Letter to Clayton

Dear Clayton,

as much as you really hate me, have contempt, there is something I have to thank you for a million. Please don’t take this offensively. I have been abandoned and abused all my life. From the cradle, I was not valued, school professionals had an idea of what behavior I should be emulating, I would not. Like you, I turned everything on its head, but society says girls should never question authority because we’re girls. You questioned authority but you and I need to be able to do this together. Alas, I feel you have gone too far. You are the very reason, however, I will be starting college in the fall of this year. You are the inspiration behind my major of social work, emphasis on family and gender violence and gender studies, all manner of IT, and my skills will be put to work fighting online extremist ideologies like the ones you somehow got sucked into. I can’t save you, but if I can save our son, so be it. For every abuser I counsel and every victim I can help, for me that’s pieces of me you tried to grind up that I can restore to my inner being. For every person who says women must submit, don’t dominate and all, all that I would be able to smash to the ground, that’s another you I bring back. … IF it’s the last thing I ever do, remember I do this in love. If not for you, for our baby son. I can’t save you directly, but I will save whatever I can. We can’t save everyone, but at least I want to try and stop this from becoming the norm. I want to be sure a Gilead society never materializes, even if it meant having to share our story. … I have to do this because otherwise, more money and pain will happen. More taxpayer dollars spent on restraining orders, victim services, coparenting nightmares, social workers, child abuse, … can we also at least alleviate the pain of many? Please let me help those who could be hurt by the forums you’ve probably read, by the secrecy you now keep, … let the women go. I hope you get something out of the coparenting course, and take care of our little boo boo. But furthermore, if you come back to being a real man, maybe you’d probably realize how you hurt me in so many ways, and I’m turning my pain into my career. I will fight back, and in time, you could become an ally, join my side. It’s the only way we as a society can move forward.

I love you even if I can’t hear you say it back.

Beth

Clayton’s Journey: From Shook Up Blind Boy to Radical Antifeminist, Where It All Began

Disclaimer: The following may contain names and professionals related to Clayton Jacobs, but none of this is ever intended to offend Clayton jacobs himself, however this is something that should be duly noted as a psychological analysis. This I’m attempting to write from a psychological point of view, based on observations made about broader issues surrounding extremist radicals, including terrorists in religious groups and terrorists in other types of groups.

At birth, Clayton Jacobs was born blind as I was, but as a male, things look different. Male children are often programmed in certain archetypes that scream masculine. Such archetypes, however, can prove to be toxic. From the day we are born, one thinks we are innocent, and usually babies are spoiled. They should be, why not. However, Clayton probably wasn’t awarded the same attachment to his mother as loved babies usually are. His mother might not have breastfed him, and this is based on observations about his health and behavior, namely that without the added bonus of immune benefits of breast milk, a child can get sick more. It is documented thus.

But what’s more jarring about Clayton’s behavior as it progresses through his life is how others and society perceive him. For the last year or so, I’ve literally been struggling to answer questions related to how the bucking authority and later his antifeminist sentiments began. I could probably explain this based on parallel observation of others, including such radical terrorists like the guy we’d later know as Abu Mosab alZarqawi, a man who would be later assassinated by United States forces in Iraq, and not to be overly outrageous, but Zarqawi was radicalized with the same set of circumstances as Clayton Jacobs may well have been, but those circumstances only differ by place and religious upbringing. Let me explain.

From the beginning, Clay’s family had been a setup for an abuser, drinking and toxic patterns of manipulation abounding. As far back as an ancestor around the early twentieth century early 1900s, we’re talking this family was ingrained with tons of toxicity. Ben Jacobs abused his wife and children, and while nothing was known about the effects of Ben’s abuse on his children, we know that it was widely accepted for wives to be abused by their husbands, and drinking was men’s sad way of coping with what was thought to have been disobedience at home. But men also drank so heavily, yet even the temperance Movement in the United States could not stop these people. As I would tell Clay much later, the only thing Prohibition would give us was NASCAR.

Jim, Ben’s son, would no doubt not abuse his kids, but he still abused his wives. the story goes that one such wife grew tired of this, and whacked him in the head with a frying pan. This is not recommended because violence never solved problems, yet the toxic pattern continued.

Danny had never been a heavy drinker as Ben and Jim were, but Danny still was unavailable to clayton, thus clayton sadly caught his toxic behavior squarely from that side combined with the Clarkes, his mother’s family, in which a stepparent would beat Clayton senseless for things unknown. Clay described many times when he would do wrong, followed by the whole of his family going after him for this. One person after another would shame or punish him, leaving him to feel empty and ashamed. The toxicity sadly continued even after his mother remarried, especially with a violent sibling in the home. Clay reports having to have slept with a knife at his side, so this tells us the sibling was a highly aggressive male capable of any form of abuse that could cause irreparable harm.

With nothing having been done much about Justin’s behavior until sadly he had been incarcerated for theremaindder of his natural life, Clayton also had to contend with a troubled falling out with his other sibling. Danielle Elise jacobs was brutalized to death by the Mesa Police Department which is also documented but they had been disparage. They wished to have gone by Caden clarke, but they died before a full transition. Still, the members of their family would try and damn them to hell for being transgender.

Clayton witnessed vehement abuse and toxic behaviorin his family to a point where he moved away at nineteen, but as a blind person, this meant he had to learn life skills by doing. Life skills do not include, however, radically abusive behavior. Life skills on the whole for this man included simply cooking and household chores, but he’d attempt employment as well. In the latter years of his adult life, he’d fail at marriage twice, witness the death of a sibling, lose custody of a daughter, many tragedies all piling up. With this in mind, is it any small wonder that clayton began reading radical ideologies? His disdain for women is very strongly observed if you look closely. If his mother’s family had been abusive and his mother now enables her son’s abuse, Clayton probably has all the nuts and bolts to become a radical masculine rights sympathizer, and it gets worse.

This very same parallel set of events and behaviors are also seen in radical Muslis like Zarqawi, who was born in Jordan, and spent much of his life feeling out of place. Clay may well have felt the same. feeling out of place is only one piece of this puzzle.

Zarqawi may have felt t of place, but also he got outraged about how his religion was practiced, and during his formative years, he’d been in trouble with the law. While Clay had no such trouble in his youth, this would later become the reality after marriage number one, ending in a domestic assault misdemeanor charge leading him to have to let that one go. Zarqawi also went to prison, but was in multiple times. His prison terms however also became a breeding ground for the creation of a major religious terrorist group in Iraq. But Clayton’s journey is not quite as sensational and as one would expect, it won’t get headline attention.

Zarqawi’s journey ultimately affected a whole region, and it left multitudes dead. Clay’s journey is on a much smaller scale. After his failed first marriage, he met and married a nubile female, Roxelle (Roxie) Miller, who bore him Vivian, now nine years of age as of June of this year. At ten months, however, the court in Iowa gave Vivian to the primary custody of Roxie, upsetting clayton. He was also never as forthcoming about the incident leading up to this. Iowa courts don’t just hand kids to their moms and the mom is supposed to involve the dad unless there had been actual reports of abuse, including physical or sexual abuse. To this day, clay may use the custodial issue with his daughter to justify the “Father’s Rights” ideology that sadly popped up a lot on his now defunct Facebook feed.

I met Clay shortly after his daughter’s custody was determined, and we hit it off quite nicely. However, there were yellow and red flags. A yellow flag came with some of Clayton’s ongoing disdain for young girl victims of sex trafficking, R. Kelly being on trial for a crime. Kelly’s victims were called liars in a statement added by Clayton himself on a Twitter under the pseudonym of esoteric Quality, and this pseudonym would get many variants on other platforms, but for clarity, I’m only using the original name itself, Esoteric Quality.

On his Twitter feeds, there had once been a lot of issue regarding not only disdain for women, I later found out that his Twitter feeds would get suspended for 24 hour periods, then for a week period, then several of his Twitter feeds were suspended permanently. These included his original Esoteric Quality accounts, and his others included one under the name “Blind Guerrilla” and since then, he also created “The Blind savage”, but another Esoteric Quality variant was created. there was a time he could not create new Twitter accounts, not without the website attempting to suspend or actually suspending and banning his accounts. Facebook did this as well. The reasoning behind the social media suspensions was ways the same, usually his language was abusive or promoted self harm, especially to ordinary folks and in some instances, government officials. Clayton has expressed no support for certain women officials in government over concerns about how they address African American interests. However, it is noted that clay got to a point of masculine radicalization when he began sharing multiple feeds from a Father’s Rights Facebook page, most of them with disparaging commentary about women. the disparaging comments would include that feminists destroyed families, that policy benefiting mothers also destroyed the integrity of a father’s stats, etc etc. Most of the next year or two when Clay moved in was also characterized by abuse, confusion and yet the birth of his son.

Two weeks after clayton moved in to my apartment building on May 9, 2022, he began abusing me because I would not cook. The first red flag came with a physical “warning.” He stunned me with his taser close to the beginning of June of that same year. I recall later lying on my bed, however, and Clayton almost strangled me too. In doing so, I was shook up and thoroughly scared. I was forced to make decisions, and among these was having to sometimes not sleep in my own bed.

The first abusive incident also involved Clay’s berating me for having him here, claiming it was about my biological clock, and I very clearly can hear his outraged shout, “Names! Now!” I would not give him names. Because of my defiance of his wishes which would enable more abuse, I was later subject to repeated verbal abuse and in July, close to the beginning of august, attempted destruction of an iPhone SE 2 for what Clay calls laziness and refusing to help. HE snuck to one side of my chair, grabbed this phone in his hand, and bent the screen, and I clearly would not let him touch this, but his bending my phone cost me time, money and having a device for communication. By this point, I also was denied a phone number, an iPad 7, an apple Wath 5, a Macintosh with Intel chipping, and later an Echo Show, a Fire TV edition and my dignity and humanity. The items, however, cost a total of $3500 plus. only half of the cost was recovered by a grant called the Howard Fund, which required paperwork, copies of ID or insurance card, and letters proving you needed the devices stolen. They did not approve the majority of the others, phone, watch and iPad. That cost me out of pocket, and out of pocket, those costs are astronomical, above my resource limit of $2000. Clayton also used my ex boyfriend Trenton to financially exploit me, then blamed me for financial mismanagement, and this was seen in two incidents. One involved a $99 energy bill I could not pay, and both the men refused helping me with the bil. They also refused to take responsibility for exploitation I hadd ot endure. In Clayton’s sour mindset, because I could not cook or clean, because I didn’t fit a set mold, I was unworthy of respect and safety or help with bills. Later toward august, he would cut me off from accessing his Disney Plus and Hulu accounts, citing too many devices signed in, however I felt this was financial exploitation because I did not recall too many devices signed in. He also had someone on his Hulu who should be living in proximity to him, but shirley Baldin, age 77, did not live with clayton. She was and still is located outside the geographic radius of Colorado. Shirley however was prioritized and a promise to help me was broken thoroughly. So I later had to create a Hulu and Disney Plus accounts. Once again, I was forced to pay for my own things, even while Clay was making these empty promises.

Further empty promises came when Clay spent nights with Trenton Matthews, my ex, against my better judgment. I had to go to bed in an empty bed, not being allowed to say goodnight or hear the worlds I Love You. Clay’s thing was I’m unworthy of those words, and that’s sadly the way he later would abuse me post finding out I was pregnant.

