RE: Psychological Abuse

[aberson@enh.nist.gov]

As the PSA I heard on my way to work this morning said, "Word can hit as hard
as fists."

All abuse leaves psychological scars.  Physical abuse also leaves physical
scars.  Survivors of physical abuse have these physical scars as at least
some reminder of their abuse, something tangible to look at to prove that they
have been abused.  The phychologically abused do not have these physical scars.
Surviving psychological abuse can be more difficult to heal because we can't
really see the scars.

The psyche takes more time to repair than the body.  To say that my 
psychological abuse is less an abuse than anyone else's physical abuse is
offensive to me. 

In a previous article, cynthia@bsbbs.UUCP (Cynthia Rosas) wrote:
>I don't think she ever denied the existence of psychological
>force.  She's simply saying that to equate something that
>still, each person has the ULTIMATE choice of whether to let
>it rule them or not,   to something like rape, where your
>choice is taken away from you by force, implies a "lessening"
>of the severity of rape, and therefore is a sexist notion.
>It AIN't the same thing as physical rape.

Here is where I have some major problems.  The notion that rape can have equal
repercussions to psychological force cannot be sexist.  It could be sexist if
only one sex were raped, but that is clearly not true.  Men can be and are 
raped just as easily as women.  Living in a large metropolitan area working
for a violence hot-line, I hear frequently from men who have been raped.
In one case, a hate crime, the police said the victim couldn't have been
raped because he was gay.  In another, the victim was attacked by three
men, kidnapped, raped and beaten.  He refuses to get counselling because he
does not believe that men get raped, even though it happened to him.

If I read the meaning of sexist wrong here, I am sorry, but that is how it
reads to me.

I suggest everybody interested in this topic take some time to read
alt.sexual.abuse.recovery.  The psychological abuse goes hand-in-hand with
the physical.  Who knows, you might learn something there.

                                                                        ________
                        Sim David Aberson   aberson%3338.span@sdsc.edu  \      /
"While 1575 'interdicted Haitians remain prisoners on seven Coast Guard  \    /
cutters, Popeye the dog is welcomed to America after his raft trip from   \  /
Cuba."                         Tom White                                   \/