aboutthebook

About The Book

  The purpose of this book is to help the reader find serenity. Serenity is a very elusive state of mind: calm, peaceful, tranquil. Achieving even a fleeting moment of serenity involves the proverbial acceptance, courage and wisdom, in and of themselves, elusive qualities. Yet I have found that hearing the stories of others, listening to their pursuit of serenity, learning how they cope with the horror life has dealt them and how they embrace the joy life offers has been more beneficial than any therapy or psychoanalysis with its pathologizing everyone into its model.

   I have been involved in the mental health profession since 1974. I enjoy helping people. And I have helped hundreds of people live happier, healthier lives. As a mental and emotional health counselor, I rarely hear the phrase "I am not getting anything out of coming here" from a patient.

   Early in my career, I pondered how to influence people to cross over from what they do that hurts them to not doing what they do that hurts them. I have found two things. First is that there are only two questions for therapy that matter: "What do you do now?" and "What are you going to do about it?" The second thing I found is that doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different outcome is a form of insanity. Neither of these is profound but each has a simple elegance.

   I have read, studied, practiced, trained, learned, found teachers and therapists. I have attended workshops and spun my own theories. I have agonized over whether the party seeking help is in fact incapable of changing or just unwilling to change; that is, can't or won't. I have provided mentorship for students. I have sought spiritual growth. Out of all this, hearing stories from and about the people of world still seems to have been the most beneficial in terms of learning to cope and finding serenity. Hence, this collection of stories will provide the most benefit to you, the reader, in terms of plain human interest, recovery from abuse, calming the raging, abusive self or finding serenity.

   As a child, I felt my mother abuse everyone in our home. She screamed at my dad, often singing songs about men being tortured, bleeding and burning. My dad snickered. It was from Gilbert and Sullivan, he said. The seeds of denial.

  Dad sat smugly behind a newspaper in his lounge chair taking delight in mother's out of control rage. A master at passive aggression, he rarely raised his voice. They both drank, though, "to relax." I could see mother's clenched jaw muscles flex, pulsing her hairy cheeks. All her teeth had to be crowned. I recall her taking my younger brother by the wrist and swatting him on the butt so hard it knocked him off his feet. I can still see him swinging by the arm she held. And I still wonder why all this ill treatment was allowed to go on. And this abuse by the woman became my normal.

  Early in my career as a mental health consultant, I listened patiently to a man complain of his wife's ill treatment of him. Each week, she berated him with the same epithets: "you're dumping on me," "you're pouring garbage on me." Turned out he lived in a remote, rural area with one of his wife's sisters living on one side of his home and the other of his wife's sisters living on the other side. I never found out what he did to earn this ill treatment. Nor did I find out why he tolerated it.

  As the years went by, I became more experienced as a therapist. With more experience came more exposure to similar stories wherein, with seemingly little or no provocation, the woman was flat out abusive to the man. In one case, while working with a couple, I asked the woman, "What were you thinking when you threw the ashtray which struck your husband in the head, causing an emergency room visit and seven stitches?"

  With incredulity, I recall he wife saying, "I don't know that was thinking anything." She then changed the subject and continued talking about something else unrelated to her attack. I asked the man about his thoughts and feelings on this topic. His response, "She didn't mean to hurt me."

   With the following case, I first conceived of writing this book. I interviewed a rather nice looking man his mid-thirties, half white, half Asian. Two children under the age of five, one with a plethora of medical problems which had required invasive surgery which itself had caused some impairments. He, the father, had legal and physical custody of the children simply because his wife abandoned the family. This is after he left his hometown, complying with his wife's wishes to move across the country so she could be near her relatives. She wanted to "feel more comfortable." The man had professional training, something like law, medicine or engineering, was well spoken and articulate. He had a hands-on kind of job during the execution of which he got his hands dirty. I met the wife. Pretty face, physically fit, seductive demeanor, the kind of woman men look at. Between her and her husband, there were cycles of reconciliation and estrangement. During the one of the period's of estrangement, she had broken into his house, stolen sentimental objects and sold them. During reconciliation, he was blasé in his depiction of the relationship. He would say, "Everything is Okay."

   One guy, again quite good looking, came to see me to "discuss" his relationship with his girlfriend. It became apparent fairly quickly that he was trying to find a way to break up with her, but lacked the courage. He worked pretty hard, while she drank all day. When he came home, she would begin the interrogation of what he was doing and who he was having sex with. No matter how he denied any infidelity, arguing broke out. One day he came home and the girlfriend became verbally and physically abusive. Afraid to hit back, he managed to crawl to the phone through the apartment she had trashed and, dodging a fusillade of projectiles, and dial 911. The police came, arrested her and put her jail. While she was in jail, he removed all her belongings. Within a few weeks, pursuant to an insurance matter, I received a phone call from the man's mother, thanking me for helping him get out of this relationship which she feared would become a terrible marriage.

   A few years ago, I was stalked by a female patient. She became a little psychotic and simply would not leave me alone. I had to call the police to get her out of my office. She followed me in her car, driving at the same speed I was walking on my way home from work. When I called the police, they scoffed at me. My friends thought I was the one with the problem. She was eventually arrested, went to trial, got six months probation. As soon as the six months were up, she was right back at it. Per her lawyer's advice, she eventually left me be. But the treatment I received from friends, police, the prosecuting attorney, all trivialized the ill treatment I was subjected to.

   As the list went on and on, a pattern emerged. Some men are treated badly by some women. Not only is this ill treatment sometimes not warranted but, inexplicably, many of them do nothing about it. And when these men try to do something about it, somehow it is they who are the objects of contempt. Furthermore, the justice system seems to treat women with more lenience than men. And it's not just my professional experience. From dating to divorce, it is the experience of many men throughout the country. So I decided to collect these untold stories where, contrary to the everyday mythology, the man is the victim of verbal, emotional and physical abuse from his female partner, coworker, boss or family member. I decided to edit them and compile them into a book in an effort to get the untold story told.

   My wish and hope is that the men reading this book will find courage and strength to promote their own self-care in their relationships with women and not allow abuse. I hope that the women readers will recognize something in themselves that they know is not good for them and chose healthier, happier behavior.