If you take a couple of minutes to read this Commentary, maybe while you enjoy a Sunday morning cup of coffee, you should know that while you're reading and sipping, thirteen women will be physically abused in America. Two of those women will be raped, one or both of them by a man she knows. Eight or more of those women will resist the attacks, verbally and/or physically.

Half the women in America will be in abusive relationships during their lives. Women are nine times more likely to be attacked at home than on the street, and they're more likely to be raped by someone they know than by a stranger. When they know their attackers they're more than twice as likely to suffer injuries as they are when they don't know them. Many of those injuries will be so severe the victims won't be able to drink coffee for a long time, if ever again. Put your cup aside and I'll tell you how I know these statistics: I have had the pain and the awakening of seeing the Clothesline Project on display.

The National Clothesline Project was started in 1990. It consists of T-shirts created by women who have been the victims of violence, or by their surviving family or friends. There's a color scheme to the shirts, though it's not rigidly followed: yellow or beige is for women who have been battered or assaulted; red, pink or orange is for women who have been raped or sexually assualted; blue or green is for women survivors of incest or child sexual abuse; purple or lavender is for women attacked because of their perceived sexual orientation; black is for women who have been gang-raped; and white is for women who have died as a result of violence.

The Ventura County Clothesline Project currently has fifty-five shirts, all made by local victims, or by their families. I assure you that every color and category listed above is included in the display. I have never in my life experienced a more moving, more haunting, more shaming feeling than what I felt while I stood before the silent cloth witnesses to what is happening to women and girls in this nation. In fact the point, the purpose of the Clothesline Project, nationally and locally, is to "Break the Silence" and put an end to this cycle of cruelty.

More than 58,000 Americans died in the Vietnam War. During that war 51,000 American women were killed in the U.S., by men who supposedly loved them. We built a wall to honor those who died in Vietnam, a long, black slash across the national conscience, so that we would not forget those who gave their all. But we have built no such wall, no monument, to the women who died and continue to die in such awful numbers, or to so many more women who suffer emotional and physical injuries yet somehow survive. We hope that as a nation we learned something from Vietnam, but there is no indication that we have learned what a price we all pay when we continue to allow this epidemic of violence.

Stand before the clothesline, read the stories the T-shirts tell. They're all graphic and compelling, regardless of the words used to describe what their creators went through. Those women, and all the women who have created shirts, all the women who have been victims of violence, are as courageous as any decorated combat veteran, any soldier who stood before an enemy, any Medal of Honor winner - they were all those things and more, because they too often had to stand alone.

One definition of society is "The institutions and culture of a distinct self-perpetuating group." We are certainly a society, markedly so when we realize that the institutions and culture with which we surround ourselves seem so intent on perpetuating violence against women. But no society can rightfully call itself a civilization, civil being the operative part of the equation, so long as it allows such violence to continue, or depends on the victims of that violence to stop it.

It's time to "Break the Silence" and become a civilization. You can help by seeing the Clothesline Project, or by supporting it. For information on how you can do both, contact your local NOW chapter (National Organization for Women) or Victims of Abuse Hotline. Make a difference, and your coffee won't taste as bitter as it does right now.

Lighting the way to a brighter future! Burn a candle on your page. Help Support the fight against violence -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The author is Donald J. Hunt. Send him an e-mail and let him know that his editorial made a difference. Please feel free to copy this editorial........pass it around........you, too, can make a difference in someones life. If you'd like, you can use the button below to place a link to this page from your site. All the author and I require is that you keep the editorial intact and give the author credit.

I use to believe that Beluha Land was Heaven;

Beulah Land is any place in which you are with the Lord

Oh, my cup is overflowing With the goodness of the Lord;

I am trusting in His mercy,

And rejoicing in His Word.

I have climbed the rugged mountain,

On its summit now I stand,

Hallelujah! hallelujah!

I have entered Beulah land.

From the sighing and longing,

That so oft my heart oppressed,

With my Savior and Redeemer

Now in perfect peace I rest.

There's a palace o'er the river

And its jasper walls I see,

And among its many mansions

There is one prepared for me.

I have climbed the rugged mountain,

But my Savior led the way;

Unto Him shall be the glory,

When I reach eternal day.

CHANGING OF THE GUARDS

Child Abuse....Domestic Violence....Awarness....PTSD....Personality Disorder....
National Domestic Violence Hotline & Domestic Violence Link Listing
1-800-799-SAFE (7233) *** 1-800-787-3224 (TTY) Linea Nacional sobre la Violencia Domestica

Each month, nearly 11,000 callers - victims of domestic violence, their families and friends across the U.S. - receive crisis intervention, referrals, information and support in many languages.

One call summons immediate help, in English or Spanish, 24 hours a day, seven days each week. We also have interpreters available to translate an additional 139 languages. The Hotline may be reached toll-free by phone from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The National Domestic Violence Hotline links individuals to help in their area using a nationwide database that includes detailed information on domestic violence shelters, other emergency shelters, legal advocacy and assistance programs, and social service programs.

BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER



A message to those who suffer from borderline. You don't have to suffer any more. It is not, and has never been your fault. You can live without mood swings, without anger, without fighting, without acting impulsively or self-destructing, and without panicking under stress. It's treatable and sometimes curable.

