The Trouble with Domestic Abuse Awareness Programs – Middle and High School Age

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Awareness programs are seldom attended and this is a really bothersome issue for program providers. I was examining this concern with a professional on a Linkedin board and one of her posts inspired me to look inside at what my own response would have been in the height of my abuse. So, let me paint you a picture of what my response to the program permission form likely would have been and why. ( Remember, FOG = Fear Obligation and Guilt)

 

A Mother’s Fear of the Form

In my FOGgy ‘past life’ of lies and cover-ups, the last thing I want is some do-gooder filling my kid’s heads full of a bunch of clues to the truth about how bad of a job I am doing as a mother by letting Dad hurt our family because I am too weak and scared to get us out.  – I know I am weak, and stupid and a horrible mother. Are you kidding me? I live everyday in fear that I am not going to be able to get us out in time to prove to my kids that I really do care about them and I really am fighting for their lives. I guess I should use the word love instead of care. But, I am not worthy of love and really I don’t love them because if I did I would pull it together and fight this monster. Even if it meant he did kill me. At least I would have gone down for my kids and not just let us live here in this daily misery and oppression. So, no! Someone who doesn’t know me and has probably only read about abuse in a book isn’t going to be telling my kids how to go and turn us in to the authorities for abuse. Once that happens, sure their Dad is in trouble. But, I likely am also going to jail. Ok- I probably deserve to be jailed because after all I am allowing my kids to get hit. But, I am getting hit too and I am so full of this paralyzing FOG that I can’t move and I just know that if I even breathe in the direction of a threat to call the cops again, my husband is going to kill us all as he has described to me many times. Plus, if he hears about the program ‘heads will roll’ as the old saying goes around our house. We all surely don’t need any more of that drama than necessary. So, will I sign the form? Nope! I will fight hard to hide the form, pick my kids up early that day, let them miss school or whatever it takes to quiet the riot against the little smidgen of my remaining sanity. I will buy as much time as possible until I can figure a way out where I am not the criminal and he will go to jail like he should. I might be a horrible person. But, I am also a victim and I just want help.

That is possibly what we are dealing with when some of the parents won’t sign the permission form.   So sad. 🙁   But, for me it would have been so true.       ~ Lisa~

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