It is likely I conceived in July, and we’d been active together, so by August, we found out I was about eight weeks pregnant! However, even after the loss of a twin, Clayton still acted like he cared but later on, it would become apparent that he did not. Three months into the pregnancy, at Thanksgiving 2022, I was abandoned, and plans were laid out for clayton to move to his current seventh floor residence. There he usually resides. He used this unit as a means to abandon and deepen his resentment of me, especially because he claimed it was unhealthy for us to live together. The unhealthy person, however, was me in his mind. Whatw he does not know or understand, and it is an ongoing issue, is that he was the toxic individual. More on why later.

clay was minimal and only showed when doctor appointments were scheduled, and we went to childbirth education classes at a program called alma. This program did offer me a doula service, and there was also reiki and acupuncture offered at my home. This service made me the strong and determined mother I am today. This however did take work, and I still had to face abuse.

during the time of my pregnancy, I was subjected to physical removal from Clay and I’s space, and he’d threatened to do this three times. The worst however occurred right in front of a caregiver. The caregiver had to leave her job with me due to clay’s behavior, and was scared. Rightly so, but it left me without services.

The most extreme physical removal clay subjeccted me to was shortly before I found out I conceived. It was sometime in the summer, June of 2022, and I’d been ordered to get out of my own apartment. I found myself unable to pay for a hotel, so I ended up going to a homeless shelter with cots, Holy Rosary Shelter for Women. This was a disgrace, and I had to contend with being responsible for taking Trenton for granted, which then I was forced to apologize and write some bullshit story on Facebook and later had to record a live video contradicting all I experienced. This was pure manipulation at its finest!

After six months of having no physical support during my first and very risky pregnancy, I gave birth to Malcolm Clayton Jacobs at Denver Health and Hospital on April 15, 2023 at 1:19 PM, and the baby weighed 6 pounds one ounce. While clay put on his advocate mask, battling ignorant lactation nurses and a disrespectful labor nurse, neitehr of these incidents was compensated by the hospital, I was knocked out on nitrous gas, but managed to give birth vaginally and without complications. Baby malcolm entered the world, but we’d later face more obstacles like we’d be denied multiple food orders, necessitating complaint after complaint to patient advocacy sections of Denver Health, and a Denver Health pediatric social worker would then report us as unfit parents to Denver’s Child welfare agency. Blindness might have played a significant role in that decision. However, things got worse right around July of that same year.

I was subject to multiple incidents of verbal abuse, including disrespect of my grandmother and the nickname she gave me, clayton said it with contempt. However, the worst of it occurred after visiting with Rachel Eddie, a social worker for a Guardian ad litem who would then represent our baby. After Rachel departed her visit, Clayton confronted me about my losing the WIC card, Women, Infants and Children program. I had to remind him that the W in WIC spells out the beneficiaries are women and children, not men. But this angered Clayton, resulting in removal of Malcolm from his crib and an assault that led the courts to further get involved. suddenly I found myself having to make trips to the lindsay Flanagan courthouse, and most of these had different hiccups. Traffic and parking lot unavailability would then lend themselves to me having to walk across busy streets with a social worker, Sera Treston would usually accompany me on these trips. as CEO of the Guadalupe Project, her role can include accompanying clients on such forays. She’s also done doctor appointments.

Becausee of the court case, there had been legal wrangling, and this necessitated a daily schedule of check ins, activities, and more invasions of my space and recently, threats to my agency and autonomy. Assurance support services cannot seem to hire a culturally competent person for me, but yet if I don’t accept someone who might be barely understood, I am told the agency has authority to refuse services or recommend I be warehoused in assisted living. This is no way to treat an abuse victim, and Clayton’s disdain for my respectful existence led to this outcome. His demands and pressures to cook and clean, disdain for caregiver support, and outright threats to my physical safety led to this outcome and others.

Today, Clayton is now on a deferred contract, requiring him to do anger management. However, providers are putting up more barriers to accessing the material he needs to make positive changes and be respectful of his coparent or others. the provider refused to give clay an address, and at least our current ongoing case worker is aware and we agree that blind people are entitled to an address with details on which building or suite included. This provider also did not give Clayton adequate times, and he has been known to disrespect judges too. He used an expletive in the last court hearing in the presence of a female judge of all people. She had to confront him, and this judge made it clear that clay must be respectful and kind to me, yet he still wishes he had the right not to. However, Clay’s abuse will lead to more problems for our son as time goes on.

Is there hope for change in clayton? IF anger management can confront his justifications, and this coupled with online support for R. Kelly and Andrew Tate, possible manosphere radicalization on the web as well, perhaps there is hope. Some folks, however, may never change until an adverse situation arises. clay may find he has six months or weeks to live when a doctor tells him he has a serious illness. Will he change then? clay may find that all of his monetary assets have been taken for child and family support demands, and e could be criminally charged with a crime relating to children and women, and he might lose his home. Will he change then? The question could be answered in six months or it could be sixteen years later. However, failure to change would result in clayton and later Malcolm perpetuating the cycle of abuse. Online radicals also can commit other crimes, and on a small scale, domestic violence perpetrators like clayton are very common among the men who are finding solace on these websites calling women liars, vipers and other derogatory terminology. clayton has even derided me as a “disciplinary problem” and called me “deranged.” The truth is that Clayton using a taser makes him look deranged. Our society is deranged becuse they promote violence in males. It’s obvious. There are too many video games and other media glorifying violence and in books, magazines, and newspapers, we see so much glorification of unhealthy and aggressive male behavior.

I want to say very clearly, clayton Jacobs does have some potential for change if he only looks at how his abuse and degradation impacted those around him. For me, clayton moving in was at first a good thing. However, after Clayton moved in, I became isolated, andd he took my friends. Currently I can’t call on just anyone in my building. Because of clayton’s abuse, I also had used multiple mental health helplines, 988 included, and the National domestic Violence hotline has become a thing I also browsed. If clayton had not moved in, I would not have been in a courtroom and had a lawyer. Clayton’s toxic abuse also threatened my agency as a person, and fueled a life skills worker to threaten my autonomy, and she does not fully grasp the traumatic situation at hand. clayton used financial exploitation to peg me as financially inept. This man failed to help me pay rent a high Xcel energy bill. He also demanded money but since I had none, he went ant and abused andn abandoned me again. I was later accused for withholding malcolm, but clayton did so on October 21, 2023, necessitating more than five calls to 911 and the police, little to no help offered, and the response was not timely at all. They apologized, but DHS had to push Clayton to give malcolm back to me and it had been five hours later! Clayton’s justification was retaliation. HE had documented on Our Family Wizard, which I now refuse to use at all, that I deserved to have my baby withheld. clay said, and I did not notice until the next fifteen minutes after Malcolm was supposed to be brought up, that he would give me a taste of my own medicine. Had Malcolm been older, this would no doubt harm him. Clayton is not interested in the welfare of this child, particularly if he does not start being respectful and apologize for all abuse. I keep demanding on and off that he write “meia copa” letters. clay must begin composing these letters, and believe me I have reasons for this. If he can’t indicate he abused women, me included, and if he can’t list all the actions, destruction of property, physical assault, financial exploitation, and verbal abuse, he will never change. IF he does not change, the cost to my son Malcolm will mount. At age five, my son could be forced to witness Mom and Dad fighting. He may say something like, “Stop fighting, why are you two fighting!” I’d have to make certain clayton is never to fight with me after Anger Management is through with him. But furthermore, Clayton not changing could have an impact on Malcolm’s academic performance, home schooling or no homeschooling. We would wish to homeschool, especially if schools train children to act as Pavlov’s dogs, but also the CPS case could complicate matters. clay should be responsible enough to realize Malcolm needs more appropriate social contact with peers, not denizens of Juanita Nolasco, the place we’re at now.

clayton continues believing that if I completely gave malcolm to him, did not ask for custody and such, that he’d let Malcolm reach out, that there would be no CPS case. This statement is pure manipulation. I will never fall for this statement. Malcolm will likely be denied contact with his mother, and he will be forced to be with another woman, and while I have asked Clayton if he planned to replace me as malcolm’s mother, he dodges the question. I am very suspicious, anxious, and tired of being tired. Hisi abuse has taken its toll on mental health, necessitating twice weekly checkk ins with my therapist. It did not help that on February 4, 2024, my baby fell off a changing table at the IHOP on Wadsworth, and as a result, I was cited for child abuse! Outrageous. Jefferson County and their careless behavior, the Lakewood Police Department included, triggered more abuse and abandonment from Clayton, and then e began attacks on my parental rights in court. his attacks included statements about early intervention professionals and their nahdling of diaper changing. However, the attacks failed. This man has proven that love is only conditional, but in truth, true love is unconditional and based on mutual respect and love and kindness. However, clay balks at this while stating that anyone teaching such is a woman. I sadly wish the elements making my life a living hell would disappear. I have so many feelings about these, but my greatest feeling is anger. I’m angry that people aren’t listening, instead taking Clayton’s side, or if they are a judge, at least they fight for us. However, for Malcolm’s safety, I really wish somebody would just make Clay work or get out. Since he was not forthcoming enough about vivian and the custodial dispute in Iowa, I do wish I had access to those documents. My son must be given access to the truth, but I also know that dishonesty and lack of forthcoming about things from a prior relationship can look suspicious for Clayton. His refusal to reveal what happened led him to justify all abuse against me. IF he continues, Malcolm could perpetuate the cycle of abuse by inflicting suffering on his own family, or he may cut Clayton off as a friend of mine’s kids did to their father.

I call upon clayton and all relevant folks to stop this abuse. If you have been manipulated by clayton, please recognize that the statements he has told you about me are false. false narratives will not be tolerated. clay has been dispensing such even to the police.

clayton should know though that he has two optionss. change his beliefs, attitude and behaviors is one choice, and this is best for all involved, especially our baby son. IF he chooses otherwise, I implore him to leave. He can’t be trusted to sit here and manipulate and take away opportunities for me and Malcolm. IF he wants to collaborate with me, I expect him to not get gleeful about me being removed and arrested so he can control Malcolm. I demand accountability for all abuse, including threats and attacks on my parental rights, my autonomy and bodily agency. Discounting my life skills, making it needed for me to have a life skills worker at all, is beginning to make me uncomfortable. I can no longer work with agencies like these, especially when they do not hire people who have English skills such that Average Joe can understand you. This is not a big attack on an ethnic group. This is a need. IF I can’t get services with competent ofessionals, folks who can speak discernible English, then the agency is at fault, not me, the consumer. Clayton’s abuse also forced me to talk of wants and needs. Everything it seems is being labeled a “Beth wants” and not a real need. I wish this would all stop. This can all come to a swift end. And you know how?

first, Clayton, stop believing I am unworthy of safety and respect. Never consort with those nasty websites again. do not block me on socials, stop following me anywhere, and call me Baby Mama. I’m angry and have been so angry about this and outraged that you’d put my agency and autonomy on the back burner, and worse, teach our boy a wicked precept that allows him to have no empathy or respect for mentally ill folks. Your repeated use of slurs is deplorable. It is your toxic behavior that led nurses and doctors to see a declining mental state in me, not me by myself. The sooner you recognize this, and say you’re sorry, the sooner I can move forward. refusal to apologize could be devastating for malcolm, and since you claim you love him, why are you continuing to glorify violence and abuse against me? Why are you saying that I need skills and beating it through my body? I suggest since you berated me for not having skills, you do the cooking. All of it!

