To be so upset about Arthur is it normal

[Onthedowns]

I just cannot stop crying. I know it's another thread but listening to those recordings of that poor boy i have been physically sick and so upset. I have cuddled my children so hard. I came from an abusive background but nothing like him.

I feel completely irrational

Coupled with covid what has happened to society 😔

Rabbit hole is it exactly. It's like my brain seizes hold of it again and wills the outcome to be different. As the mum of a little blonde 3-year-old boy it's like it's tapped into some intrusive primal desire to protect a child for whom it's too late.

I feel the same. It was psychological torture and they did it to get off on it. I just can't get past how hopeless he felt. If I were that hairdresser he would not have left with them. They've proven (especially her) what cowards they are so they wouldn't have called the Police.

What purpose do you think all this crying and grieving is going to serve? Does it he!p Arthur? Does it help other children who are / will no doubt come after him? There are lots of arthur's. They're in every city village and town all over the country!

Your performative grieving is just that. It helps nothing or no one!
This awful.episode will be forgotten in a few months.,- until t happens again. and the grief vampires appear again on forums like this and Facebook to repeat the same meaningless drival. For God sake have some decency. and afford the poor soul some dignity in death. and stop with these threads.

Slow hand clap for you.

You're right. Best nobody mentions it and pretends it never happened, because god forbid someone creates a thread that gets on your nerves @Drumshambo.

Is performative haranguing a thing?

@FourTeaFallOut

I don't think reading it is enough

Is enough to achieve what? What does it serve?

Perhaps to realise the full impact of child abuse. Unfortunately making a child feel like not a single person in the world loves them is not that unusual. Even the police stated that usually they can have some emotional distance from how horrific it is for a child to be abused but the recordings in this case made that impossible, they saw and had to comprehend the full horror that Arthur did, how it actually felt, how much pain he was in, physical and emotional, not just deal dispassionately with facts about what happened as they usually do.

I think that is why the case has had such a strong reaction. And that would be the biggest way to honour Arthur and his suffering and bravery: if the general public became so outraged that this is allowed to happen that this abuse is stamped out. That we all demand that child services are funded properly and the thresholds for intervention changed to ensure that this doesn't keep happening, over and over.

That is why it is in the public interest to make the videos public: in the hope it may force changes to ensure that no more children have to suffer what he did, with nobody helping them despite repeatedly telling adults that he was in danger.

@GetTheFlockOutOfHere

You do sound a BIT over invested though *@Onthedowns*

"Overinvested" in being upset by and wanting to stop child abuse?? How could that be possible?

I think sometimes, for whatever reason, there are news stories that haunt you. For me it was the Delhi bus gang rape. I remember feeling sick and horrified for weeks, had to keep turning off the news. Kept thinking of that poor woman and all she endured and her fiance being almost beaten to death. Just horrendous. There was no reason for me to be particularly afflicted by that story, I just was. I think occasionally it happens. It strikes a nerve and haunts you. I did eventually get over it

Lots of competitive sneering on this thread.

Or even performative sneering!

I haven't read anything about Arthur beyond the original story but I do think having it in the news, quite graphically and in a way that we cannot ignore, is helpful to remind us ALL of our duty towards children. Eg if one of us found ourselves in that hairdresser's situation we would now know what action to take.

@Drumshambo

What purpose do you think all this crying and grieving is going to serve? Does it he!p Arthur? Does it help other children who are / will no doubt come after him? There are lots of arthur's. They're in every city village and town all over the country!

Your performative grieving is just that. It helps nothing or no one!
This awful.episode will be forgotten in a few months.,- until t happens again. and the grief vampires appear again on forums like this and Facebook to repeat the same meaningless drival. For God sake have some decency. and afford the poor soul some dignity in death. and stop with these threads.

But YOU are on Arthur's thread!

Can you not see the irony there, putting yourself 'Above' those who are struggling to understand how on earth it had happened?
How do you know what others are feeling?

Why attempt to belittle their upset?

I think it's right that the video is out there for people to see. We shouldn't be able to shy away from the reality of his tragic life. To those saying to respect his privacy... Do you think he wanted or needed privacy?? He needed that shouting from the rooftops, he was crying out for help.
Shocking videos and media awareness is what drives change. Look at the George Floyd case, the video was so impactful it created a slogan that went worldwide 'I can't breathe' and caused widespread protests.
'we love you Arthur' has come from that video, yes it's fucking awful, but it has made people pay attention to the cruel reality of what went on. His face is being displayed at football matches, he is being talked about all over social media and the news, people are aware! It has shocked me to the very core and I have been able to think of little else over the last week. But no amount of my suffering or 'performative grief' comes close to what that poor boy endured. The more awareness there is the more likely people are to spot signs of abuse, the more closely a school night monitor that worrying pupil, the less likely a social worker will be to trust a manipulative parent, the list goes on.

You are not alone OP. I try and avoid tragedies in the news, but Arthur and the Star Hobson case have utterly depressed me. I feel like my outlook, views of humans and the world have changed. I can't help it, along with covid it feels like the end of days. Dark I know, but there's something about these cases that has hurt my soul. Sorry if that sounds dramatic but there it is.

