Sunday, 27 September 2015
Long distance relationship ❤
Emotional abuse
EMOTIONAL ABUSE: THE MOST COMMON FORM OF ABUSE
Emotional abuse is the most common form of abuse – and yet least talked about. Part of the reason it is so easy for people to overlook is that so that much of what is considered normal and acceptable forms of communication is in fact abusive. Many people don’t know that they have been – or are being – emotionally abused. In addition, a lot of emotional abuse doesn’t appear to be severe or dramatic, although its effects can be.
EMOTIONAL ABUSE IS CHARACTERIZED BY A CLIMATE OF ABUSE
Unlike physical or sexual abuse, where a single incident constitutes abuse, emotional abuse is made up of a series of incidents, or a pattern of behavior that occurs over time. Emotional abuse is more than just verbal insults, the most common definition of emotional abuse. Emotional abuse is a series of repeated incidents – whether intentional or not – that insults, threatens, isolates, degrades, humiliates, and/or controls another person.
It may include a pattern of one or more of the following abuses: insults, criticisms, aggressive demands or expectations, threats, rejection, neglect, blame, emotional manipulation and control, isolation, punishment, terrorizing, ignoring, or teasing.
Harassment, physical and sexual abuse, and witnessing abuse of others are also forms of emotional abuse.
Emotional abuse can take place anywhere: at home, at school, in relationships, and in the workplace. Contrary to popular beliefs that bullies are only found in the school yard, many bullies also exist in the workplace.
EMOTIONAL ABUSE AND GENDER
It’s unclear whether males or females are more emotionally abusive, however, it seems that girls/women are more likely to use emotional abuse to gain control and power, while boys/men are more likely to use physical intimidation, aggression, and violence.
THE EFFECTS OF EMOTIONAL ABUSE
Emotional abuse is not only under-reported, but it’s effects are minimized. The famous childhood verse, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me” is simply not true. In fact, many physical and sexual abuse survivors have said that the emotional abuse was often more devastating and had longer-term effects.
Emotional abuse cuts to the core of a person, attacking their very being. Emotional abuse, if frequent enough, is usually internalized by the victim, and leaves them feeling fearful, insignificant, unworthy, untrusting, emotionally needy, undeserving and unlovable, and as if they were bad, deserving of punishment, and to blame.
Survivors of emotional abuse often have a hard time understanding why they feel so bad. The abuse may not sound like much, and often people around them will minimize the experience, telling them it’s not so bad. But a climate of disregard for a person’s feelings, where one is subjected to constant or frequent criticisms, being yelled at, or being ignored – has a deep and profound effect, attacking the very self-image and confidence of a person.
IDENTIFYING EMOTIONAL ABUSE
How do you recognize emotional abuse? One thing that can help is to step back from your situation and examine the overall climate in your home or your workplace. Trust your instincts and feelings about people. Sometimes, a person can just look at you and you know that they are looking down at you. Other times, their words are okay but their tone is mean. Emotional abuse is insidious and can be very subtle, so trust your gut; it’s telling you something.
NAMING IT
Because it is harder to name emotional abuse as abuse, it can be harder to heal from as well. The first step is to name your experience as abuse. Trust how you feel. Many people can identify the abuse once they know what to look for because they change from being outgoing, self-confident, and care-free to feeling nervous, anxious, and fearful in the company of an emotionally abusive person. Just because you’re feeling those feelings doesn’t mean that you’re being emotionally abused; there could be something else going on. But, those feelings combined with abusive behavior is convincing evidence that you are being abused.
Try describing to other people how this person behaves. Be honest, and listen to the feedback you receive. If you don’t feel good about the feedback, try someone else. Remember that emotional abuse is frequently minimized.
OVERCOMING THE DYNAMIC
Emotional abuse sets up a dynamic where the victim comes to believe that they are to blame and that they must work harder to fix the problems (such as improving the relationship.) This never works because the problem is not the victim; the abusive behavior is the problem. Nothing you do will change that. No matter how nice and accommodating you are, nothing that you do will change an emotionally abusive person’s behavior. In fact, many people get even more aggressive when you try to make it better, because they sense that you think it’s your fault, and this confirms their own beliefs!
It can be very hard to not fall into the role of being “good girl” or “good boy” when someone is emotionally abusing you, but it’s important to avoid that.
