This Ones Kinda Serious

When Erika Eckstrom began dating her boyfriend at the start of her College freshman year at 18 things were great, but her situation deteriorated and she soon was friendless, isolated and the victim of domestic violence. "Everything was great and when it started really getting bad I don't know if it was denial, but I knew something was wrong, because I was without a support system," said Eckstrom, now 20 and still in college in Washington but dating someone else. Her story is apparently common among teenagers. According to a study released on Thursday, more than half of America's teens know friends who have experienced physical, sexual or verbal abuse in their dating relationships. Among those surveyed, 13 percent of teenage girls, admit to being physically injured or hit and one in four report being pressured to perform oral sex or engage in intercourse, according to the survey by the private research group Teenage Research Unlimited.

This kind of shit makes me sick. I mean, what makes a person do this to someone they supposedly care about? Things like this makes me think that our society is going to hell. And why do we tolerate it? We don't have to. I mean, we can do something about this. If one of your friends were to come up to you and tell you that their boyfriend was hitting them, wouldn't you want to do something about it? Even if they beg and plead for you not to tell anyone, you have an obligation to. Otherwise your no better than the person doing the hitting. What really makes me mad is that some of the people in the abusive relationships believe it is their fault. Their boyfriend or girlfriend abuses them verbally and brings down their self-esteem. Some will even do it in front of the others friends, and those friends won't do anything about it because they are afraid to make it worse. But if they are in a bad relationship where they are being physically, emotionally, or mentally hurt, then it can't really get much worse if the friends do say something.

We've become a society that is afraid to say something when we see a parent physically abuse their children in public. I'm not talking about spanking. Discipline and abuse are two different things. And people are afraid to step in because they think that they shouldn't, that its the families deal, or that someone else will. But what if no one does? What if you read in the newspaper the next day that a child was a victim of child abuse and is now dead? How would you feel knowing that it could be that little girl you saw yesterday in the mall being hit by her mom or dad?

Abuse doesn't even have to be hitting or yelling. Its also neglect. If a young child is left alone all day, or is kept in conditions you wouldn't want a stray dog to be in, then that is just as bad. My cousin's wife, who is a social worker, has taken kids out of houses that she was afraid to go into. Kids shouldn't have to live like that.

This stuff needs to be reported to someone who can help. That can be a priest, the police, a social worker, or a counselors. But someone needs to step in, otherwise I don't see much hope for these people. If they get abused and think that that's how its supposed to be, then they might abuse someone else and the cycle will keep on repeating itself. No one should have to live through this.