A poem to bring the effects of abuse on children who live in fear of violence, out into the open. When parents fight the whole family suffer. Children live in fear. This is not right.
Every night it is the same, Mum and dad play their game. Daddy shouts, makes mummy cry It’s frightening when daddy’s arms start to fly.
It’s no fun to hear things go bump When mum falls after dad’s given her a clump. In the morning mum looks pale Always smiles as the neighbours she hails.
I don’t like to see mum’s bruises Or hear the words that dad uses. I don’t want to go to school Rather stay with mum in case dad is cruel. He rings her in the day you see He and threatens her, they think that I don’t see.
Hiding underneath the bed clothes pretending it is not real They just keep on and on not caring how I feel. Mummy says I must stay quiet and out of his way. I am not allowed to talk of this at school Or mention that my daddy is so cruel.
SSSH! what was that awful scream, I hate daddy he is so mean…. That was the front door ……….. It is quiet now, no shouting any more. Mummy Mummy are you there , Creeping forward down the stairs Mummy is laying on the floor Her head at a funny angle to the door. Mummy , mummy answer please , mummy mummy please don’t tease. Mummy daddy has gone away Mummy speak to me, something say.
Female, wife, full time mother and Grandmother. I am not as happy go lucky as I used to be but I am still bubbling along on simmer! I have three handsome sons all grown and flown.The youngest married with a beautiful wife and two sons of his own. Back in 2010 I was working, running a home, driving and socializing then bang in a split second all that was gone. I had an accident at home. I broke my back, not for the first time, I had broken it 10 years previously as well. Unfortunately this time I had broken it really badly and it was truly messed up so I had to have two operations. I was told before each operation that the outcome could mean I spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair. Still as some guy once wrote "I am still standing " yes "better than I ever was " I no longer use the walking stick . I had lots of friends before the accident but when things like this happen, you loose most of them. Their lives move on and mine stood still and so they left me behind ...I know that is just the way life is but it hurt and always will. Then I looked around and saw those who were still there for me, these friends are the roses in my garden they need to be tended well. They are the diamonds in the dust. I will of been married 53yrs this comming year. I have found different ways to approach life, use my pain befriend it almost...yer right , well that is what they tell me at the pain clinic ROFLMAO ...... if only I could! I have found an outlet for my fears, frustrations and night terrors . I have started writing poetry if that name can be applied to my writing. I hope I do not come over as a moaning winger. I hope I am past all that. I also hope that you might see how the poetry is moving from very dark through the grey and hopefully in to light.
My back is no longer straight it is C shaped because of the injury and I have lost two and a half inches in height but my Pilates and Core teachers have helped me to stand up as straight and be as strong as possible. Pain and depression are still hanging on my arm but I have weapons to use against them and if I say so myself I cope well.
I have made lots of new friends, real diamonds. I am also very grateful for all the support and help I have encountered here on Wordpress. Hugs and welcome to everyone who visits.
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30 thoughts on “Child Abuse Month .”
Such a heartbreaking poem Willow. This is too real and happens in too many households.
🥺🥺 This hit home all too hard. I can resonate with this, being I was a victim of two evil people who were supposed to protect me, but rather inflicted their demons onto me and my brother. It’s a terrifying nightmare I Never ever want to relive. That’s exactly why I have been diligently trying to raise awareness. I do not ever want any child to suffer the horrid and inhumane abuse I did, my whole childhood.
Thank you for also raising awareness. We need more people like you to be a voice for those who have no voice, to be able to come to a place where they feel safe to speak out without judgement, to be able to recognize they are not alone, and most importantly, get the much needed support they deserve. 💜
I am so sorry sorry to hear how your life and your brother’s life have been affected by abuse.
It’s a sad fact of life that child abuse, well all abuse is ever with us. No matter how hard we try to bring the subject to the fore it skillfully ignored and papered over.