IF YOU’RE PRESENTLY BEING EMOTIONALLY ABUSED
If you know that you’re currently being emotionally abused, you’ll need to find ways to protect yourself emotionally; to reduce or stop contact with the abusive person; to find allies; to talk about what is going on, and to look into options to keep yourself from being further abused. This can get complicated, depending on the context, but there are many resources to help you with workplace bullying and abuse in relationships.
IF YOU’VE BEEN EMOTIONALLY ABUSED IN THE PAST
Identifying the abuse as abuse is an important step in your healing. It means that you recognize that what happened to you was wrong, hurtful, and not your fault. Placing responsibility for the abuse on the abuser is key to healing from abuse.
COUNTERING NEGATIVITY
Countering the negative messages that you received is also really important. You may need to write down all the insulting things that you learned about yourself and counter each one with the truth. It may feel unnatural or foreign to counter these messages, but it will help you to feel better in the long-run. Catch yourself when you find that you are putting yourself down. Take a breath, and remind yourself that you don’t want to do that anymore, that you don’t deserve to be hurt, and that you want to think of yourself differently.
See if you can come up with something that you like about yourself. If you can’t come up with something good, think about how you would like to think about yourself. The idea is to interrupt the flow of insulting thoughts you have, and to find ways to replace those thoughts with self-soothing ones.
By finding ways to be gentle and soothing with yourself, you are directly countering those messages. Being kind to yourself by asking yourself what you need, what you want to do, and letting yourself do those things are all ways to create a more positive and loving relationship with yourself.
No matter what you’ve been told or how you’ve been treated, you are worthy of love and respect. The more you know this, the less likely you will be to accept disrespectful or abusive behavior towards yourself or others. You should not have to take emotional abuse from anyone – no matter what the excuse. You deserve to be treated well.
Friday, 11 September 2015
Little girl
Self-Portrait
I am no longer the little girl with big blue eyes ,
The child with Shirley Temple curls
The one with the trusting smile .
I am no longer in the playground of my childhood ,
The safety of my dreams
The secureness of my ivory tower .
They tore down the walls and invaded me,
Hunting me down in the woods of my fear
Playing with me while I layed on the ground .
I am no longer the pure little angel ,
The child with an untouched body
The one with an innocent soul .
Instead I fight memories of the assualt ,
Memories of their faces
Hurting me while I couldn't scream.
I am lost and torn and never free ,
Abandoned and crazy and gloomy and bitter ,
So empty I can never feel..
Thankiew
Ratri Ray Sen 👑
Lost
No Answers ..
I wonder what made you chose me ,
What did you see in me .
Just an opportunity, an easy prey ,
Or had you watched me before, planning
To undress me, to hold me down with sweaty hands .
To force yourself upon me ,
To ruin my innermost soul with your every touch .
I wonder what you saw in me ,
A little girl with blue eyes, a little shy
The school nerd, hiding behind books ,
Or just a piece of flesh for you to use .
Did you see the bloody print of your hand on the sheets .
Did you ever hear me say No ,
Were you satisfied after you left me lying there .
I wonder if you remember what you did
Do you think back of it with regret and sorrow, guilt ,
Or with lust and that unbearable smile .
Did you know you would come back to haunt me ,
Did you think I would forget ,
Your moaning left me deaf ,
All the things I saw made me blind to the beauty of life .
I've wondered about questions never to be answered ,
For far too long ,
Now I'm moving on, I won't let you rule anymore .
It still hurts but all my hate is gone ,
Yes, I will always remember ,
But this is to you who raped me, who made it all so difficult:
I won, I'll win in the end..
Thankiew
Ratri Ray Sen.
The Rape..
The Long Goodbye ..
As the sun sets on my dead body ,
I feel the cold crawling up my spine
And the diminished lights of the city ,
Slowly go black .
This is the life I couldn't live ,
And that wouldn't let me die .
This is the life I never had ,
And that others have taken from me .
As the moon rises over my dead body ,
I feel that I have failed .
And the hope that kept me going ,
Slowly fades away .
This is what I have become ,
And what I didn't choose .
This is what they made me ,
And what I never wanted to be .
As the sun rises over the dewy grass ,
They find my dead body hidden .
And during all this time ,
No one even noticed I'm gone .
They find the wounds and the cuts ,
And the track of scars on my skin .
And autopsies reveal my inside is empty ,
Filled with pins and knives and razor blades.
I never even lived ,
I died so long ago..
