Rihanna: Should You Stay? Should You Leave?
“Why don’t you just leave?” It sounds so simple. Pack up your bags and go.
Oprah introduced me to When Men Batter Women: New Insights into Ending Abusive Relationships by Neil Jacobson and John Gottman. It is a must read book for anyone deciding whether to stay or leave.
Why? Professors Jacobson and Gottman discovered there are two types of abusers: “pit bulls” and “cobras.” These descriptions are brilliant. A pit bull can’t and won’t let go. A cobra will strike to kill when it feels threatened. These same characteristics are found in abusive people.
The domestic violence paradigm and system deals quite effectively with cobra abusers. But, people attempting to leave a pit bull abuser frequently find themselves on their own to survive as best they can.
A pit bull is the person who decides, “if I can’t have her/him, no one can.” These are the abusers who commit murder/suicide. When the pit bull realizes the relationship is indeed over, the object of their “affection” is in mortal danger.
How do you know the difference? To read more, click here and click here.
Sense of Humor: Get Yourself Some Madea Going On!
You may have seen Tyler Perry’s movies. You probably don’t know that his comedy comes from his efforts to lift himself up from where you are right now. Madea was his alter-ego who helped him survive, thrive, find joy, and become outrageously wealthy. To read more, click here.
It is difficult to explain the difference between a “pit bull” abuser ~ the kind that won’t let go ~ and a “cobra” abuser ~ the kind who will strike to kill when he/she feels threatened.
John Wayne Bobbitt is a quintessential “pit bull” abuser. For those of you who need to understand the difference in order to craft a viable safety plan, I strongly urge you to visit The Insider web site and look at tonight’s clip several times. To learn more, click here.
Windmills of Our Minds: Faith or Fear?
Instinctively, we react to threats to our safety with a fight or flight response. It ramps up our adrenaline and sends us into a temporary high.
It can, at times, help us to literally move mountains to remove ourselves and those we love from peril.
For those of us who have experienced abuse, it can also ruin our health. We can end up with health concerns like complex PTSD (C-PTSD), auto-immune disorders, and cardio-vascular problems. To read more, click here.
Orders of Protection: A Victim’s Frame of Reference
Should a woman seek an order of protection when she has been abused? Is it the best course of action to take? Or should she not pursue an order and just call the police as needed? To read Rita Anita Linger’s guest column, click here.
