My grandson had been abused by my husband for a while. I found out and talked to him, letting him know that’s not the way to raise kids. So we agreed on what we would do for diciplinary issues, etc.
Now my gandson is in the hospital because he tried to commit SUICIDE. Yes, SUICIDE. Thank god his sister found him and called 911. I’m wondering how the hell did it get to this point when I read his journal and realized that the abuse had been a lot more then he let on.
His grandfather had been MOLESTING him ever since he got out of prison. Often he would flat out hit him for no reason. I learned that he was a lot more depressed, too, and hadn’t been eating properly. My husband is now sitting in jail, but how can I help my grandson?

Lets start with a couple of questions:

1. In this day and age, what could possibly be the reason to teach someone how to kill another human with his or her bare hands?

2. Do I actually advocate instructing clients in this very specific, lethal material?

The answer to the first question is that there are many reasons why it is essential one get this lethal knowledge. The answer to the second question is not only do I advocate teaching it but that I absolutely teach it to all my clients.

It is very clear that using violence is appropriate in very few situations. To use violence for any reason other than injuring a human threat who would otherwise maim, cripple, or kill you is extremely risky.

With proper knowledge of the physiology of the vunerable areas of the human body one can effectively attack any assailant, regardless of size, strength, or athletic ability.

So it is inconceivable that one could train a client for self protection yet ignore the subject of killing. If faced with a life and death struggle you need clear, concise information on how to systematically shut down the other guy’s central nervous system(CNS).

This is especially true for male on female violence, which females must treat as a lethal situation. Also any fighter facing a potentially lethal attack by a larger, stronger or faster human must be able to immediately shut down that human’s CNS.

Still, very few instructors teach this direct approach to using violence. Why is this the case? It has been my experience few actually have the skill and expertise to do so.

To hide this deficiency they state legal issues and spiritual reasons for not teaching such principles.

Yet many of the techniques they show directly result in potentially lethal outcomes something that is never pointed out to the client. In fact, most clients go through training with no clear knowledge of which strikes and techniques are lethal and what the impact is on the human body from these strikes and manipulations.

I find it far more dangerous not to know how to kill. When you consider the flip side of that knowledge is the fact that any time you put your hands on another human being to inflict violence you have no idea whatsoever how that person will respond to the strike.

A person built like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime may have a bad heart and your punch to the solar plexus to ‘teach him a lesson’ may, in fact, kill him. That is why I stress the difference between ego situations and life or death threats.

A few years ago you probably heard about the ‘Hockey Dad’ trial in Massachusetts. A man ended up going to jail for manslaughter over an argument with his son’s Hockey coach. By all accounts the smaller coach was a real jerk and made the kids do some useless and dangerous training on the ice.

This ‘Hockey Dad’ voiced his concern and the verbal exchange led to a fight. ‘Hockey Dad’ ended up killing the smaller coach by repeated blows to the head.

It was not intentional, both men were wrong. But the one common factor here was this: neither had any idea of the effects of those strikes upon the other! Both families lost their dads that day; one was killed, the other is in jail.

It is my goal with clients to give them all the lethal knowledge necessary so they can make the decision on whether or not it is worth the potential legal hassles to fight over an ego issue or to instantly be able to destroy the assailant’s CNS in a life or death threat.

It’s great to hear feedback I get from clients who have easily avoided the ‘Hockey Dad’ scenarios by having the clear knowledge of the appropriate use of violence. I value that feedback as highly as the ones received from those who used the very same knowledge to save their lives in a life or death threat.

Truly knowing how to kill another human places total responsibility on the trained individual, makes you a far better citizen and, in my experience, far less likely to use violence as an answer to any situation that is not life threatening.

It sounds like a bad movie but this really happened. A 44-year-old woman who couldn?t accept the fact that she was getting old and wrinkled committed suicide by lying down in front of a train.