Since you also put up barriers to talk of budgeting, I suggest you spend all of your money on things you denied me. You cut me off from Hulu, so give it back, and pay for it all. Even if Verizon isn’t paying for it, just do it. Take any outside this area friends off all your streaming profile accounts, or you may be charged for sharing passwords. They’re doing this now. so think about it. Also you may be responsible for paying more than $300 in rent per month. I also would implore you to buy all my food, and buy what I say, no complaints. Do not try and skirt any responsibility for what you’ve done, and if you do so, believe me. malcolm will never grow to be respectful.

Since you pushed a life skills track on me, I suggest you do the cleaning too. You may hire. maid, I don’t care. However, complaining and resentful behavior about doing all the work is not tolerated. I implore you to think about why I’m asking these things. All I asked for was a respectful and kind relationship partner, but instead I got a man who would give his right arm to hurt and hurt and hurt. He got me pregnant, abandoned me while pregnant, and made repeat statements about having custody due to mental health. Attacking me due to mental health is no longer going to be permitted. Your abuse is the culprit, and I implore you to say that fifty times. “I abused beth Taurasi” should be written more than a thousand times. I don’t care if you believe this is juvenile, your abusive behavior was not only juvenile, but devastating. You tried to turn a whole community against me, and some neighbors have rightfully reported you as hateful. They observe. They know.

I also implore you to please do not ever send the Neighborhood paparazzi after me while I’m simply taking malcolm out places. Nitpicking is also a disrespectful act, and while I get the diaper tape thing, I do not ever want to hear you whine about how Malcolm is dressed or not dressed. You presented him to me once in his diaper! I took a picture of this so I could show somebody that you would let him run about in his birthday suit! Fmo now on, dress him right! and it doesn’t have to be one way. He can wear a dress or a tutu for all I care, just cover his body and especially his nether region. Do not bring me a butt naked child, ever! And don’t nitpick about every food I feed him not being “organic.” I have no interest in organic stuff. It sucks, price included.

If you’re going to communicate with me, I suggest you be respectful and kind. For another, give me back your love. I demand now that you say “I love you” with honesty. You never told me appreciative things about my persona, only my body. all I hear is stuff about my sexual regions, my ability to please you. However, you said I need to cook on the level you do. Well to be honest, you put unrealistic expectations on me, and for this I wish you to pay the piper. IF you want somebody to cok at your level, just go work at a restaurant. Go open one up if you haven’t done so already. I am not interested in being forced to have skills at your level. Everybody has strengths and weawknesses, and so do you. Recognize this, and we can all live together in peace. I’ve been abandoned and abused my whole life but I’m not about to go down in the dump. I won’t play your stupid game of I love to play victim. I was a victim, and sooner or later you will recognize this.

I want to close with this. Give me back access to TikTok and all socials, and I wanna see that meia Copa statement on all of these. the statement must be one that holds you responsible for the abuse you caused. Acknowledge me as Beth taurasi, not your “baby mama”. The hip hop crude language describing women cannot be used in these writings or videos. failure to do this may result in further legal modifications for your parenting. I can’t coparent with a man who does not respect a child’s mother. I cannot coparent with a man who justifies and glorifies traumatizing women for his own benefit. I cannot coparent with men who call women hip hop crude degrading words and names, Baby mama included. I cannot coparent with a man who espouses to values that enable unsafe and toxic behavior, and I will refuse coparenting with a man whose ultimate goal is to retaliate against women who he feels do him wrong. Sadly, you are leaving society with little choices. Comply with anger management, and write those letters. sing those apologetic rap songs, and respect my name. There will be no license for abuse and abandonment, withhoding or refusal to say I love you, or glorifying physical and mental hurt and trauma. Think about your baby son, he needed his mother. He plays with me, and I love holding him and tickling him hard. His laugh is infectious, but if you destroy that, believe me you’ll never want to. Malcolm won’t let you forget what you’ve done.

If you do change, we will welcome you with open arms and hearts. We will give you a chance, but you must follow set boundaries we decide upon. Malcolm, for example, may implore you to walk the dog outside each day. It may provide quality time for you both. I may assert you participate at dinner in all rituals, we would do certain things like joys and sorrows, check ins, wins for the week, etc. failure to participate in these rituals shows us you’re not interested in a family, just yourself. We also want to ask that you obtain a job, and get out of the house during work hours. I will be likely working myself.

also beware we won’t take kindly to any form of abuse, including verbal name calling, attempted or successful destruction of property, physical abuse, or emotional manipulation. IF any property is destroyed, you will pay the total cost of repurchasing or repairing it. No questions, no ifs or buts. Refusal to pay may result in a legal recourse we don’t want to entertain.

Overall, clayton we do care. Malcolm does get spoiled and he could use such every so often. But you must make concerted efforts to change, or kindly exit stage left.

Online Abuse and Radicalization: What We Must Do As a Community to Heal Victims and Sway Radicalized Men Away from Such Activities

It seemed like an ordinary day in July, 2023. Holding his three-month-old infant son, Clayton Jacobs and his partner were engaged in a routine visit with Rachel Eddie, a social worker with guardian ad litem alison Jensen’s office. Rachel’s job is to protect children, and she and Alison work together to help kids at risk where a family is concerned. Alison is a lawyer, and she represents Malcolm Jacobs, and when he was three months old, it seemed that during this day, Clayton Jacobs, his father, was in his element. He sat there, possibly just visiting with Rachel. She and Guadalupe Project representatives Sera Treston and Sarah Stark had a handful of a case to deal with. When asked about parenting planning, Jacobs spoke up that he wanted his infant son to”from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM” much to the chagrin of the child’s mother. The professionals weren’t buying it. Then, Rachel left. Jacobs and his partner began talking, seemingly an ordinary conversation filled the room, that is until Jacobs spoke up, “You’re not getting back your WIC card. You lost it once, that’s quite enough.” The partner spoke up, “Do you know what the W in WIC stands for? Instead of acknowledging the reality of the WIC program, a supplemental nutrition program aimed at women, infants and children, Jacobs spoke again, “Your neo-feminist tricks do not work on me.” The rets of the next thirty minutes were a blur. Jacobs became escalated, and his partner asked him to leave, but he demanded, “Not without my son.” This was followed up by the partner rushing into her three month old son’s room, closing the door, but jacobs entered and attempted to drag her back, but the assault happened so fast she recalls only two times but they were highlights. She tried to fight back, but then she recalls Jacobs placing his hands up toward her neck, then seemingly putting her in a chokehold. For two seconds, she thought she was going to die. She was lifted off the floor a couple of inches, but the last thing she remembers was Jacobs shoving her face down on the carpet, leaving her with an abrasion on her upper lip. This was later photographed, but she could not have charged Jacobs with this assault. Sadly she and jacobs were found responsible for the abuse of a child, “interfamilial neglect” was how the paper worded it. This sadly was strongly linked to some online radicalization. Jacobs would later write on an X post dated August 26 using the username @eqmusicofficial “My baby mama wants all the smoke, so as far as I am concerned, she can get it. I have had enough of her raggedy ass running my name through the mud. I bent over backwards for this woman, who is mentally deranged and a disciplinary problem, to say the least. I can’t wait to here my dear her ass like Marvin Gaye.” This post was the most derogatory he’d written about his partner. This contains rhetoric strongly linked to misogynist jason Black, owner of YouTube channels supposedly promoting healthy relationship dynamics, or not.

I was Mr. Jacobs’s partner, but the horrible thing was that since that derogatory post was written about me, Clayton has gone on to block all my socials, instagram, X, Tiktok, and denies me access to everything of his so much that I’d like to see him take his anger management seriously. Our son Malcolm is now eleven months old, a huge bundle of energy and so much love, he does not need to be taught that women, including his own mother, who don’t know how to bake a cake are worthless. Clayton has used multiple avenues to hurt me, including manipulating all my friends, Trenton Matthews included, into taking away a cell phone and the number in it, now it’s an AT&T number owned by someone else, I can’t get it back. Trenton tried to also side with Clayton when he tried to pose a sob story about how using a taser on me for not paying rent is permissible because in his words, “She could have made us all homeless, and we could have all been dead.” However, it is known that violence is not the way to solve problems, and I honestly hope that anyone who says otherwise will realize the psychological impact is costly. you will have to drive your children to therapy sessions, and you will as a nonabusive parent have to contend with manipulations by an abuser. clayton has also questioned every single professional watching Malcolm and trying to protect his interests, and at one point attempted to shift parenting responsibilities to Clayton on a primary basis, but I knew this was a bad move. I had to plead for this to be stopped because all of the reasoning had to do with questioning mental health and stability. However, abuse of the magnitude Clayton did had an impact on my mental health, and the professionals saw right through Clayton’s foolish behavior. He attempted to state that I was noncompliant with my deferred judgment, a contract specifying each parent who signs it to undergo treatment plans tailored to their needs, by stating I withheld the baby when he had done so on October 21, 2023, claiming I was unsafe. He has made repeated statements about me being a safety concern. He has also tried to manipulate the courts into believing his sob story about disregulation and total instability after an incident on February 4, 2024 in which Malcolm fell off a changing table at an IHOP, then a ticket was issued by Lakewood Police in Jefferson County for child abuse. This ticket became a sad and failed opportunity for Clayton to plead with the judge for full or sole control of Malcolm’s living arrangements. Abusers like Clayton use things like tickets for child abuse and every small thing they can about their victims to attack them. He did so in a court of law, but the judge, the Honorable Judge Laurie clark, acted against this. She saw right through Jacobs’s foolishness and said clearly he must be kind and understanding, but his response to the diaper changing table incident left me no choice but to do two things. First, I thought about committing suicide, leaving Malcolm far away and safe with someone who would tell him that his mother loved him and did what she had to do to protect him from the abusive whims of his father. But that wasn’t a possibility, so I resorted to writing really frustrated texts to a buddy of mine, Jennifer Cleverly, who later filed a police report with Denver Department of Public Safety but the report was tossed. Clay demanded I be prosecuted, and in follow up conversations I strongly recall him gleefully looking forward to my arrest, which in his mind should have been guaranteed, his safety being priority over my own. The judge, however, ripped him a new one. While he interrupted her speeches, she kept on saying, pressing, “Mr. Jacobs, Mr. Jacobs,” and rightly so. But she made another point too. His behavior, she stated, was unacceptable, and she posed a good question, “Are you going to act this way when something doesn’t go your way at your son’s school or daycare?” I was wowed by her tenacity in the face of this patriarchal show of hatred. But the last statement he made about this woman, I have to record here for posterity, and I beg of my beautiful son Malcolm never ever to utter such a statement to someone with J.D. or other government responsibilities of any kind, and yes, females in all professions, and he sid: “You’re a piece of shit for a judge, do you know that?”

This man sadly was probably likely radicalized on “Father’s rights” and “men’s rights” pages. On closer study of his former twitter and X posts, Clayton, under the username eqmusicoficial and the Blind Savage among others, extolled virtues and values that scream safety concern. His postings speak of a man troubled by women and their progress in society. I’ve heard him spout this off at a doctor’s appointment, at home, and in public settings and with female professionals. He used his unsafe male authority to fire Sarah Stark, a social worker with the Guadalupe Project, and thus thereafter the organization closed Clayton’s case. Sera Treston made the right move, and I stand by it.

