Hunting: Domestic Abuse of Humans and Animals



Remember this: Life is a tricky business of tactics and counter-tactics.

Disclaimer: What you are about to read is probably loads of bad advice but no one ever out ran a bullet by going in a straight line.

I was avoiding writing or interacting with people online. I wanted peace, quiet, and some overdue rest. Yet something was not quite right. My mind kept wandering back to domestic violence or abuse. People can learn to deal with many problems, using different platforms, but when it comes to predator-prey behavior, as it is applied through hunting, you soon realize how hunting could save your life, prolong your life, or help catch the person who plans to do you harm. This being said, depends on the reality of being listened to or not, or even helped. You will read a lot about hunting and how it is based in conservation of wildlife, landscapes, community, and family.

Let us pick the ideal of family and community, then put a laser point on the actual interaction of these two variables, when hunting is used to evaluate the social problem of domestic violence or abuse within a family unit. This can spread out into the community. People have found out, community lets you down. It takes one person to beat the crap out of you and a village to ignore it; even take part in your subjugation, persecution, group shunning and eventual demise.

I scrolled down the monitor to see an explosion of anti-hunter versus hunter posts. I rolled my eyes. Not wanting to go down that path, thoughts of topics swirled around my brain pan.

Everything you learn about terrorism and counter-terrorism you will first learn in the home, then preschool, kindergarten, elementary, and high school. You could be the victim, victimizer, or the neutral person that doesn't want to bother, or be bothered with throughout life.

There are a menagerie of scenarios on the ways human domestic or animal violence occurs. Let us look first at human on human violence as it pertains to domestic violence in relationships or two ships passing in the night or broad daylight.

What is it like for families of domestic abuse? How does each person react to their role in the melodrama? What about the true victims of domestic violence or abuse, who become no more than collateral damage? How does this inter-family strife spill over into the animal world? How do the abused deal with relationships or even themselves? How do you get past the imagery and story in your mind that holds you like a personalized victim of the self; or maybe a revolving victim of past events for fear of repetitive future events that could possibly happen. How do you break the pattern of becoming a continuous victim swaddled in your own painful emotional cloth? What rational does a victim follow when accepting forms of abuse? There were so many questions.

My most profound questions were: how can what you learned in your hunting education and experience, transcend a mundane act of stalking, execution, and killing a sentient being as a hunter, be applied to a domestic abuse event? If applied to this event, can it shed light on the abuser's tactics or help the victim avoid harm or counter the threats being made to one's person? When a person who hunts considers the prey aspect of newborn behavior of avoidance, blending in, survival or death, how can this help a victim understand him/herself? How could I use hunting as a positive platform for shedding light, in a lighted place, to demonstrate why hunting is not all bad? One only need know how to wield it.

This topic was a tricky subject to approach. I wanted my idea to be simple, with easily recognized parts. I must say, in any given situation, a pattern emerges unless you are dealing with a real master of mayhem.

Each individual is different in the way people internalize conflict from external sources. Families of domestic abuse go through cycles of periodic, intermediate, or constant events of abuse. The main abuser is the most dominate, exerting control on victims through deprivation, with-holding emotional, financial or happy moments, threatening behavior, alienation, and control. The adult victim either lives in fear for the self or the children, but can also become assimilated to the behavior of the abuser. This assimilation exacerbates the abuse to the children and animals.

The children either become fearful, aggressive, combative, or emotionally detached about daily life and either thrive in spite of the situation, or slowly have a marked deterioration of self and behavior.

Animals and children, in these domestic squabbles, become hostages to be tortured, given away, mistreated to spite the victim or abuser, or ignored.

When dealing with outside relationships, the abused may avoid forming any potential connections due to lack of trust or fear. The abused may form relationships in spite of present abusive situations. The rationale of accepting ongoing abuse could stem from financial security, fear the abuser will never go away and follow them, low self-esteem, lack of support from outside sources, fear of the unknown, and hopelessness.

Abuse usually starts in the family by the main relationship of married spouses or people who are dating that live together or apart. Each group may or may not have children or animals. Life is good until things fall apart. Falling apart could be obvious. A facade is put into place by the abuser and victim to hide the shame of their inability to make it succeed. A final confrontation; assault and separation is established. The family is splintered and madness ensues. Here I am pointing out one of the worse scenarios. There are break-ups that go into that good night quietly. Others go out in a body bag or a police car.