The Daily Mail reported that Amanda Barr of Little Ellingham, Norfolk, was so depressed about her wrinkles and skin condition that she decided to end her life at the Shadwell level crossing. She stepped in front of a train that was traveling at 90 miles per hour from Norwich to Cambridge.

Investigators found a suicide note in her car. Barr, who was obsessed with beauty and afraid of losing her youthful looks, apologized for “all the grief and hurt” her actions would cause her loved ones.

“I just can’t live with myself any longer. Try not to think of me too badly,” she wrote.

Neil Thirsk, Barr?s live-in partner since 1994, said the victim apparently had a psychological problem that grew worse over the years. She often complained about her wrinkles and her skin condition called rosacea that caused redness.

?She claimed she could pinpoint the date, time, and cause of wrinkles that others could barely see. She would not even let her partner of 13 years kiss her on the cheek for fear it would inflame her rosacea,? the Daily Mail said.

Although her skin problem wasn?t that bad, Barr was ashamed to go out of her house and feared that the wind would aggravate her condition. She also refused to take any medication.

?She felt it was huge and that everyone was staring at it and saying: ‘Look at her!’ She became very, very obsessed with it, really, and the way she looked,? Thirsk narrated.

Thirsk got worried when Barr told him she was contemplating suicide. But a week before her death, Barr told Thirsk that everything was all right. Earlier, she consulted a doctor who referred her to a mental health worker.

?Mental health worker Sheila Hodgson diagnosed her with depression after talking with her for an hour. She concluded that there was an underlying depressive illness that had manifested itself in her obsession over her skin,? said the Daily Mail.

?Her looks were very important to her – her skin especially,” Thirsk revealed.

While wrinkles are a normal part of the aging process, they can have a profound impact on self-esteem as this story shows. Society?s preoccupation with youth and beauty has sapped the confidence of many men and women and turned the cosmetics industry into a multi-billion dollar business. The rush to beat the clock and preserve one?s youthful looks has driven a lot of people to search endlessly for the fountain of youth no matter what the cost.

But the road to beauty can be expensive and treacherous. Often products don?t live up to their claims and some beauty regimens can even be dangerous. Before you embark on a quest for youthful skin, consult a good dermatologist. He or she can advice you on what products to buy. One popular anti-aging cream is Dermaxin that helps fight wrinkles, restore skin elasticity and smoothness, and stimulates the renewal of skin cells. For details, go to http://www.dermaxin.com.

Many years ago I heard that an old school friend of mine had committed suicide. We were not very close, but we went to school and to Sunday school together, and we formed the kind of bond that result from sharing such activities. I remember not really being touched by the news, because all I could recall about him was his cheerful nature and his inability to spell a particular word correctly.

For some reason I was surprised at how much the people around me were disturbed by his suicide. One person cynically revealed that it was not my school friend’s first attempt at suicide, and that once a person had made the decision to kill themselves, nothing and nobody would stop them and they would eventually succeed. The implication was that people who wanted to kill themselves might as well be written off, because in their minds they had already violated the sacred life that was given to them.

The other thing I noticed at the time was the lack of compassion from the church. I became aware of an ancient practice where people who committed suicide were not entitled to a church funeral and their dead bodies were not even welcome in the graveyard. Of course that was meant as a sanction to the deceased, but in fact it added to the punishment of a grieving family who had many questions.

I was not particularly disturbed by the suicide, and also did not really think about my reaction at the time. I was young and busy, and this person did not touch my life.

However, later in life a person close to me died of an overdose of alcohol and drugs. She had a long history of abuse and spent the last years of her life in and out of mental hospitals and rehabilitation centres, but obviously nothing could relieve the inner pain she wanted to get rid of.

I started asking questions about death and dying. I had already become involved in Lifeline (the South African version of the Samaritans) where I had been trained to deal with suicidal people on the helpline.

The most important part of the training was to not react emotionally when a person tells you they would kill themselves, but to rather confront them with the permanency and consequences of such a radical solution, and then help them to realise that they have other choices.

