02/05/2024
1ST MAY 2024
INTERVENTION CAN CAUSE LIFE CHANGING THINGS TO HAPPEN.
THE SILENT EPIDEMIC BEHIND CLOSED DOOR THAT NEEDS TO BE ADDRESSED.
CALLING ALL MEN TO STEP FORWARD AND CHANGE THIS SITUATION FOR EVER.
THIS IS A TRUE STORY. PLEASE SHARE AND POST THIS TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS AND OTHERS.
He was a well-known man about town. He came from a highly respected family in the community. He was always known as a great guy, loved a beer, friendly to all those who knew him and good bloke. Hard working family man. Caring, community minded, made friends easily and would help anyone and any charity or good cause.
But people didn’t know the real man.
Behind closed doors he brought terror, pain, discomfort, abuse to those close to him.
His wife endued years of attacks, beatings, humiliation and abuse but stayed to protect the children. She was forced to start working to save the family home and keep the family together. She was a strong intelligent woman with great talent. She was a superstar but hid the greatest secret from the outside world.
The son and daughter would hide in their rooms wondering what kind of mood he’d come home in tonight. How drunk would he be? If they keep out of his way and pretended to be asleep when he got home, perhaps they could avoid the abuse or beatings.
They would hide I their rooms and hear the yelling and screaming of the fighting between the man and the wife. They would cry themselves to sleep and pray that things would change someday for the better.
But the abuse continued for year after year and seemed to be escalating to a point that they didn’t want to think about. The outside world was oblivious to hidden events behind doors.
Then one day it happened.
The wife called the man to lunch and since he was typing up a newsletter for one of his interests, he wasn’t ready. The wife called him again and said that his lunch would get cold but instead of leaving his typing he picked up a cotton reel and threw it at the wife, hitting her just above the right eye. Blood was everywhere. She screamed and was crying out in pain, but the man kept on typing and showed no despair for what he’d just done.
He then stood up and went towards the wife to continue the abuse and after all these years of the continued feelings of terror and punishment the boy snapped.
This little teenage boy, who was known for his timidness and quietness, had had enough. Without thinking he rushed towards the towering man of 6ft 3” and without fear or trepidation and with no signs of faulting he rushed up to the man, tapped him on the shoulder and as he turned around he swung his fi**ed hand and hit the man as hard as he could on the side of the face.
The man turned and stopped in his track, and the boy could see the rage well up inside him, as his face went red and his breathing heavy. He was mad, angry and set to retaliate.
The wife saw the man’s anger building, like she’d seen so many times before and knew what the consequences would be is she didn’t intervene.
RUN, she yelled, RUN as fast as you can. If he catches you, he’ll kill you. She was sure of this and the anguish in her face made to young boy realize that she was right, and he had to run.
He took off past the man and out the back door of the house. Up the back yard of the property. Over the back fence and down the lane. Showing greater agility than he ever knew he had. His legs powered by adrenaline mixed with fear and terror. Off he ran till the end of the lane then back over the fence and back to the side of the property. He had anticipated this event eventually happening and was prepared.
He had run away 4 or 5 time before and had never really been prepared so he was always returned, once found or returned on his own. This time it was life or death.
He had prepared a hiding spot under some of the structures that the man had built on the property by digging a hole that he could crawl into and into this he now scampered. He felt safe as he could be as he knew nobody knew of this hiding spot.
He would not be easily found this time.
On previous times he had run away, he had always hid in local sports ovals, or parks, one of which was named after his family name. Also, at the local war memorial hill where he could overlook the whole town and see the police cars moving around town presumably looking for him. When it got late or cold or he was hungry enough and felt safe enough to return as he felt the man may have calmed down by now or was found by those looking for him he would go home and the whole cycle would start again till the next time. But this time was different. This was truly the worst of the worst and imminent danger was at hand.
All that day, overnight and into the next evening the police and searchers looked for the boy with no signs of him anywhere. They began to suspect that this time maybe he really had managed to leave town.
They decided to bring in a search dog and it was only then that the boy was located but he would not come out.
Despite all attempts and promises of everything being ok he would not budge. He was cold, wet, tired and hungry but most of all terrified that he’d be killed by the man if he ever got hold of him. He knew there were police, searchers, public health and many others out there wanting him to come out, but he was not budging. His fear had rendered him paralyzed with fear.
The Department of Child Services were brought in to get the boy out of the hole. After much discussion and many more promises and assurances the boy came out.
The man and the wife were directed to go to counseling and the boy and girl were also sent to counseling. Things were now different. Things started to change.
The man gave up his drinking to excess and started coming home earlier and home life started to improve and relations between the man and his wife, after nearly ending in divorce, became more settled.
When the man was diagnosed with cancer, the family relationships were ever so slightly mended although never fully repaired. Life became more acceptable until the man’s death.
You see this boy and his sister were not really the children of the man and his wife. They had been adopted and the man had made it very obvious ever since the boy could remember that he had wanted a son who was a football star or a cricketer or a sportsman of some kind. But he had been dealt a hand of a fat little boy who liked to sing and act in school plays and pay guitar and was more interested in music than any sport.
He felt that the boy was an embarrassment to the family name. The man was from a large family and the only one who could not have his own children. He felt that he had been treated badly and was being punished and turned to drink and other vises. This led him to blurt out one day in a drunken argument with the wife that “HE’S NOT MINE ANYWAY”.
This is how the boy found out, at age 14, that he was adopted and answered why the boy always felt so different to everyone else in the family and now he knew why.
The moral of this story and the message I’m trying to get across is that intervention by others can lead to meaningful change.
If you see that someone is in trouble in their life, then don’t ignore it but offer to help and become a motivator for change. It can be done, and everyone has to play a part, no matter how small to effect changes.
If you know a mate who you know is abusive and harmful to his family and threating to his partner, wife, friend, or relative be a man and intervene. Talk to them and let them know that you are there for them and that their behavior is not acceptable. Your willing to help them but they need to change. Get professional advice and don’t let them do the very thing that many men and some woman are doing right now and killing or harming their wives or partners or friends.
This cycle of DEATHS AND ATTACKS AND BEATINGS AND INTIMIDATIONS must stop.
Please share this post to all your friends and others to show that change is possible.
I thank you for reading and sharing this to as many people you can.
Stephen R Cheney.
