1) To look at a person's true heart instead of the outer shell.
2) To be tolerant and loving towards those who are sick, vomiting, bleeding, pale, wrinkled, emaciated or bloated and sometimes ugly victims of disease. They can't help how they look and how they sometimes smell. They hate being that way more than anyone else could ever hate looking at them in all their involuntary unsightliness.
3) To respect the souls of the victim's struggling to survive.
4) Physical sickness can result in the increased complications of anxiety, depression and PTSD. It is not strange or crazy to be afraid or sad when you are physically sick and don't know what is going to happen to you. However, these complications are considered to be a form of mental illness no matter what the cause is.
5) To avoid passing rash judgements.
6) Don't be quick to disregard someone's story.
7) Listen carefully and really hear what you are told. Ask clear and simple questions to clarify when you're confused. Give people a chance to explain if you've got them figured out all wrong.
8) People who have become physically ill can be or could have been victims of abuse. The symptoms of sickness are not always psychosomatic. Past or current abusive treatment is not a foolproof inoculation against physical disease, which is unrelated to the abusive treatment.
9) Do not ever perpetrate against others.
10) It is the moral duty of the strong to protect, nurture and heal the weak whenever possible.
11) Doctors don't deserve instant respect or reverence due to their title or level of formal education alone.
12) Doctors can be as ignorant, stupid, cruel, perverted or crazy as anyone else who isn't a doctor. They are individuals. Some are idiots, others are mediocre, and yet others are brilliant. The brilliant ones are rare.
13) Nothing is too terrible to be impossible. Sometimes the impossible happens.
14) Never say never. No matter how young you are you are never invincible.
What the Perpetrators Taught Me:
1) Don't trust too easily. Listen and watch.
2) The rest of the world doesn't march to the same moral drummer as you do.
3) Don't tell anyone about an impossible past or an abusive past until you know them well. It takes many years to know someone that well.
4) Don't tell a mate about any abuse committed against you by others. If he/she turns out to be an abuser he/she will pretend that what he/she does to you isn't so bad and that the others before him/her are the real culprits. Past abuse is used to completely invalidate all current abuse even if the current abuse is more severe than the past abuse ever was.
5) Victims are oftentimes on their own no matter what is wrong or how young or old they are.
6) Past abuse leaves a visible-invisible and oftentimes non-erasable mark on the victim that future abusers are attracted to. The mark of past abuse is like blood in shark infested waters.
7) Non-abusers rarely want anything to do with victims of serious past abuse. The decision is oftentimes made before the non-abuser gets to know the past abuse survivor.
8) Abuse creates at least three kinds of victim survivors. 1) The victim who grows into an abuser. 2) The victim who turns into a partial abuser. This past-victim may be verbally abusive or emotionally abusive to the spouse or he/she may abuse the children but not the mate, etc. 3) The victim who is so meek that they abuse no one yet they are perpetually abused by others as non-abusers typically want nothing to do with them.
9) The three types of abuse survivors are unique and oftentimes static (steady in what they are) personalities.
10) The different forms of abuse survivors carry a different mark. The type 1 and 2 variety is usually far less repulsive to non-abusive dating partners than the type 3 variety. The mark, again, is something in the body language or subtle to extreme appearance of the victim. So this mark can be comprised of eye contact, lack of eye contact, posture, whatever.
11) Abusers are usually cowards.
12) The human race in all of our societies are not equipped to deal with or save and maximize the potential of large numbers of abuse survivors. Therefore, many abuse survivors become wasted human resources.
13) Get help if you are an abuse survivor but be very careful. Go back to number 12 in the first section of this list.
14) Stigmas and stereotypes are a big part of our emotionally toxic and destructive society. People are judged before they are known despite the truth that people are always distinct individuals.
15) Abusers come in all different shapes, sizes, ages, colors, educational backgrounds and financial status realities. Abusers can be doctors, lawyers, members of the clergy, mechanics, entrepreneurs, garbage collectors, etc.
16) Abuse victims can also come in all different shapes, sizes, ages, colors, religious backgrounds, educational backgrounds, and financial status realities. Abuse victims can be children, teenagers, adults, patients, clients, doctors, lawyers, members of the clergy, entrepreneurs, mechanics, garbage collectors, etc.
17) Parental or spousal abuse is not a foolproof form of inoculation against serious physical sickness or disease that is not psychosomatic in nature. However, abusers may act like it is a form of inoculation by their insistence that all problems are psychosomatic because you are an abuse victim. Abuse victims are just as likely to get cancer or any other disease as non-abuse victims. The odds for abuse victims (past or current) and non-abuse victims are exactly the same. I know that this is a ridiculous point, but if you think about it you may realize that it could never be said enough times.