal abuse is emotionally distressing but the lack of compassion and understanding people have for each other these days is unbelievable. There is enough happening in nature to cause disruption and pain in the world without people threatening or hurting each other because they don’t agree on something or can’t get their own way. Quite honestly I am scared for our civilization.
We cant stand to see pepol hirt each other. Its so mean. Espeshally hurt animals. We wish evreybody wuld just learn to be nice to each other. The world is bad enoff as it is without pepol hurting each other more. 🙁
This comment was sent to me. The thoughts are powerfully said. They paint a clear picture about the ongoing after effects of experiencing a lot of violence.
Thank you, reader, for allowing me to post this anonymously.
“Good Blog on Violence. I hate it. It really scares me & reinforces how unsafe my world can be. Violence. I knew it well & it was the norm. I broke my glass tonight at dinner. An accident of course. I cringed. It used to be so terrible to spill or break. I was back handed so many times until I learned to squeeze my glass of milk until it hurt – but it did not fall because that was so violent. So was getting hurt. Not ok to scare the mom. No matter how badly I was or wasn’t hurt. Violence. It was always bad & always my fault. So – now I cringe but there is no more hurt. I do feel the guilt still. I wanted to cry as my partner picked up the glass tonight & cleaned up my mess. I couldn’t reach down to do it. Guilty. He kindly cleaned it up – careful to get every sliver of glass & then put my slippers on my bare feet so I wouldn’t get cut. All so natural & calm. Violence – I hate it. When does the inside world accept that it’s over? When is fear not my first response? Violence. We know.”
I hate the violence that happened to me growing up. As much as I don’t like to admit it, there are parts of me that like violence, that crave seeing it, that want to watch horror movies, murder dramas, etc. I get disturbed by this excitement over violence that happens inside me against my approval. I go back and forth between cutting it off completely to allowing my internal part a night of blood and gore on TV or movies. She is happy and excited and grateful for it, like a 15 year old girl, feasting on images of all the things that could be done to her perpetrator. It’s not always about him…
Halloween is a time of major excitement for her. She loves the thrill of playing with death, of creepy costumes, like a kid who doesn’t understand what killing really means (or rather what life really means.) I fantasized about suicide for a long time as a way out and death has a powerful pull on certain parts of me, calling to me from far away in a melodious tone. I’ve never had a place to voice this before,
I wish pepol didnt be mean to each other
Ot make my heart ake so bad 🙁
Maybe sometimes pepol need to be violent to get there damn point across
Violence. It is everywhere.
Here in Oklahoma a man was shot by a policewoman. He’s dead. He had his hands in the air, he was not threatening. The police had him on the ground, face down. She shot him while he was face down because she said she felt threatened. Did she have PTSD? Or was she trained to fear the color of his skin?
Violence. Allepo. Nuff said.
Violence. Control. Physical, sexual, emotional, mental, brutal, take complete control of your every movement and every thought, mind fucking control.
Violence upon children. Upon our mother. We tried to get him off her. Something she never did for us. Children dont matter. She was the victim and he said sorry… To her. They broke up. They got back together. They drug us around like burdens around their necks.
Abusing, using, and selling us out of the back gates of military bases. Money, ya know. They didn’t work. We sure did though. A lifetime of nightmares making cash for parents who had no qualms.
Violence upon us as children. Children do not matter. They send us away to “camp”. What camp I dont remember. The same one, or many over the years? Is there such a thing as military camp? I can remember, I think. I dont know.
Violence in secret places. Hospitals and doctors, nurses, and guards. Was I sick? I dont know. I cant tell. I was a child. We didn’t matter.
They built a house from the money they got. We dug the well, 4 X 4 X 24 feet deep. Down in the hole, cheap labor. Slept on the floor, ate once a day if I was good. I paid for that fucking house I helped build. I paid for it with my body and my mind.
Violence. Children do not matter. We will forget. They will make sure.
Foster care. Try telling an adult about waiting in line for a “shower” at the concentration camp you lived in. Was it real? Yes. And no. I was not a child in 1942 but a part of me believes that’s true. I remember the line and the shower. But it was at a camp. I dont know where, U.S.A. Not 1942 but 1974.
Fucking violence. So many ways to gain control. After they are done they throw you away. Afterall it doesn’t matter. Children do not matter.