Battered is the Wrong Word

Posted on May 15, 2017 by Brie

The word Battered is frivolous and that’s it’s intent.  It implies consent and a willingness to accept the action, for both parties. ‘Battered’ as a title  certainly was never coined by the victim.  It’s part of the dishonest myth constructed by the one giving the beating.

Trees  and the shore are battered in a windstorm, something without blame or conscious intent.

An accurate word is ‘Beaten’,  she is a ‘beaten woman’.  A consequence of being hit is that every part of a woman is beaten, every facet of her life is damaged by this experience.

Who are these Beaten Women?  Statistics show that 50% of all relationships are battered and that it crosses all social, economical and ethnic boundaries.  This means half the doctors, lawyers, farmers, actors… half of those you pass on the street.

But beaten women stay, why?  They stay because the scenario is a 3 part process wherein the partner is:

  • Nice.  The first part of the relationship, the abuser is always nice.
  • Verbally abusive.  In the beginning, a woman makes excuses for this.  He’s tired.  He’s stressed by work.
  • Physically abusive.  Can be triggered by anything.  By something that happened outside of the relationship such as an event during the drive home.
  • Nice again.

Women do not tell because:

  • They fear being killed.
  • They fear for family and friends.
  • They have no money.
  • They fear loss of children.
  • And because the first relationship was nice, they forever believe they have done something to cause this nice partner to become violent toward them.

The term is never applied to men.  In news reporting, it’s said ‘he was beaten’.  The term battered is used as a global description with no further description of where or with what when describing women and their partners.

It therefore is still accepted as the right of the male in a marriage.

It’s time to call battering by it’s correct term which is beating and to describe where on the body and with what.

 

The definitive work is from 1980 Battered Women by Lenore Walker…

https://www.amazon.com/Battered-Woman-Lenore-E-Walker/dp/0060907428/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

 

Filed under: ALCOHOL, FAMILY, LIVING TOGETHER, PARENTING, POSITIVE THINKING, STRESS | Comments Off on Battered is the Wrong Word

Evil

Posted on August 13, 2010 by Brie

Every person has as much right to all the benefites of earth as a king, simply because we were born human.

We are all muddling through this life experience together and supporting each other. Being careful of others, tending to our own stuff would make it an interesting adventure, but in America at least, this becomes further from reality every day.

The other side of this coin is evil and increasingly, evil is winning.  This is evil and it pretty much defines the American culture today:

  • Hurting another’s self-esteem, dreams, goals, personality  because it makes one feel powerful and alive!  Nasty parents and school bullies.  (A parent or teacher who  watches silently is absolutely complicit.)
  • Destroying another’s hard work.
  • Stealing what another has earned.
  • Killing another human.  Up close or war, it’s all the same.
  • Hurting another’s body.
  • Going through life, causing mayhem and not giving it another thought.
  • Selfishness.

“But it was an accident!”  Wrong.  There are no accidents. Hurting people with a car when drunk driving is no accident.

“But the bible says they are evil.”  Giving permission to hate other’s in the name of God has been around for a very long time.  Self-righteous stereotyping is destroying our ability to like each other, we have become suspicious and afraid of each other and therefore, isolated.

In every dysfunctional social exchange there is one-up and one-down.  It can be fixed, first of all, by understanding the mechanism.  Born to Win is a simple and fascinating way to understanding and to repair.

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Systemic Yeast

Posted on August 4, 2010 by Brie

Need to cut systemic yeast down?  Everyone does.

Acidophilus is part of the huge population of good bacteria that the body needs to keep itself regulated, healthy and happy. Acidophilus is normal flora for women, and in GI tracts from mouth to bowel in everyone,  It’s job is to control growth of the Candida fungus in the GI tract.

Candida overgrowth comes from too much sugar, alcohol, stress and from antibiotics which kill all bacteria, even the good kind. Candida is responsible for thrush in babies, diarrhea, feelings of sluggishness and  lethargy and when overgrowth is large, a distinctive odor.

For milk drinkers, the very delicious Acidophilus milk is an amazing answer.  It’s sold in major grocery chains and health food stores, in half-gallon cartons or bottles, usually along with other types of non-standard milk on the bottom shelf. Acidophilus is also sold in capsules or powder form to mix with milk.

It’s in yogurt also but one needs to eat a lot of yogurt (and therefore too much sugar,  the small container of Yoplait has 5 teaspoons of sugar in it!)  to match the amounts in Acidophilus milk.

There is another way to get rid of yeast.  A story:

  • I hung my stethoscope over the trapeze railing on a patient’s bed in Trauma ICU and forgot about it.  Returning to work after four days, the patient, who had a trach, was in the midst of a code and I grabbed the stethoscope (ignoring the little voice in my head that said:  “Clean the earpieces.”)  and joined the code team.  Stupid! Every time that patient was suctioned day and night, probably every 20 minutes, he coughed, spreading who knows what all over the earpieces.  That was 43 years ago and the yeast and the itch is better but not gone.  The thing that almost fixed it was a completely non-yeast diet of no bread, no sugar, no fats, no red meat, no fruit or juice… for 2 years!

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Negative People

Posted on July 21, 2010 by Brie

Life is Good.  Life is Great.