The Rape ,
The pain,
Sharp like razor blades,
Piercing my skin,
I swallowed it,
With bleeding eyes..
Tears ..
Mah Death ..
Disturbed I am awakening ,
In the middle of my so-called life
Only to find that I have lost it ,
Nothing but a zombie since they killed me.
And ripped me off my innocence
And invaded this sacred place .
Now I'm wandering amongst those who don't understand
Those who dare not to listen
And rather shut their eyes from the truth .
I am torn between the child I never was and the woman I've become ,
Aged and hurt beyond my years
Left with what cannot be said outloud
And hate towards myself and those who did this to me ..
Who committed what can never be undone
And left me there to die..
Ratri Ray Sen 👑
Soul death. ..
In The End..
He kissed me good-bye
On my salty lips where the tears he hadn't seen
Had dried and vanished as I had swallowed unspoken screams
Dreaming me to a far-off place
He kissed me good-bye
No longer daring to cross my teeth's boundary with his tongue
As he had earlier, invading me with wet brutality
Knowing I had never been kissed like this before
He kissed me good-bye
Softly almost, as if to thank me for keeping quiet, for giving him what he had wanted
For not fighting back his weight, buried by a thousand stones
Shutting my eyes at the sight of his face
He kissed me good-bye
And smiled at my naked fragility knowing he had left his marks
A signature I wouldn't be able to erase with hot showers and soap and silence
The hunter had possessed his prey, if only for a while
He kissed me good-bye, and I kissed him back
So he would exit through the heavy door back to reality
Take with him the burden of that afternoon
And let me rest in pieces..
Thankiew
Ratri Ray Sen. .
Friday, 4 September 2015
Emotional intelligence
Power of Appreciation in Leadership
Wednesday, 26 August 2015
Tuesday, 25 August 2015
Rape a dirty secret?
Friday, 21 August 2015
Attitude
I don’t insult people. I just describe them.
Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they are supposed to help you discover who you really are.
Wednesday, 19 August 2015
Through Women's Eyes :
Most women who have been sexually assaulted see at least some situations in the world as being more dangerous following their assault experiences. Based on in-depth interviews with 94 women who were either raped or avoided being raped during an attack, this study examines the effect of the events that occurred during the attack and the circumstances surrounding the attack as factors that determine later perceptions of danger. Women who have been raped are more likely to change their perceptions of the safety of the world in radical ways than women who have avoided being raped, although women who avoid being raped often make substantial reassessments as well. For both raped women and avoiders, one's likelihood of making a radical change in one's perceptions of dangerousness depended to a large degree on the sort of situation in which the attack took place. Women were less likely to change their perceptions of dangerousness if the attack took place in a situation where they believed they were in some danger before the attack. If the attack took place in circumstances which the women defined as safe, however, a much more extreme reaction was likely to occur.
Indian Army’s Role in Nation Building
The Indian Army’s Role in Nation Building
• 8 October 2016.
India's army has seen its role as the nation’s “ultimate weapon” diminish.
The Indian nation should have been able to look back at the country’s journey from 1947 and justifiably feel proud of the progress it has made so far. Unfortunately, the overwhelming mood in India today is that of gloom, despondency, and low self-confidence.
Institutions have been systematically emasculated, some even destroyed. The country’s economy is in the doldrums. The rupee is in a free fall. Experts say that the economy will improve and the rupee will also recover.
Since I have no expertise in those matters, I am willing to go with the optimism of the sarkari experts. But as a student of India’s armed forces, my worry is more long term and I am going to try and highlight the dangers inherent in this development.
The Soldier
It essential to understand why the soldier (in the broader sense) is pivotal for the wellbeing of a nation-state. Military scholars may quote Sun Tzu often when it comes to military strategy, but my favorite is the worldly-wise Chanakya. Centuries ago he toldthe king of Magadh:
"The Mauryan soldier does not himself the Royal treasuries enrich nor does he the Royal granaries fill… The soldier only and merely ensures that… He is thus the very basis and silent, barely visible cornerstone of our fame, culture, physical well-being and prosperity; in short, of the entire nation building activity.
The Indian nation state has, however, forgotten Chanakya’s advice. The Indian soldier today stands at the crossroads, confused about his status in the society and unsure about his own role in a nation led by “faux peaceniks” who will compromise national security for short-term gains like a Nobel Peace Prize. The havoc wrought by an indifferent polity and insensitive bureaucracy to India’s armed forces and changing societal norms, has hit the ordinary soldier hard.
