Sara Niles's Blog: Sara Nile's Blog - Posts Tagged "dysfunction"
Mission Based Writing
http://impactbooksandart.com/
Sometimes the reason for writing compels the author until the work is finished:
I was born naturally gifted with a talent for writing that was polished by traumatic life experiences which fueled the passion behind my writing.
Torn From the Inside Out was my first book; the writing of which began in 1995, eight years after being forced to flee for my life with five young children in 1987 when I was only twenty nine years old.
I wrote Torn From the Inside Out using the pseudonym Sara Niles, pouring out my deep-seated pain and anguish of having been a victim of domestic violence for almost fifteen years, along with my repressed fears and untold secrets; thus releasing the shame and guilt that comes with such an oppressed life and shedding it forever.
Much of my education was accrued l ‘hard way’ as my Uncle Robert used to say, for example, my own personal knowledge merged with empirical statistics reveals that domestic violence and family discord tend to follow victims throughout family generations, as Learned Behavior and negative images from childhood, are hard to shake free. It is because of my knowledge of such factors gained after having completed the writing of Torn From the Inside Out and subsequently obtaining education and training in the field of psychology and human behavior, that I realized the story had only begun. In order to properly address the complications of embodied in family dysfunction, two more books were needed in order to tell the ‘rest of the story’ as Paul Harvey (1918-2009) famously said.
The Torn Trilogy was completed in 2011, after almost sixteen years of struggle and strain toward the literary ‘finish line’, the crowning touch of my life’s work.
The Torn Trilogy is a twelve-hundred page mammoth work that includes Torn From the Inside Out, The Journey and Out of the Maelstrom. The Journey is the story of the children of ‘Torn’, as they fought to find their way in the world and Out of the Maelstrom is told from outside my own personal experience as I came in contact with ‘others’, such as the woman who was set aflame and wore the scars to prove it, the children whose animal-like behavior marked them as cases of ‘Reactive Attachment Disorder’ (RAD), as they exhibited the extreme symptoms of having lived in savage conditions with savage people. The third book of the Torn Trilogy broadens the perspective of the massive problem that arises when ‘man against man’ is the common theme within family bonds, as the selected individual accounts defy both morality and humanity. With the final book of the trilogy, speaking as the first hand narrator (Sara Niles), I emerged out of the maelstrom only to find a world of people still trapped within it, thus Out of the Maelstrom stands as a testament to not only the suffering inflicted upon man, but more importantly, the power of the human spirit to survive against all odds.
Sara Niles
I am Sara Niles. I spent ten years as a domestic violence counselor and Trainer, after my escape in 1987, and having obtained a post-secondary education. My work inside the front lines of domestic violence allowed me to come face to face with thousands of victims and victimizers. It was through this personal exposure that I realized how ingrained the stain of human dysfunction can become and how difficult it is to escape it. The generational impact of domestic abuse, dysfunction and violence not only affects individuals by warping the schema of children when their perceptions are most impressionable, but it spills into society via drug and substance addiction and deviant behavior that often ends in imprisonment.
I have always loved the art of great literature, and developed an affinity for the classics at a young age that has matured over the years like taste in fine wine. If had lived an ideal life, I would have written about ideal lives, but because I lived and survived an unconventional life filled with an undue amount of trauma and loss, my writings are filled with the passion and pain of traumatic experiences.
My drive to write about such a serious subject as domestic violence and family dysfunction is integral to my qualifications as a writer: A former victim of extreme domestic violence as a young woman; spent twelve years obtaining an academic education along with professional work experience. My extensive training in psychology, sociology, the behavioral sciences, as well as over a decade working in the fields of domestic violence, mental health and drug addiction counseling, enabled me to include the subtle dynamics of human motivation within my writings, embedded unobtrusively like a shadow and to write the final book of the Torn Trilogy from a humanistic, global perspective.
