It's been a long time since I posted here in pain, and previously I wasn't very good at it. Either I described things so well that nobody could believe I was hurting, or I expressed my pain so extremely [and poorly] that people took offense [or I scared them silly]. [Edited to take more responsibility for what I was responsible for!]
Well, I haven't gotten this far by learning from experience, so I'm going to try again.
Be warned, this is awful, and the worst part of it is the despair.
More than 2 decades ago, on my first job, I became friends with a colleague who seemed nice, sensible, decent, honest. Life wended its way, this person moved on to other workplaces, and so did I. It's a small world, and we both ended up working at the same place again - where I work now - quite a few years ago.
We got in touch, and stayed in touch. Work buddies. My friend married, had a child, I was happy for them. I introduced my buddy to another work buddy, they became really good pals, I was happy for them, too.
Gradually, I drifted away from these two pals. Our work experiences have been similar - very similar - but I am the only one of the three of us who realizes it. Our work environment has deteriorated horrendously - become incredibly abusive - but, again, I am the only one of the three of us who genuinely realizes this. My pals have revealed a surprising level of and preference for denial... so, of course, they rose slightly higher than I did, entering management, whle I have been beached for quite a while.
Now they are dead ended a couple notches above where I am dead ended, and, like me, they were dead ended for being competent in the presence of mediocre supervisors. Slowly they are beginning to see what I have been seeing all along. And it is really tearing them up, seeing what I've been seeing for years. And they bounce back and forth between telling me that I really did have it all figured out and they should have listened to me... and being totally unable to hear me when I'm sitting at the same table!!!!!
That is not the despairful part. That is denial ebbing and flowing, and if I get annoyed enough I can always stop interacting with them. I nearly have, at this point; I see them maybe once every four or five weeks now. The despairful part is something else.
The pal I've known longest, and his wife, had a second child a few years ago. Difficult pregnancy. Lots of pregnancy related health problems for the mother. Serious ones. Endocrine disorders. Problems for the child from birth. Serious ones. Neurological disorders. Learning disabilities. Tests and special schools and more tests and different schools.
In the meantime, momma has apparently been turning into a Grade A, 24-K head case... and, of course, refusing to see any kind of doctor for any kind of problem.
Harassing the kids. Constantly finding fault with them and berating them. Flaming OCD symptoms... everything has to be arranged just so, things have to be washed completely or discarded if they get a speck of dirt on them, and the child with the disabilities is on the firing line constantly, no letup, no peace. Pick pick pick pick pick pick pick until it's a wonder his poor little head doesn't explode. Then, when his frustration shows, she punishes him for it.
And this friend is not.... doing.... anything.... anything at all.... he just sits.... and watches his wife destroy this child.... and vicariously abuse the other child who is a couple years older, and can see what is going on but is too young to deal with it and certainly powerless to intervene....
Today I saw my pals for the first time in a long time, and after a very frustrating, surreal, almost substanceless conversation, it comes out that my one friends child was sent home from a new school - at which he had been bullied - for threatening (a) suicide and (b) homicide.
The kid is less than ten years old.
My friend even said that he realized the kid had no safe place left. Ma is on his hide all the time at home. Now the kids are picking on him at school.
And yet, my friend apparently intends to do absolutely NOTHING. He has never confronted his wife, he has never made any serious attempt to intervene in her behaviour, he has never simply sat her down and told her that, for instance, if she doesn't stop abusing their children she is going to wake up one day very soon to discover that they are now HIS children and she has ZERO custody after the divorce...
NOTHING. HE DOES NOTHING. Except mule up when I ask him just what, exactly, he is going to do about this.
I don't know if any of you have ever read "The Gift of Fear", but Gavin de Becker describes very very well how kids that have the kind of childhood this little boy is having, right now, tend to turn out. Can you say, Columbine? Green River Killer? BTK?
This is the most appalling horror... and there is NOTHING that I can do about it!!!!!!!!!! I have this horrible choking sense of doom, and I can't get this guy to even begin to consider the possibility that the damage being done to his kid is PERMANENT, SERIOUS, possibly life threatening.
I'm not expecting miracle solutions, I just have to talk about this or I will go literally insane thinking about it.
thanks for listening.