Nothing ever seems to improve, the same old excuses and platitudes are rolled out. We must all shout out loud …We must all do our bit.💜
Yes. Amen! The system in today’s world is utterly ridiculous. Those of us who are raising awareness are the ones that will change the world. We give kids a voice and stand up for them.
I saw this before went to bed, but I didn’t want to read it. It’s hard to read in the light of day. This is going on all around us and we don’t know or we choose not to know. It’s so sad, Willow. Thank you for calling attention to it.
If survived, early-life child abuse left unchecked typically causes the brain to improperly develop. It can readily be the starting point of a life in which the brain uncontrollably releases potentially damaging levels of inflammatory stress hormones and chemicals, even in otherwise non-stressful daily routines.
It can amount to non-physical-impact brain-damage abuse: It has been described as a continuous, discomforting anticipation of ‘the other shoe dropping’ and simultaneously being scared of how badly you will deal with the upsetting event, which usually never transpires.
The lasting emotional/psychological pain throughout one’s life from such trauma is very formidable yet invisibly confined to inside one’s head. It is solitarily suffered, unlike an openly visible physical disability or condition, which tends to elicit sympathy/empathy from others. It can make every day a mental ordeal, unless the turmoil is prescription and/or illicitly medicated.
As a moral rule, a mentally as well as physically sound future should be every child’s fundamental right — along with air, water, food and shelter — especially considering the very troubled world into which they never asked to enter; a world in which Child Abuse Prevention Month [every April] clearly needs to run 365 days of the year.
The health of all children needs to be of real importance to everyone — and not just concern over what other parents’ children might or will cost us as future criminals or costly cases of government care, etcetera — regardless of how well our own developing children are doing.
_____
“The way a society functions is a reflection of the childrearing practices of that society. Today we reap what we have sown. Despite the well-documented critical nature of early life experiences, we dedicate few resources to this time of life. We do not educate our children about child development, parenting, or the impact of neglect and trauma on children.”
—Dr. Bruce D. Perry, Ph.D. & Dr. John Marcellus
.
“I remember leaving the hospital thinking, ‘Wait, are they going to let me just walk off with him? I don’t know beans about babies! I don’t have a license to do this. We’re just amateurs’.”
—Anne Tyler, Breathing Lessons
.
“It’s only after children have been discovered to be severely battered that their parents are forced to take a childrearing course as a condition of regaining custody. That’s much like requiring no license or driver’s ed[ucation] to drive a car, then waiting until drivers injure or kill someone before demanding that they learn how to drive.”
—Myriam Miedzian, Ph.D.
.
“It has been said that if child abuse and neglect were to disappear today, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual would shrink to the size of a pamphlet in two generations, and the prisons would empty. Or, as Bernie Siegel, MD, puts it, quite simply, after half a century of practicing medicine, ‘I have become convinced that our number-one public health problem is our childhood’.”
—Childhood Disrupted, pg.228
Hello and welcome to Heartland Echoes! I am thrilled to have you here. So, sit back, relax, and stay awhile as you explore my diverse range of written poetry, mental health articles, motivational quotes, and ten captivating chapters of my autobiography. Get ready to be inspired and uplifted as you delve into the world of Heartland Echoes.
willowdot21 
Such a heartbreaking poem Willow. This is too real and happens in too many households.
Yes Sis it’s harrowing isn’t it 💜
Very true. So many factors in play in such relationships, and sometimes the abused person can’t just walk away.
Yes sometimes they are trapped in a circle of abuse 💜💜
Indeed. Tragic all around
An so often ends in tragedy 💜💜
Yes it does, unless the abuse victim has the courage and support to walk out of the relationship.
Which very often does not happen 💜💜💜
The sad thing is; some children think the abuse is normal and they grow up themselves as abusers.
I know I wrote one about that too but hesitate to publish it’s is grafic and depressing. 💜
😦
So sad 😢
Oh, Sis, so heartbreakin💔
It is isn’t it Sis 💜💜💜
so awful
It truly is 💜
This breaks my heart.💔
Me too 💜💜
🥺🥺 This hit home all too hard. I can resonate with this, being I was a victim of two evil people who were supposed to protect me, but rather inflicted their demons onto me and my brother. It’s a terrifying nightmare I Never ever want to relive. That’s exactly why I have been diligently trying to raise awareness. I do not ever want any child to suffer the horrid and inhumane abuse I did, my whole childhood.