The Torn Trilogy
Sometimes the reason for writing compels the author until the work is finished:
I was born naturally gifted with a talent for writing that was polished by traumatic life experiences which fueled the passion behind my writing.
Torn From the Inside Out was my first book; the writing of which began in 1995, eight years after being forced to flee for my life with five young children in 1987 when I was only twenty nine years old.
I wrote Torn From the Inside Out using the pseudonym Sara Niles, pouring out my deep-seated pain and anguish of having been a victim of domestic violence for almost fifteen years, along with my repressed fears and untold secrets; thus releasing the shame and guilt that comes with such an oppressed life and shedding it forever.
Much of my education was accrued l ‘hard way’ as my Uncle Robert used to say, for example, my own personal knowledge merged with empirical statistics reveals that domestic violence and family discord tend to follow victims throughout family generations, as Learned Behavior and negative images from childhood, are hard to shake free. It is because of my knowledge of such factors gained after having completed the writing of Torn From the Inside Out and subsequently obtaining education and training in the field of psychology and human behavior, that I realized the story had only begun. In order to properly address the complications of embodied in family dysfunction, two more books were needed in order to tell the ‘rest of the story’ as Paul Harvey (1918-2009) famously said.
The Torn Trilogy was completed in 2011, after almost sixteen years of struggle and strain toward the literary ‘finish line’, the crowning touch of my life’s work.
The Torn Trilogy is a twelve-hundred page mammoth work that includes Torn From the Inside Out, The Journey and Out of the Maelstrom. The Journey is the story of the children of ‘Torn’, as they fought to find their way in the world and Out of the Maelstrom is told from outside my own personal experience as I came in contact with ‘others’, such as the woman who was set aflame and wore the scars to prove it, the children whose animal-like behavior marked them as cases of ‘Reactive Attachment Disorder’ (RAD), as they exhibited the extreme symptoms of having lived in savage conditions with savage people. The third book of the Torn Trilogy broadens the perspective of the massive problem that arises when ‘man against man’ is the common theme within family bonds, as the selected individual accounts defy both morality and humanity. With the final book of the trilogy, speaking as the first hand narrator (Sara Niles), I emerged out of the maelstrom only to find a world of people still trapped within it, thus Out of the Maelstrom stands as a testament to not only the suffering inflicted upon man, but more importantly, the power of the human spirit to survive against all odds.
Sara Niles
I am Sara Niles. I spent ten years as a domestic violence counselor and Trainer, after my escape in 1987, and having obtained a post-secondary education. My work inside the front lines of domestic violence allowed me to come face to face with thousands of victims and victimizers. It was through this personal exposure that I realized how ingrained the stain of human dysfunction can become and how difficult it is to escape it. The generational impact of domestic abuse, dysfunction and violence not only affects individuals by warping the schema of children when their perceptions are most impressionable, but it spills into society via drug and substance addiction and deviant behavior that often ends in imprisonment.
I have always loved the art of great literature, and developed an affinity for the classics at a young age that has matured over the years like taste in fine wine. If had lived an ideal life, I would have written about ideal lives, but because I lived and survived an unconventional life filled with an undue amount of trauma and loss, my writings are filled with the passion and pain of traumatic experiences.
My drive to write about such a serious subject as domestic violence and family dysfunction is integral to my qualifications as a writer: A former victim of extreme domestic violence as a young woman; spent twelve years obtaining an academic education along with professional work experience. My extensive training in psychology, sociology, the behavioral sciences, as well as over a decade working in the fields of domestic violence, mental health and drug addiction counseling, enabled me to include the subtle dynamics of human motivation within my writings, embedded unobtrusively like a shadow and to write the final book of the Torn Trilogy from a humanistic, global perspective.
The Torn Trilogy
The Face of Dysfunction
By Sara Niles (Pen Name)Using narrative, case studies, and psychological summaries, The Face of Dysfunction examines the patterns and behaviors created by dysfunction.
I write to make a difference, therefore my writing is mission oriented and imbued with a deeper purpose because of my traumatic life experiences. I write primarily nonfiction that exemplifies mans inhumanity to man, focusing on the triumphant human spirit within us all.
The Effects of Dysfunction and Domestic Violence are both primary, and secondary in nature, and for many, last a lifetime.
The internal pain caused by childhood abuse, becomes externalized through the triple threats of mental illness, trauma issues, and damaging addictions. I call this triple effect the 'Three Headed Monster'.
Patterns and Dysfunction
I spent thousands of hours examining people's lives under the microscope of counseling and I continue to see repetitions of the same underlying themes in almost every family. Healthy families beget healthy families and sick families beget families with many of the same sick dysfunctions that they experienced as children. Young boys and girls whose family role models were womanizers or man-users usually womanize or abuse and dispose of men, those whose models drank, usually have a substance abuse problem and those who grew up with hurt, pain and abuse usually inflict it upon their families in the same measure, over fifty percent of the time, or they may invariably find a partner who inflicts pain upon them. There are a rare few who escape this repetitive cycle, even though they were raised in it, but they are the exception. Many will marry the negative image of their parent or their opposite in an attempt to recreate what 'love' felt like and looked like to them as a child.
No matter how the child interprets it, when the family model is corrupted then the copy is corrupted. A very wise man that I greatly admired and who was a teacher and trainer once said there was a grandmother who baked a turkey with the edges cut off and both her daughters and granddaughters also baked their turkeys with the edges cut off. When someone asked the granddaughter why she baked her turkey with the edges cut off, she replied because her mother did it that way. When the mother was asked, she replied 'because my mother did it that way' and when the grandmother was asked, she said that she always had a pan that was too small for the turkey so she started trimming the edges so it would fit into the pan.
Dysfunction only needs to operate the first time, the rest will follow. We need to stop dysfunction where it starts in the first family, with the first children. If dysfunction by chance escapes detection, then stop it where you find it.
The collateral damage created by surviving family dysfunction is usually more dysfunction. Many of the dysfunctional patterns and behaviors become a part of a new family dynamic. The enormous amount of guilt suffered by survivors often result in repressed shame and a sense of permanent powerlessness, that lends itself to emotional triggers that release hidden hurt and anger. The unexplained outbursts that well up inside and find release as ‘road rage’ or as a screaming fit, or passive aggressive periods of cold shouldering toward loved ones, create new hurt feelings and a sense of inadequacy in dysfunctional adults.
Many of the stories explore elements of the dysfunctional dynamic through the behavior of abuse victims, and abusers, in the context of the role of the advocates involved in their lives.Filled with stories that are sometimes tragic and occasionally humorous, the Face of Dysfunction is set against the backdrop of daily life at a domestic violence agency in a small town.
Author On a Mission
Using narrative, case studies, and psychological summaries, The Face of Dysfunction examines the patterns and behaviors created by dysfunction.
I write to make a difference, therefore my writing is mission oriented and imbued with a deeper purpose because of my traumatic life experiences. I write primarily nonfiction that exemplifies mans inhumanity to man, focusing of the triumphant human spirit within us all.
The Effects of Dysfunction and Domestic Violence are both primary, and secondary in nature, and for many, last a lifetime.
The internal pain caused by childhood abuse, becomes externalized through the triple threats of mental illness, trauma issues, and damaging addictions. I call this triple effect the 'Three Headed Monster'.
Patterns and Dysfunction
I spent thousands of hours examining people's lives under the microscope of counseling and I continue to see repetitions of the same underlying themes in almost every family. Healthy families beget healthy families and sick families beget families with many of the same sick dysfunctions that they experienced as children. Young boys and girls whose family role models were womanizers or man-users usually womanize or abuse and dispose of men, those whose models drank, usually have a substance abuse problem and those who grew up with hurt, pain and abuse usually inflict it upon their families in the same measure, over fifty percent of the time, or they may invariably find a partner who inflicts pain upon them. There are a rare few who escape this repetitive cycle, even though they were raised in it, but they are the exception. Many will marry the negative image of their parent or their opposite in an attempt to recreate what 'love' felt like and looked like to them as a child.