After this, you may have the abuser antagonize the victim or vice-versa. There are people in this world that will stick their head back into the metaphorical lion's mouth and expect it not to be bitten off. Spite, revenge, and a need for retribution will take hold like a cancer, and eat away at both parties while infecting the less seen individuals: friends, children, relatives, and animals. There are victims that grip the truth they should fear for their lives and their children's lives.

It is not unheard of to read news that a spouse/boyfriend/girlfriend killed a child, animal, relative, or friend to spite the other side of the argument. A good example of this would be the Washington Sniper. He killed people to fulfill his plan of murdering his estranged wife under the guise of a phantom killer. He wanted to distract everyone from the true goal of murdering his wife. Here he was the indirect hunter stalking other prey while practicing on them, then eventually hoping to collect on the one he considered the trophy of the hunt. In truth, he wasn't hunting her because he knew where she was the whole time. He was setting up the storyline to exclude himself as a suspect.

Here I would say before going any further:

Come to terms with your own mortality. You may not make it out alive but do everything you can to survive it. You have a fifty-fifty chance. If the abuser has someone helping them, your chances go down. Get a therapist. You are going to need someone to help you see right when Terra is burning down around you. It will burn.

Learn the difference between a truth and a manipulation. Abuser, and victims-turned-abusers, will manipulate their story lines at times. This could drag innocent people into the fray or the victim is manipulated back into the abuser-victim cycle. Manipulation can bleed out into the community to block any type of help you might get because isolation of the victim and community allying on the part of the abuser brings people to be against the victim and not the abuser. Most people never question a thing to be false especially if it is the parent telling the tale because what does a child know. Adults think children lie anyway. Why should they be believed and thought less of for telling a truth?

I have observed a situation, without going into detail, of a married couple in a toxic relationship for years, during and since their divorce. Both parties manufacture situations counterproductive to happiness on all parts. Both sides of this equation used alienation and fear to their advantage. They also used their community image as a bouncing board for counteracting a truth being discovered by people at what they had been up to. Secrets and lies will be uncovered or disclosed out of fear of blackmail, shame, or usurping both parties dirty side-deeds.

First things first, find a safe place for your kids if the abuser is that dangerous. If you have pets, cry then find them a new home because the abuser while hold them hostage, starve them, or kill them. You might get your pets back but you'll be raked over the emotional coals before you do. Children and animals are always used as leverage in these horrible little wars to exert control. They are the collateral damage between two adult people that have lost their self-respect and minds. The children will most likely be yelled at, blamed, punished on the part of the adult, or used for some other purpose. I had a man tell me one time as he pointed to a seven pound dog. “If I kick that dog, you will fell pain until I get tired of kicking it. I never have to touch you to hurt you.”

This is how some abusers never lay a hand on you or bruise you because the children or the animals are being abused right before you eyes. Then again, it's always the intent of the threat that keeps you in line until you decide it is better to die fighting instead of live that way.

Know your adversary and make a clean break. Become financially free or hide amongst the homeless for a while (if you are single) and lose the address. Most abusers go straight to the halfway houses or domestic abuse shelters. Treat yourself like a new member of the witness protection program.

Get a weapon or weapons then put them in places contrary to where the abuser would think you would hide them. This can be non-invasive things like pepper spray, electric cattle box, cattle prod, taser, etc. It might be a good idea to discuss options with an electrician. You'd be surprised what he could come up with in the manner of home safety. Get creative.

Get a library card. Per-use the how-to sections. (Figure it out).

Know your local and state laws on intruders, home invasion, personal safety with handguns and weapons and what constitutes self-defense. (If someone tries to kill you, what is your mode of retaliation or self-defense against such an act?)

Let us talk about family when your primary family has gone to hell in a hand basket.

You can't always depend on your extended family, unless you know they love and care for you. Otherwise, don't be surprised when they tell you not to bring your family's problems to their door and upset their house. This is one of the times you will be considered a stranger to them. If it doesn't hurt, you are not human. Once shunned the community will follow suit because they don't want to be endangered or get mixed up in something they feel is not their business.

Unsuspecting strangers, who are not from your community, will help you.

