Adrian Peterson Case: No Good Men To Be Found

I originally wrote this piece about the Adrian Peterson child abuse scandal for the Good Men Project, but they felt it was too one-sided.  Guess I am a bit biased against child abusers because of my past, but I've littered this post with links demonstrating that what I've presented is factual and not simply subjective.  Maybe I should include the men at the Good Men Project as those who didn't show themselves to be good men?

The Good Men Project is a favorite of mine because it gets as close to defining what it means to be a good man in this age without all the sermonizing and emasculation.  I have wanted to write an article for them for quite some time, and I thought it was going to be something inspiring and wonderful to read.  Little did I realize it would end up being a tale of disappointment in so many men. 

The much-publicized saga of All-Pro NFL running back and confirmed child abuser Adrian Peterson has an obvious villain.  This 217-lb person - I doubt I’ll ever refer to him as a “man” again - beat his 4-year old son with both a belt and a tree branch so bad that it caused “bruising and visible cuts and slash marks” after he stuffed leaves from the branch into the boy’s mouth.  I attempted to look beyond the obvious storylines we’ve all been reading throughout this sad tale. 

My hope was to find men involved in this case who were lighthouses in this dark storm.  I wanted to pen the one feel-good piece that could be written about such a wretched situation.  Certainly there was at least one real man somewhere along this storyline who boldly stepped up at the risk of taking on an incredibly popular multi-millionaire star player in arguably America’s most popular sport. 

I was wrong.

When the news broke that Peterson had been charged with criminal levels of child abuse, Vikings general manager Rick Spielman initially suspended him for just one game and eagerly reinstated his lead back the following week saying, “we feel strongly as an organization that this is disciplining a child.”  Minnesota owner Zygi Wilf and Mr. Spielman view cuts, bruises, and slash marks sustained on a pre-school boy at the hands of a grown man much differently than I do.  These are not good men.

I understand their competitive desire and duty to field the best players for their team.  However, they also have a responsibility for setting the cultural tone for the organization and their community.  These two men each had an opportunity to demonstrate what that NFL franchise stands for, and one thing it shouldn’t stand for is the cold-hearted abuse of defenseless children.  I expect better than this from society’s leaders.

Surely the one man who would have all the cover and incentive required to fight for that child’s best interests would be the prosecuting District Attorney Brett Ligon.  He folded like a cheap card table at the prospect of losing a high-profile battle with Peterson’s lawyer, an admittedly effective attorney winning acquittals for professional athlete scumbags accused of spousal abuse and sexually attacking their own daughters.  Ligon allowed Peterson to plead out with virtually no punishment. 

As if that wasn’t cowardly enough, the district attorney promptly threw the boy's mother under the proverbial bus to cover his own professional backside.  Ligon blamed his decision to tuck tail and run  the mom because “… this is exactly what she wanted."  

I appreciate the difficult position the district attorney was in.  Yet a real man would not have conceded a battle to defend a child, and he absolutely shouldn’t have hidden behind a woman after having done so.  The mother being an apologist for the abuser is never reason to shirk the duty of a district attorney’s office.

I didn’t really expect to find much good in Peterson's lawyer, but it was how he defended his client that I found so offensive.  He stated that horse-whipping a four year-old was a family matter and not something in which the legal system should be involved, which is essentially saying that tiny boy doesn’t have a right to be protected from the trauma he suffered.  I know somebody has to defend these guys in our legal system, I just don’t know how they can claim children don’t deserve protection and then ever sleep again.

I also wrongly assumed that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell would have learned from his complete tone-deafness during the Ray Rice domestic abuse debacle.  Instead of suspending Peterson outright, the NFL commish decided it was more appropriate to essentially give Peterson a paid $5 million vacation on the Exempt List instead of suspending him immediately without pay.  What exactly does one of the NFL’s domestic thugs need to do before he hands out real punishment?

     

Just when I thought my research couldn’t turn up anything more vile regarding this situation, I came across this little nugget:  Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer actually read a motivational text message from Peterson to his players to inspire them before the Atlanta game.

Motivational quotes should come from Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi… not from a disgraced bully who attacks four-year olds.  I wonder if Zimmer also puts up posters of Pol Pot’s most inspirational quotes and hands out Mein Kampf on the team bus, too.

Now the question comes down to when Peterson will start carrying the rock again and what will happen after he returns to the team?  If Vikings fullback Jerome Felton is to be believed, Peterson will have 100% support in the locker room upon his return.  Assuming that’s true then there isn't a single decent (much less "good") man on that entire squad.  I understand the need to have locker room unity and all that but, seriously, there’s not one good man amongst 53 on the active roster with a conscience? 