Under other usernames, including Blind Guerrilla, Esoteric Quality and Clayton’s Music, this man has been trying to paint women as liars, painted me as an incompetent parent even though a mediator told us clearly we made this baby so let’s work together, the mediation failed. But where is it all originating? How did it all begin?

the answer is that Clayton Jacobs comes from a very dysfunctional and abusive family. He tells of a mother, Stacia clarke, having family dynamics that did not favor Clayton’s own personal safety as a child. Clayton recalls growing up with a violent brother, Justin, who would scare him to the point where young Clayton would have to sleep with a blade beside him in case Justin should attack. Justin Jacobs has since been incarcerated for myriad crimes involving minors and sex trafficking and other things I am probably not privy to. Clayton also had a small dose of jail life when he assaulted his first wife, a woman in her fifties and later her sixties named Kimberley. HEr daughter Christina was Clay’s friend from school, but how she became Clay’s stepdaughter I’ll never get. Kimberley was said to not be that smart, but her injuries necessitated a restraining order for Clay, but he was let off on unsupervised probation. I’m not counting on this another time.

For wife number two, Clayton was hopeful when his daughter, Vivian Rae, was born on June 15, 2015, but in 2016, courts in Iowa removed Clayton from full custodial consideration. I am now grappling with why. Clayton has never been forthcoming with what actually led the Iowa courts to make such a decision. It had to be that Vivian had been either physically or sexually abused, and usually in welfare cases and divorce settlements, children’s safety is strongly considered. Roxelle (Roxie) Miller Jacobs, Vivian’s custodial parent, was painted as someone who ddid not want a girl. I don’t know how this could be true, as all c children are precious. I do believe though that Clay was not forthcoming enough with me about his past abuse of either his last ex wife or his child or both. This is particularly troubling.

After Clayton lost custody rights to Vivian, there had to have been a path to him becoming a radical masculine rights advocate. I saw posts detailing his support for R. kelly, one of the news clippings where the victims testified had a statement that read, “Fuck the victims, they are liars.” On a charity where Andrew Tate wants to assist in helping men’s lives ruined by liars about rape, Clay says, “this bullshit needs to stop.” Such statements scream male supremacy, which does set off alarm bells with professionals, and sadly I have been questioned about my own mental health and stability to. I had to have said that parenting restrictions for me would only enable Clayton to run and say, “see? Beth is an unfit mother and a lunatic.” He has made many statements about mentally ill people, but this is not his fault. But his brother Justin had to be held accountable for his actions.

The Jacobs family sadly not only has instability on the men, but there are women too who are not acting in anybody’s best interests. stacia Clarke herself is enabling her son’s abuse, and when I have made frequent pleas for her to understand and show support for me, appealing to her own victim status as well, she simply said I wasn’t doing my job. she sided with Clayton, and without being right there in Colorado, she’s bound to do that. However, Stacia also must consider that her son’s abuse is never justified. He justified his abuse even recently, stating that I contribute nothing to his “household”. However, relationships in truth should always be about mutual respect, love and kindness. Understanding and all the rest play a key role in making a relationship solid and healthy. However, Clay’s response was a disparagement of the instructors of any class teaching this. “The classess were taught by women.” However, such things are based on data gleaned by both men and women, and the mutual respect and empathy principles are evidence based, backed by science, and always work. My poor son Malcolm also has to face manipulated individuals, Clayton’s other victims. Christine fogel, a neighbor in a nearby unit on Clayton’s building floor, verbally abused me in a parking lot. Trenton Matthews, my ex, lives now on floor 9, but away from me, having cut me off from having a phone number, used his ownership of a T Mobile phone plan and did not bother to help me stay safe. Instead, he also took all my gadgets, iPad included, and disciplined me by removing my use of data on his own iPad mini. He was outraged, but I hope someday he will recognize his manipulated state of mind. He now joins forces with denizens of the online blindness community, including people who would rather spend their time trashing me. I have heard Trenton and his unsafe friendships are a thing, and a longtime friend has recently added me back to facebook, I didn’t know this, but I told him that it wasn’t about me. Clayton clearly uses others to manipulate them to his side.

Blake Tucker also got ire from his own mother, Kathy Babcock, from all this. She wants him to be “done with her”, me, and would rather Blake be with Jennifer cleverly, who received texts from me because of Clayton’s behavior, it just seemed like I was being attacked at every opportunity.

Clayton sadly will only go down a radical path, and we as a community must stand with me and not clayton to get us both safe. Malcolm and I deserve the support of professionals and family, but we can’t get genuine support here in the West Denver area, so we’re probably going to pack our bags and move to Littleton, a town eight miles south. However, Littleton might offer good deals on things, and broadband internet will have to be considered a utility, not a want or luxury. Malcolm will need the security a camera on my front door would offer. I might get a Simply safe security code. I do want Clay to have a code, but if he does not get his anger together, I might never let him in my house.

People of this world should know what online radicalization does to our young men and boys. I fear if my boy is not properly educated about these comunities, commonly known as the manosphere, he will fall prey to their recruitment ploys. MGTOW, for example, call women liars and vipers while promoting celibacy for all men “going their own way.” MRA movements, men’s rights activists, promote fathers getting priority custody even in cases of a newborn baby needing a mother’s touch. Incels and pickup artists hail as the most violent groups. It was an incel group member, Eliot Roger, who stormed a California college sorority and killed six women, and left a chilling manifesto about his vehement hatred of women, his entitlement to sex and how he’d impose such on the women he hated. It is MRA groups that inspired my own partner, Clayton Jacobs, even from the beginning of a wonderful friendship, to consider the “father’s Rights” movements as his home. Because he lost a custody case with his own daughter, now Clayton feels supercharged to join the Father’s Rights Movement as I saw on his now defunct Facebook pages. Clayton jacobs is in trouble, and so are our boys and young men, oftentimes not being educated in healthy masculinity. Clayton said when confronted about toxic masculinity, “That’s disrespectful to men.” Sadly, it is the opposite. By acknowledging toxic masculinity, Clayton would be actually showing respect, also much love, to his begotten son. I can’t imagine my little baby not saying he loved his mother, he has such happiness when we are together. clay too, but Malcolm in the long run should be learning healthy ways to relate to peers. He needs friends like all kids, but he needs parental figures who can foster his curiosity and help him form bonds, and he’s no different than other kids, blind parents be damned. But I implore Clayton to please take your anger management seriously.

While I do care for clayton, I loved his dark humor, his sexual weirdness, his funny preferences for Seth Rogan films, and his love of The Wolf of Wall St movie with Leonardo Dicaprio, and he enjoyed quoting line after line from that movie. I had favorite lines too, and he and I would joke about those lines. But what kills me most is his disdain for my safety and respect due to his vision of a society built around the household, but it almost aligns with Atwood’s gilead families, blue cloaked wives submitting to husbands by being illiterate and playing with petty point and embroidery, a red cloaked handmaid that would bear his children on demand, be raped by him during a biblical ceremony, her name changed to “ofClayton” to denote she belongs to him, her body is a utility. Dull green Marthas to cook and clean for him, and meanwhile Commander Jacobs is on top, dressed in black, and he has the authority to force somebody to get pregnant, or worse, have a Martha’s eye cut out. Clayton would be able to demand pleasure from anyone he asked for, and his wife could even be way under sixteen years of age. I reminded him of this in some text exchanges, he tried to hide them, but for me, the memory stays within.

Our communities must show our boys and men that love does not mean pain. Respect does not require abuse. If your partner can’t pay the rent, and if she spends weeks crying and wishing you would be more comforting, ask yourself why. Clayton never did. He abandoned me three months into having impregnated me, and now he must live with the consequences. He has made manipulative statements suggesting I should have given Malcolm fully to him and never raised him. However, such statements are manipulations. Abusive men like clayton won’t let Malcolm reach out to me, not on his watch, and that’s contradictory to what he said. He said he would have let him reach out, but I know better. Malcolm must have me as his mother, but his father’s vision of relationships and family dynamics are so unhealthy, yet he still believes Katherine Johnson, a hidden black figure in aerospace engineering, is revolutionary. yes, then why does this not apply to those in your personal life? Women are an untapped many, and we intend to seek justice for our children and our families.

But for Clayton, I will close with this. please distance yourself from harmful thinking. Put away R. Kelly and his lies, and never even touch Andrew Tate and his lies. find some other YouTuber to subscribe to, not Jason Black. I was never a disciplinary problem, and the derogatory postings you wrote about me are just horrible. I have a right to have something in place for Malcolm so he doesn’t get confused. I didn’t deserve abuse, whether I said something about you or did not pay rent. Frankly you should be supporting me, not a radical behemoth like those who are responsible for killing women. I love you, not the harmful values that are trying to all consume the good in you. Like Luke skywalker attempting to sway Darth Vader, I can feel the good in you. Turn back the hands of time and I will show you a me that was never so much hurt that I now have to ask where my friends are, and before you came, I had some degree of hope, but you took advantage of me, my body and friends, and now I have to move.

Clayton, should it ever occur to you that your writings and your views are unsafe, I am just a knock on the door or a phone call away. We can talk, and if you must weep, let me hold you through that. It is okay for a man to weep. Jesus, a male Hebrew did weep with others who lost loved ones. I shall let you weep for anything you need to weep about. Through your tears, you may discover that women do what we must because for how ever long, thousands of years, males have oppressed us, and since ploughing fields became the norm, men retired female goddesses, and in many historical contexts, women fell to the status of thing, inferior, wife. However, today’s women do not play when we say we’re not above children, we’re equal if not a bit above board with you. We don’t like being beaten, we don’t want to be told who we are, we know who we are, and gaslighters never win.

Clayton, while I need to keep me and Malcolm safe, please understand that you are your own worst enemy, and yes, your best advocate. Listen to the pros, listen to the people protecting your baby. They are calling on you to stop and see where you’ve gone wrong.

My heart will beat a song of forgiveness, and I await you with open arms, but if you fail to see the error of this whole thing, goodbye until you do.

With love and understanding,

Beth

Prevention Starts Early: Preventing Domestic Violence at Home, at school and in our Communities one young person at a time

Walk into any school classroom, and listen to how the kids and teachers interact. Most teachers are female, and most administrators are male. However, there are some male teachers and female administrators. While children are playing in a kindergarten class, teachers are charged with teaching the students how to relate to one another. Kids who have abusive dynamics in families don’t always have peace at home. teachers these days are overworked and burdened with the task of helping curb abuse in the kids, particularly boys.

Girls respond to abusive family dynamics by retreating, and later submitting to abuse. Boys, on the other hand act out. They become the aggressive ones, and they may even initiate acquaintance rape. some boys do however figure it all out in the end, and they realize that domestic violence is never okay. Boys who are educated in healthy masculine behaviors are typically better set up for success. Here are some ways we as the guardians of our youth can help in the fight against domestic violence.

