Mental Health Thread #8 - Fall is here!!

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I'm not a fan of beauty pageants either & don't watch them but that is kind of neat, txls!
 
Feb. 7th & it is 65 degrees & sunny St. Louis area - feels like spring. (wish it was).
 
cbg said:
And we are in the middle of our third big snowmaker since January 26th.
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:( I heard that on the TV news, cbg. We eventually got up to 70 & tied a record for this date.
 
I would estimate we got 4-5 inches overnight. It is still snowing and is not expected to stop until Tuesday morning. I am on the edge between 6-12 total accumulations and 12-18 total. Since we've already had close to the low end of that total I'm guessing closer to the higher. And they're saying we may get still another storm on Thursday.
 
All I can say, cbg, is Yikes! .....................

I hope we aren't having the calm before the storm.
 
My parents are in Portland, Maine, and basically snow bound. Even with the snow blower attachment on the tractor, it takes my dad hours to clear the driveway, and he's running out of places to put the cleared snow. The streets are clear (they don't mess around in Maine), but it's still dangerous to drive because of the mounds of cleared snow piled up at the corners of streets. You can't see around when you go to turn.
 
Snow totals where I am are down slightly because we had rain for a few hours yesterday, but we still have had close to a foot overall and the snow is not expected to stop until tomorrow morning. Those of you who remember Maven - as of 9:00 this morning she'd had 18.5 inches (I'm closer to the coast than she is).

I love Portland, but yeah, they're getting slammed. Hope your folks are okay, Rick.
 
Okay ... time to rant ...

Domestic violence is the progressive crime. Young lady has two kids with abusive ex-bf #1 (who went insane and died in a suicide by cop incident two years ago), and one kid by the current abusive BF who has been thumping her in the presence of the kids off and on for about 3 years. This weekend, he takes her head and bounces it off a concrete step knocking three teeth out and then drags through the mud beating her raw. Her 7-year-old son tries to help mommy and he backhands the boy and knocks a tooth out of his mouth. 11-year-old daughter (tragically, the only real "adult" in that household) hides under a blanket in her room and after witnessing mom getting beat down in front of her window she calls her Na-Na (grandma) for help. Grandma gets there and takes off after Mr. Wonderful with a baseball bat and gets a couple of licks in before he flees moments before we arrive.

My victim is inebriated and a mess. I've been telling her for years this would happen, and in each of the many prior incidents, she has backpedaled and even lied to protect him. They were seeing each other when he had a 500 yard stay away and no contact order, and then she claimed a 5th Amendment privilege so she wouldn't testify against him (she alleged that her testimony could put her on the hook for child endangerment). Sadly, she's also a friend and used to be a neighbor of mine. Even her parents have had it with the situation.

The day after the beat down I went to her house, did a follow-up interview and photos of the teeth and much better bruises. I also told her that if she dares to get back with him I will make it my mission in life to remove her children from her care. I know she wasn't pleased to hear it, but, damn it! Those kids have seen enough!!! This crap has happened so often that the kids are unphased by it now. The 11-year-old narrates these events with great articulation and detail like she's reciting a favorite movie!

So, now we are hunting for this guy and I *HOPE* he tries to resist arrest and goes down hard. The bastard can beat on inebriated girls, but let's see how he fares against angry and righteous men if he gives them half a reason.

Okay ... rant mode off ... guys like this make me glad to do my job!
 
And this is what happens when the man with infinite patience snaps.

Carl, I'm not making fun. I've known you a long, long time and have nothing but respect for you and the job you do. You have my prayers for the kids and their mother. Best wishes, good friend.
 
I'm so sorry, Carl. Prayers for the family. (those poor kids) :(
 
One of the advantages of living and working in a small town where I enjoy a great deal of respect and know most everyone is that I have a huge cadre of "irregulars" who will feed me info. I have a goodly amount of intel coming in via text, email, and FB chat that I have narrowed down where he is at, and even though I am not on duty today or tomorrow, I may very well have him zeroed in by tonight because of all the help.

Guys like this frost me ... sadly, it took this to make the victim come to her senses, though I am not entirely confident that her resolve will last very long in spite of the horrendous and bloody beat down she suffered.

DV is an insidious crime. Sadly, I will not be surprised if her daughter starts dating abusive and/or controlling boys in high school, and the boys take it for granted that they can push around their girlfriends when they get old enough. To them, this is the normal state of things.

Crappy situation ...
 
Carl, you know aardvarc on EL? I think that's the only board where the two of you overlap, even though I know both of you on several.

http://www.aardvarc.org/

Catherine and Cindi do great work. Lots of good resources here, even if they are located in another state.
 
I don't get women like that. I just don't. It ticks me off at them as much as at the losers they drag into their lives and the lives of their children. Even if you don't give a damn about yourself, at the very least have a shred of regard for your children and who you force them to have in their lives. It is one thing if a relationship turns abusive and one party is trying to get out, it is quite another to continue to hook up with jerk after jerk. These kids are going to be screwed up for life and can't possibly be living the kind of life every child deserves with drunk mom and a revolving door of abusive men. Maybe they will get "lucky" and CPS will take the kids away. I've worked with entirely too many kids over the years who weren't so "lucky" and it is heartbreaking.
 
I don't get it either, Elle. I had a casual friend years ago who told me that she'd rather have a husband who treated her badly than no husband at all. When I picked my jaw up off the floor at her total and absolute lack of self-esteem and asked her about how she thought it was affecting her kids, she said one of the reasons she kept taking him back was because the kids needed their dad, and that he was a good dad. Just because he hadn't abused the kids (at that point, anyhow) apparently made him a "good" dad in her eyes and she couldn't seem to connect the dots to see what it was doing to the kids to see daddy beating up mommy. Tragic.
 
There are so many places women can go with their children these days for help if there is abuse in the family but they don't use them. You don't have to be working & have an income to get out.
 
cbg said:
Carl, you know aardvarc on EL? I think that's the only board where the two of you overlap, even though I know both of you on several.

http://www.aardvarc.org/

Catherine and Cindi do great work. Lots of good resources here, even if they are located in another state.
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Oh, I have known her for a long time. :)

Fortunately, I work closely with our victim-witness folks and am a frequent presenter at local victims' programs. Resources aren't a problem here, breaking the cycle is. This situation is about as close to "textbook" as one can get. It's frustrating.
 
Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! ♥
 
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