No matter how the child interprets it, when the family model is corrupted then the copy is corrupted. A very wise man that I greatly admired and who was a teacher and trainer once said there was a grandmother who baked a turkey with the edges cut off and both her daughters and granddaughters also baked their turkeys with the edges cut off. When someone asked the granddaughter why she baked her turkey with the edges cut off, she replied because her mother did it that way. When the mother was asked, she replied 'because my mother did it that way' and when the grandmother was asked, she said that she always had a pan that was too small for the turkey so she started trimming the edges so it would fit into the pan.
Dysfunction only needs to operate the first time, the rest will follow. We need to stop dysfunction where it starts in the first family, with the first children. If dysfunction by chance escapes detection, then stop it where you find it.
The collateral damage created by surviving family dysfunction is usually more dysfunction. Many of the dysfunctional patterns and behaviors become a part of a new family dynamic. The enormous amount of guilt suffered by survivors often result in repressed shame and a sense of permanent powerlessness, that lends itself to emotional triggers that release hidden hurt and anger. The unexplained outbursts that well up inside and find release as ‘road rage’ or as a screaming fit, or passive aggressive periods of cold shouldering toward loved ones, create new hurt feelings and a sense of inadequacy in dysfunctional adults.
Many of the stories explore elements of the dysfunctional dynamic through the behavior of abuse victims, and abusers, in the context of the role of the advocates involved in their lives.Filled with stories that are sometimes tragic and occasionally humorous, the Face of Dysfunction is set against the backdrop of daily life at a domestic violence agency in a small town.
Sara Niles
I write to make a difference, therefore my writing is mission oriented and imbued with a deeper purpose because of my traumatic life experiences. I write primarily nonfiction that exemplifies mans inhumanity to man, focusing of the triumphant human spirit within us all.
The Effects of Dysfunction and Domestic Violence are both primary, and secondary in nature, and for many, last a lifetime.
The internal pain caused by childhood abuse, becomes externalized through the triple threats of mental illness, trauma issues, and damaging addictions. I call this triple effect the 'Three Headed Monster'.
Patterns and Dysfunction
I spent thousands of hours examining people's lives under the microscope of counseling and I continue to see repetitions of the same underlying themes in almost every family. Healthy families beget healthy families and sick families beget families with many of the same sick dysfunctions that they experienced as children. Young boys and girls whose family role models were womanizers or man-users usually womanize or abuse and dispose of men, those whose models drank, usually have a substance abuse problem and those who grew up with hurt, pain and abuse usually inflict it upon their families in the same measure, over fifty percent of the time, or they may invariably find a partner who inflicts pain upon them. There are a rare few who escape this repetitive cycle, even though they were raised in it, but they are the exception. Many will marry the negative image of their parent or their opposite in an attempt to recreate what 'love' felt like and looked like to them as a child.
No matter how the child interprets it, when the family model is corrupted then the copy is corrupted. A very wise man that I greatly admired and who was a teacher and trainer once said there was a grandmother who baked a turkey with the edges cut off and both her daughters and granddaughters also baked their turkeys with the edges cut off. When someone asked the granddaughter why she baked her turkey with the edges cut off, she replied because her mother did it that way. When the mother was asked, she replied 'because my mother did it that way' and when the grandmother was asked, she said that she always had a pan that was too small for the turkey so she started trimming the edges so it would fit into the pan.
Dysfunction only needs to operate the first time, the rest will follow. We need to stop dysfunction where it starts in the first family, with the first children. If dysfunction by chance escapes detection, then stop it where you find it.
