Violating
the Sanctity of a Home Invasion
A home is
a castle – a place where you can seek refuge and safety from the outside world
as its walls and other barriers give you the privacy, peace of mind and
intimacy that makes you feel like you can let your guard down and enjoy the
tranquility of the moment inside the comforts of your own home. Theoretically,
nothing should strip you of these pleasures and joys today but in today’s
society, the risks are getting higher you will be victimized sooner or later.
Once you
are victimized, there is much to be said about the impacts of a home invasions occurrence
that will always remain inside your head. A major step in reducing your risk or
anxiety level is to install a burglar alarm system that notifies the police or
security company who owns the equipment.
Psychologically,
a home invasion is detrimental to your faith in society and mankind. It does,
after all is said, strip you bare of your trust in people. Once your protective
barriers, physical or psychologically have been broken or breached, there are
difficult times ahead to regain the trust and intimacy once achieved in your
life before the rude and criminal breach of being tormented and kept hostage
inside your own home.
Psychologically,
the home is a refuge from the outside world and a family’s niche of privacy and
intimacy. Nothing can strip the peace and tranquility that is felt in one’s
home better than a home invasion. It has to be the embodiment of terror and
fear combined. Once the protective emotional barrier has been breached, the
family’s fortress is no longer considered or felt to be a safe haven or
sanctuary like before, and the emotional toll taken from the family can have
far-reaching consequences.
One has
to ask; why me and why my house for this dreadful violation of human decency
and vulnerable emotions? Some would say it is your house’s accessibility and
visibility that made it a target. Perhaps it was your display of your material
possessions tempted or attracted attention for a potential reward by robbing
you of your property or many other valuable things.
Another reason
could be your occupancy as to who lives there with you or perhaps yourself as
you have allowed your routine and habits to be exposed to become a familiar
event to the prospective burglar who allows his own greed to steal from you
what you have. Regardless of what you see or what others think, your
vulnerability is always high and the price you pay once victimized, impacts
your mind in many different ways.
Let’s
start of this discussion that once you are burglarized or terrorized inside
your own home, the loss is not only in the pocketbook as they carry your possessions
away. Home insurance will cover most of your losses but what can’t be recovered
is your trust in people and how you survived a potentially lethal situation
making your materialistic losses seem less unimportant.
Priority should
be in protecting yourself, your family and every occupant inside the house. Steps
should be taken daily to ensure no one is harmed and although a home invasion
begins as a burglary, many botched attempts have turned fatal where hostages were
taken to try to escape from the crime scene and not get caught.
The impact
of such a dramatic event inside your home can last forever. Once your emotions
have been triggered by such a disgusting and vile offense, your sense of trust
will turn into anger, fear, and a gross perception you have been violated in
many ways.
It is not
uncommon to associate panic, shock, and extreme psychological pain to be a part
of an uncontrolled tirade of hateful emotions and ever-lasting post-traumatic
stress symptoms at the most medium to severe levels of distrust and rage often
associated with
Sadly,
whenever such an event takes place, your sense of security is forever impacted
as you become fearful in your own environment or setting you once felt secure
in. the fact you were vulnerable builds a fear inside you it can happen again
and makes you worry more about the future than ever before. Some even turn this
fear into an obsession and change their entire lifestyle to address their
worries or concerns.
Feeling uneasy
inside your own house is natural once you have been violated. The insecurity
will always be there it could happen again and worrying about another break-in
or worse, makes you a nervous wreck to be around, particularly if staying at
home alone is normal or you work late at night and fear another attack on your
privacy or that second home invasion.
Home invasions
are two pronged. One is the kind where they burglarize you when you are not
home and take your possessions but leave behind a mess and signs they violated
your personal and private space. The second means, consider the more risky and
worst feared, is the kind where someone attacks in your home while you or your
family members are there and force their way into the house seeking whatever it
is they want to take. Unfortunately, such invasions usually result in physical
and sexual assaults, serious bodily harm or homicides. These kinds of events occur
much more than we realize.
They could
be armed with knives of guns; they could strong arm you and your family by
threats and physically assaulting you as you attempt to resist. The methods
vary but regardless how it is done, whoever committed this crime is less
concerned about your safety and more concerned about their own not to get
caught so they instill the most fear they are capable of in this critical
period of terror.
This terror
is usually spontaneous and can be twisted in many ways. You may be bound,
gagged or blindfolded to protect the identity of the invaders. There are many
risks involved in such a dreadful scenario and there is no way to prepare
yourself for such a tragic event as they have caught you completely off guard
when they invaded your home.
Quickly after
such an invasion, you become distrustful of all who you don’t know well enough
to vouch for and your attention drifts to wondering who committed the crime, becoming
suspect of even friends and neighbors. This festering distrust could
potentially complicate personal relationships, causing even more stresses for
the victim.
Unfortunately
most people don’t cope very well after being violated. Wrestling with the
psychological after-effects of a home invasion is tough, and some people deal
with the anxiety in many different ways. Some let their anger direct them to
more extreme methods to protect themselves in the future and focus on augmenting
home security measures with steel bars on the doors and windows. Others go as
far as selling their house and moving to a new home and neighborhood to regain
peace of mind. Sadly the effects of this type of crime can be long lasting and
difficult to overcome. It’s not just money and material possessions at stake here;
it could result in the loss of a human life.
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