• Topics and Concerns Under-Reported by Christians or Abuse and Survivor Sites

Depending on my level of interest and schedule, I may, in the future, write separate blog posts discussing some of the topics I am listing below.

Some of the survivor or abuse recovery sites, forums, groups, and blogs I visit (whether ones owned by conservative Christians, liberal Christians, or ex Christians) do a wonderful job of exposing the problems of things such as authoritarianism and child-abuse (and wife-abuse) cover-ups by churches.

Those are certainly important topics that are deserving of coverage.

Some abuse or survivor blogs will cover some of the issues I have mentioned below, but only by way a “token” post or two.

• Five Signs of An Abusive Relationship Most People Will Dismiss by Harriet Marsden

Five Signs of An Abusive Relationship Most People Will Dismiss by Harriet Marsden

Snippets:

If asked to name signs of abuse in a relationship, many would assume physical violence.

Domestic violence and relationship abuse are often cognitively associated with black eyes, broken bones, sexual assault, rape and even murder.

But what about the non-physical violence? Trauma, manipulation, control, emotional torture? A subtler, more insidious and ultimately easier to hide type of abuse?

• Not Exactly Always Hospitable for Non-Liberals: Ex or Liberal Christian Sites and Spiritual or Abuse Survivor Blogs & the Christian Trump-Bashing Infatuation

Not Exactly Always Hospitable for Non-Liberals: Ex or Liberal Christian Sites and Spiritual or Abuse Survivor Blogs & the Christian Trump-Bashing Infatuation 

I’ve been center of right, politically, since I was a kid.

I don’t know where I currently stand in regards to the Christian faith.

However, I still adhere to traditional values, which are pretty much in line with a conservative Christian understanding of the Bible.

Though I find myself somewhat more and more of a libertarian in outlook as I grow older, meaning, hey, I don’t agree with your lifestyle choices, but if you’re an adult, and it’s not hurting me or John Doe, I don’t really care what you do in your personal life.

I did not vote for anyone in the 2016 U.S. Presidential elections because I disliked all candidates.

However, I don’t care who YOU voted for, or if, like me, you sat that one out and did not cast a ballot at all.

I understand my Democrat friends who voted for Hillary and why. I understand my Democrat friends who hated Hillary so they were vying for Sanders.

I understand my Republican and conservative friends who loved Trump, or the ones who dislike Trump but hated Hillary more, so they went with Trump.

I also understand the folks who didn’t like either Trump or Hillary, so they went with a third party guy.

I am okay with any all all those above scenarios. I don’t get angry, offended, and upset by people, whether Christian or not, if they voted for Hillary, Trump, a third party candidate, or if they wrote “Mickey Mouse” on their ballot.

A lot of people had good reasons for why they voted as they did. Nobody, or I would suspect, hardly anyone, is a monster, rube, sexist, racist, or idiot just because they voted for one candidate or another, or did not vote at all.

It was a difficult election for just about every one, regardless of political stance.

That should give you an idea of where I am coming from.

EX CHRISTIAN, LIBERAL CHRISTIAN, OR SPIRITUAL ABUSE TWITTER ACCOUNTS OR BLOGS

In the last 3 to 4 years, I have participated on spiritual abuse blogs, and have lurked at Christian gender egalitarian forums, blogs, groups, and I have followed Christian gender egalitarians (or mutualists) on social media.

Can I just say as someone who is right of center, who holds to traditional values, I sometimes find such persons, groups, blogs, or Twitter accounts a little oppressive, myopic, or unfair?

• The Left Should Just Admit it: Victims Aren’t Always Good People by Deborah Orr

The Left Should Just Admit it: Victims Aren’t Always Good People by Deborah Orr

I just saw this editorial last night, right after publishing two posts on this blog about victims, victim-blaming, etc. The timing is rather funny. I don’t know if I agree with all of it, but there’s a lot of truth in it.