The collateral damage created by surviving family dysfunction is usually more dysfunction. Many of the dysfunctional patterns and behaviors become a part of a new family dynamic. The enormous amount of guilt suffered by survivors often result in repressed shame and a sense of permanent powerlessness, that lends itself to emotional triggers that release hidden hurt and anger. The unexplained outbursts that well up inside and find release as ‘road rage’ or as a screaming fit, or passive aggressive periods of cold shouldering toward loved ones, create new hurt feelings and a sense of inadequacy in dysfunctional adults.
Many of the stories explore elements of the dysfunctional dynamic through the behavior of abuse victims, and abusers, in the context of the role of the advocates involved in their lives.Filled with stories that are sometimes tragic and occasionally humorous, the Face of Dysfunction is set against the backdrop of daily life at a domestic violence agency in a small town.
Sara Niles
Family and Nation: Dysfunction
How I Know
I have survived the most dysfunctional type of early beginning as a small child, and after a short hiatus spent with elderly relatives, I was once again thrown into even worse dysfunction as a teenager. In short, fifty of my sixty years have been spent as either as a victim of violence and abuse or as a survivor in a lifelong state of reconnaissance. I am a Domestic Violence War Veteran, and as such, I know far too much about abuse firsthand. I know that once the primary abuser is eliminated from the earthquake of a family dynamic, the after shocks of dysfunction linger from within the family unit for generations; more often than not. The collateral damage that began when the family was young, grew as it steadily chipped away at the foundations of the family, by slowly destroying its members. Like water on stone, little by little, the rot of domestic violence took its toll.
I married a very intelligent, troubled, and violent man, whose intelligence enabled him to mask his true self by exuding a sweet and charming presentation to the public, while his evil self lurked in the shadows. I had five children with Thomas Niles before I was forced to flee from him over thirty years ago, when I was still a young woman of 29. I expected that my escape with my five children, had ended the abusive cycle of destruction, suffering and sorrow; however, the children already had damaged sense of selves and the world, eroded senses of trust, or total lack of it, and they carried the mold of domestic dysfunction with them. In addition to the dysfunction of domestic violence, my children were forced to do battle with what I call the Three Headed Monster: Domestic Abuse, Mental Illness and Addiction. Each of the 'Monster' heads took a victim: one by suicide, another by mental illness, and the third became a monster himself, absorbing all the ugliness of evil. Only two of my five children survived on the positive side of life.
Abuse and Dysfunction as a Nation
The casualties in the United States that are directly related to the Three Headed Monster, are in the hundreds of thousands each year: according to the CDC over 100,000 deaths a year are attributed to alcohol alone, and over 50,000 from drug overdose, over 40,000 from suicides and close to 2000 domestic violence homicides are reported each year (many are not labeled as such), this does not include the thousands of children abused, neglected, or murdered each year. The prisons are full of domestic violence victims, usually as children, and often as adults in the case of female inmates. The broad reaching power and range of the Three Headed Monster, extends into every public sector, including the White House of the United States of America; Including the film industry, the sports arena, and every place you find people, you will find both former victims and sometimes active perpetrators of abuse. Abuse of power, and misuse of control, leads to a an unstable and unbalanced society at its worst, unstable and unbalanced individuals and families at the least. The result is a loosening of the Three Headed Monster, chaos and dysfunction, suffering, and catastrophe.
The saying about Rome was that it fell in a day, which is not literally true, however, while the process of Rome's fall was ongoing, the conquest of Rome was declared abruptly. Rome abused power, festered corruption and exploitation, and allowed the imbalance of chaos and dysfunction to take over the empire and the government, much like a large dysfunctional and abusive family. There are similarities between the Roman decline and Trump's control of the GOP and the government, as the abuse of power through catering to the groups in power while abusing those without, has lead to an unbalanced state of affairs. The relationship between domestic violence and abuse in the homes of world leaders when they were themselves children, is obvious in the case of President Donald Trump: his childhood based insecurities still drives his ego, and his need to create his own reality through lies, threats and manipulation, are all vestiges of the Three Headed Monster. The imbalance within Trump, created in his own childhood is the reason for the imbalance in the upper echelon of government. This is a paramount example of how far reaching childhood abuse and/or dysfunction is; and more importantly, how society is directly and indirectly affected by dysfunction.