1. Start with our infants. When parents respond positively and affirmatively to the cries of their babies, this is often a first lesson in empathy as noted by many psychologists. Abusers typically lack empathy for others. With every sip of the bottle or breast, every snuggle, each and every sweet lullaby, we are showing our babies that they are loved. Love and hugs are the best way to engage babies in the necessities of resilience and empathy. Note that it is okay for babies to cry. that is how they talk.

2. With our young children, all genders should be enrolled in some type of martial arts. Karate or judo, it should be initiated at age five. Typically, children in Japan are introduced to the fighting arts at this age. Throughout your child’s education, the martial arts master can teach about things like honor, respect and good self discipline. disciplining oneself is an act of learning through teaching. A martial arts teacher in the right dojo can make a great difference in children’s lives. carolyn Jessop’s boys learned a great deal from the karate master she set them up with. Her daughters also did well, but she had lots of legal hurdles to climb. Husband Merrill, a decades older polygamist in a big plural marriage, kept on attempting to manipulate the situation in his favor. Carolyn noticed when her children came back from custody mandated visits, their psyches were bruised. Later she’d reveal that her children were instructed to pray for their mother’s death for being disobedient to Merrill. One anecdote she shares in her memoir Escape tells of Merrill with a sixteen-year-old Bonnie, introducing her to the children as their “new mother.” However, to Carolyn’s shock but delight, Carolyn got sole custody of all eight of her children, from Arthur to Bryson. Betty would later leave Carolyn to join her father. However, beyond that nothing much is known. However, Carolyn did affirm that as a mother, she had rights.

3. Teaching our boys to respect the rights of others does not end in the dojo and in schools. We must mobilize organizations such as Catholic Big Brothers, although not every such group exists where we want them. Online habits for teens must also be closely watched. Big Tech owes teens a safer way to surf. for boys, algorithms have proven these dys to be dangerous when improperly implemented. so when Malcolm Jacobs, age 13, wants to do a homework assignment on women’s suffrage, he could type “women’s suffragettes” into Google, attempting to find scholarly work on this topic. However, MGTOW vlogs and other antifeminist literature typically pops up in spots. IF Malcolm were to have seen such, my job as Mom is to educate him not to use your personal search engine. Schools can implement policies whereby a similar database such as those found in colleges and universities is used exclusively. So, when Malcolm Jacobs types in “modern feminist movement” in a search bar, he will not be confronted with MGTOW vlogs and blogs detailing how women lie about rape, how feminism destroys families, and alternatives to women’s progress in america. for our female and sexual minorities who are students, we can and must do better at being sure to teach them that modern feminism is not bigotry against cisgender males. Rather, it’s the complete opposite. as Malcolm’s mom, my job at present with every cuddle, every sip of milk e gets from me, each response I give him with diaper changes, then later if he crawls into bed, wanting me to snuggle, all this stuff is great for setting him up for success with female peers. IF parents remain responsive also to their teens’ internet activities, fostering a discussion about healthy relationships and boundaries will be effective in every way.

4. For those in religious circles, children benefit greatly when they are surrounded by loving mentors and nurturing adults. At Jefferson Unitarian Church and similar places, children are leveled through what are called “faith exploration” coursework. I have yet to glance at the Our Whole Lives courses, OWL or short. In thee courses, children learn about relationships and how to interact with each other. In seventh grade OWL, sexuality is emphasized. For my son, this means he will have a comprehensive sexual education on sunday instead of during weekdays, but I would stress his sexual education can keep going through the weeks. Sunday class would be a guidepost. However, parents can follow up with their students children through the week by talking to them each day about how they engage with Sunday’s lessons. For children raised in creedal one God churches, i.e. Catholic or Christian churches, sexual education often comes with a caveat that children must learn that heterosexual relationships are the only acceptable type. I graduated from a Parochial school littered with moral education that does not set up a disabled girl for safe and healthy relationships. My family instituted harsh authoritarian discipline methods, not allowing me to do things for long periods of time. However, with Malcolm, this will not be the case. For one, I will have to forbid him from joining a creedal one God system church, including Roman Catholicism for the sake of his sexual integrity. Creedal one God spiritual communities may look helpful on the outset, but if a woman is unmarried or blind or both, the church will not only abandon the person, but they will make her life a living Hell as comparative to a normal they endorse, a normal in which able bodied and able minded persons are the only ones permitted to marry. Malcolm Jacobs is likely to be raised in affirmative spiritual principles that allow him to see all persons as divine within, worthy of love and respect. Such principles will guide malcolm through tough situations, especially involving Clayton. malcolm is likely to marry successfully if the principles are followed through. Our young benefit when nurturing adults teach respect and affirmation for their peers. When Malcolm begins dating in the teenage years, if this education holds, I might consider that he could very well have a very successful marriage. It is rare to find a couple that stays with each other for more than fifty years at a time. We often ask what is their secret. Sex is something we must help our children understand the need for and use of. For me, I see sex and the very act thereof as an act of love, and sex in and of itself should be treated as a beautiful act of love and connection, procreation being an added bonus. For some, that procreative bonus is not present, but the act of love should always be a given.

5. Healthy relationships and mental health correlate. Therefore, we must as a community address the needs of those being affected by abusive dynamics at home. We must teach mental resilience and show mental health related first aid to our young, the youngest appropriate age possible. We must teach consent, “May I give you a hug” for example instead of just outright giving physical contact, but we must also be clear with how we instruct our young to approach each other and how e express each other’s feelings. We must hold space for our youth to be themselves.

I hope with the tools I speak of, we can all become soldiers bravely guarding and protecting the lives of our young and women from the ill effects of domestic violence and abuse. Thank you for your readership, and if you have any questions, I’m open.

If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence and abuse, click http://www.thehotline.org, and you can choose which modes to use when communicating with the advocates. If you or someone you know is in mental health crisis, you can call or text 988 and go to your nearest mental health clinic. Remember, you are not alone, and abuse is never acceptable even in the context of a romantic partnership.

When Will Dad Stop Hurting Mom: Treating Domestic Violence One Man at A Time

When a man is guilty of domestic violence or a child welfare case is initiated because of domestic violence on the part of a man, a lot of things are activated. Among these include legal services, restraining orders, custodial arrangements for children involved, financial support decrees, you name it. There is also something else vastly important that ends up on the man’s to do list, something that tests a man’s patience, but what it is supposed to do is decrease abusive behavior to practically zero.

Abuse typically occurs in cycles. Take a single man, his partner and some kids. The children witness a good period, a man does not abuse, and during this period, he can be kind and generouss. Dr. Lundy Bankroft notes that these good periods are followed up by abusive periods, but the overall scope of the cycle of abuse is designed to confuse and throw off the victims. Abusive periods typically include lots of verbal and physical abuse of some kind, and may also include gaslighting. clayton typically has his good period and bad period. Sometimes the abuse mode strikes without warning, but there are triggers. Some triggers for abusers range from their partner does not cook the requested meal to a desire to break that partner. In a welfare case involving children, it is typically recommended for each parent to have a set treatment plan and goals. In Colorado, treatment plans can include therapy, anger management, parenting courses, and evaluations to determine parental safety. I call to mind my own dealings with child welfare as a good example. Clayton and I were each given an option to sign a set contract with a treatment plan in each, called a deferred judgment. Each deferred is tailored to the specific neeeds of each parent. For me, that included regular check ins with therapists, a full mental health evaluation, and a coparenting course, delayed too much because of Department troubles, and it did not help the ongoing caseworker had to be transitioned. Each of us has to comply and fulfill our deferred judgments so that in each of our ends, this case can be dismissed. Such is the theory.

for me, all I have to do is a coparenting class, but there are more issues for Clayton. It is typical for abusive men to be assigned anger management, though the city attorney wished us both to take a domestic violence abuser evaluation, which I was happy to take, but Clayton skirted the test. He also was not prompt in checking in wht with the mediator we were also assigned, mediation as a result was paused due to this and escalations between clayton and I especially after an accident at an IHOP. The resulting unsupportive response from Clayton warranted me to break down, but it was worse in court when Clay’s lawyer read texts out loud, and attempted to use so called professional coaching to try and paint me as unfit. Lately, it has become apparent that clayton had been using neighbors to verbally abuse me in public. Christine fogel, a grandmotherly figure on clayton’s building floor,, pegged me as not a decent mother yet she got to watch Malcolm for clayton one night. clayton had been up to this point unable to soothe Malcolm, which had been an ongoing issue noted by the professionals in charge. For me, soothing malcolm has become a no brainer. Typically one wants to see Baby sleep through the night, but to be honest, babies should not typically sleep through any night. An EI professional had told me not to nurse malcolm at night, but I beg to differ because of the complexities and stresses sadly that Clayton exposed him to. Twice he argued with me in front of our baby son. He now apparently uses neighbors like Christine to verbally assault or abuse. Christine was standing across the parking lot while I was out there too, awaiting to be picked up by a social worker when I quite literally in my rage uttered that Malcolm was not Christine’s child. He’s not. But then when she hard it, she must have said, “You’re not a decent mother.” Huh? I said, excuse me ma’am but I am. She said, sadly, “Bitch, don’t talk to me.” Bitch, don’t talk to me. It hit me that perhaps Christine and a few others are now being used to verbally abuse and denigrate my role as Malcolm’s mother while in public! This kind of behavior should be called out because the emotional impact for Malcolm could have been worse. Had he been present, mature and verbal, he could have walked up to christine and said, “Christine, I’m not going to let you hang out with me again because you talk badly about my mom.” He would be well within his own rights to say so. As abusers continue their patterns of abuse, children could suffer a few different pats. Depending on the situation, boys respond differently than girls, but the paths typically do not end well for abusive men.

Scenario 1, Malcolm could witness a number of arguments between dad and either myself or another partner. Words like dominant, submit, and psycho are interlaced into every statement made by clayton. Enough times these words are said, Malcolm then becomes confused. By age six, he will likely be confused. His mind asks, is that how you are supposed to treat your female friends and later your girlfriends? Enough times it happens, he could then become aggressive in school, biting and hurting his peers and incurring disciplinary action at schools and play groups, and later on, he might end up developing sexual aggression, and date rape could ensue for those females he chooses to go on a date with. He might even be in juvenile or family court as a criminal defendant.

Scenario 2, Malcolm might witness an argument between clayton and partners. the same wording and rhetoric laced with orders to cook and clean, the usual way, but Malcolm could figure things out quick. He is set up now for success in figuring out ways to approach relationships with friends, peers and coworkers in a healthy way. But at age six, he might have to approach his dad and say, “Stop fighting with Mom.” If clay continues fighting, Malcolm might have to implement his end of a safety plan. Safety planning is important if abusers have to remain involved in a child’s existence. IF I act in such a correct way, Malcolm might rush and grab a cell phone, check in with me on an angel sense locator, whatever he does. I might hear him say, “Dad’s fighting with his girlfriend, and I don’t like it. I am scared.” That prompts me to call 911, and then I instruct malcolm to go to a safe alternate location. We would hope that safety planning of this nature can help Malcolm recognize that what his father does with female peers and professionals is unacceptable and unhealthy. Malcolm will likely even at present be with those who actually care about each other, adults who treat women with respect and kindness, a requirement for malcolm to see. However, clayton’s ongoing issues with a cycle of abusive behavior will only make things worse.

