What is an Abusive Relationship Like?

In planning a blog about spousal abuse, I (#blogger #blog #somseason #YA #authors) asked a friend to tell me in writing her experience with an abusive boyfriend. This is what she wrote (paraphrased):

My boyfriend won’t let me visit my friends and family. He has made me stop all contact with them except on the phone, but then the other week, he told me to go out for a meal with my friends. When I did, I was punished for it. I know he’ll tell me to do it again though, so I’m confused. He keeps doing this. He makes me feel like I’m going crazy for thinking he’s controlling, saying, I’m being ungrateful because he cares about me. He didn’t want me going to the gym anymore, so I don’t go anymore. He also doesn’t let me go to work, instead, telling me to rely on him for income because he will look after me. I’m not allowed to go out, unless it’s for necessities, but when I do, I need to share my location with him no matter where I go. If I don’t check in with him when I get to the store, I get in trouble. I miss my Mom so much, so last week I snuck off to see her, he caught me, and I was punished for it. My Grandma is dying in a nursing home, but I’m forbidden to see her. I’m not allowed to do anything unless he says so. I want to book a holiday to go visit relatives, but he said no. I wanted to go back to school, but I wasn’t allowed to do that either. I can’t wait until I’m allowed to do these things. I know the time will come soon, and he will change. I know he’s only doing this because he loves me. He’s doing all of this for my own good.

Okay, I’ll be honest. I didn’t get that from a friend. I saw it on a meme, but I bet it got your attention. Perhaps you believed me, illustrating how easily we can be manipulated to think something. I suspect some of you thought the above narrative was about an abusive relationship between a girl living with her abusive boyfriend, but it’s not that at all. At the end of the meme, it said, “Oh wait, did I say boyfriend? I meant the government.” Are we in an abusive relationship with our governments? Is our relationship with health officials and the mainstream media healthy? Let’s explore.

Edmonton Police Services defines abuse as an attempt to control the behaviour of another person. I call this bullying (#bullying #antibullying). Psychology Today’s article, 10 Red Flag Warning Signs of Abuse, lists warning signs of an unhealthy, one-sided relationship. It lists signs such as, attempt to control all aspects of a partner’s life, attempt to isolate the partner from family and friends, being disrespectful by blaming, shaming, and putting the partner down, and threatening with harm if you don’t do what they want. Would authorities do that?

I urge you to watch the video OH CANADA. WAKE UP! (Source: Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms), and you’ll see all the warning signs listed above are all checked off. Shaming is real, as shown in the article Shaming of the unvaccinated intensifies. Ontario gives police new powers to enforce stay-home order and ban on outdoor gatherings is yet more evidence of bullying by government. Even our police forces are abusive as Ontario police officer pushes child to the ground at park. Mandy Hale says, “A healthy relationship will never require you to sacrifice your friends, your dreams, or your dignity.” This is so true, so my conclusion is we are in an unhealthy relationship with our governments, police, and health officials. Yet, people like Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden, told CNN “…it was very very clear that he was talking about liberties that were being restricted. This has nothing to do with liberties…” (see Dr. Fauci).

Speaking of the mainstream media (MM): Are we in an abusive relationship with them? One of the warning signs of abuse mentioned above is the attempt to control. Is the MM attempting to manipulate us by controlling the narrative and trying to persuade us to think a certain way? Sky News Australia, itself considered MM, says Mainstream media is ‘deliberately engaging in propaganda’ to control ‘the way you think’. Listen to its video to find out why. Another video titled, CNN Director ADMITS Network Engaged in ‘Propaganda’ to Remove Trump from Presidency, has recently gone viral. Check it out. The CNN Director admits it delivers propaganda and uses fear right on camera.

Here is The Federalist’s story about the video. Perhaps this is why CNN has shed more than half its viewers since Biden took office, down staggering 60%. Then there’s MM’s Globe and Mail paid £27,776 by U.K. government for coverage.

Seems like control to me. The latest media lie being revealed is The Brian Sicknick Case Shows How the Media Make Their Own Reality and Greenwald blasts New York Times, media for initial reports on Sicknick’s death: ‘Complete fiction.’ Journalist Glenn Greenwald divulges The New York Times “published an emotionally gut-wrenching but complete fiction that never had any evidence” by initially reporting that Sicknick’s “skull was savagely bashed in with a fire extinguisher by a pro-Trump mob until he died.” Washington’s top medical examiner recently debunked this media narrative announcing U.S. Capital Police officer Brian Sicknick suffered two strokes and died of natural causes the day after he was confronted during the January 6 US Capitol riots. Just another example of how we’ve been abused—or shall we say bullied—by the MM.

NBC News Digital, also part of the MM, has an article, U.S. commander: Intel still hasn’t established Russia paid Taliban ‘bounties’ to kill U.S. troops. Here is CNN’s June 2020 story: Washington Post: Russian bounties to Taliban fighters believed to result in deaths of US troops, intelligence assessments show. The credibility of the Taliban report by MM alleged the Russian government was paying bounties to Taliban fighters to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan to make people think negatively about the Trump Administration. Now it is shown to be yet another lie to manipulate our thinking about Trump. It is abundantly clear to me that we are in an abusive relationship with the MM. Joss Whedon, in Astonishing X-Men, Volume 2: Dangerous says, “The news isn’t there to tell you what happened. It’s there to tell you what it wants you to hear or what it thinks you want to hear.” For me, MM has no credibility.

How do you solve abusive relations? Jonathan Mead says, ‘Sometimes the easiest way to solve a problem is to stop participating in the problem.’ That means we must start thinking for ourselves and stop blindly believing what we are told by governments, health officials, and MM. I remind you of what Adolf Hitler once said, “What good fortune for those in power that people do not think.” Or as Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, said, “If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself.” Could this be what MM is doing? Could they be telling lies about the alleged pandemic? I’m merely asking the question. Goebbels also said, “A lie told once remains a lie but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth.” It is time to do your own thinking!

Goebbels’ best quote, however, is, “There will come a day, when all the lies will collapse under their own weight, and truth will again triumph.” W. Clement Stone once said, “Truth will always be truth, regardless of lack of understanding, disbelief or ignorance.” Or, as Flannery O’Connor says, “The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.” I believe the truth will triumph, we will eventually know the truth. In Phaedrus, a dialogue written by Plato, it says: