Hello and welcome to Monday morning and a post entirely sans humour today because the subject matter just doesn't warrant it...and now it's suddenly evening because I just had to walk away from this one today...as I've said before, every day I do this blog and some days it does me...and today I got done like a dinner...
I am not a medical practitioner or any sort of qualified professional on any of the very serious issues covered by this post, and this post is in no way definitive advice, please, always seek professional services and advice, eg, the Lifeline 131 114 phone line is frequently promoted as a good first contact.
This post is my opinion and belief...this post is not medical advice or fact...seek professional advice...thank you.
However, I have enough personal experience to offer a reasonable opinion and possibly some insight on the increasingly acknowledged connections between Child Abuse and potentially Drug Use and Addiction, Social Dysfunction, Mental Illness, Poor Health, Self Harm, Suicide, and the multiple layering of these many issues in and of themselves...(that I have tried to explain to local media, politicians, Councillors, etc, clearly without success)
For example, someone without any issues of abuse and/or other trauma may try drugs as a bit of fun with friends at a party, leading to addiction, mental and physical decline, and an accidental or even deliberate overdose...or a child abused may turn to self harm and/or drugs and/or other problematic behaviours, and grow up a dysfunctional and broken person whose behaviours lead them to an early grave...or someone with stress related mental health issues may self harm without ever being suicidal...or someone can make just one bad decision whilst drunk and/or upset and/or just plain unlucky and it gets called suicide...and there are a million variations.
Essentially, they can all exist in isolation, in any combination, in any sequence, and none excludes or preludes the other...however, the repeated statements today about the terrible and persistent trauma suffered by abused children, including statements by the Federal Child Abuse Royal Commission spokesperson Jeanette Dines (spelling?), show child abuse to be a critical factor in development of the individual and society...but we know all this already...
The Child Abuse Royal Commission begins its 'Public Hearings'
today, having apparently already done 400 private hearings around Australia,
but apart from the standardised 'Thanks for your Submission' response
from months ago, I've heard nothing about the Commission coming to Mt Gambier and/or hearing evidence about the St Martins Lutheran School Child Abuse Cover-up.
It
is not inappropriate to draw a link between chronic,
institutionalised Child Abuse and cover-up of that abuse, and
Suicide, Self Harm, Drug Use, etc, because the trauma that is suffered
by a child subjected to abuse often follows them throughout their lives
and greatly influences their adolescent and adult behaviours.
I won't get into it specifically in this post but I have had a few issues in my own life that I would describe as self-harm, and any number of very problematic mental health issues and associated behaviours, all of which I believe I may have collectively described in a previous post as..."a decade long, drug fueled, egomanic rampage"...
But in all of that, and with all my own personal faults, failings, and fractious frailties, and for all of the trauma of the last decade re the Lutheran Church covering up the abuse of a class of seven year old children at St Martins School, Mt Gambier, whilst the Lutherans and authorities attack me and other parents and protect the paedophile teacher...not to mention all of the personal issues I'm juggling outside of that...despite all of this, I've never been even remotely 'suicidal' in the traditional sense...I've never tried to suicide...and I won't.......but I know people who have...
I will conclude this issue Tomorrow in Part II.
There's an article in yesterday's Sunday Mail (15/09/13) about the increase of drug use and availability in regional centres and small country towns, and it included a brief quote from Mt Gambier Mayor Steve Perryman, something about the involvement of criminal gangs...I consider most Drug Use as a self-harm issue, albeit maybe not willingly or even knowingly...
I found this claim that 'this Drugs Increase is a recent phenomena' surprising because when I first moved to Mt Gambier some 15 years ago it was described to me by some locals as having the nick-name 'White City' for the availability and use of amphetamines, heroin, etc, and associated misuse of prescription medications, and I have met a couple of young people from small local communities who were 'Ice Addicts' in their mid-teens.
Two issues there-in; that 'Ice' is chronically addictive and often first-time users become immediate addicts...and in small communities there is often cross-contamination from older youths mixing with children much younger because they are all the kids in that immediate area...several years ago I met one young man from near here who was a recovering 'Ice' addict at only 18, having been introduced to it when he was only 14 by a friend of an older sibling....more tomorrow...
There was also an excellent program on the ABC TV One last week (Dateline possibly-sorry) about an increase in levels of self harm amongst young (teenage) women, and whilst the program didn't make the specific connection between child abuse and this increase of incidents, it is widely acknowledged that any trauma can lead to self harm as a 'coping mechanism' to temper and/or distract from internal conflict...
This is all far too complicated to complete in one post, so...
Tomorrow: SPD, SH, and CAI Part II
I hope (but am not confident) that this post is reasonably coherent, but I'll conclude these issues tomorrow.
Again, this post is only my opinion, it is not medical or other professional advice...please seek appropriate help, eg, Lifeline 131 114...thanks...
I am Nick Fletcher and this is my blog...and a bit of a hard slog today I'll tell ya'...laters...
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