Avoid using new people, such as a boyfriend or girlfriend of two months, in your life as barriers to the abuser. It's not right to drag them into a domestic dispute. These temporary significant others are the first to be accused of things they didn't do an end up dying to protect you.

Don't be alarmed if angry glares are pointed your way and you are accused of being the cause of things that you can't control. The idea, it has to be someone's fault, will be right in your face.

You could be stalked and safety will not be found anywhere; not even with the police.

The knowledge of predator-prey could indicate the particular mode of choice on the kind of counteractive victim you may be at a given time. Some people have the habit of returning to a given mode of choice. You will either freeze, fight, or flee.

Here you have learned from hunting, when an animal is cornered, it could freeze in its tracks, fight to the death or run to concealment.

When you consider the freezing technique, a baby animal will stay in one position, even if it out in the open, to avoid detection. You could also see this behavior in children that are threatened by authoritative adults then ball up to be quiet in a chair or under a desk/bed. Some children even hide under the house or in the woods. This is also a form of sniper tactic, minus the emotional fear of detection and attack, when directly underfoot to blend in and be still until you can move on without detection.

Flight might get you away, if you have the upper hand, but you can't see what is coming up behind you. Deer are notorious for bounding away into the bush. The bad thing about this tactic is, if the abuser knows you are going to run, he can drive you right where he hopes you will go. Ergo making it easier to catch you. Never be fear driven. Once you realize it is fear then you can turn and run right at them because they will not be suspecting that.

You might fight and win; you might not. This depends on whether you set the situations up for your favor. (Figure it out). Abusers bank on the victim not fighting them. This is how their reign of terror perpetuates itself; through fear and forced submissiveness.

With these three given responses you could live or die, given the confrontation. What you want to do is avoid the confrontation. Learn when to pick your battles, because as children you may have more than one relative or stranger gang up on you to beat you.

As soon as you can assimilate the fact that you are not required by sacred law to continue a relationship with any person, stranger or relative, when your happiness or life is threatened, the better off you will be. You see this in animal babies when they are on their own after some point or right after birth to fend for themselves. Parent animals and babies terminate their relationship in given species. Terminate your toxic familial connection. Nothing is worth that poisonous sentiment because family has a more corrosive connection when members are motivated by evil purposes.

Do not drink the poison. One way an abuser gets a foot-hold in your life is to whisper subtle nuances and brainwash you until you smarten up and catch them in their web of deceit and betrayals. They want you to trust them and no one else. Simultaneously they are driving off trustworthy people by bad mouthing you, without your knowledge.

If you have been with a person long enough you have some idea of their habits and mentality; as do they to you. Anyone that has tracked an animal, knows the animal. Its that simple. Be the animal and outsmart the hunter. Go as far to contrary as you possibly can. If the abuser thinks you'll go to a certain watering hole, don't go. If the abuser thinks you'll be at a certain place at a certain time, plan another one. Confuse the piss out of him.

A good tactic to learn can be drawn from shooting where you learn to find the space between heart beats, when your focus is pin point and nothing the abuser does will rattle you. Here you can pluck from The Matrix Reloaded when Neo is being tested by Seraph. Seraph says, “You must control your emotions if you are to over come your opponent.” Still your mind, quiet your emotion.

Another example is Seraph tells Neo, “You do not truly know someone until you fight them.” Here you can get over the shock and awe of being betrayed by family, community, the abuser or even yourself. People that are in abused situations will be harmed by loss of security, the fact someone loves money and land more than you, you are nothing to them but a by-product of sex, and something to crush underfoot while they keep their reputation in the community in tact, and you get the blame for everything because they refuse to take responsibility for their actions.

The abuser(s) will portray him/herself as the victim, with willing listeners that are being taken advantage of for their gullibility and do-gooder mentality. Unfortunately this lot only goes with the one they think has the money, best story, or fear the most. You see it a lot in christian churches where they support the abuser while the real victim is pushed aside for not being a member of the congregation then the abuser ends up having a authoritative position in church. Motto: Drink on Friday, beat the wife on Saturday and go to church on Sunday to ask forgiveness.

