NOT INADEQUATE / A Post about Self-Defense and Abuse

Can you help share the details about my mom's debut middle grade book Bad Fairy on your blog or Facebook? The post won't include an article but rather be a book blast consisting of the cover, blurb, links, excerpt, my mom's bio, and a giveaway. Dates June 3 - June 30.

***This is long. Feel free to skip the excerpts.***

Someone once said that Beth Kennedy (in Hurricane Crimes) wasn’t a very adequate self-defense instructor and all because Donovan had bested her a couple of times.

(Don’t worry…this is not me attacking a reviewer but discussing my characters and real abuse/sexual assault.)

Let me make it clear that Donovan was never trying to hurt Beth. In fact, she was the one attempting to hurt him. When I wrote Donovan, I wanted him to be a good match for Beth in every way. And, for the sake of the story, I couldn’t let Beth get away. It was intentional, not a failing on her part.

Excerpts from Hurricane Crimes:

#1:

Beth blinked at the green needles and thick nest of branches that completely blocked the doorway. Then, without wasting another second, she jabbed her elbow into Donovan’s stomach. He grunted, but he didn’t release her. She started to thrash wildly.

“Beth, stop! If I wanted you dead, I wouldn’t have saved you just now.” His arms locked around her to silence her struggles.

“You would’ve if you wanted to kill me yourself!”

“Beth, do you realize you can’t go anywhere?” 

She had, but her survival instincts were telling her to fight. She tried twice as hard to get free. Therefore, she bit his hand.

“Damn it, Beth!” He rolled until he was on top of her and pinned her down. “I am not a murderer! I have never murdered anyone in my life!”

“And I’m supposed to believe you?” She bucked beneath him.

“Stop!” He grabbed her shoulders. “I don’t want to…” She flinched in pain and a whimper escaped her lips. “…hurt you.”

His gaze lowered to her left shoulder. She held still, debating whether or not she should bite him again, as he tentatively pulled down the collar to her shirt and looked at the ugly bruise already blooming in purples and reds.

#2:

She heard a soft footfall directly behind her and whirled around, wielding the heavy candlestick holder. Donovan caught her wrist in his hand before she could bash in his head. Not missing a beat, she thrust her knee up to ram it into his groin. He anticipated the move and cupped the back of her knee in a tight grip that halted her attempt to cripple him. Then in a swift movement, he swept her off her feet, flattened her back to the bed, straddled her, and pinned her arms above her head.

“Do you really think you’re safer outside with Hurricane Sabrina than inside with me?” Donovan demanded. She would’ve given him an answer, but he didn’t wait for her to reply. “I am not a killer! An hour ago, I walked in on my brother’s murder.”

Her brain had to reconfigure to understand the words he had said. “What?!”

~*~

For years, that person’s opinion stuck with me.

In Seismic Crimes I even wrote a scene in response to it.

~*~

Excerpt from Seismic Crimes:

“I was up against you, and you apparently had a chance,” she said with a bite to her words.

His lips spread. “I’m a different kind of man.”

“You certainly are,” she mumbled. She picked up a can of disinfectant to spray down the mat but paused in her chores with a hand on her hip. “How exactly did you stop my attempts to hit you?”

“I knew what you were going to do a second before you did.”

She glowered. “Don’t let anyone know that, or I’d be out of a job.”

“Any other man, baby, and you definitely would’ve crushed his nuts and beaten the crap out of him with that candlestick holder.”

“You pinned me on the floor.”

Donovan thought back. After he yanked her into her house, seconds before a tree crashed onto the welcome mat, he had rolled her beneath him to stop her struggles. He nodded once. “I did.”

Her maple eyes darkened. “I know how to get out of that hold. I teach people how to get out of that hold.”

“Beth.” He took her shoulders in his hands. “I was prepared for you to fight me. I pushed my body weight onto your hips so you wouldn’t be able to pivot me off you. My brother did martial arts for years and taught me everything he knew. I knew what I was doing. Don’t think just because you couldn’t get away from me, or hit me, makes you an inadequate self-defense instructor. We both know that’s not true.”

Beth looked up at him. “I appreciate that.”

~*~

Self-defense instructors are human. Even with all of their knowledge and skills, they can still be injured, outsmarted, and abused. Even Supergirl gets beaten, wounded, and loses fights. Heck, so does Superman! And Batman!

~*~

SPOILERS: In Seismic Crimes, Beth tackles a man about to impale Donovan with a sharp rock and gets clobbered in the face in return. She stays conscious long enough to call for help. In Tsunami Crimes, she is kidnapped and attempts to get free, but she’s up against five men who restrain her. She manages to break out of her confinement, using her self-defense skills, and almost escapes before getting shot. However, it’s her quick-thinking even then that gets her rescued. In Flaming Crimes, she’s nabbed again but gets away moments later. She runs and hides in the way she teaches her students to do. And in Frozen Crimes…well…she uses mental strength rather than physical strength to survive.

~*~

For everything Beth does right, her opponents also do something against her. She’s not fighting a dummy or a punching bag or in a safe environment where everyone is wearing protection. These are actual dangerous situations with men of equal or greater strength, who also have weapons.

It’s a sad fact that people who know proper self-defense, athletes, and even women who can kick a man’s butt in the boxing ring can still be abused or sexually assaulted. This is not a failing on their part, either. The problem lies with the abusers, with the very fact that they do these things. When someone is attacked in this way, they can freeze up. All of their self-defense knowledge can vanish. Their fight-or-flight instinct may not even kick into gear. They can become paralyzed. Calling them inadequate would be wrong.

While writing more books in the Disaster Crimes series and especially while creating Amanda (first introduced in Flaming Crimes), who was deeply abused in a past relationship, I did research on sexual assault survivors. I used that information while writing Book 6, Thorn’s story.

Check Out: Whatever Gets You Through: Twelve Survivors on Life after Sexual Assault

Amanda is Beth’s assistant at The Fighting Chance. Not only do the two of them teach people how to defend themselves and give them confidence that translates to other areas of their lives, but they give survivors (like Amanda) a much-needed outlet.

Amanda is an assistant self-defense instructor and a domestic abuse survivor. She’s bad ass and yet fragile.

Beth is a self-defense instructor and a survivor of kidnapping, multiple disasters, and a GSW. She’s bad ass and HUMAN.

They’re my heroines of steel not because they can’t be hurt or fail but because, with all I throw at them, they SURVIVE.

Beth is not inadequate in any way. Not when a bad guy fills her with fear or hurts her, not even in Hurricane Crimes when Donovan anticipated her moves.

And Amanda isn’t inadequate, either. Not when she has panic attacks or sets Home Alone-inspired traps up in her house, not even when her ex comes to terrorize her.

If you’ve ever been in any sort of situation like them, whether you know self-defense or not, whether you used those skills or not, you’re not inadequate, and it’s not your fault.

You’re a survivor.

You’re steel.