18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
First Time A Victim, Second Time You Volunteered, 2003-05-05
Before I tell people who I meet that my life mission is to guide women and girls to earn trust in themselves, I often have the privilege of being asked relationship or mother/daughter questions by girls between the ages of 14 and 21.With the comments that I've heard, lately, I feel compelled to review this excellent book, in hopes that those whom I haven't spoken to find something in both this review, and in Dr. Murray's book, to guide them to earn trust in themselves.
To earn trust in themselves does require you to accept the reality of now, and to admit what you may have up to now not admitted (If you have trouble doing this, this admission is a great beginning).
Let's start with what makes abusive relationships different from teen girls, versus women who are much older.
With teen girls the priorities are:
1. Peer approval (this is usually about image, not reality)
2. Gender-role expectations (some girls are taught that
having a boyfriend is analogous to being lovable)
3. Lack of experience (as a teen, you are trying to work out a
life that hasn't been lived)
4. Little contact with adult resources (with mother's feeling
threatened by their daughter's youth, many daughters have
difficulty finding role models)
5. Less access to societal resources (most require parental
involvement)
6. Less access to the legal leverage (the laws assume that the
daughter doesn't need this support)
7. She fantasizes about who he could be, with her help
(See, "The Princess Who Believes in Fairy Tales")
8. Once in the relationship, she decides that she can't get
out of it, even if she wanted to (See, "My Mother/Myself)
9. She doesn't know that both of them are willing participants
in the struggle to be with someone, while avoiding their
fear of recreating their past dramas (See, "Narcissim")
10. Unspoken social pressure has taught her to avoid herself,
that is avoid being visible to other girls, by going out of
her way to make a guy her project (See, "101 Lies Men Tell
Women: And Why Women Believe Them")
For the older women, the challenge is:
1. Social pressure to prove that she is a woman, as defined by the "invisible woman out there"
2. Financial needs
3. Blaming her inadequacies (imagined or real
4. Her decision that her needs are too great
5. Domestic Violence professional's expect her to experience
this again, at least 7 times, before she will be free, or
dead
This is a wonder book, written for parents, but certainly good for young girls to also read.
What I did not see in this book is something that I have seen again and again from those who are abused is that in the moment that the abuser attacks the girl's worthiness, what she does is choke off her own breathing. This causes her to cut off her thoughts. This also causes her punish herself for the idea of her being angry at what he is doing to her.
For all the teen girls who think that his jealousy, possessiveness, manipulation, or attempts to isolate you from being close to others is cute, or loving you, I invite you to assert these 5 statements, with unwavering conviction,each time you experience his jealousy, possessivesness, manipulation, or attempts to isolate you:
1. I don't like what is happening to me.
2. There is something here that does violence to me.
3. I deserve better than this.
4. I can do something about this.
5. I will do something about this, now.
6. I will not allow this to happen to me, again.
Besides these statements, and reading this book, I invite teen girls and women to stop asking yourselves, "Why does he act this way?"
When you spend time asking questions about why he is treating you terribly, you make his problems into being your responsibility. And this means that you will be trapped into believing that you are inadequate, because you cannot control his self-concept. You can, however, influence the boy/man's behavior, by reading books like Dr. Murray's book, as you make the commitment to love yourself.
By reading a book like this one, and truly making the commitment to master the lessons in this book, you will make sure that less girls and women are abused, because when the lessons of this book become part of your core identity, you will recognize the signs of abuse; you will speak up for yourself, in the present moment; you will congruently tell the guy that his issues are not your issues; and you will show him that not every female is willing to pity his unwillingness to face his fear of his fears - and the world will change.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
no advice, 2003-04-28
Although the book does a good job in describing an abusive teenage relationship, she gives almost no adivce to parents except those who are in abusive relationships themselves. I thought this book would have helpful ideas in how to deal with this situation when it comes into your family but all it does is insult the parent in the end.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
Teens like it too, 2002-05-31
I bought this book for myself just to keep informed about teens' issues. My daughter, then 13, saw the book and began devouring it and analyzing her relationships. She made immediate changes in one friendship, deciding that she shouldn't put up with being hit or belittled anymore. Now, a year later, she is buying the book for a friend who accepts controlling behavior from her boyfriend.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Great Advise, 2002-03-20
What a wonderful book - it is so easy to fall into an abusive relationship. We need all the help we can get to protect our daugthers. Not only do we need to protect daugthers from abusive relationships, we also need to show and teach them how to love themselves. In Creating Extraordinary Joy, Chris Alexander show us how to love ourselves and others. - Thanks, Chris and Jim.
12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
EXCELLENT WORDS OF WISDOM, 2002-03-02
As a counsellor in domestic violence and human behaviour, so often I have heard the words, "If only I had done (or not done) .... he would never have hit me," or "He only pushed me, but he loves me and promised he would never do it again." Abuse is not about love; it is about control, and without extensive therapy for emotional issues that cause the abuser to abuse (quite often the abuser was himself a victim of abuse), the problem is not going to get better, it is not going to go away - it will, in all probability, escalate to greater heights as time goes on.
The book points out many of the danger signals, and examines the various types of abuse: physical, verbal, emotional and sexual. The author also talks about the healing process for those who have been abused. When you stop to ponder the issue that one in three girls will be in a controlling, manipulative or abusive realtionship of some nature before they graduate from high school, it is enough to put both parents and teen-aged daughters on their guard. The aftermath of long-term abuse is devastating and horrendous beyond words; the emotional scars remain long after the physical wounds disappear. Quite often those scars never disappear and affect our self-image, our families and our future relationships. We have all heard that "love is blind" but there is also much truth to the statement that "there is none so blind as those who will not see." Denial is not always a wonderful thing. True love never physically hurts; it emotionally nurtures, heals and protects. As the reader will learn through the pages of this book, there are various kinds of love, but there is a huge difference between infatuation, addictive love and true lasting love. Teens, although they truly believe at the time they are madly "in love", are quite often in love with the idea of being in love. Being young, they have not yet had the opportunities or experiences to distinguish the difference between first love and overactive hormones, and mature and lasting love.
The author uses real-life examples to drive her point home; they are true stories that go on in some part of the country, every minute of every hour of every day. If this book helps only one young woman (and there are bound to be many more) then the author may not only have prevented a tragedy, but perhaps saved a human life. This is highly recommended reading material and worth a universe of stars! Hats off to Jill Murray for telling it like it is.