Thank you for also raising awareness. We need more people like you to be a voice for those who have no voice, to be able to come to a place where they feel safe to speak out without judgement, to be able to recognize they are not alone, and most importantly, get the much needed support they deserve. 💜
I am so sorry sorry to hear how your life and your brother’s life have been affected by abuse.
It’s a sad fact of life that child abuse, well all abuse is ever with us. No matter how hard we try to bring the subject to the fore it skillfully ignored and papered over.
Nothing ever seems to improve, the same old excuses and platitudes are rolled out. We must all shout out loud …We must all do our bit.💜
Yes. Amen! The system in today’s world is utterly ridiculous. Those of us who are raising awareness are the ones that will change the world. We give kids a voice and stand up for them.
I saw this before went to bed, but I didn’t want to read it. It’s hard to read in the light of day. This is going on all around us and we don’t know or we choose not to know. It’s so sad, Willow. Thank you for calling attention to it.
It is awful Dan and social services and children homes keep making the same mistakes… I just wish we could make things better 💜
I do, too. No child should have to suffer this.
Never Never. 😞💜
This is very tragic, Willow.
Heart wrenching Robbie 💜💜💜
If survived, early-life child abuse left unchecked typically causes the brain to improperly develop. It can readily be the starting point of a life in which the brain uncontrollably releases potentially damaging levels of inflammatory stress hormones and chemicals, even in otherwise non-stressful daily routines.
It can amount to non-physical-impact brain-damage abuse: It has been described as a continuous, discomforting anticipation of ‘the other shoe dropping’ and simultaneously being scared of how badly you will deal with the upsetting event, which usually never transpires.
The lasting emotional/psychological pain throughout one’s life from such trauma is very formidable yet invisibly confined to inside one’s head. It is solitarily suffered, unlike an openly visible physical disability or condition, which tends to elicit sympathy/empathy from others. It can make every day a mental ordeal, unless the turmoil is prescription and/or illicitly medicated.
As a moral rule, a mentally as well as physically sound future should be every child’s fundamental right — along with air, water, food and shelter — especially considering the very troubled world into which they never asked to enter; a world in which Child Abuse Prevention Month [every April] clearly needs to run 365 days of the year.
The health of all children needs to be of real importance to everyone — and not just concern over what other parents’ children might or will cost us as future criminals or costly cases of government care, etcetera — regardless of how well our own developing children are doing.
_____
“The way a society functions is a reflection of the childrearing practices of that society. Today we reap what we have sown. Despite the well-documented critical nature of early life experiences, we dedicate few resources to this time of life. We do not educate our children about child development, parenting, or the impact of neglect and trauma on children.”
—Dr. Bruce D. Perry, Ph.D. & Dr. John Marcellus
.
“I remember leaving the hospital thinking, ‘Wait, are they going to let me just walk off with him? I don’t know beans about babies! I don’t have a license to do this. We’re just amateurs’.”
—Anne Tyler, Breathing Lessons
.
“It’s only after children have been discovered to be severely battered that their parents are forced to take a childrearing course as a condition of regaining custody. That’s much like requiring no license or driver’s ed[ucation] to drive a car, then waiting until drivers injure or kill someone before demanding that they learn how to drive.”
—Myriam Miedzian, Ph.D.
.
“It has been said that if child abuse and neglect were to disappear today, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual would shrink to the size of a pamphlet in two generations, and the prisons would empty. Or, as Bernie Siegel, MD, puts it, quite simply, after half a century of practicing medicine, ‘I have become convinced that our number-one public health problem is our childhood’.”
—Childhood Disrupted, pg.228
So much information….all true . Sadly life is full of ifs and buts. I wish I had the answers. Thank you for reading.