The society no longer respects the soldier and his work in protecting the nation. They may pay lip service in times of crisis but that’s it. Bihar politician Bhim Singh’s utterly tasteless remark that “people join armed forces to die,” in the wake of the killing of five Indian soldiers on the line of control, is symptomatic of the bitter reality. Although forced to withdraw his remark, the Bihar politician symbolizes how a large section of Indian society view soldiering.
An Ultimate Weapon
A local politician, a thanedar, seems to command more clout in society today. This has often led to a loss of self-esteem among ordinary soldiers. A recent movie called Paan Singh Tomar depicted, in some measure, the humiliation that a soldier faces in the civilian environment, both while serving and after retirement from the armed forces.
And yet, from disaster relief in floods, tsunamis and earthquakes, to rescuing an infant prince from a deep tube well, and from quelling rioters in communal strife to being the last resort in internal counter-insurgency operations, the Indian Army is omnipresent. It is, what I have said time and again, India’s Brahmaastra — an ultimate weapon.
The versatility, adaptability, selfless attitude and resourcefulness of the Indian Army have allowed it to be what it is today: nation builders. Viewed in the context of India’s immediate and extended neighborhood, the Indian Army’s stellar role stands out in stark contrast to its counterparts in other countries.
Remember, Indian and Pakistani armies originated from the same source: the British Army. And yet, six decades since they parted ways, there couldn’t be a bigger dissimilarity in the way the two have evolved. As they say, India has an army while the Pakistani Army has a nation.
Despite India’s increasing dependence on the army to pull its chestnuts out of the fire time and again, the Indian Army has scrupulously remained apolitical. It has put down fissiparous and secessionist forces within India with great cost to itself over these 66 years. It has protected India from within and without.
The Indian army also has a unique distinction of helping create a nation (Bangladesh) in the neighborhood and then quietly walking away to let the people take charge. By contrast, the Pakistani Army has never really allowed democracy to flourish in its country. Instead, it has created a military-industrial complex that has spread its tentacles in every aspect of governance. Even today, the Pakistani Army does not let go of any opportunity to undercut democracy; it nurtures and treats jihadi elements as its strategic asset against India and the United States.
Even in other smaller nations around India — Nepal, Myanmar and Bangladesh, for instance — the armed forces have had to intervene and run the affairs of those countries at some point.
So who or what makes the Indian Army so distinct? Simply put, its leaders and its men and their ethos of “service before self.” From the early days of independence, Indian military leaders — stalwarts like KM Cariappa, Rajendra Singhji, KS Thimayya and later Sam Maneckshaw — led the forces from the front and provided a strong moral center that has remained more or less in tact; some very regrettable instances of moral and monetary corruption notwithstanding.
Since independence, one institution that has remained absolutely free of communalism and divisive tendencies is the Indian Army. When caste and religious differences have beset the country’s politics and society at large, the army has stood firm against these divisive forces. It has thus stood the test of time and has consistently upheld and protected the nation’s constitution with unflinching loyalty, making a major contribution in nation building in the first six decades of India’s existence as an independent, sovereign nation.
Civilian Control
However, as India marks its 66th anniversary, I am not so sure if this great institution can withstand the buffeting it receives both from within the Ministry of Defense and beyond.
Why has this happened? Mainly because inIndia, civilian control of the military has become synonymous with bureaucratic control. The political executive, barring a handful, neither has the knowledge nor any interest in military matters, and therefore, it depends completely on inputs from the bureaucrats who continue to mold the political leadership’s thought process according to their own perceptions on governance and administration.
Admiral Arun Prakash, former chief of naval staff and a prolific commentator on national security affairs, has this to say about the equation between the Ministry of Defense and Service Headquarters:
"Two major factors have contributed to the systemic dysfunctionality that we see in the management of national security affairs. First is politician’s detachment and indifference towards matters relating to national security, because this is not an issue that can win or lose votes. "Since politicians have not considered it worthwhile establishing close and cordial relations with the leadership of the armed forces, it is not surprising that when faced with a crisis or problem, politicians finds themselves at a complete loss. A related factor is the total reliance that the politician places, for advice, decision-making and problem resolution on transient, generalist MoD civil servants, drawn from diverse backgrounds. This, despite the chiefs and the highly specialized Service HQ (SHQ) staffs being at his disposal for tendering advice in the management of national security."
