This is an Iris Award-winning true-crime docuseries about the discovery, trauma, and recovery from shocking life events and abusive relationships.
Although the focus of this particular documentary speaks specifically to abuse of men toward women, understand that both men and women can be perpetrators and abusive.
I like that statistics, factual information and truth are shared in this podcast.
I had a personal experience along the lines of this story that lasted for about 3 years, with one of our kids, and it brought me to my knees. I felt completely helpless in what to do. That is truly when I learned how all-the-more real God is, when I finally chose to “let go and let God” clinging to God for direction.
This podcast verifies, once again, for me, that most anyone can be “sucked in” unknowingly and then, once “sucked in” it’s really difficult to see it for what it really is while being “in the thick of” the relationship.
There is a part in this podcast where a friend of the family mentions “…two take-aways”, shared here (and revised a touch 😉 ):
#1. It’s never too late to change course if/when necessary (even if you’re just about ready to go down the aisle).
#2. Listen to input and feedback from your family’s observations and “gut feelings” … or at least those you’ve trusted and those you know care about you, who have known you for most of your lifetime.
I find this to be a well done podcast with information we should all be made aware of. I recommend listening to this, to help become better informed and equipped (prior to going into potentially close relationships).
Even as I recommend this as a good resource, it is with one qualification I would like to mention taking note of. At the very end there is a section where they are joking a bit about the perpetrator and I must mention that does not reflect my perspective on this topic. I believe, that once one is safe from an abuser, it is possible to reconnect oneself with a sense of compassion as a fellow human being. I believe it’s possible to be firm, maintain necessary boundaries and protect ourselves in ways that are necessary (get ourselves out of a dangerous situation) and still ultimately retain a sense of compassion as well.
On that note, I would also like to mention a visual that I thought of at some point in my life while working through these challenges:
Picture a table in front of you. On that table are sticky notes. On those sticky notes are unresolved “stuff” (issues, feelings, interactions, etc) with other people.
As you scan those sticky notes on the table, you can choose to look at and pick up the ones that are yours to deal with, or not. And vice versa, the others can also choose to look at and deal with what’s theirs, or not.
What I learned later in life, and now hold at the forefront of all my interactions, is that I have no control over what others are going to do with their “stuff” (what’s theirs to deal with) … all I have control of is choosing to pick up and deal with my own “stuff”.
AND, what makes ALL the difference, and is very important, is that I must leave on the table what is not my to deal with! I have enough of my own personal “stuff” to pick up and deal with! It’s in others’ best interests, as well as my own, that I not be taking on anyone else’s “sticky note” of “stuff”.
There’s so much more to this (like realizing, along with taking up what’s ours and not taking up what’s someone else’s to deal with, it is critically necessary to be good to ourselves so that we can be at our best for others by, for example, setting healthy and necessary boundaries, among other things) … but I’ll stop there…. for now. 😉
Find this podcast on Spotify HERE
Find this podcast on Amazon HERE