If you have ever seen pressured animal herds or single individuals, you might observe hypervigilance reeking from their behavior. This animal may be more prone to attacking or strange behavior because it has been driven to a crazed or exhaustive state. As an example, you could be living in your new home after a break with the abuser. Something is telling you intuitively that something is amiss. The person might just show up at your door unannounced, knowing they have a restraining order on them. After this episode, you might suspect someone is laying-in-wait outside your house, has illegally entered your home, or doing surveillance on you to get your habits and time table down for a strike. Do unto others as they do unto you. Get a system in place of people willing to rat this person out on his/her time table. They have enemies somewhere. Most abusers are bold because they think they can get away with murder on the capital steps while sharing a donut with a cop.

Fragrances can be a wonderful thing. If you could get your hands on some foul smelling animal fragrance to put in a water gun or set it up on a manual sprinkler system, then if you see Ole Bob- a-lurking then turn it on and watch him run. You could make a “rotten bag” on a trip wire to explode on their head when they walk through it.

On cameras and Go-Pro gadgetry: make technology work for you. If its an animal camera, make sure its has night detail with no flash but has brilliant, clear pictures. I will say: I knew of a lady that had cameras recording outside her house. The person knocked on the door. She opened it. He killed her. The camera recorded the murder but he then killed himself. I would say here. Don't open the door for someone who has consistently put you into confrontation. Paranoia can be your friend and your enemy.

Hunting can teach you something about isolation when the abuser uses this as a tactic. The abuser seems to come out of nowhere because you didn't believe they would appear or you let your guard slip. Don't ever believe they can not get close enough to you. Join a club like martial arts, boxing, self defense, hunting club, shooting club, domestic violence support group. Don't be alienated from people. You can hide in a crowd just like a turkey can hide in straw grass. Don't be surprised if the abuser tries to slip around, defaming your character because its in their best interest to terrorize you into submission or going back to them. Just be honest with people.

Detect the out-of-place anomaly. Here hunting's knowledge of tracking technology could come in handy. Ask neighbors if they have seen strange people or cars lurking in your neighborhood. Check your vehicle or phone for a GPS tracking device, dog tracking collar, or anything else suspicious. If you have key-less entry, have them change it, even the trunk. If you think you are being followed, go to the police station and sit outside. Then take a photo of the car or plate as they go by; see if it shows up again. By this time, they will probably trade out a friend's car to subvert your discovery of them. Ask a neighbor if you can watch from their property with night vision scopes to see if the abused gets frantic at broadsiding you to watch for trespassing.

If you believe said individual is going to trespass then find some green or brown powdered chalk or gray lime powder to put out around the house in places you think they might lurk. They see you liming your yard when you are setting them up to get a shoe print. Don't make it obvious.

Build yourself a panic room and treat it like your deer stand. Concealment is your friend. The abuser will definitely be using this tactic. Hide in plain sight while watching the perpetrator pick at your door lock with a credit card or bust out your windows. Record the abuser while you are eating mac and cheese and calling 911.

Sometimes these abusers pay private detectives to do their reconnaissance because it seems legitimate. The private investigator thinks he is doing just another job, when he is being used for nefarious purposes to help the abused get one more step closer to you. If you are a private investigator and something seems shady about the person asking for the service, you might want to look into that. If you don't have money for a private investigator of your own, then find a bum, and pay him a six pack for his information. You'd be surprised what people will do for food and drink. Get to them first or get your own spies to watch the person with constant Intel. You will find there are people that have been through the same ordeal that will gladly help.

You can also utilize your knowledge of the ghillie suit. The last place the abuser will look for you is his backyard because the abuser will be in your back yard. If you consider hypervigilance, you might be needing some sleep, so take a hammock with a mosquito net, pay your dues at the local campsite, dress in your suit and sleep in the bushes or a tree. They won't know where you are at. Have a beer while you are at it. Read some Keats. You can bet the abuser will be watching your house, your job, the daycare, or your parents house. In order for you to stay on your game you have to push zzzzz's or your lack of focus could knock you off the defense/offense.

With all things such as this, the abused may experience a form of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Accept the fact the abuser is capable of anything and a ticking time bomb. The victim turned abuser will tote tales, true and false, to win the approval and favor of the abuser. This causes more trauma for the children especially if they are into their adult lives. There is no opportunity that divorced parents will not put their children in the middle, use them like a weapon, or continuously make them feel unloved and a mere tool.