Treatment for abusers can only work if the person being treated is willing and able to accept the treatment. Abusers who do treat their problems can look forward to lives more fulfilling and balanced. The children will not suffer, but if the abuser continues not complying with any treatment orders, he can look forward to a huge sum being spent on removing the abusive behavior from the child’s presence. The abuser may be included in these efforts for removal if he is dangerous enough. The shopping list for abuser rehabilitation is almost a nonissue, but many abusers resist treatment. Clayton is no different. So many abusive people have been conditioned to accept that abuse is the way to show love or support. Some way to show it!

Abusive personalities are harmful for all our communities too. It is these abusive personalities, many of whom won’t accept they abuse, making policy in the hallowed halls of our governments, all of whom favor subordinate positions for women and children. A former president called Donald Trump comes to mind, but there are more abusive personalities mingling with Congress too. Dangerous cult members are praying with Congressional officials. Members of cults like the church of scientology or the Word of faith Fellowship, both proponents of psychological abuse and subordination of women and children, are meeting with our legislators and asking that their position be heard. But what if that same zeal applied to those who don’t abuse, to those who are suffering the butt of it all/

While we do have laws designating domestic violence as a crime, we can’t force abusers to truly treat their problems. However, I can see promising results with the use of AI to assist in the fight against domestic violence and the subordination of women and children. We might be able to someday use AI simulations to predict which communities have the most need of violence resources, including which shelters are available, which victim services are more cost effective, and which places in a neighborhood are more likely to house an abusive cluster of men for example. AI could also be used to assist with sex offender registries. AI assisted therapy could also treat abusive personalities. But furthermore, AI could be a formidable weapon in the battle against chronic abuse of women and children.

Imagine this for a moment. AI is one piece of an evaluation that could cite triggers in an abusive personality. The evaluation I envision would be a multimodal test that includes sensations, pictures and auditory input. For Clayton, due to his total blindness, I would moify the test not to include images. But for your typical average Joe, he sits in a chair, pretty typical of an ergonomic office chair, a transcranial cap placed on his head. The cap would track his brain cortex activities. Next, an oxygen pulse oximeter would be placed on his finger, the index or middle finger opposite an arm, which would be fitted with a small disc, similar in scope to a sensor that measures sugars in the blood for diabetic patients. On a technician’s belt, a reader similar to a diabetes meter is clipped to a belt on their waist. The technician then types in a prompt and pushes a button, and the test begins. Each set of input contains what could be triggers for abusers. For Clayton, it might be words, words like feminist, women in power, etc. for each set of words and input, Clayton need not say or do anything, just sit still. As still as he sits, the transcranial cap buzzes with activity, tracking the areas of Clay’s brain that light up when input is presented. When a trigger is detected, Clayton may experience an increase in heart rate, and his pulse oximeter might light up. When an increase in heart rate is found, it is fully noted in software on the technician’s console. The test continues. More input is presented. After Clay’s test is done, within minutes,, results are in. There might be a chart,and with that chart, an AI program will one day determine the exact tailored treatment for men like clayton. The treatment goals are already written out, and then all clayton would have to do is sign the plan presented by a therapist. Such evaluations could also be done on sex offenders, particularly those labeled pedophiles. Instead of a plethysmograph, where the erectile response is measured against what could be sexual input, clayton’s kind of test could also be used to measure the physiological brain response to typical sex offender triggers. The same thing could be used to evaluate prison inmates and their psychological needs would then accordingly be met.

But let’s not forget that treatments could also include innovative and groundbreaking efforts to curb if not eradicate abusive behaviors. Take clayton again. This time, he sits in a typical therapy office, sitting on a couch. His therapist is sitting behind a desk, their computer console in front of them, and Clayton, on the couch, might wear a virtual reality set of goggles and a headset. With Clay’s bllindness, I’d suggest not using goggles, but a headset only. While clay dons the headset, the therapist clicks on a few buttons, then they say, “Okay, we’re going to role play with your partner about how best to navigate talks regarding your son’s education.” A button is activated, and Clay hears a voice. It might sound like his partner’s voice saying, “Hey I want to talk to you about Malcolm and school.” A role play program is used here, and while the voice is speaking, clay is responding as in a typical conversation or as if he’s seated in a casual living space. Through the program, Clay is allowed to interact with virtual Me, and while doing so, patterns could be detected, and while Clay interacts with virtual Me, a therapist can gauge whether his interactions are changing or are they ever going to. Suppose during the role play, clayton is confronted with a statement saying that malcolm must take a women’s history class. Clay balks. He says “But that’s corporate feminism at work.” the argument escalates, but as soon as a few parameters occur, the program pauses, a red light blinks on the technician or therapist’s screen. The therapist cuts in, “Clayton, why ddid we pause? do you see how a response like this might trigger a lot of problems between you and your partner?”

With each simulated AI powered role play in virtual reality, clay might be able to learn how to interact with partners in healthy and acceptable methods. Therapists and technicians working together might be able to curb all the problematic things associated with abuse. In the final post, I’d like to discuss how preventing abuse can best be done. It starts with our young people.

the true cost of domestic violence: Whip Out Your Wallet

Two weeks after clayton Jacobs arrived in Denver, Colorado by way of the airport on May 9, 2022, he was angered by his partner’s lack of so called “skills”, and made her pay for it. Due to a perceived malicious thing he thought she was writing, in his words “talking shit” about him and her ex, he raised a taser to her back. He did so again with his taser, but to her heart when it appeared she did not pay the rent. He had the taser aimed, she had tears in her eyes, but the shock did not hit her this time. She wasn’t having it. But the whole thing got worse. He had coerced her into keeping silent and not reporting any abuse, not letting her seek shelter or safety, stating she did not deserve it. HE did this by allowing her ex, Trenton Matthews, to repossess a phone and phone number with it, take her off their family plan, make her pay for all other appliances, then repossessed gifts, including a Macintosh, an iPad 7, Watch 5, and among others, the Toshiba Fire TV edition, an Echo show, and then when she tried to use another Pad, he erased the data on it because he felt she was a threat, wanted her punished. For her, that was a total cost of $3500 or more, thus she had to waste time and energy filling out a grant application and having to have half of what she asked for disapproved. Later, clayton cut off access to Hulu and Disney Plus for his partner, spent too many nights away from her, barked orders at her, all this costing more money than she could afford to spend at all. She was also strong armed into leaving her own apartment, necessitating a stay for half a night in a homeless shelter with cots. That was not a safe situation. But Clayton did not care. He later wrote that he got rid of toxicity for a night on his Twitter feed, now since blocked. He later would write a derogatory and offensive post on X, formerly Twitter, in which she was referred to as “my baby mama” and was derided as “deranged and a disciplinary problem to say the least.” He claimed in this posting he “bent over backwards for this woman”, which never truly happened. Over the months, she would become pregnant with a baby boy, but the birth was traumatic, a hospital birth with preeclampsia accompanying more stress, and no family support. clayton would abandon his baby’s mother while she was pregnant three months into the pregnancy, claiming laziness and being fat on her part. He would continue to deride the mother, saying he did not want to live with her, he did not need her, many other things as well. By the time the baby was born, the mother had no friends left, all the neighbors now verbally abuse her, and she can’t even call on friends she one loved.

I was Clayton Jacobs’s partner, and the biggest reason he abandoned me was a large part being online radicalization, but most abusers are made. Abusers are not born, they are made!

Most abusive personalities learn to be abusive personalities by being abused themselves. clayton would tell me many times he was physically or emotionally abused, and always seemed to be in a heightened sense of fear that the end was coming. As time passed and he was with me, I noticed not the happy and loving and wonderful person and there was no time to have fun, but I noticed a sort of heightened urgency to survive, all other things being damned. But it got so bad that a taser went to my body, unreported because of coercion. He had and still has a disdain for the aw and won’t respect anyone, especially female professionals. A child welfare case was opened, and our son is now a subject of this case. A guardian ad litem is appointed to represent his interests, and each of us have lawyers, but furthermore, Clayton has expressed no desire to coparent. However, it clearly says a lot about his priorities. It was all about his needs.

The total cost could never be measured in dollars, but there is a lot worse that could have been. Victim services for domestic violence recovery are very very costly, and the shopping list is long. Victims typically see red flags, but are often blinded by love, but it gets so bad at times a victim must then be treated at a hospital for any number of injuries or burns. A victim must also be served with a lawyer who can represent her interests, then she must undergo therapy, and be able to process the piles of evenst that led her to be a victim. she later must obtain a restraining order, if applicable, but there might be more. If the abuser continues to follow her with a he said she said story for the court, Clayton for example, she must relocate. With current housing statistics, the relocation mighht be an extreme measure, but for the safety of mother and child, it may become necessary. Victims also must put the pieces of themselves back together.

We are often told that the annual income spent per capita in the United States alonee on domestic violence services tops $35b. But the true cost of domestic violence cannot be measured in dollars and cents. It is an immeasurable amount of pain, heartbreak, and all kkinds of loss. for me, it’s loss of freedom, loss of supports to the tune of all my building floor mates, a bunch of folks I knew who were blind, all my family, and more. For some victims, they have nothing but the clothing on their backs, but must leave the home they share with their abuser, and that also costs them a lot more. For Clayton, however, my fear, greater than all these costs, is the cost to my baby son, Malcolm Jacobs. Malcolm has been the best thing ever to happen to me ever, but because of Clay’s abusive nature and continued pleas not to be made to coparent with me, fearing his own life and making his life more important than my own, I fear malcolm might have to witness his father abusing other partners. abusers do not typically stop abusing because the partner is new. They begin again and the cycle continues. My son should not be subjected to hearing Clay calling his partners names that deride their bodies and minds. If allowed, Clayton could tell his partner any number of lies about his prior partners, me included. Abusive personalities also do not have mouths that are censored, even in places where decorum is mandatory, such as a courtroom or even a school. Clay has been trying to erase my name from malcolm’s life, but sadly, we must be diligent and make certain professional intervention sees right through his attempts at manipulation. So far so good.

Not every victim is supported as I am. What makes this whole thing so horrible though is the perpetrator is blind. The victim is blind, and both of them chose to have a baby. But instead of supportive offers and language, I have been met with endless judgment, forced budgeting and then no communication, then forced acceptance of victimhood and being poor, followed up closely by keeping score on Clay’s part, endless pleas to give Malcolm up for adoption, and the family’ of my side not being interested. While clay’s mother was more interested in Malcolm, it came with a cost. she allowed her son clay to further abuse, and she blamed a victim for her abuse. Sadly, this woman is a social worker with DHS in Arizona. This does not bode well for DHS in AZ. To have a social work colleague do such horrific things to a family member does not bode well for her future and current clients.

Malcolm is now almost a year old, but I’m honestly hoping that Malcolm will grow up to love and support women, to treat every single woman and girl like a queen or princess, and with every abusive man he may lock up if he decides to be a lawyer, I hope he’s teaching his dad a lesson, indirectly. For me, I might work with victims of DV or abuse victims with disabilities, but I might also do some research for a Master’s project, that Master’s project being about online radicalization and if there are correlations or causations between a man browsing these disgusting evil websites catering to malicious men who ahte women and the abuse these men might inflict on either a small scale or large scale level. I might also consider making rehab instruments and treatment protocols for these battering men, s though we must treat victims, that’s a duh, we can’t let them become victims again, but we also can’t let men make victims again. So treating abusers must be just as a top priority as being there for actual victims too.

