Sunday, August 20, 2006
self-esteem + kindness
Dadvocate had an interesting post yesterday, as he often does. This one concerns Mary Winkler who murdered her preacher husband, apparently because she felt verbally and emotionally abused, as she may well have been. Dadvocate understandably reacts with a bit of sarcasm, vowing to put locks on his bedroom door as his daughter is a self-assured young woman. However, I must voice concern.
First, know that emotional and verbal abuse are real and truly horrible. I have often said that in some ways I would have prefered to be physically abused because it could have been seen and pointed to instead of just feeling 'beneath' and 'less than' for so many years (details of which seem more appropriate in a living room than on a blog). In other words, self-esteem is important and something to cherish. Indeed, few people achieve much or even get through a day very well without a modicum of self-esteem. In my case as in most, I suspect, it's an extraordinarily relief to come to esteem oneself for one's qualities and simply for being.
Therefore I do understand the frustration and misery of feeling as if you're in a subterranean cave to which someone else holds the key and keeps locking you in; it's impossible not to feel that you could throttle that person. But only if you're idiotic or mentally ill do you emerge from the emotional (note: not physical) entrapment and inflict physical (note: not emotional) harm on the person(s) you view as responsible for your previous condition. Isn't real self-esteem by definition accompanied by respect for others? If Mary Winkler actually had developed esteem for herself, she would have turned to others for help rather than done something so brutal and unkind to, among others, her children. More likely, she had glimpsed the light at the end of the tunnel and knew that she should not be demeaned, but she didn't have a clue about what to do because she was trained to keep quiet. We have to teach our children and encourage ourselves to be aware of what we need and want, to seek it and reach for it, but to keep in mind that everyone else is in the same position and that they deserve respect for precisely the same reasons that we ourselves do.
First, know that emotional and verbal abuse are real and truly horrible. I have often said that in some ways I would have prefered to be physically abused because it could have been seen and pointed to instead of just feeling 'beneath' and 'less than' for so many years (details of which seem more appropriate in a living room than on a blog). In other words, self-esteem is important and something to cherish. Indeed, few people achieve much or even get through a day very well without a modicum of self-esteem. In my case as in most, I suspect, it's an extraordinarily relief to come to esteem oneself for one's qualities and simply for being.
Therefore I do understand the frustration and misery of feeling as if you're in a subterranean cave to which someone else holds the key and keeps locking you in; it's impossible not to feel that you could throttle that person. But only if you're idiotic or mentally ill do you emerge from the emotional (note: not physical) entrapment and inflict physical (note: not emotional) harm on the person(s) you view as responsible for your previous condition. Isn't real self-esteem by definition accompanied by respect for others? If Mary Winkler actually had developed esteem for herself, she would have turned to others for help rather than done something so brutal and unkind to, among others, her children. More likely, she had glimpsed the light at the end of the tunnel and knew that she should not be demeaned, but she didn't have a clue about what to do because she was trained to keep quiet. We have to teach our children and encourage ourselves to be aware of what we need and want, to seek it and reach for it, but to keep in mind that everyone else is in the same position and that they deserve respect for precisely the same reasons that we ourselves do.
Labels: blogs (others'), reflections, s.p.e.e.d.ing
Permalink | 
| posted by jau at 11:59 PM
DADvocate — at 8:50 PM, August 21, 2006:
— at 1:22 PM, August 22, 2006:
jau — at 2:43 PM, August 22, 2006:
DADvocate — at 7:45 PM, August 24, 2006:
jau — at 12:20 AM, August 25, 2006:
| posted by jau at 11:59 PM
8 more:
DADvocate — at 8:50 PM, August 21, 2006:
My only real point of my post is that I'm sick of hearing "abuse" every time a woman kills someone. Even in the Andrea Yates case some were blaming the husband and claiming he was emotionally abusive. Abuse is cause for divorce not murder.
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— at 1:22 PM, August 22, 2006:
Nope. Wrong Clara. The Clara I'm referring to is the woman who ran over her husband three times with his daughter in the car. Her motive was that he had an affair -- which was true.
But during the trial, some of the evidence presented was her allegation that he was hypercritical of her and she presented as proof a list of her shortcomings written on a cocktail napkin supposedly dictated by him.
It was in her handwriting and with no corroborative witnesses.
My point is that that piece of "evidence" was taken at face value entirely by the media and most people who followed the story.
But here we have the murderer, presenting evidence of her justification and we take it at face value with no question! Pardon me, but that's insane!
But what we do have is the absolutely concrete evidence of a viciously mangled dead body. To take this at an Occum's Razor standard, shouldn't we logically determine that the party willing to commit brutal murder is perhaps the abusive one?!
But during the trial, some of the evidence presented was her allegation that he was hypercritical of her and she presented as proof a list of her shortcomings written on a cocktail napkin supposedly dictated by him.
It was in her handwriting and with no corroborative witnesses.
My point is that that piece of "evidence" was taken at face value entirely by the media and most people who followed the story.
But here we have the murderer, presenting evidence of her justification and we take it at face value with no question! Pardon me, but that's insane!
But what we do have is the absolutely concrete evidence of a viciously mangled dead body. To take this at an Occum's Razor standard, shouldn't we logically determine that the party willing to commit brutal murder is perhaps the abusive one?!
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jau — at 2:43 PM, August 22, 2006:
No question that a murderer is abusive, by definition. On the other hand, "justifiable homicide" means that if the circumstances are sufficient unto the cause, the murder is, well, understandable. BUT... take Andrea Yates' case, for example. Her husband was thoughless and emotionally reckless as well as abusive ("sorry you're worn out, no you can't have anyone help you, hey have another kid!"). But it is beyond me to understand how she was able to skirt taking responsibility for drowning five (count them: five) children, one by one.
My point has gotten pushed aside here, though, which is that self esteem means valuing and respecting yourself and, by human-nature definition, others. If someone commits a heinous act and says it was because she valued herself too much to go on, then that's not respecting her ability to make good decisions, let alone her ability to be kind.
My point has gotten pushed aside here, though, which is that self esteem means valuing and respecting yourself and, by human-nature definition, others. If someone commits a heinous act and says it was because she valued herself too much to go on, then that's not respecting her ability to make good decisions, let alone her ability to be kind.
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DADvocate — at 7:45 PM, August 24, 2006:
Thanks, anon., for reminding my of the Clara Harris. I remember it but didn't remember the names.
aup - I agree with your points except I would argue the semantics of "understandable" vs. "justifiable." There are lots of criminal acts that I think are understandable but not justifiable.
aup - I agree with your points except I would argue the semantics of "understandable" vs. "justifiable." There are lots of criminal acts that I think are understandable but not justifiable.
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jau — at 12:20 AM, August 25, 2006:
Dad, Evidently I have written fuzzily because you read me as saying something other than what I mean. I agree with you that some acts are entirely understandable and yet not justifiable. Criminal or otherwise, I might add, such as meanness, cruelty, snideness, etc., let alone murder. On the other hand, there are occasional - tho' rare - cases where abuse is so extreme that murder essentially is self-defense and therefore justifiable as well as understandable. But I do not think Yates or Clara Harris or Mary Winkler are justifiable (at least from what I know of them). And Winkler and Harris strain my ability even to understand.
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I wonder how her husband's esteem was when she left him there bleeding to death.
Many of the takes on this case remind me of the Clara Harris case and how strikingly different we view the murderer when it's a woman.
Here we have the accused murderer claiming abuse, with no other witness to it and we're so quick to take it at face value -- even though there's a dead body. Is the dead person also considered abused?
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