Here you could think of bear hunting. Bears out in the bush will not bother with you, if you stay away from them. Hunters go with the intended purpose of hunting a bear. We know how this will end, one way or the other. Otherwise when messed with, it is big, aggressive and will sneak up on you if you piss with it much. You are going to die or get badly hurt. If you fool around to much with it, anyone within striking distance will get the same fate. You could be taken by surprise at any moment or get charged. If you know something like that is out there, you need to be pro-active to save your life or take it down. Some people have the idea they can handle such a situation or person. This is fool's paradise. The reason this is fool's paradise is because you can not control the actions or mind of a person if you do not know what is going on in their head.

The problem of the abused mind is this. It's the unknown and the fact you know eventually something bad is going to happen while telling people who do not believe or listen to you. For it all to come true is even worse. Then again.....be the bear.

The worst side of this coin, to brace yourself, is a victim that returns to an abuser to become the abuser themselves. Whatever prompts them, more than likely finances, security or wanting to inherit property, or just plain bat-shit-craziness, you may never know. This is what makes it so scary; realizing someone was capable of the cruelties they claimed were visit on them. To see the victim turned abuser enjoy the torturing of another person (the children or animals) is dumbfounding. Then you have to watch the abuser, victim-abuser, exert jealousy, isolation, controlling behavior, blame, cruelty, verbal abuse, threats, deprivation, and hopelessness onto an innocent person who is trapped in an awful situation, because there is no money to get out, no one to help them, and constant surveillance by the dual abusers.

Here you can see with abuser-victims there is roles and roles reversing. Children and animals are the collateral damage and the relationship of the abuser-victim is the present that keeps on giving. After domestic violence trauma, your life is not the same. You end up having to right the scars inside of you that no one can actually see. The outside observer just believes you are quirky, a loner, strange, mental, or some other judgmental label. You are really a lonely person that survived a bad experience. A bad experience you learned to rate and grade every other experience by. Some people will call you broke. You are not broken. You just learned the wrong thing, saw the wrong thing, and made the best decision you could at that time to survive. There is no shame in that. You performed within your capacity, at that moment,  to do what you had to live. No one should judge you for that, because in its darkest hour that was your highest achievement. Some people hang dead heads on their walls, walk around judging other peoples' value on materialistic and shallow achievements. A victim's ability to survive and live past abuse is an achievement. It doesn't make you weak. It makes you strong in the way that can't be fathomed. Once you make it through you can live with nothing, for nothing, in spite of every cruelty and for everything that means nothing to other people.

Hunting knowledge can help you, if you are willing to apply it in creative ways, to problem solve issues that can become dangerous to your personal health. Hopefully,  if you turn to people, the police, or a domestic violence support group or shelter, they will help you but you always have to go with the understanding that there maybe no help. It is just you.

This may also be the thinking behind people who only care what happens to animals because they gave up on humanity early in their life.

To get past the imagery and story that pollutes your mind:

Make a decision, act and move.

Love and forgive yourself, even if you feel no one else does.

Get professional help.

Seek other survivors that can relate to your past history of abuse.

Learn to move on from the trauma and not wallow in it.

Define a point of departure of the manifestation of hurt and pain.

Accept and embrace you are no longer a victim.

Believe in finite endings and new beginnings.

Find something beautiful, inside and out.

Thrive

Live, just live with all you've got.

Help someone.

Apply the concepts in hunting.

To alleviate animal abuse and suffering, we must look to the relationship and condition of human-on- human violence and abuse. Everything trickles down from this relationship. If we do not know how to treat our fellow man or family members then how do we expect to make the world a better place long term, rather than periodic moments of unrest and dissension. The key is dealing with mental issues, teaching people a better way to deal with problems, learning how to be better parents, and looking at Earth to improve life in general. As individuals, we must make the personal decision to be a better human being and not a shadow or copy of what people want us to be or what we are pressured into by dictums.

Someone recently said to me, "Why do people always try to devalue a person's suffering to irrelavance and then convince the abused their suffering should be compartmentalized to the point of non-existance. After this is whittled to nothing, the victim is made to feel guilty for having any feelings at all, voicing them to purge the wounds for healing, and avoided to suffer alone in silent reflection. Yet there it stays because the suffering and grief was not experienced but repressed, avoided or ignored.

Hunting can teach you a lot as long as you are willing to stand outside other people's boxes and apply what you have learned for your own sake and the sake of others. Enjoy.

Written by:  W Harley Bloodworth

~Courtesy of the AOFH~