I will discuss treatment and prevention in the last two posts in this series. I hope you will find these postings informative.

Beth

Because God Likes It That Way: religious Abuse and Our Communities

It was practically early early morning, predawn and Carolyn Blackmoore was half dead asleep. Her father, Arthur Blackmoore, who had several wives, awoke and shook his daughter awake. HE had her standing in a room facing him and his wife, Carolyn’s biological mother, Nurylon, and they both had a revelation to give her. She was to marry Merrill Jessop, sadly abusive and already married to three other wives. Carolyn Jessop would later recall in her book Escape more than eighteen years of marital abuse, eight children worth, some from high risk pregnancy after high risk pregnancy to a point where her last child required a radical hysterectomy after he was delivered. Carolyn came from a cult in the offshoot FLDS, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Sadly, she’s never been alone in these experiences. Carolyn had to have spent boatloads of time having to shuttle her children to counseling sessions, court fights be damned, and the aftereffectss of Merrill’s abuse plagued her children for years to come. In her follow up to her memoir, Jessop writes candidly about her children and how they now would talk of the other Jessop children, one daughter opting to use a grand expletive to describe Monica, one of Merrill’s favored daughters. the Jessop children I would say by the look of things have pretty much recovered, Arthur her eldest having become a pilot. the other children, except for Betty, from what I’m observing, all went on and lived regular lives. With the eight kids she was forced to bear for Merrill Jessop, it is no small wonder Carolyn had to have some bones against the FLDS. She’s not the only woman in history having suffered religious abuse either.

Many women particularly contend with religious abuse. This comes when the abusive parties use scripture or other religious principles to justify any number of concerning behaviors. Abusers in the FLDS use scripture and a motto of “Keep sweet”, and upon watching the Netflix documentary series Keep Sweet, Pray and Obey, a hymn is heard that repeats this mantra so many times. Cults will use music to make the mind of potential victims liable, and it shows in how the children and adults sing the songs in this docuseries. I’d watch it, and it is worth it.

Religious abuse oftentimes is domestic, so this falls under domestic violence, and in more ways than one, we see children and women affected. Carolyn Jessop writes candidly about her children’s abuse by her husband and a sister wife, Barbara Steed Jessop, who later would die of old age. No surprise,, the children would not attend Barbara’s funeral. This woman abused other wives’ children, and most notably Patrick, Carolyn’s son. abusing kids for religious purposes also falls on the shoulders of evangelical groups, some of which include “The Family”, a cult I read some stuff about, also know as “The Children of God”. this particular cult delves in sexual abuse and uses scripture to justify this. The cult’s leadership fundamentally condones this, and the children sadly pay a price.

Scientology is most notable for many forms of psychological and physical abuse. Jenna Miscavitch Hill writes candidly about the times she had to do work not suitable for children, a form of abuse, and was subject to so much psychological programming that she could break if not for her courage to leave. Scientology and other types of abusive religious cults are costing our children many years of good life, and our women must be able to leave such groups. It is rumored Shelly Miscavitch is disappeared by her husband for punishment purposes. Little is known. There are other types of faith based cults, including Word of faith Fellowship. Jane Whaley, their pastor, appears as a female Jim Jones, but a recent book telling all shows how even females can wreak havoc on communities and the American taxpayer. The Word of faith fellowship has somehow wormed its way into the halls of Congress, but nothing positive will come of religious abuse if it’s voted into our government.

We must as a community and a nation combat religions that condone abuse. While the American Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, it does not condone any type of abuse justified by religious scripture. No religion can condone the death of nonbelievers, abuse of women and their bodies, or the isolation of women and children. No religious group can ever be allowed to wound the bodies and minds of their practitioners, and if Congress and the wider world feels unconvinced, stories of those who survive cults should be more than enough to say no more.

Beth

I don’t Recall Ever Saying So?: Gaslighting and Emotional Abuse and Its Devastating Impact on Families and Communities

When I invited my latest intimate partner to my house or apartment, at first things seemed great. But then things began to take on more of a boot camp vibe. Clayton came in and after having made love to me several times over the two weeks of honeymoon, suddenly I began to get a vibe that screamed it’s the end of the world as we know it. If it wasn’t me being ordered to put work in on food in the kitchen, slowly but surely I began losing friends. When I was stunned with a taser the first time, I tried to get the neighbors to at least keep me safe, but Clayton sadly got them all to believe a different story, that I was the problem, that he was the victim. Meanwhile this narrative allowed devastating consequences for me, but clayton lived large, he got to party with neighbors and friends, and he even blasted me on a space on the platform X, formerly Twitter. He went so far as to make threats, and when I became pregnant with our son, the threats were recorded by Trenton Matthews, my ex, and on October 13, 2022, I recall Trenton saying I was unworthy of friendship with him, even equating me to a thirteen-year-old girl. He took all the nice things he said away from me, resulting in me having to beg others to stop him from siding with clay, but to no avail. Now suddenly, I had no friends. Then clayton moved out close to November 1, 2022, and I was abandoned for the majority of the later pregnancy. I had to get up daily, my hips transforming, nobody to turn to about any of my symptoms, but then I was put in several classes. That did not stop me from experiencing, however, the most devastating form of the abuse. I was subject to so much verbal name calling, suggestive emotional abuse and so much backward talk about myself from Clay that I had to pause at times and ask who I was to myself. For example, I have not ever thought I was a bad piano player, but Clayton recently tried to tell mee and possibly others that I was a horrible piano player, not that great, that I could only play major chords. I had to pause and ask, has anyone else said that? The answer is no.

Not only was Clayton’s gaslighting so devastating, it allowed Trenton to repossess a phone number along with a cell phone, a tablet, a TV, an Echo Show, and tons of money I could have easily spent on baby gear. Because Trenton and Clayton hogged the air conditioner so much, my energy bill ran up to $99. Never mind I wasn’t going to make Clay help out with rent, but he also usurped my ability to pay it because in his mind, I was irresponsible for finances. Sadly, if only they’d get the truth.

Gaslighting is a dangerous form of abuse, and it can be so subtle and dangerous that after you’ve been with a gaslighter, you don’t wanna be with anyone anymore. I’m at that point, but I’m also very confused about current events. It’s because of clayton’s gaslighting I now have special professionals poking their heads in, and yet also Facebook friends have maligned and judged me as entitled, and rudely worded prayers flooded my feed begging the Colorado DHS to simply remove my son from my care, and some told me to give Clayton all authority. I refuse.

gaslighters do a variety of manipulative processes, including triangulation and splitting, and they love to tell a story about you if they know they’ll get caught. clay did just that to Denver police after an assault on July 28 in which I was refused access to my WIC card. This incident resulted in courts poking their heads in, and I feel that this all could have been avoided had clayton just foregone his belief that I’m such a terrible person. Gaslighters will also manipulate and deceive you. the gaslighting tactic most familiar is probably accompaniment to anyone should be the false stories. I can say that my big fear is for my son Malcolm to end up not wanting to speak with Dad because the truth always comes out, and I don’t know how I’d manage also when my family didn’t join in the celebration, but instead implored me to put the baby up for adoption. Nope, I said. Amid all this, gaslighting was implemented both as punishment and as a means to prove unfitness, and we could have easily begun noticing children not having such issues.

While emotional abuse is harmful from a personal level, the community response can be devastating depending on who you are. Emotional and verbal abuse costs hospitals and mental health providers time and money oftentimes not enough in store for them. Mental health providers are often left wondering how things could get so wrong.

To prevent the effects of gaslighting from being particularly devastating, always remember that we are who we are.

Beth

Broken Bodies and Vicious Scars: the Physical Abuse of Children and Women, How It Plagues Our Communities

**trigger warning, this post contains descriptions of physical abuse, stories of murder and grizzly depictions of tragedy resulting from different types of domestic abuse, so reader discretion is advised.**

It was sometime inn June of 1998 or so, I recall barely getting up many times over mornings to hear this story. Eight-year-old tekiah Innocent had been told by her stepmother, Tansy Innocent, to do a chore for which she had to complete under threat it turns out. Tekiah, according to court documents filed with the Florida Department of Children and Families, supposedly lied about completing or not completing the chores. Her stepmother proceeded to pour scalding hot water over the girl’s torso, resulting in painful second and third degree burns. She had to walk around with these injuries until her grandmother discovered them, and worse still, her father was criminally responsible because he did not report his wife’s abuse of his own daughter. The Florida Department of Children and families had no choice but to remove Tekiah from this environment, and the costs to her were enough to break one personal bank account, compounding the cost of her disconnection from members of her family and ocmmunity in Orlando. Because of her injuries, tekiah was eventually airlifted to Shriners’ Burn Unit in Cincinnati, Ohio where she had no family. She spent months rehabilitating, being tended to, skin grafts placed on the burns, other types of therapy to calm her painful injuries, but the scars will likely stay with her for life. tekiah was eventually released from Shriners, but was then placed with kin who were not her father and stepmother, who eventually lost custody of a baby she was making when she abused her stepdaughter. There are many abusive parents like this woman, tansy Innocent, and I can name many other child abuse stories that both go noticed and unnoticed. The problem here lies with child welfare agencies. They feel they can only do so much but their definition of “at risk child” can also be hampered by the dollar amounts given them by governments and grant outlets.

Attend the sad ballad of Gabriel Fernandez. He had been a vibrant little boy, but at age eight, he died of abuse and injuries sustained by head trauma, likely inflicted by his abusive mother. She and her codefendant, a boyfriend who was probably connected to some drug rings from what I’m observed on the Netflix docuseries about this case, abused and killed this sweet little boy. I keep thhinkinnng about his death a lot, and asking if that had been my son, what would I do. As a mother, nothing pulls at me more than the responsibility to protect my baby boy from everything that harms him. When I sing the song Not While I’m Around, that fabled song from Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of fleet Street, I am reminded of my responsibility as a mother to absolutely keep Malcolm close and let nothing harmful touch him. Abusive partners and babysitters are among the harms that can touch our kids. However, physical abuse does not stop with children.

Many of the women I saw one day at the Downtown Denver courthouse on a sprinngn day in 2014 were badly mauled by abusive husbands. Some were injured in their jaws, others needed to get such an order for fear of an abusive roommate or boyfriend. Females historically have been at elevated risk of physical harm by a partner or friend, even a coworker. Women with disability are at greater risk of the same physical injuries, but emotional abuse also comes with it. Physically disabled women sadly are the greatest risk we talk about when we discuss vilicide. Young girls and women with a variety of disabilities, including neurodivergent symptomology are at great risk of being harmed or murdered by caregivers, and this includes parents or close family friends. Group home staff where such people reside can also prove to be unqualified and can pose a safety risk for women, particularly in vegetative states. One woman in Arizona was raped by her caregiver, resulting in a pregnancy that yielded a baby. She was unable to consent but the baby was born right there in her group home, but the family of this child, the maternal family, took the baby in. The father of tis child was arrested rightfully for dependent adult abuse. Sadly, not every abuser of a dependent adult will get justice handed to them. Society likes to believe these at risk adults are simply disposable, not worthy of safety and protection. Sadly, we deal with police brutality on these selfsame adults. The police were called on the home of danielle Elise Jacobs, later she wouldd be known as Caden clarke, but it ended in their death. The death of a loved one is bad enough, but Ms. Jacobs’s death yielded problems with Mesa’s police force and its handling of welfare checks on disabled residents of the town. Jacobs herself was neurodivergent, autistic and loved animals. She was suffering suicidal thoughts but I don’t think she wanted anyone to do the job for her. Sadly, the Arizona Republic attacked this being’s life, and justified some of the problematic encounter from what I gathered. There are many beings on this earth who are deserving of protections like Ms. Jacobs was, but sadly won’t be granted such.