Finally, there's Peterson himself who refused to step up like a good man to own his mistake.  Instead he tried to justify his actions by saying the way he harmed the child wasn't really his fault because he was just following the same discipline he received as a child.  I don't doubt he’s telling the truth, but he had a chance to become a symbol of breaking the generation-to-generation chain of abuse that is very common in these situations. 

He also miss an opportunity to set a wonderful example of being a good man who accepts responsibility, learns from his mistakes, and demonstrates to his son how a good man is willingly accountable for his actions.  Given the bully pulpit he has because of his fame, Peterson could have had a great impact towards better parenting and protection of defenseless children. 

The one thing I kept wondering while writing this was what kind of man this little boy is going to become.  All around him are men who have failed him.  From the father he likely idolizes to the public officials tasked with protecting him, he has learned that being traumatized is just part of childhood and there’s nobody around to protect him.

I sincerely hope I am mistaken and there is at least one good male role model in that child’s life I was unable to find.  If not, statistics show that 20 years from now he is likely to continue that cycle of violence to the detriment of another defenseless child.  I prefer to think that maybe this four-year old will end up being the one good man to come out of this situation.

Destroyed Relationships in the Aftermath of Recovery From CPTSD

I miss my daughters so much.  My ex-wife is taking advantage of my temporary situation to set the stage for her to steal the 45% custody that I was awarded just 7 months ago.  She says that she’s concerned for the girls because I had two suicidal ideations during a 10-day span. 

On the surface that seems reasonable, but the reality is that she knows that I pose no threat to myself, anyone, and certainly not my own daughters.  I spent 16 intimate years with my ex, so her surprising me with just hours’ notice of the petition to temporarily suspend my parenting time was completely unnecessary.

I’ve provided her with written documentation from both my psychologist/therapist and my psychiatrist, who have seen me for almost 3 years now each, that I pose no threat at all to anyone.  They know that I’m not truly the suicidal type.  I was simply in a state of serious distress without any help from my family and I have spent the past two years in self-imposed social isolation as many with Complex PTSD typically do.

These ideations barely even fit the definition of the term.  They were more of elaborate, if not so subtle, cries for help.  I never made a single plan to actually off myself, and I never would have.  I stupidly reached out to my ex thinking she still had a heart, and the fact that she’s a psychotherapist herself made me completely blind to the idea that any of this would be cravenly used against me.

It’s rough for me, but what bothers me the most is the impact on my 4- and 6-year old daughters.  I got almost half custody precisely because I had spent 2 years as a stay-at-home dad and had almost 50% custody for the 18 months between the split and the official divorce.  We have such a close and strong bond that this sudden disappearance from their life has to be confusing at best and significantly stressful and painful at worst. 

Immediately after my hospitalization I offered to go to counseling and mediation while she could name her conditions for me seeing the girls while I’m getting back up on my feet.  She responded with the combative petition.  She’s not interested in working with me, being cooperative in any way, or co-parenting at all.  She just wants me to disappear and allow her to raise those girls in the twisted manner of her mother.

While watching my oldest play soccer my youngest was telling me how her mother won’t allow her to call me, and then she was physically taken out of my lap by my ex because she was upset about what she was told.  She did more or less the same thing with my eldest while we watched her sister. 

I should have long stopped trying to rationalize the irrational because my ex disagrees with every I say and everything I teach my girls.  My youngest even told me she that she showed her mom how I taught her what a magnolia tree looked like, and my ex said that I was wrong and went so far as to check her iPhone only to realize I was of course correct. 

Why would I randomly tell my daughter the incorrect name of a tree?  My ex knows I basically grew up outdoors with Mother Nature as my best friend.  She has first-hand marveled at my knowledge of nature as I’m the first to take her camping, fishing, and hiking.  The fact that she would instinctively disagree with me regarding nature when she has no earthly idea about nature herself gives me all the indication I need regarding her illogical and emotionally-charged reactions to anything and everything regarding me.

That begs the question: why do I still get bothered so much by what she does to me?  The reality is that it doesn’t bother me so much, but the collateral damage to my daughters infuriates me.  She is a trained child psychologist but has willfully blocked out what she’s doing to them. 

Now you may think I’m leaving some things out, but I’m not.  The truth is that I want the girls to go see a child psychologist to discuss what their mother and grandmother puts them through, but my ex disagrees vehemently.  She knows what the girls will tell this psychologist.  I’m completely fine with anything and everything they say regarding my parenting, but I guess my ex is not.

I’m not nearly the perfect father and have made some fairly substantial mistakes.  I guess the difference is that I’ve owned my mistakes and have worked to correct them.  I’ve not mentioned the fact that none of my mistakes have included neglect, physical man-handling, religious zealotry, or psychological manipulation… all things they are subjected to at their mother’s/grandmother’s home.