I’d say this in the middle of the night at work and co-workers would ask what I was on or say that I’m crazy.  In the break room old episodes of The Cosby Show would be playing and I’d remark that it was exactly like our house and everyone pounced saying that no-one’s house was like that.  When questioned, they said everyone’s house was Married with Children.

Why are some firmly and absolutely negatively based and others, maybe blindsided, frantic or sad, remain positive?  Genetics? Childhood influences?  Sure but this doesn’t mean the ‘negative Muse’ cannot stop. What’s a ‘Muse’?  In this context, it’s when you find the one word that describes the underlying  goal of every day.  Lloyd Reynolds was a ‘Comic Muse’.  (for wonderful stories, see archives)

Negative people can change but I think it may require an ‘ah ha’ moment, something big, something life threatening big.  A terrible brush with death, fighting cancer, anaphylactic reaction to bee sting.  An event that illustrates without a doubt that life itself is positive.  One can force this event by structuring life risk events like Sky Diving, Rock Climbing.

Negative people are enculturated to mistrust those who are positive and hanging out with someone happy and positive for awhile is, to quote a friend:  “A life changing experience.”  But then fear of the unknown creeps in and not only do they revert but they attack.  It takes a personal ‘ah ha’ moment where fear and anger are no longer desirable.

F. Scott Peck says not to try to change this, just stay away in his book People of the Lie.  Becoming involved catches you in their karmic loop.

Derek Bok, former president of Harvard says in his book, Political Happiness, that only 3 things prevent one from experiencing happiness:

  • Depression
  • Chronic pain
  • Sleep deprivation  (fix this one with the music of PACIFE)

I would add two others:

  • Alcoholism
  • Narcotic addiction

Certain professions force the negative personality, some by the assumption that people are doing something wrong, others by circumstances.

  • Policeman /Lawyer /Judge
  • Social worker
  • The NICU nurse and RT (Respiratory therapist) for example,   approaches every minute with an underlay of ‘what’s wrong with this’.  They have to because anything wrong can accelerate rapidly and must be pounced on.  The tiniest drop in heart rate.  A cacophony of equipment all with alarms, some can be ignored, some we run to.  They work with eyes behind their heads. And this negative micro-management runs over into life outside of work, damages relationships and is hard on children.
  • In Computer work, QA (Quality Assurance) is negatively based also.  Finding what does not work is the entire focus of the job.

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What ‘Blood Alcohol’ Means

Posted on July 14, 2010 by Brie

A quick way to estimate hemoglobin is to use the very thin ‘crit’ tube, stick the patient’s finger, fill the tube almost to the top with blood, seal the bottom and tape the tube upright to the bedpost.

First of all, in a patient who has been drinking, we could smell alcohol from the blood.  Strong.  Leaving the upright crit tube for awhile gave us hemoglobin information, the hematocrit,  and something else.  Red cells packed on the bottom, next came an amber layer of plasma and then, with a sharp line of demarcation, the layer of alcohol.  That’s the blood alcohol reading.

A blood alcohol of .385 is fatal, absolutely and without a doubt.  We had a 36 year old man in ICU one night with a blood alcohol of .370 and he was frantic.  He had a catheter in with his urine draining into a bag tied to the bedframe and he tried to drink the urine.  We tied him to the bed.

In someone who drinks every day, the blood alcohol remains high.  It does not vanish during the night when sleeping.  It stockpiles itself.

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Life After Alcohol

Posted on July 13, 2010 by Brie

Alcoholism is a genetic disease, not a moral failing.  It sneaks up on a person and bites’ ya.  The only factor between the first drink and skid road or jail is time.

Is access to alcohol the first thing you think of when waking up?  Drinking every day?  More than one? Getting angry when someone says “You’re an alcoholic”?  The idea of quitting causes a panic attack?  Losing friends?  Angry all the time?  Distracted?  It’s a big club.

When drinking I thought I was having fun.  Sober revealed to me what real fun is.  It’s accuracy and control over my life, it’s clarity and peace and excitement and joy.  Looking back on the drinking days…  they were like living in a deep, dark tunnel.

Quitting is a decision.  It often happens because of some hit-bottom event and, depending on the baseline blood alcohol level, can include nasty detox /withdrawal.  It needs to be nasty because memories of it act as aversion therapy and help one remain sober.

AA is like a warm blanket and it’s magic  It’s no shame, no blame, it’s an adventure in itself  and it’s a fantastic series of new rules to live a happy new life, rules that immediately become custom because within AA, breaking them is taboo.   Rules like avoiding extremes of anything, don’t talk all the time, let others talk and listen to them… lots of these rules in addition to the 12 steps, the roadmap.

You cannot take something away without replacing it with something of  like or better value.  There are  things one gains:

  • A support system within AA meetings, anywhere, anytime.
  • A sponsor who knows exactly the right things to do and say and is only a phone call away.
  • The proud ability to say “I’ve been sober for 2 weeks.”  a big one. (I’ve been clean and sober for nearly 31 fantastic years.)
  • The wonderful way your body feels, the clarity of mind and how much sweet fun life becomes.
  • A life that is neat, tidy and controlled.
  • Family and friends that love you instead of fear you.
  • and you don’t miss alcohol.

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