Elder Abusers
Who are these people? Are they psychologically abnormal? Are they crooks who would do anything to get what they want?
Are they from a particular economic or social group?
Just like other forms of abuse, elder abusers transverse across all economic and social groups.
I do not profess to be an expert in psychology, psychiatry, sociology or other qualifications that will help me to make empirical findings or comments.
However, the Frank Punito case: one that I have most information on and have witnessed some of the evidence of this case; has got me extremely upset about the abusers and of our society.
The abusers in this case, and I suspect in many elder abuse cases, exploit the humanity in most of us and yet, they showed NO humanity in their treatments of the victim.
How does that work?
As the case involved emotional/psychological abuse, neglect and withholding access to assets; there were no obvious signs of the abuse.
Well, we will never consider sacking the abusers from their day jobs. We will not even reveal their real names. And, we will not stop treating them with kindness and humanity.
The abusers believe that it is not their fault and that what they did, or did not do in the case of their father did not amount to elder abuse.
Curiously, some of the abusers relatives believe them!
Can these relatives look at the case objectively? I doubt that.
Why can’t they see the truth?
Perhaps the truth is too unthinkable or too painful to bear.
More unbelievable is their lack of interest in looking at the evidence. There is a boxful of documentary evidence ready for their perusal if they wanted.
The other unbelievable thing is their expectation for the victim to forget about what had happened to him in almost a decade and just “get back” with his children.
Would they expect a victim of child abuse to return to his/her abuser?
Obviously, there is no consideration for the victim’s emotional and psychological health?
The Frank Punito case is not just about money. It is about how an aging father was treated by his adult children.
It is imperative to ask ourselves the question:
Why would a man of 77 years of age not want to get back with his family?
My impression of this man when I first met him was that he was very proud of his children and really cared for them.
I believe that that are many, many more victims like Frank but they are “invisible”.
Society has let them down. We don’t care enough. There is no encouragement for would-be-whistle-blowers to expose this sort of elder abuse. I know from my own experience that it entails a lot of work in gathering evidence. The more discouraging factor is that no one really cares. Society tends to classify these cases as “family matters”.
Sound familiar? Wasn’t that what we used to say about child abuse and violence against women?
Until society class elder abuse in private homes as UNACCEPTABLE and inhuman; this state of affair will continue.
We have a lot more work to do!
I would appreciate information on similar cases. Email me if you have come across similar cases
by Andrew
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