This can be physical harm; or it could be emotional. Sadly, the latter seems to be tolerated or accepted and yet, the emotional harm can leave scars that can last a lifetime. The difference is, they are not always visible.
Those who are coping with parental child abduction and/or parental alienation know all too well the emotional effects on them personally whether they are a parent, a family member or a child.
The Fathers Rights movement group estimate that 24,000 men a year commit suicide as a result of family court issues. If this figure is to be believed, when you add this figure to women and children who are affected, the figures will be so much higher..
When you add this to other emotional abuses such as false allegations, bullying & cyber bullying, defamation, harassment, you can only imagine what the figures might be.
I will stress here that these are suicide rates!! MANY MANY more people suffer emotionally and sometimes physically each day from these type of abuses. So the question needs to be asked, is society doing enough to deter this?
I recall from my childhood the saying "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me".. The facts are... "Words CAN hurt people"
What would your response be if it was found that somebody or some people were targeting a family member or a friend? I would like to think that readers of this blog would do what they can to protect that person and not be a bystander or even become a "participant abuser".
It is quite common in narcissistic behaviour that if a person is not successful in causing emotional damage to their target directly, that they will then aim for friends, associates, businesses and the general public in their attempts to harm that person. Whatever they feel their reason is, this weapon of choice can be a deadly one.
It is only recently that cyber bullying has become a crime. This is a positive step but unfortunately, the number of reported cases is low in contrast to the amount of times we see this occurring and social media themselves do very little to help the situation. They advise reporting and blocking but sadly, once an abusive/defamatory post has been publicly posted, the damage has already been done. No deterrent or accountability for the attacker.
The advice for the target is not to respond no matter how tempted you are to do so but to gather as much evidence as possible and report the matter to the police. However, this behaviour is so common on social media, it could not possibly be policed effectively so the responsibility should be to the social media moderators and the public themselves.
Another huge concern about abusive social media posts are that sometimes they can come from somebody close to the target as they might have had private argument or debate over a personal issue. Social media should not be the platform to voice this. People need to start thinking of the power of this form of media. It can be an amazing tool to do so many positive things. However, when not used in this way, it can be a very damaging form of abuse
I watched a TV programme the other day where "celebrities" were given the opportunity to investigate and face internet trolls and it enforced my thought that these people are cowards who have very little life of their own so instead, they try to destroy the lives of others..
Next time you see somebody premeditatedly trying to inflict emotional harm on another, how will you act?
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