Look, I readily admit that I’ve not been in a place to be the best father ever given what has been going on with me.  I’m coming out of the throes of recovery from child abuse that was repressed for 12 years or so and came at me full-throttle in the form of Complex PTSD.  However, I’ve never touched my girls, neglected them to the point they end up in the emergency room, or introduced them to aggressive and scary concepts such as satan, hell, and sin. 

I know that what’s going on with me is temporary as is my ex’s ability to create additional chaos in my and my girls’ lives.  It’s so frustrating, though.  I would like to have focused this entire post on something else that helps me further along in my recovery, for example.  Having to deal with court dates, written responses to her absurd petition, and the stress of not knowing what she’s going to try and pull next.

I’m sure my ex is frustrated that I’m going through this and cannot hold up my end of the parenting bargain right now.  However, it’s completely counter-productive to the peace within her life, our daughters’ lives, and of course my life.  However, I have to realize that I cannot control her nonsense.  All I can do is control my reaction to her nonsense. 

I need to continuously remind myself that this is a temporary state of affairs and that hopefully one day she’ll find enough peace in her life to stop fighting me for control over the girls.  All I can do is do me and my girls will grow up and realize what their mother has been doing to all of us.  Like I said, I’m very content owning my part in all of this. 

Soon enough I’ll be back on my feet financially and be back in a position to effect the parenting agreement I fought so hard for.  In fact, I’ll be in a position to get that last 5% custody so that the girls can spend equal amounts of time with both of their parents.  My ex will fight me on this, but it won’t be too much longer before the girls will make their own desires known.  The three of us will be alright.

Recovering From Child Abuse: A Day in the Life

In this post I'm just sharing off-the-cuff thoughts and feelings.  The idea is to express myself as a CPTSD survivor without worrying about grammar, appropriateness, or any of the niceties typically required of a "respectable" blog!  

I recently found out my father probably has cancer. I say “probably” because healthy and effective communication simply doesn’t exist within my family.  

I'm struggling with the simultaneous feelings of apathy for him and his plight, disappointment in myself for being apathetic, sadness for my Mom facing the loss of her life partner, and resentment that I'm unable to help her through this because all she wants from me is to reconcile with my unrepentant father... and that shit is simply not going to happen. 

Meanwhile I received some distressing news after getting an MRI on my shoulder.  Besides finding four orthopedic injuries, a lesion was noticed that is presumably a benign tumor but could potentially be malignant.  

Here's the real kicker: One of my first thoughts upon getting this news was, “this is the Karma I brought upon myself for being an uncaring ass about my father’s cancer.”  How's that for self-destructive and utterly undeserved feelings of shame?  

It really pisses me off that I felt this guilt and how it instantly morphed into low grade self-loathing.  My therapist would say it’s great that I recognized this for what it was and, as a result, won’t allow it to completely overtake me emotionally.  I say it really sucks that my childhood traumas continue to color my life at 38 years old.  

What I have realized, though, is that it’s more important than ever for me to continue to build a network of social supports, not just clinical ones.  I checked out from my friends and family for a couple of years because apparently that’s what CPSTD survivors often do.  My old social structures would invariably lead me backwards in my recovery, so I made the decision a while back to essentially act as though I moved to a new city and had to build a social network from scratch. 

I began the process by going on Match.com a few months ago just to wade back into the dating pool, and that experience was better than expected as I found someone I really dig.  This success spurred me to join two groups on Meetup.com last week: a Dads Group that has nothing to do with my recovery and also a Men’s Circle comprised of guys facing various life challenges  

It was initially intimidating to put myself out there again when I'm still unsure of how to walk the tightrope of explaining what's been going on with me without over-sharing.  This fear is one reason I remain anonymous in writing this blog (the other is that my ex-wife will somehow use this against me to steal the almost 50% custody I won during our divorce).

However, I understand that I can't control how others perceive me and the psychological challenges I face.  I can only control how I react to their perceptions and subsequent reactions.  I have a sweet little angel on one shoulder whispering "open yourself up and feel free to explain your plight" while my dark angel is shouting in my other ear that I shouldn't have to explain myself to anyone.

Complex PTSD and Maladaptive Behaviors

Today I want to explore how our childhood traumas have such a profound impact on who we became as adults.  Many men, such as myself, instinctively dissociated from the pain and confusion inflicted upon our newly-forming sense of self and nascent understanding of the world.  In other words, we had no real choice but to avoid confronting the horrors we endured simply to survive as we awaited and reached for the false safety of adulthood.  