This comes from a UK paper called The Guardian, which is a left wing publication:

The Left Should Just Admit it: Victims aren’t always Good People by Deborah Orr

Liberals appear naive when they claim all food bank users are ‘deserving’. The real scandal is that this safety net has to exist at all

Here are some snippets from the editorial:

[Some people are in genuine need, or in assistance of, things such as food stamps or food banks, through no fault of their own. Some of these people might be able to pin point when and how their lives fell apart, causing them to have to seek government assistance or some kind of welfare.]

…But guess what? Others [i.e., people who are on welfare, food stamps, and / or who claim victim status] would be without insight, oblivious or indifferent to the damage and neglect they have meted out to themselves and those who tried to help them – psychopathic, sociopathic, narcissistic.

Human beings, despite the witless homilies of humanism, don’t all start out good and kind and perfect, only to have it driven out of them by a cruel world.

• Victimhood, Compassion, and Time Limits

Victimhood, Compassion, and Time Limits

(I have provided false names below for any family or friends I have that I mention on this blog. I’m not going to provide their real names. I have edited this post a few times since it was published to fix typing errors, or to clarify a thought here or there.)

This post is a follow-up to my last one,

Victimhood, Victim Blaming, and Moving On

I read about a judge many years ago who was asked to comment or rule on obscenity laws. People were pressing him to define what, exactly, constitutes pornography.

He replied by saying something like, “I cannot really strictly define what it is, but I know it when I see it.”

Those are my sentiments exactly when thinking about victims, victimhood status, and so forth.

I cannot give a hard and fast time line on how long anyone should be “permitted” to feel hurt or grieve over a tragedy in their life before they need to be confronted about it and gently nudged to seek help, or can be considered to be wallowing in victim status.

But I do know it when I see it – usually.

I would like to provide examples I’ve come across personally, in real life, that I’ve seen online, or that I’ve seen in articles or on TV shows.

A CAVEAT

Some people repress trauma that happened to them when they were younger, for whatever the reason.

They repress the emotions or events associated with said trauma until decades later.

• Victimhood, Victim Blaming, and Moving On

Victimhood, Victim Blaming, and Moving On

This will be a difficult post to write, because I’m sure some people may take parts of it the wrong way, or be inadvertently insulted or offended, but I mean no insult or offense.

In the past week, at least two blogs I sometimes visit that highlight the topic of spiritual abuse, have featured posts that discuss how spiritual, physical, or sexual abuse in childhood can affect a person even into late adulthood.

I totally agree – things done to us in childhood can indeed impact us into adulthood. (Some of my family members, my father included, do not acknowledge this fact – but that might be another topic for another post to write in the future.)

At any rate, arguments ensued among commentators on such blogs as to if, when, or how, it is compassionate, feasible, or wise, to scold, shame, lecture, or encourage a victim to “move on,” and to do things such as seek out a mental health professional.

• Regarding Moral Injury

This comes by way of the May 2017 issue of Christian magazine Guideposts.

The Price of Caring

Moral injury is a wound to the conscience, and nothing inflicts it more deeply than war

[What follows is the story of Sergeant First Class Marshall Powell, U.S. Army, retired; he was serving in a hospital in Iraq in 2007 when they received a deluge of patients.

Among them was a five or six year old girl who was mortally wounded. There was no way for the girl to be saved. She lay in the hallway moaning in pain. There was nothing that could be done for her.

Powell administered enough morphine to knock her out and take her life – he did this to end her suffering. He spent years harboring guilt over this and suffered side-effects. What he underwent is known as “Moral Injury”]

From page 43:

Moral injury is a relatively recent term used to describe a crisis that soldiers like Marshall Powell have faced for centuries, the internal suffering that results  from doing something against your moral code. In essence it is a wound to the conscience.

What causes moral injury?

In a combat situation such as Powell’s, the damage done to a person’s psyche might result from following or issuing certain orders or from simply witnessing something that is deeply offensive to his or her moral sense.

Does it apply only to soldiers?

Not at all. In times of stress, people can act against their moral code. A poverty-stricken mother abandons her children; a drug addict commits a crime to support a habit; an office worker fabricates documents for fear of losing a job.