Physical abuse can leave scars and painful memories for the victim on a personal level, but families also are left scrambling and asking questions about why it had happened, what could have prevented it from going on. When Gabriel Fernandez died, whole swathes of the child welfare system in Los Angeles were left with more questions about how they failed him. Many spousal abuse victims are left with a community siding with their abuser, but if they died, then law enforcement must become involved and solve a murder. The cost overall per capita for physical abuse can range from the very small abrasion costing no more than a few dollars to mend to a high price, let’s say $10k, which includes extensive rehabilitation and the procurement of such things as a wheelchair for the victim, to the $100k plus for a murdered victim, including forensic testing of evidence, crime scene photo taking, a variety of victim advocate services for the family left behind, the detectives who work tirelessly to figure out who is responsible. Some intimate partner violence sadly ends in tragedy. There are a few notable cases of this, and the details are indeed devastating.

In Connecticut, a mother of a few children, Jennifer Dulos, was found murdered in her car, or someplace. Her husband was charged with her murder. He might have justified this murder, but there is never justified reason to murder any human being, including one’s intimate partner.

Laurie vallo, a former beauty and game show contestant, met and married a man from a fringe religious group named Chad Daybell, and sadly they went on a horrific killing spree of each other’s families. Laurie herself killed two of her children, her teenage daughter Tylee, and her sweet son JJ. Both children paid the price, and she also shot her then husband Charles. Laurie eventually was found guilty of their murders.

The most devastating and glaring example of tragedy with intimate partner violence is that of Chris Watts, who sadly resided in Colorado, in the Frederic area. Watts married a Shanan, who bore him two daughters. Bella and celeste, nicknamed CC, were the pride of Shanan’s and chris’s lives. One of the little girls sang of her daddy as a hero, and little did she or anyone else know that Chris sadly became a ticking time bomb. I remember hearing about the whole family suddenly going missing, but it was revealed that Shanan, pregnant with chris’s unborn son Nico, and her two daughters and the unborn son as well, all fell victim to a murderous plot on Chris’s part which involved him choking Shanan to death and the girls as well. All were placed in separate oil drums, and left out back to rot. All the bodies were eventually located by detectives and Watts was rightfully brought in for questioning. He later pled guilty, upon realizing he’d never get his family back, to a number of counts of first degree murder. Physical abuse can sometimes not happen for years, and as with Watts, it’s waiting to happen but you never know it.

How can we prevent physical abuse? Red flags of a physical abuser include statements they may make about the worth of the persons they abuse. Children may fall target to someone physically abusive but not understand it is wrong. Intimate partner abuse can lead to denial of resources, but the physical abuse has such horrific consequences, some victims will need 24/7 care as a result.

A note to children and youth reading this: if you or someone you know is experiencing any type of abuse, please reach out to a grown being you trust. Choose a grownup who can believe your story, a teacher you love, a mentor in a scouting program, a big brother for example. You can voice these things to the grown person of your choosing, and they are bound to report these incidents. Rest easy in knowing these adults are supposed to protect you. If you are experiencing life threatening abuse and an emergency, in the United States, please call 911, in the UK, 999, in australia, 000. Be sure to memorize your country’s emergency code, and contact this code immediately. If you must take matters into your own hands, be sure to seek alternative shelter from your abuser, taking care not to tell them where you are going. Be sure that you are aware that you are not alone, and you do not deserve to be treated with much disrespect as you might have been or still are being treated now. As a mother, I can’t imagine ever laying hands on my son except a loving pat, squeezing and hugging, and always reminding him that he is loved. So if you are someone who knows someone who is being abused, let them know they are not alone.

For intimate partners being abused, if you or someone you know is being abused by a spouse or intimate partner, the national Domestic Violence Hotline is an invaluable resource, and they provide resources for texting or calling if needed. They provide resources on the daily, and if you need shelters, or assistance escaping, there are ways to do this. Please click http://www.thehotline.org, and choose your preferred method of communication. As with the kids, if you are experiencing a life threatening emergency at all, [lease utilize your country’s emergency code, see above. I’d lik to also call to mind that at risk adults are at risk of dying from abuse. IF you or someone yoou know is at risk of abuse, do contact your local human services hotline. Every dHS agency in every state in the U.S. typically has a child and adult abuse hotline for reporting such. Be sure to have documentation of the abuse, and who is doing the abusing.

Thank you all for reading, and I hope you all are able to grasp the magnitude of what abuse does from a physical standpoint.

Beth

Domestic and Family Violence 101: What You Need to Know about Abuse and Who Is Affected

Hi to my readers,

So for the next seven days, I will be emphasizing a social justice cause. Church today asked us to write some change making thing on a note pad, and I thought that sharing seven days of talk about domestic and family abuse, whether it affects your child or intimate partner, would be the best way to prove anything. I’d like to add that I’ve been in both child and young adult abuse situations and in eldercare and disabled people. I will talk today about what abuse is, who has it done most often. So, let’s begin.

First, what is abuse? With family abuse, we’re dealing with the maltreatment and not giving kids food. Striking any physical way is also not calling people’s names. Abuse involves too many aspects, and they can break me down on a small scale, but the community’s cost is quite dire. WE will talk each day about a different type of abuse, and for the record, I get all the people’s concerns, but I promised I’d do this for my son. Abuse, by definition, is simply not using someone or something correct or in a way that benefits the thing or person being used. Children and adults with disabilities are often physically abused. Babies are also at risk, but since they can’t even say they’re being mistreated they get worse. Intimate partner violence is a big one too. When one is intimate with someone or a good friend you by now realize your abuser is a criminal of some sort. Oftentimes, intimate partner abusers were victims themselves. Children abused by their parents are at such severe risk depending on the level of abuse they suffer. Many victims who find themselves being abused can’t access necessary resources because the abuser does not want to entertain the fact they are abusing someone, a partner or a child, an at risk adult such as the aged mom or dad in the home, even an elderly sibling.

So what are the risks of not acting upon abuse? The consequences of not doing so can vary widely, but there are many who survive this, but with scars for life. Sometimes abuse of some kind is a setup. In cultures emphasizing male privilege and emphasizing female obedience, the female is highly at risk. If a girl wants to branch out on her own, she is often threatened with anything from handoff to a vicious husband to her own death. Cases in the United States range from an Arizona father who set up his daughter for death when a jeep ran her over and crushed her body beneath its wings to cases in Florida and in eastern states involving child abuse because the child is possessed by demons. Humans never seem to stop abusing one another and find ways to make life miserable for those they harm.

ON a personal level, please note I’ve not been physically abused, but for me, the cost of abuse varied. While I was growing up, emotional abuse was everywhere. The cost of this was a wide variety of opportunities. Because my parents decided to get guardianship rather than do any meaningful work to allow me to actually experience adult life, I became unable to discern healthy relationships from cruel ones. Every single boyfriend I wished for was automatically labeled inappropriate, so what good was it when marriage was an option? They took it all away. All the boys and men eventually would not be able to marry me, but then along came Clayton. We hit it off nicely, but I did not realize the red flags came flying. We’d been friends for five years, but Clayton showed signs of irresponsibility and immaturity, having failed twice to keep a wife, and a child at that time, only one born, not in contact with him. Clayton was seemingly a nice guy. I wanted to give him something, but a chance sadly led to other problematic situations for myself and later my baby son. More on that in subsequent posts in this series. Disclaimer here: none of these are meant to offend anyone, and all names of persons, including that of my own recent intimate partner, are kept here to show clarity and to offer a real life perspective on abuse. Other partners of folks have been changed in name here in the postings, except where needed, and those real names are public and written on the internet.

Abuse can cost a whole family. Children oftentimes find themselves in a war zone, particularly with intimate partner violence. Data shows that children who witness parental arguing and fighting with no remorse on either side have lots of risks ahead. For unborn babies, they could die before birth. IF a baby is lucky, he can be alive, but if chronic abuse between the parents persists, the baby can look forward to a life of stunted emotional development, academic failure in school, and horrible peer relationships. My son Malcolm, at ten months old, now has to have both parents separate for many activities because Clayton has argued and been abusive at times. Sometimes the abuse was physical, other times it was verbal. In subsequent parts of the series, I will explore these aspects. Malcolm hopefully will not have to see the chronic abuse his father may have well inflicted on a prior wife who bore him a daughter. By now, this daughter is nine years old. The court in the wife’s home state may very well have made a great judgment call but here, Malcolm is about to turn 1, and Clayton seems excited, but the way some abusers operate, they don’t want to be pegged as abusive. Sadly, the abusers in our midst never admit that, rather they blame their victim instead.

On a large scale community level, abusers can damage trust in schools, churches and other religious centers. They can also cost the American taxpayer so much money. The cost of victim services varies, but the expenses can pile up easily. A victim who is physically mauled by someone, whether mauled by the family dog or by her supposedly loving husband can look forward to an expensive life of having to have a bevy of care paraprofessionals, the use of a wheelchair if her legs can’t work anymore, people having to work with her on physical movement again, and therapy of a psychological nature to help attempt at healing the scars. Community resources are often raw and sometimes can run amok in dealing with abuse victims, and there are some victims who require emergency shelter, and mass shelters can open doors for the victim to flee if needed, but the current setup with shelters is now not even enough to hold most victims, and now migrants who are suffering must be tended to as well. But mass shelters can be playgrounds for thieves, and some residents in a shelter with disabilities relating to their own abuse then get abused again. So many times we find a disabled woman and her family unable to seek permanent housing, and the community does not care to help. WE’re telling our women who are single moms and blind as well, get a job. Sadly a job almost never is given to a blind person, man or otherwise, at 75% of the time. Many of my blind friends are unable to obtain employment at all, and yet so many are tapped because they are good at something. There is a largely untapped market of blind young folks who can code, work software and build screen reading software add ons. These folks just want to work, and I hope they are eventually recognized and employed.

In subsequent postings, I will explore how abuse happens. We will be exploring five aspects of abuse: physical, emotional, psychological manipulation, financial, and religious based. The last two posts will talk about survivor stories, and how so many could pull through, and how we can better the system for our survivor victims at that. I will also add that batterers and abuser rehabilitation should be given more credence because while victims do need services, our end goal is not to keep creating victims when abusers are so unwilling to change. Prevention is a key to helping lower the cost of abusive behavior. I will discuss school and church initiatives giving children a chance to practice with healthy relationships in mind. Parents on the home front can also help. I intend to be a soldier on the home front myself, teaching my son how to be a good man. In the UK, there are programs like the Good Lad Initiative and the Good Man Project also contains posts on platforms like Medium.

I hope you find this all informative, and I hope you will journey with me as we explore these parts of the big picture. Our communities need us to aid in healing for those experiencing or perpetrating abuse.

I hope you all will read this so we don’t have to beg.

Beth