The recent school shooting by Nikolas Cruz, is another example of how the larger society suffers as a whole when even the mental and emotional health of one member is damaged, and under-treated or ignored. It is evident that the most dangerous part of the school shooting was the easy access to a deadly assault weapon, and mental illness was a secondary factor, and both of these factors are part of a dysfunctional society. When society acts as a dysfunctional unit, important issues are neglected and society's children and their needs are not met. When the most powerful faction of society, the governing faction, misuses power and ignores the rights and needs of the people, society as a whole suffers.
Treat the Three Headed Monster
The Three Headed Monster: Mental Illness, Family Dysfunction (Abuse, Violence & Neglect), and Addiction, will wage war against us, if we don't wage war on it first. In order to restore balance in the United States as a Nation Family, we must recognize the needs of the people. In real life terms, funding cuts to Mental Health programs, Substance Abuse and Addiction programs, and Family Violence programs that deal with sexual assault and abuse, domestic abuse and violence and family health, all amount to Neglect, and Abuse of Power in the name of Greed. The needs of the people require annual expansion of funding and services (and I don't mean 1% as in the recent VAWA renewal) that aid in the prevention and intervention of domestic violence and abuse, mental health treatment, both prevention and treatment, and all substance abuse and addiction services.
Balance the Top-Balance the Bottom
Before the top level of government can reclaim balance, the bottom tier where the people live, needs attention. The creation of legislation that will demand immediate intervention in the case of the mentally ill in need of treatment, as well as secondary responses when treatment is rejected, will not only make society safer, it will offer hope for saving the hopeless individuals who commit atrocities like the one that was perpetrated at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida on Valentine's Day of 2018. Reclaiming balance means taking back the power that has been loosely given to any person capable of buying and Assault-grade weapon like an AR-15, that enabled Nikolas Cruz to effortlessly kill so many so fast.
America is already Great, but its strength is in its people: stop abuse and dysfunction, from the government down, and America will be stronger.
Sara Niles
Torn From the Inside Out
I have survived the most dysfunctional type of early beginning as a small child, and after a short hiatus spent with elderly relatives, I was once again thrown into even worse dysfunction as a teenager. In short, fifty of my sixty years have been spent as either as a victim of violence and abuse or as a survivor in a lifelong state of reconnaissance. I am a Domestic Violence War Veteran, and as such, I know far too much about abuse firsthand. I know that once the primary abuser is eliminated from the earthquake of a family dynamic, the after shocks of dysfunction linger from within the family unit for generations; more often than not. The collateral damage that began when the family was young, grew as it steadily chipped away at the foundations of the family, by slowly destroying its members. Like water on stone, little by little, the rot of domestic violence took its toll.
I married a very intelligent, troubled, and violent man, whose intelligence enabled him to mask his true self by exuding a sweet and charming presentation to the public, while his evil self lurked in the shadows. I had five children with Thomas Niles before I was forced to flee from him over thirty years ago, when I was still a young woman of 29. I expected that my escape with my five children, had ended the abusive cycle of destruction, suffering and sorrow; however, the children already had damaged sense of selves and the world, eroded senses of trust, or total lack of it, and they carried the mold of domestic dysfunction with them. In addition to the dysfunction of domestic violence, my children were forced to do battle with what I call the Three Headed Monster: Domestic Abuse, Mental Illness and Addiction. Each of the 'Monster' heads took a victim: one by suicide, another by mental illness, and the third became a monster himself, absorbing all the ugliness of evil. Only two of my five children survived on the positive side of life.