I specifically detached from my experiences until I was 32 years old - over 12 years after the final incident - by subconsciously dismissing what happened (repression), consciously pushing aside thoughts and memories (suppression), or flat out deceiving myself and others by downplaying the true severity or impact. 

It came easy to simply insist my childhood was normal and that “of course” there aren’t any ongoing consequences.  To do otherwise was, in my mind, admitting that I was weak-minded and so soft that I couldn’t even get past things which happened when I was a child.  I'm a strong and resilient man who toughs things out damn it! 

Yet it isn’t about being tough-minded or strong-willed.  There were plenty of signs that I had some deep-seated issues which needed to be addressed.  Back in the day when I used to get into fights, I would never remember the first shot I took.  The beginnings of those altercations were never part of my memory.  I always blacked out for a split second (even when it wasn't a blow to the head) and then I'm back.  It's the most bizarre thing, but I never really contemplated why that happened. 

Then through therapy and research I began learning about the dissociative aspects of my mind, which stemmed from the prolonged physical and psychological abuse I sustained as a child.  It was my brain's way of shutting off right when I would start to absorb the blows from my father in an apparent attempt to anesthetize and protect me.  I’ve since tried to explain this as going into mini-shock.  Of course, the pain of successive blows brought me right back to reality... but it is truly bizarre (and a little awe-inspiring) to recognize how adaptive the human brain is. 

This was also how I came to truly comprehend how my coping mechanisms, which were so effective in childhood, were utterly destructive when implemented in the adult world.  This is essentially what is meant by “maladaptive.”  For example, the "mini-shock" reaction helped me not feel the initial attacks from my father during childhood, but it put me at an absurd disadvantage during fights once I got older.  It was adaptation to my traumatic world as a kid but ended up being quite bad for me later. 

I'm not terribly concerned with addressing the particular issue related to fighting because I'm not an idiot teenager/20-something anymore and my last fight was over a decade ago.  However, there are plenty more maladaptive behaviors from childhood which I've subsequently had to overcome or are currently still trying to overcome by re-wiring my brain little by little, day after day.

The significance of this makes it worth repeating: Those coping mechanisms which served us fairly well throughout our disturbing youth are at best unhealthy during adulthood in virtually any context.  It’s okay to be self-absorbed as a child/young adult because your job is basically to focus on yourself and become the best adult version of yourself possible.  Once adulthood hits - and I mean the adulthood of responsibilities - the problems arise as you navigate workplace politics… romantic relationships… new and ever-changing social groupings... parenting your children… and all of the other ways in which adults must become those social animals evolution demand we be. 

Those preservation tactics from my youth are predicated on withdrawal, sole reliance on self, and distrust of virtually everyone.  Those tactics continue to be the ones I initially reach for even now.  I cognitively know adults don’t effectively function this way with all of the responsibilities and pressures associated with career/family/etc, but I still have to work hard at recognizing when I do these things.  That’s what I mean by “doing the work” in recovery.

I do my best to recognize when I use these maladaptive tactics, but it continues to normally come after the fact.  But that’s okay for now.  My therapist uses a football analogy.  Very rarely do you get to score on the first play of a drive.  So I shouldn’t expect myself to completely change my behaviors in this area immediately.  As long as I’m being introspective and honest with myself each time I have these maladaptive behaviors, then I’m moving the ball forward a little bit down the field.  Recognize them often enough, continue to determine more productive and positive methods which would have been better, and I’m slowly but surely retraining my brain to respond differently to various triggers… and that’s the touchdown at the end.

There's a concept called neuroplasticity about which I will go into great detail in a future post because it lies at the heart of why we can fully recover from CPTSD, unlike other diagnoses which require medication and therapy for life.  The basic idea behind neuroplasticity is that parts of the human brain were “wrecked” to a certain extent by the traumas which resulted in CPTSD, but the brain is elastic enough to withstand the wreckage and be “rewired” through recovery as with the process I just explained above.  I’ve already started seeing the results, and I’m working harder than ever as a result.

No matter how much progress you and I make in our recovery, whatever occurred during our life to necessitate recovery in the first place will always be a part of our life story.  We’ve spent so much effort dissociating ourselves willfully or not from the pain of those incidents that the mere thought of outright owning them as our own seems absurd and terrifying.  During my recovery I begrudgingly acknowledged the need to own those parts of myself that I wanted so much to push away, but it was only after many false starts that I finally “got it.” 

I can tell you from experience that this is a painful process.  Those distressing realities of our past need to be embraced as obstacles we will conquer, and only then can we dispatch their current destructive power.  We can become free and whole again by embracing our traumatic history, understanding how our previous defenses have become our current maladaptive behaviors, and then doing the work to retrain our brain away from using them.