“Broken” wrote about his experience in the middle of the night, when he described finding himself unable to sleep and have rationale thoughts.

I wanted to share this post because of three things that “Broken” did for himself that probably saved his life:

1. He recognized something wasn’t right, and saw a “danger” signal.

3. He asked for help, continuously.

Having personally experienced that “bottomless abyss”, I can say that asking for help (#3) was most difficult for me, yet it’s probably the most critical. When the illness disrupts your connection to yourself, sometimes connecting with other people is a round-about way of reconnecting with yourself again. This is why it’s so important to have people who are willing to just listen to you as you purge that tangled mess in your mind.

You CAN get through this. I believe it is just like any skill that we learn and become better with practice; at least, that is what I’ve found true for myself.

Once you’ve pulled yourself through an episode, no matter how dark how frightening how long it seems to last - you realize that you CAN pull through, that you HAVE pulled through, and that you WILL be able to pull through if darkness calls again.

Therapydoc writes about the fear of success. This was an eerie description how I used to feel:

…if your parents put you down, then you don’t think you’ve got what it takes to be someone. Having a gift at something doesn’t change your mind. Knowing you have certain strengths means nothing… If you’ve been abused then you might develop the fear that if you try to do something fabulous you’ll be PROVEN the idiot you think you are. You’re sure you’ll fail and everyone will KNOW you’re a loser as opposed to just guessing. From Therapydoc’s Tough Neighborhood- Fear of …

Therapydoc then describes what happens to some of the kids who live in an environment of constant put-downs that may be either emotional or physical (usually accompanied by violence). They become bullies and turn on the most vulnerable kids. These vulnerable kids are who the bullies are when the bullies are at home, being bullied by their parents.

These vulnerable kids learn not to draw attention to themselves, and when they become adults, they come to fear success, because it draws attention them. They self-sabotage to keep being invisible.

My question is, What’s a parent to do?

Parents whose children are vulnerable to bullies may want to do something to make the bullying stop, yet by acting, they draw additional attention to their children and adds fuel to the fire in the bullying cycle. But if they do not act, who knows how far some bullies will go, and what parents in their right mind would stand by and do nothing when their children are being tortured on a daily basis?

Do they talk to the bully child’s parents? That may be one approach, but I suspect that the bully child’s parents may often be the very reason why their kid has become a bully. These parents may very well be big bullies themselves, torturing their kid with emotional or physical abuse on a frequent basis.

I don’t know what the answer is, but I’d like to find out what you think may be solutions.

We’ve been hearing about soldiers suffering from mental health conditions (depression, PTSD) as a result of war deployment. This week’s Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) published an article on the incidence of child abuse and neglect in families with enlisted soldiers who were deployed for combat.

Almost two thousand families of enlisted soldiers with at least 1 combat deployment between 2001-2004 were studied. Researchers found that the rate of neglecting children by soldier parents were higher during times of deployment (and therefore associated parental stress) than during times of non-deployment while the raet of physical child abuse was lower. On the other hand, the rate of mistreating children by female civilian spouses was four times as great (neglect) and twice as great (physical abuse) when their husbands were deployed. (more…)