@Drumshambo

What purpose do you think all this crying and grieving is going to serve? Does it he!p Arthur? Does it help other children who are / will no doubt come after him? There are lots of arthur's. They're in every city village and town all over the country!

Your performative grieving is just that. It helps nothing or no one!
This awful.episode will be forgotten in a few months.,- until t happens again. and the grief vampires appear again on forums like this and Facebook to repeat the same meaningless drival. For God sake have some decency. and afford the poor soul some dignity in death. and stop with these threads.

Get lost. Why do you care that others are grieving, would you rather their forgotten? Bizarre take from you.

You say op isn't helping children- what have you done, other than upset others?

@Drumshambo

What purpose do you think all this crying and grieving is going to serve? Does it he!p Arthur? Does it help other children who are / will no doubt come after him? There are lots of arthur's. They're in every city village and town all over the country!

Your performative grieving is just that. It helps nothing or no one!
This awful.episode will be forgotten in a few months.,- until t happens again. and the grief vampires appear again on forums like this and Facebook to repeat the same meaningless drival. For God sake have some decency. and afford the poor soul some dignity in death. and stop with these threads.

How can it be performance grief when people are posting on an anonymous forum? I’ve posted on threads like this because I feel so heartbroken over what’s happened to the little boy. You can’t avoid these stories in the news. I keep seeing the look on his face in that room at 1am in the morning all alone and I can’t forget it.

There needs to be outcry over things like this because maybe then there will be more pressure on the powers that be to do something about it. That little boy bravely spoke out at what was going on at home. He spoke out and the people in authority didn’t listen to him. I’m upset, partly because I have a boy the same age as Arthur and if I want to speak to others who feel the same way then I will.

I think the issue with those on here that think it's 'performance grief' don't understand it because they don't feel the same strength/depth of feeling. But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist or is an act just because YOU (the ones harangueing) have different feelings/perspective. It's like accusing people in lots of situations in life that their experience or perspective is attention seeking or an act just because it's an experience you've never had! Ridiculous!

@PoleFairy

I think sometimes, for whatever reason, there are news stories that haunt you. For me it was the Delhi bus gang rape. I remember feeling sick and horrified for weeks, had to keep turning off the news. Kept thinking of that poor woman and all she endured and her fiance being almost beaten to death. Just horrendous. There was no reason for me to be particularly afflicted by that story, I just was. I think occasionally it happens. It strikes a nerve and haunts you. I did eventually get over it

For me, it was baby p and the fact they broke his spine and paralysed him. And then sat him in a buggy so the social workers wouldn’t know.

For some reason it haunted me, it still haunts me. I didn’t cry or start telling millions of people I was crying, but in amongst the avalanche of cruelty that child endured, much of it just as bad or worse, for some reason paralysing him just absolutely haunted and still haunts me.

I think for many of us there is one thing that strikes such a chord of absolute horror in us, that we struggle to get past it.

@Bluntness100 I didn't know that about baby P, that really is just so awful.

It resonated with me when you said be that certain things haunt you, I feel like some things are so horrific that it's incomprehensible that they were caused by another human. Humans are meant to feel compassion, to nurture young people, not break them.

What haunts me is Arthur's voice saying no one loved him, no one is going to feed him. No child should ever feel like that.

It is awful, awful, awful OP and I also can’t stop thinking about him and wishing something could have been done to save him.

I also didn’t know that about poor baby Peter. I will say, though, I personally am much more affected and upset by these stories since I had my own son. I don’t know how anyone could do it to a defenceless child. I know from the news that domestic violence soared during the lockdowns (which is heinous) but I can’t get my head around it.

I am haunted most by those cries, and the fact he was constantly wearing those pyjamas. I think what makes it harder for me to deal with is that he had a good life with his grandparents previously, you can see he was well looked after. It must have been brutally hard for him to endure that knowing his loving family were so near but he couldn't get to them.That poor poor boy.

@Mufasa1118

It's awful and wrong on every level and I have felt so sad for him.

This is just my own opinion - dont flame me. I also have sympathy for her. She probably had an awful life, had a cruel life, had her kids taken off her and She was mentally ill.
Prison is the right place for her

Best not to flame you. You simply don’t understand what you are saying. If you did, you wouldn’t come out with this nonsense.

The videos being out there a are a good thing. Hopefully Emma and Thomas’ new friends in prison have seen them too.

@Drumshambo

What purpose do you think all this crying and grieving is going to serve? Does it he!p Arthur? Does it help other children who are / will no doubt come after him? There are lots of arthur's. They're in every city village and town all over the country!

Your performative grieving is just that. It helps nothing or no one!
This awful.episode will be forgotten in a few months.,- until t happens again. and the grief vampires appear again on forums like this and Facebook to repeat the same meaningless drival. For God sake have some decency. and afford the poor soul some dignity in death. and stop with these threads.

Do you really think that people aren’t allowed to vent their feelings on here just because you don’t agree with them? Women post on mumsnet for many reasons and to vent our feelings about this utter tragedy isn’t a competition, it’s a human reaction to an inhuman tragedy.