Most borderlines are very intelligent, creative individuals who never seem able to "get it together" - in either their professional life, their personal life, or both. Most feel greatly relieved to finally understand what was happening to them. With medication, you can feel remarkably better, very quickly. With courage and hard work, you can be cured.I speak from personal experience, this is a disorder I have lived with for many years. I really do not like to call it a disability, for it did give me the ability for many years to cope and at time still today.I use to live in shame for not knowing why I couldn't seem to "get it together",Today I take each moment and thank God for giving me this copeing ability.

If at any time you feel suicidal or that you can't handle what you're reading, please stop and get some help from a good professional.

PTSD

In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-R), the official handbook of psychiatric problems, the listing for post-traumatic stress disorder is the only diagnosis in the entire book that places the origin of the symptoms on external events rather than on the individual personality. The PTSD diagnosis is also the only one that recognizes that, subject to enough stress, any human being has the potential for developing PTSD or PTSD symptoms.

What this means to you is that, although your "pretrauma" personality, belief system, and values certainly affected your reaction to and interpretation of the traumatic event, you did not develop PTSD because of some inherent inferiority or weakness in your personality. Trauma changes personalities, not the other way around.

The DSM-III-R Criteria for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

According to the official definition of PTSD in DSM-III-R, in order to qualify as having PTSD, you must meet the following criteria:

Criterion A: You have been exposed to trauma.

Criterion B: You reexperience the trauma in the form of dreams, flashbacks, intrusive memories, or unrest at being in situations that remind you of the original trauma.

Criterion C: You show evidence of avoidance behavior--a numbing of emotions and reduced interest in others and the outside world.

Criterion D: You experience physiological hyperarousal, as evidenced by insomnia, agitation, or outbursts of rage.

Criterion E: The symptoms in Criteria B, C, and D persist for at least one month.

DEPRESSION

Most people have experienced depression at least once in their life. The predominant effect of depression is a loss of energy. Few things, if any, seem interesting; motivation drops off to zero.

Although this feels terrible, people in the grips of depressions are still able to do the things they need to do in order to survive. They go to work, pay the bills, cook their food, and relate to the people in their life who demand their attention. This normal type of depression feels rotten, but life continues in spite of it.

The line between normal and major depression is crossed when that down, rotten feeling invades every part of your life. Experiences that may seem objectively satisfying to others feel like failure and frustration to you. Eventually you may try to avoid having any experience at all. Communicating with people, even those you love, may seem difficult or intrusive. You may shrink from speaking with people entirely. And when you envision the future-whether it be tomorrow, two months, or two years down the road-you seeno light at the end of the tunnel. You have no sense that your gloom and despair will ever lift. In short, a major depression differs from a normal depression in that its symptoms are much more severe, last much longer, and eventually impair a person's ability to function.

The DSM-III-R establishes several criteria by which a major depression is clinically defined.

First, a condition must exhibit at least five of the following nine symptoms, and these symptoms must have been present for at least two weeks:

1.Depressed mood most of the day, nearly every day.

2.Diminished interest or pleasure in almost all activities of the day, nearly every day.

3.Significant weight gain or loss when not dieting, and decreased appetite nearly every day. 4.Insomnia or hypersomnia (sleeping too much) nearly every day.

5.Abnormal restlessness or a drop in physical activity nearly every day. 6.Fatigue or loss of energy nearly every day

7.Feelings of worthlessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt nearly every day.

8.Diminished ability to think, concentrate, or make decisions nearly every day.

9.Recurrent thoughts of death, or recurrent suicidal thoughts without a specific plan; or a suicide attempt; or a specific plan for committing suicide.

The manual stipulates that one of the first two symptoms (depressed mood or diminished interest) must be among the five symptoms present. In order for any one of these behaviors to be considered a symptom, it must reflect a change from that person's ordinary behavior.

In addition to exhibiting the initial five symptoms, the following must also be true:

1.The disturbance is not being caused by another illness. 2.The disturbance is not a reaction to the loss of a loved one.


AWARNESS




In Choosing a therapist or program, you have the right to shop around and ask questions. To do this you may need to overcome the passivity and low self-esteem that plague so many trauma survivors. But it is vital that you convince yourself that you deserve the therapist or program that is best suited to your needs.

There is a minimum set of criteria for effective therapy. Effective therapists and therapeutic programs must do the following:

See the trauma as real and important in itself, apart from any preexisting psychological problems and any current social, family, or personal pressure. View you as a survivor capable of being healed - not as a willing participant in the trauma or as a hopeless psychiatric case.

Educate you about the nature of the trauma, and secondary wounding experiences, about the specific factors in your particular category of trauma that may affect you, and about the nature of the healing itself.

Either teach you coping skills such as assertiveness, stress management, relaxation techniques, and anger management, or make appropriate referrals for you to receive such help.

Use medication and behavior-management techniques when appropriate, but not to the exclusion of examining your present and past with the goal of understanding what occurred and your feelings about those events. Be aware of the effects of sex-role stereotyping, racism, and blame the victim attitudes on the healing process.

To begin the process of selecting a therapist or program, compile a list of names. Get recommendations from friends, doctors, other trauma survivors who have had positive experiences, and hospitals with specialized programs for trauma survivors.

~~~~MY LINKS AND WEBRINGS~~~~~






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