Abuse and Dysfunction as a Nation
The casualties in the United States that are directly related to the Three Headed Monster, are in the hundreds of thousands each year: according to the CDC over 100,000 deaths a year are attributed to alcohol alone, and over 50,000 from drug overdose, over 40,000 from suicides and close to 2000 domestic violence homicides are reported each year (many are not labeled as such), this does not include the thousands of children abused, neglected, or murdered each year. The prisons are full of domestic violence victims, usually as children, and often as adults in the case of female inmates. The broad reaching power and range of the Three Headed Monster, extends into every public sector, including the White House of the United States of America; Including the film industry, the sports arena, and every place you find people, you will find both former victims and sometimes active perpetrators of abuse. Abuse of power, and misuse of control, leads to a an unstable and unbalanced society at its worst, unstable and unbalanced individuals and families at the least. The result is a loosening of the Three Headed Monster, chaos and dysfunction, suffering, and catastrophe.
The saying about Rome was that it fell in a day, which is not literally true, however, while the process of Rome's fall was ongoing, the conquest of Rome was declared abruptly. Rome abused power, festered corruption and exploitation, and allowed the imbalance of chaos and dysfunction to take over the empire and the government, much like a large dysfunctional and abusive family. There are similarities between the Roman decline and Trump's control of the GOP and the government, as the abuse of power through catering to the groups in power while abusing those without, has lead to an unbalanced state of affairs. The relationship between domestic violence and abuse in the homes of world leaders when they were themselves children, is obvious in the case of President Donald Trump: his childhood based insecurities still drives his ego, and his need to create his own reality through lies, threats and manipulation, are all vestiges of the Three Headed Monster. The imbalance within Trump, created in his own childhood is the reason for the imbalance in the upper echelon of government. This is a paramount example of how far reaching childhood abuse and/or dysfunction is; and more importantly, how society is directly and indirectly affected by dysfunction.
The recent school shooting by Nikolas Cruz, is another example of how the larger society suffers as a whole when even the mental and emotional health of one member is damaged, and under-treated or ignored. It is evident that the most dangerous part of the school shooting was the easy access to a deadly assault weapon, and mental illness was a secondary factor, and both of these factors are part of a dysfunctional society. When society acts as a dysfunctional unit, important issues are neglected and society's children and their needs are not met. When the most powerful faction of society, the governing faction, misuses power and ignores the rights and needs of the people, society as a whole suffers.
Treat the Three Headed Monster
The Three Headed Monster: Mental Illness, Family Dysfunction (Abuse, Violence & Neglect), and Addiction, will wage war against us, if we don't wage war on it first. In order to restore balance in the United States as a Nation Family, we must recognize the needs of the people. In real life terms, funding cuts to Mental Health programs, Substance Abuse and Addiction programs, and Family Violence programs that deal with sexual assault and abuse, domestic abuse and violence and family health, all amount to Neglect, and Abuse of Power in the name of Greed. The needs of the people require annual expansion of funding and services (and I don't mean 1% as in the recent VAWA renewal) that aid in the prevention and intervention of domestic violence and abuse, mental health treatment, both prevention and treatment, and all substance abuse and addiction services.
Balance the Top-Balance the Bottom
Before the top level of government can reclaim balance, the bottom tier where the people live, needs attention. The creation of legislation that will demand immediate intervention in the case of the mentally ill in need of treatment, as well as secondary responses when treatment is rejected, will not only make society safer, it will offer hope for saving the hopeless individuals who commit atrocities like the one that was perpetrated at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida on Valentine's Day of 2018. Reclaiming balance means taking back the power that has been loosely given to any person capable of buying and Assault-grade weapon like an AR-15, that enabled Nikolas Cruz to effortlessly kill so many so fast.
America is already Great, but its strength is in its people: stop abuse and dysfunction, from the government down, and America will be stronger.
Sara Niles
Torn From the Inside Out
Sara Nile's Blog
"My writing is mission oriented and imbued with a deeper purpose because of my traumatic life experiences: I write nonfiction in order to make an appreciable dent in the effect of domestic violence an
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