A Scary Topic: Abuse

• Abuse is a topic that, I am sure, everyone prefers NOT to talk or even think about. The victims themselves often choose to avoid touching (= speaking or being questioned about) such a difficult, tragic "state of being". As in every kind of interaction, here, too, we have two individuals facing each other: the victim and the perpetrator. The latter is the tough "man" (general term for "human being"), the one who needs to feel powerful but, lacking the capacity and/or the intelligence to become so with the right tools, makes the choice of abusing a weaker person in order to prove their strength and have control over them. On the opposite side we have the  victim who accepts to be bullied, beaten, belittled, despised, offended. The slave and the "slave driver". But there is a difference, here. While in the olden days slaves did not have any choice because they were kept in chains, nowadays such bonds are not made of iron. Therefore they are NOT unbreakable. Modern shackles are mental, psychological. They are the powerful result of a type of conditioning that makes the victims unable to see that the cage they are kept prisoners in is not locked. (Actually, it does not even exist, but this is another story). It only takes some courage to push it open and get out. But they cannot do it. While in the past runaway slaves were recaptured and put back in chains, at present they could be aided, they would not be alone: relatives, friends, shelters, the police are willing to help them, if they only asked. They just need to speak up and reveal their desperate predicament (not easy, I know). Unfortunately, more often than not, the abused individuals do not believe they can actually do it. They are the victims of a "thought", the false belief in both  their helplessness and hopelessness. They feel they are doomed. They do not know (or remember) that nothing needs to be "forever".