I had two such phone calls while working on the helpline. In both instances the people had a logical discussion with me where they explained why they had decided to take their own lives. In their minds that was the only and best solution. In my mind they were completely irrational and very disturbed.

One of the callers was located as a result of the call and given medical treatment, but the other one put the phone down and I remember reading the local newspapers with a feeling of trepidation for months afterwards, expecting to find a description of a suicide case that would coincide with the information that the caller gave me.

That is where I first became aware of the very important lesson that I can and have to take full responsibility for my own life, but I cannot do much to change other people’s life choices.

Somehow I was surprised at the nature of my questions about death and dying, because people normally fear and avoid the topic of death and do not ask questions. I wanted to know exactly what happens when a person dies. I wanted to understand the process, because I knew intuitively that death was not the end, but a process.

I discovered that death is the moment when a spirit leaves behind the body that it inhabited during this incarnation. The spirit is not destroyed, but lives on. The spirit is energy and energy cannot be destroyed. It can only change shape.

I also discovered that after death the spirit is taken into, shall we call it an “intensive care unit”, where it gets as much love and care as is required for recovery from the effort of dying. Some spirits recover quickly, for example where a person knew that his work here was done, and he peacefully leaves his body. Other spirits take longer to recover, for example where the death was sudden, or where the death was self-inflicted and preceded by inner torment. When we reach this “intensive care unit”, we find only love, no matter what the circumstances of the death were. It is the people that remain behind that add the judgement and speculation and grief.

Some spirits have to return in another incarnation so that they can complete the work and the lesson that was interrupted, while others move to a higher level.

Because we lose a large part of our eternal consciousness when we are born into this world, people who are suicidal tend to think they are alone and that nobody would understand them. We live in a culture where we believe that this life is all there is, and when we struggle to deal with our challenges here, we often feel we have nowhere to go. The life hereafter is held up to us as a relief from the “ordeal” of this life, when the truth is that this life is meant to have one major challenge. Once we have overcome this one challenge, we are free to experience the joy and love of this existence. Our spiritual guides and the angels and God are there to help us, if only we would allow them to do so.

I now understand that where a person ends his own existence here, it is probably the bravest thing they ever do. They understand the judgement that will come from the society they live in and the guilt and pain that their families will experience, but the pain of their existence outweighs all the concerns they have about those around them.

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross wrote a book called On Death and Dying in which she describes the different stages of grieving. There is a point in the grieving process where a person comes out of a depression and everyone heaves a sigh of relief because they show interest in the world around them again.

For a suicidal person that is the most vulnerable time, because the person then has the energy to end his own existence. By the time the person gets to this point, they are desperate and very alone. This is a frame of mind that none of us can change in another person. All we can do is keep our judgement to ourselves and love the person. We cannot determine the path of anyone else. We can only love one another unconditionally.

If you are reading this and thinking of ending your life, think about this:

There is a legend of the Cherokee Indian youth’s rite of Passage. The youth’s father takes him into the forest, blindfolds him and leaves him alone. He must sit in the same space all night and not remove the blindfold until the sun comes out the next morning. No matter what happens, he is not allowed to cry out for help to anyone.

Of course the boy is terrified. The night sound carries far and he can hear many strange and frightening noises. The wind feels eerie at night and the rustling of the leaves is sinister.

But the boy knows that the only way he could become a man is to sit through the night with the blindfold on, no matter what happens.

In the morning when the sun rises, the boy finally removes the blindfold and discovers his father sitting on the stump next to him. The boy then discovers that the father had been on watch the entire night, protecting his son from harm.

The boy is not allowed to tell the other boys of this experience, because each boy must come into manhood on his own. Once he survives the night, he is a man.

We, too, are never alone. Even when we are not aware of it, God is watching over us, sitting beside us and at times carrying us. When the dark night of the soul comes, all we have to do is reach out to Him. Just because you can’t see God, doesn’t mean He is not there.

Blessings and Light and above all, Love to you.