The holidays are approaching! You can just smell the collard greens and deep fried turkey; hear gravely old gospel songs sung with family followed by good old fashioned story telling around the fire. This is the perception of a prefect southern family setting. But in my book “Why Ruin Another Life” the southern experience is totally different. The harsh realities of the not so visible are revealed by a disturbing story of a broken family and neglect. Life isn’t always as it is portrayed.
Domestic violence is the number one cause of injury for women between the ages of 15 & 44; More than car accidents and muggings combined. The month of October is over but unfortunately domestic violence is a issue women deal with all year long. But why do we let the silence of domestic violence alter and ruin our lives. Children that witness acts of domestic violence are more likely to have life long sociological issues but why? Because of the silence? Should we to lay our heads on the chopping blacks as if were the sacrificial lamb? It’s time to break the silence! A life depends on it! In new my book why ruin another life The character Rayleen is torn between a family secret that may cost her and her love ones dearly. Life is precious and negative cycles are meant to be broken. Not in all cases is silence golden; #BreakTheSilence
-Anthony Weathers
Author
Recently domestic violence has experienced a uptick in awareness. This can be credited, unfortunately to the several domestic violence cases involving NFL players. For years this subject has existed, functioning in hushed tones and off-center occurrences. These NFL cases, especially the one involving former Baltimore Ravens RB Ray Rice have thrusted the story into the headlines, dominating all media outlets from coast to coast. It is a topic that impacts all demographics— whether age, race, gender or religion.
Typically victims of domestic violence try to hide their personal terror, harboring feelings of blame and making excuses for their partners behavior. The usual domestic violence victim tries to hide their ordeal from family and friends, because often they feel as though its a admittance of personal weakness for an adult to allow someone to harm them without consequences. Additionally, many women are hesitant to contact the authorities for fear of retribution by their assailant or the long term financial impact of removing a breadwinner from the household. This leads to years and years of accepted physical abuse and emotional scarring.
I’n my book “Why Ruin Another Life” there are characters that deal with the aftermath of domestic violence. Each one changed, even somewhat damaged, by the toll that physical harm or even the threat of harm, can take on the soul. In writing this book i’ve gained a deeper understanding of the plight of domestic violence victims. I see their battles as my battle and in the future I promise to lend an ear to their suffering and if possible, lend a hand in their rescue.
In life there are ce
rtain experiences that changes your outlook on things. You spend your whole life trying to perfect things, but life is full of many imperfections and these imperfections can ware on a person’s enigma. People who grow tired of their current predicament will sometimes go and search for a new beginning. Most every person deserve a second chance to start over and learn from their mistakes, but as the old saying goes history almost always repeats itself and people find themselves unable to make that change to a new life. It takes a strong individual to move on from their past mistakes, because it’s human nature to follow a certain routine and it’s supernatural to break that habit. In my book “Why Ruin Another Life” the main character Marva was prone to making mistakes and wasn’t good with judging certain situations. Her poor judgment causes her to lose something near and dear to her, but she is strong enough to move on and start over. It just goes to prove that when the goings get tough, the tough have to get going.
It shouldn’t be so difficult to raise awareness on everyday issues. As people we struggle to reali
ze the problems that are happening in our society. Without celebrity endorsement some of the fundraisers that we have out there wouldn’t be as successful. Things like the ALS ice bucket challenge, where everyday people do something ridiculous to raise awareness. Celebrities are participating in this event and are making it a competition to see “who has the better ice bucket challenge?” People shouldn’t have to compete or do something ridiculous to raise awareness to the problems that we have in our society. Ideally when there is an issue in our society, people should alert others of this problem and as a society we should listen to these people and help them solve the problem. In my book “Why Ruin Another Life” this dysfunctional Mississippi family suffers through three generations of rape. They sweep this tragedy under the rug, swearing to tell no one about the horrible events that took place. People need to be aware of something traumatic like rape, because it’s an everyday problem that can be dealt with if it’s brought to attention. When a storm is raging, running and hiding is not always the smart thing to do.
