Abuse - the quiet frontier
Do you know the warning signs? Do your kids?
Next week (week of 19 December) I’m releasing the first of a 3-part series on abuse. Maybe I’m foolish for releasing it during the holiday season, but it seems very fitting to me. You see, growing up holidays were some of the worst times of the year for me. My mother was bipolar, and she would get more and more stressed out as the holiday got closer. Especially the “big 3” - Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year. This led to more emotional and physical abuse, I imagine because she was trying to make herself feel better.
I don’t think my family was unique, I believe many families become more stressed out during this time of year. Most will not end up treating their children the way my brother and I were treated, but that doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen at all. It’s all too common for abuse to go years without being reported. And then there’s the risk the victim won’t be believed, or the circumstances will be downplayed.
A step in the right direction is understanding what abuse looks like. It’s not necessarily repeated trips to the emergency room and black eyes. It could be your child acting out or becoming withdrawn. It could also be an unwillingness to go near someone or flinching when someone tries to hug them (if they’ve never had a problem w/ physical contact before). To this day I have a strong aversion to being hugged.
Children, and adults, need a safe space where they feel like they can be heard. My biggest takeaway from the mini-series is just how much more I have to learn. It’s a hard thing to face, the idea that someone could be abusing your child. Especially for those of us whose children have disabilities or complex medical conditions. Do they understand what’s happening? Can they protect themselves?
I invite you to listen to all three episodes and let me know what you think. What questions should I have asked that I didn’t? Are there additional topics I should’ve included? What did you like? Were there any parts that got you to say “huh, I’d never thought about that”?
The season is leading off with Marvie Corbett, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in the state of Maryland. She explains what flags we can look for and how to approach our children if we suspect there is something going on. I love her framework of “we don’t keep secrets, we have surprises. And surprises have an end date” because I think many abusers stress the importance of keeping the “relationship” secret.
Episode 2 dives into the world of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC). There was a study in 1994 that found AAC users were 2 - 6x more likely to suffer abuse. This is an area I knew nothing about, so I reached out to Hali Strickler, with TechOWL. I discovered her on the LOMAH podcast. I had never considered how much an AAC user relies on others to communicate. In some cases, they literally have no control over what they are allowed to say because if the words aren’t programmed into their device they can’t use them.
We end the mini-series with Amy Saltzman, founder of Spot-a-Spider and abuse “sur-thrivor”. I learned about Spot-A-Spider from Parenting Impossible - The Special Needs Survival Podcast. We talk about the importance of teaching our children the correct anatomical terms for body parts and how to spot red flags. Her website has a bunch of downloadable resources, and she offers video courses on how to spot a “sneaky spider” and an “obvious spider”.
A recurring theme was how we, as parents, need to trust our guts. If we feel like something is off we shouldn’t be too quick to accept a brush-off. In a perfect world, these wouldn’t be discussions I need to share, but that’s not the world we live in. I believe bringing these topics into the open will help take away the power abusers have. Each of these episodes gets “heavy” at times. I understand if you don’t want to listen during the holidays. The beauty of it being a podcast is you can listen whenever you want, as often as you want.
This miniseries opened my eyes. I feel I have a lot more to learn and share about topics outside of “disability planning”. In 2023 I will be starting a new podcast with Jennifer Fraser, author of “The Bullied Brain: Heal Your Scars and Restore Your Health”. The show will be about shifting paradigms around bullying. It’s a lot more common than I had originally thought and can show up in some surprising ways. It’s also damaging to the bully, not just the victim. We’re still in the planning stages, so if you have guest ideas or a topic you’d like us to cover please send it to eric@specialneedsnavigator.us.