Southwest PA Self-defense Network Blog

Triggers   Have you ever been talking to someone or been around someone and all of a sudden they seem to have a panic or anxiety attack? Sometimes they’ll leave the room or say give me a minute?  Or have you known someone who says mysterious things like I can’t be around guys who wear Old Spice or I can’t stand football players? Or while listening to the radio have you ever known anyone to turn it off suddenly, almost violently and then seemed shaken by the song?  These are examples of triggers.   When someone undergoes a violent or traumatic event such as rape, a car accident, a shooting, a near fatal experience, war, or molestation there are certain things that will cause the victim to remember or relive the original event.  These events are called triggers because they trigger the remembrance or reliving of the event. Psychological and brain chemistry studies have shown that traumatic events are more deeply routed and entangled then happ...

I 've often said that people have a bizarre sense of "fair play" and " I don't want to hurt the bad guy" when it comes to defense. When I was doing research for pepper spray I stumbled upon these two gems.  http://www.pepper-spray-store.com/pages/animal-vs-human-spray When I travel in grizzly bear country, I leave the bear spray at home. In fact, I’ve never even owned a canister of it. My rationale, if you can call it that, is that I would rather be mauled to death by a bear than pepper-spray an animal that has a sense of smell thousands of times greater than my own. Honestly, I simply can’t imagine the agony a bear goes through when it gets a snout full of capsaicin, and I, for one, don’t want to be the person responsible for such pain. and  My sister has jokingly given me the Indian-style name Eaten-By-Bears. I certainly hope this isn’t a prophecy, but if it is, then, well, fair is fair. At least I’ll know I died serving a purpose — helping to fatten a bea...

The single biggest predictor of future behavior and action is past behavior. The one thing that rises to the surface in this article is the idea that she thought " it couldn't happen to her". Unfortunately, this is very common about bad relationships where the girl ( or guy ) feels like they are sooooo special the bad behavior won't be foisted upon them. There are some red flags you shouldn't ignore. Rebecca Degrafreed married her teenage sweetheart,  Tony   Degrafreed , who  spent 12 years in prison for killing his first wife . Police now say he killed Rebecca too. Rebecca was always there for Tony -- reportedly putting her name on his parole papers, picking him up from prison the day he was released, setting up a home for him, and "picking him back up" after he'd done his time. But none of this stopped Tony from allegedly killing Rebecca and stabbing her teenage son  Rebecca, as well as her family, knew about Tony's history. Rebecca was always ...

There's a lot of freight in this story.  1. You can be living your life right and still get targeted for crime. This girl was 16 and working at a coffee shop when the guy fixated on her. 2. She did everything right and yet the justice system has not corrected the situation. Even though he's been arrested, sits in jail and "the system" has done what it is supposed to do, that may not be enough.  3. The callousness of institutions who say "just follow our policies and it will be okay".  4. The catch-22 of "we can't protect you but we will not permit you to protect yourself." 5. The impact of stalking on the average person. This poor girl may have to drop out and change schools in her last year because of the issue.  _________________________________- Over the last four years, I have lived with the constant threat from a stalker – a stalker who is now in jail for the third time for violating a restraining order.  Every day I live with these questi...