Reflections of Society

I’ve known things were bad for a while

Most of my life actually

I’ve always dreamt of a time long ago

When people like Charles Ingles

Would do anything for his family

 

That fictitious man

Was one of the few people that I looked up to

I not only wanted to be his child

I wanted to grow up like him

 

For a while

I thought that I had

 

But I’m not Charles Ingles

And Walnut Grove doesn’t exist

Even in a Small town like Melbourne Arkansas

 

Over the last few months

We’ve spent a quarter of my yearly income

Trying to keep the children out of a home

Where the fights get physical

 

Our lawyer was too busy to even show up

 

I think that the thing that confuses me the most

Is that instead of all of us as a community

Getting together

And rallying around the children

And keeping them safe

Until we can be sure beyond a shadow of a doubt

that the environment in the other home is safe

 

we let the two people that are standing in defense of the children

stand alone

 

we let them pour money into this defense

money that would have been better used

to start a college fund for the children

we let these two people pour their blood, sweat and tears

into doing everything humanly possible

to keep the children from returning to the home

before we can be absolutely certain

that the 10 year history of abusive behavior is over for good.

 

Today I am confused

 

It appears that over the years

I haven’t learned one darn thing about mankind

 

As a child

I prayed to a God that never helped

I looked for help from police officers that never had the power to help

I sat huddled in my blanket cold and alone

Dreaming of that one person that would come and rescue me

 

That person never came

That person doesn’t exist

And nobody really cares

 

Because 30 years later

There is still no way

Even for someone willing to give everything of themselves

 

To fight against so many people

That are fighting just as hard

to put children back in to an abusive home

 

I’m not just talking about this particular case

Because the kids’ father does love them

An 99% of the time he is a loving, caring father

Its only that 1% that we fear

When he loses his temper

 

I’m talking about the fact

That nobody is willing to go to the wall for kids

 

And the fact that a lawyer, who is a well educated man

 will put the person that is trying to help the kids

On the stand

And do everything that he can to try and discredit him

In order to return the children to an abusive environment

 

And I stress again

That I’m not just referring to this case

I’m referring to situations that take place all across this country every day

 

What are we doing

What have we become

 

Maybe I’m just delusional to think that it was ever any better

 

We have a history of child labor in this country

A history that includes sending children in to unsafe machines

Because adults are too big to fit

We’ve changed the child labor laws

Children don’t have to go to work in factories anymore

 

I think the difference is that we could see the missing limbs

From the factory accidents

 

And we can’t see the damage done

when a child grows up watching a parent hit or get hit.

 

For years it was the same way with war vets

The ones missing limbs

Were looked at with an understanding

We saw that they had been through something horrible

We gave them something extra when it came to consideration

 

The veterans that came home after watching their friends get blown apart

Weren’t seen as being wounded

They weren’t seen as needing a little extra consideration

 

They were look at as the same people that left for war

They were expected to return to society

And be productive

Just as nothing had ever happened

 

We criticized the ones that couldn’t make it in society

 

Times have changed

We now recognize PTSD

We recognize the psychological trauma

We get the war veterans help right away

 

There will always be people that don’t understand psychological trauma

There will always be people that just say

Just be a man

Be tough

You can handle it

 

And there will always be people unwilling to see

that domestic violence

Is just like war

 

It creates damaged children

And denying that it is happening

Tells the children that it is acceptable behavior

 

Yesterday the lawyer spent a long time picking apart my blog posts

But what he didn’t realize was

that he was really working against himself

I didn’t even bring it up

But I will today

 

When you’re done reading this blog

Google this

thedoogieman.com

 

the first entry that should appear should read

THEDOOGIEMAN.COM

In capital letters

 

Right below it should read the following

 

“I am a recovering child of domestic violence. If you think just because he hits you and not your kids that it isn't hurting them, your dead wrong.”

 

The whole point of my blog

Was to try and show women, that stay in an abusive relationship

What happens to their children psychologically

Even years after the events and the childhood trauma are over

 

The whole time that the lawyer was bringing up the things in my blog

That were meant to show the effects of a traumatic childhood

He was really proving

That putting a child back in an abusive home

Would create exactly the thing

That he was trying to show

Was dysfunctional

 

My soul purpose of posting those things in the first place

Was to show what a child that grows up in that environment

Ends up like

 

Our home life doesn’t reflect the things in my blog

Because I’ve been through enough counseling, training, and education

To have moved beyond that life

But the blog is a place to vent

It’s a place to show people the innermost primal thoughts

That go through a person’s head

That grew up with violence

 

These thoughts are not acted upon

They are merely a way to show the basic thought process of an abuse victim

Before the things that have been learned over the countless hours of therapy

Are used to handle those thoughts and urges constructively

 

I am ashamed of our community as a whole

We sit in our safe homes

In our happy lives

While children suffer

 

Not the children involved in this case

Because there is a possibility that the man involved has learned a lesson

 

But we sit in our comfortable homes

We leave children in abusive homes

We leave them with drug addicts

 

We leave them in dysfunctional situations

 

We effectively turn our heads

And shove the children into a hypothetical closet

And we close the door

 

We hug our own children

Or our grand children

And we kiss them on the forehead as we tuck them into bed

We get them their favorite stuffed toy

And we leave the nightlight on

 

we forget about

The little ones

In the bad places

Because we don’t have to look at them.

 

We accept the lawyers that put the bad men back on the street

And the ones that put children back in the abusive homes

 

We accept them

In to our restaurants, stores and churches

We do this with open arms

And we dismiss the harm that they do

 

We also accept the family members that deny the abuse is taking place

We accept them just as though

they weren’t just as much at fault for letting it go on

as the abusers themselves

 

if someone hides a crime they go to jail

 

if someone hides domestic violence

we accept them right back in to the pew next to us

 

We do this

While we chastise the people that work so hard to help the kids

 

I’m confused

And once again

I am ashamed of mankind.

 

We have our priorities so backwards

 

I don’t get it

I don’t think that I ever will

And what’s more

I don’t want to understand it

 

If fitting in

And being accepted

Means turning a blind eye to struggling children

 

Then count me out.