The effort to cut defense services down to size had begun immediately after independence. Before 1947, the status of the commander in chief (C-in-C) in India was second only to that of the Viceroy. As a member of the Viceroy's Executive Council, he was also the de facto defense minister. He was served by his uniformed principal staff officers (PSOs) and the defense secretary who, incidentally, was below the PSOs in the order of precedence. The role of the Defense Department was not to examine proposals, or to sit in judgment over the Army Headquarters, but was restricted to issuing orders in the name of the Government of India.
Sixty-six years after independence, it is no secret that the political-military interface is all but absent in India’s institutional set up. The armed forces are completely under the day-to-day as well as policy control of the MoD. The desirable politico-military interface is now reduced to weekly, sometimes fortnightly meetings chaired by the defense minister. According to several former chiefs I have spoken to, these meetings are informal, without any agendas or note taking and have no official status — although in theory, the defense minister is deemed to have given policy directions in these meetings.
Former Army Chief Gen. Padmanabhan, who led the army in the crucial period when India mobilized its entire military under Operation Parakram in 2002, has rarely written or spoken about matters of national security since his retirement in 2003.
However, in his book, published in 2005, Padmanabhan had this to say about meeting of service chiefs with the defense minister:
“Even at the level of the defence minister and Service Chiefs, exchanges on major matters of defence policy were few and far between, the Defence Minister’s weekly meetings with the Service Chiefs being used to update the minister and equip him to negotiate questions in Parliament. Often, these meetings were deferred, as ‘more important’ activities claimed the time of the minister… The result was… the greater role and authority assumed by the Defence bureaucracy. The Defence Secretary, with his nearness to the Defence Minister, often began to exercise power on the minister’s behalf and was, quite often, regarded as de facto defence minister. The ‘supremacy of the civil over the military’ was thus effectively changed from supremacy of the political authority to that of the civilian bureaucracy.”
Over these six decades, the bureaucracy continued to acquire disproportionate powers vis-à-vis the service chiefs and now it’s a given that the defense secretary and not the service chiefs, is the single-point adviser to the cabinet on military matters. The defense and cabinet secretaries have a consistent interface with the political leadership, as the service chiefs attend the meetings of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) only if invited.
So the defense secretary, a generalist IAS officer and not the military brass, is responsible for national defense as well as conduct of war. Under the current rules, the service chiefs have neither been accorded a status, nor granted any powers in the government edifice. In the process, it is the service chiefs who were marginalized from the decision-making bodies.
Resentment
While very few have been able to explain the real reason behind the antipathy against the military displayed by the civil bureaucracy and the political executive, my experience suggests that non-military personnel resent the armed forces because of their evidently orderly and efficient ethos, the tightly bound camaraderie, and their distinct standing in the society. And this is not unique to India. Renowned sociologist Morris Janowitz had famously said: “The intimate social solidarity of the military profession is both envied and resented by civilians.”
So is there a way out of this logjam? Can the status quo ever be broken?
Historically, it is to the credit of the Indian Armed Forces that they have fulfilled their assigned role as an organ of the state, that they have functioned effectively in every role, despite a general lack of a supportive government environment by way of adequate finances, resources, equipment, personnel policies, or higher political direction.
Yet though the average Indian soldier remains as hardy as before, he is certainly confused with the pace of change occurring all around him. It is here that the leaders — the officers — will have to adapt themselves to the new reality. The age-old system of regimental traditions and values is robust and serves to develop camaraderie and loyalty between the led and the leader even now. The new fashion to dismiss these ideas as outdated must be arrested. Military ethos is not developed overnight and is certainly not imbibed by pandering blindly to the changes in society. The overwhelming trend to be a “careerist” must be eliminated.
The desire to advance one’s career at any cost, to strive for promotion, even by cutting corners along with the crave for awards as a means to boost chances of attaining the next rank, has become a rampant practice among the officer class. Self-preservation has exaggerated that protection and advancement of career at all levels seems to have become a sine qua non for most officers. That must change. And that change must come from the top.
As the wise sage had said to the king: “While the Magadha citizenry endeavours to make the State prosper and flourish, the Mauryan soldier guarantees that the State continues to exist!”
Can we, people in uniform, civil services, politics, media and society at large, imbue this spirit and make the soldier — our bulwark against any potential threat — stronger?
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