They say that people in yo
ur life are seasons and everything that happens is for a reason. This is often due to the risk that we take in life. As people we try to do things to better our current situation. Whether it’s gambling away our life savings to cutting off someone in traffic to get to a destination faster. We take these risks, because we see them as necessary, even if they don’t work out. Life is a gamble, you win some and you lose some, but sometimes that bet is so severe that you will never recover from it. In my book “Why Ruin Another Life” the character Marva takes a risk in marrying a man to better her life, but this man will forever change her life. They say only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go, but in the case for Marva the risk is too costly and is one she will never forget.
Who said life 
was easy? The pressures of everyday existence requires thought and a lot of effort. Maneuvering through the obstacles that get in our way can sometimes be a real challenge, even the best of us can find it difficult to make it through. In these times of distress a person is the most vulnerable and can collapse under the pressure, it becomes almost impossible for them to have hope for a better tomorrow. In these times an individual can fall prey to severe depression, making it hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. In this state of mind one is unable to think clearly, and may look to suicide as the answer. In my book “Why Ruin Another Life” the character Marva feels the burden of a situation and tries to take her own life. Fortunately she is unsuccessful at the attempt, but some people are not as lucky. As in the case of Robin Williams who succeeded in his pursuit to take his life, in both these cases they did not seek the help they needed. The moment a person considers suicide as an option is when they should seek help, because the reality is no one can do it alone.
In life things are not always as they seem, there are some people who
se intentions are not honorable who try to paint a rosy picture to distract, or hide the truth to achieve a hidden agenda. These people have an uncanny ability to sense weakness and naivety, preying on the people that they perceive as weak and innocent. We may all start out believing a person has good intentions, but that illusion can be tainted due to a bad experience. They say “you live and you learn”, but sometimes the lesson comes too late to make a difference in a particular situation, as a result the deceived may find it hard to forgive them-self, because of their gullible nature at the time. In my book “Why Ruin Another Life” the character Marva sees an opportunity that she thinks will better her life, but later learns all opportunities are not golden ones. Over time she see’s the people that she thought were there for her are not what they pretended to be, and forever blames herself for her bad decision making. We always must be mindful that things are not what they appear to be, remember a wolf can be disguised in sheep’s clothing.
Relationships are very complicated, they don’t follow any particular rules. There’s no handbook to guide you through all the intricate patterns that a relationship carries. A song writer once wrote the lyrics “Sometimes it’s kicks and sometimes it’s kicks in the shins,” referring to the ups and the downs of a relationship. Hopefully the good and the bad times serve a purpose to achieve a better understanding in accomplis
hing a greater bond. The mother and daughter relationship is very complex, depending on how a mother was raised and what she has experienced in her life will dictate how she raises her daughter. To avoid repeating the same mistakes many women have laid on a psychiatrist couch in order to figure out what exactly went wrong in their mother/daughter relationship. In my book “Why Ruin Another Life” three generations of women are the product of dysfunctional mother/daughter relationships. The character Marva pieces together the complicated puzzle of the mistakes of the generation before and realizes her mistakes and tries to put a stop to the dysfunction within the family. every outcome doesn’t always have to be “Que Sera, Sera”?
In our society we are taught to obtain as much as we can. It gets to a point where we are collecting things not out of necessity, but for luxury. Competition plays a large part in our need for materialistic things, we are sent subliminal messages everyday through the media telling us that we are nothing without that product they are trying to sell. Soon we find ourselves living beyond our means, as a result we wind up in great debt, all because we want to be better than the Joneses. We pay a huge price for this rivalry, our aggressive nature becomes more than just the survival of the fittest, it has nothing to do with the essentials, but rather than it’s greed that drives us to act in such ways. In my book “Why Ruin Another Life” the character Hattie greed is so overwhelming that it starts to intrude on other lives, affecting their well being. She is so blinded by that greed she doesn’t realize the lives that she is jeopardizing. Eventually she winds up alienating her loved ones, perhaps Hattie never got the news “all that glitters is not gold.”
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