Sam Dyson, a millionaire baseball player in America has been accused by his former partner, Alexis Blackburn, of domestic violence. However, she says that “it’s deeper than just physical abuse”. The last straw for Alexis was when Mr Dyson allegedly kicked a cardboard box which was a combination of a cat scratcher and a cat hiding place for her cat companion, Snuckles.
Unfortunately, Snuckles was inside the box when he kicked it and it caused injury to her cat. Alexis posted on social media a statement by her cat from her cat’s point of view:
“This did not need to happen, but it did. The moment I, Snuckles, got involved was the moment mom said goodbye. Love your fur babies enough to do the right thing. At the end of the day we don’t make people do anything. We can’t control their actions and behaviours. What we can control is how we deal with the situation. Mom didn’t allow there to be a second incident because my mum truly loves me enough to say goodbye to toxic behaviour and people.”
Alexis moved out and went to live with her mother taking her cat.
Comment: this appears to be another one of those cases where there is an overlap between abuse and violence against animals and against people. Alexis says that it is more than straightforward physical abuse. I think what she’s alluding to is that she is accusing Mr Dyson of a controlling and abusive attitude towards women. This is my interpretation. It’s not uncommon. As a consequence Alexis found herself apologising to Dyson.
This is another consequence of male control over females in relationships. The woman can end up apologising for what they perceive to be their fault in creating the situation when it is clearly the fault of the man. These men undermine their female partner’s confidence and self-esteem.
“I’ve allowed myself to use the word “sorry” in every conversation whether I did something wrong or not. I’ve allowed myself to ignore red flags and bad in people because I loved them. I’m not ashamed or embarrassed of the current me because I know I didn’t do this to myself. I didn’t make me hate me. But what I can tell my family, friends, and the world is I am on the road to recovery and loving myself.”
In this statement on social media she tells us that Dyson taught her to dislike herself because (and I am assuming this) he controlled and criticised her too many times. She temporarily learned to dislike and blame herself for what was happening in the relationship.
This is very classic of dysfunctional relationships like this one in my view. An interesting aspect of it for me is that, as mentioned, it spilled over into abuse against her cat. It’s not clear whether Dyson knew that Snuckles was inside the box at the time he kicked it but that doesn’t really change anything. He probably did know it and couldn’t stop himself. He probably kicked it to hurt the cat to hurt her. This also is very commonplace in dysfunctional relationships. The man wants to hurt the woman and does so through their cat. The innocent, vulnerable domestic cat once again becomes the brunt of human relationship disputes.
The Daily Mail report indicates that Dyson may be sanctioned by the governing body of the American baseball league (MLB) because they do not tolerate bad behaviour in the players outside of their workplace. I presume that is because it brings the sport into disrepute. At the moment it’s an allegation. That needs to be stressed and the league will investigate. Dyson is what they call a “free agent” baseball player (pitcher). I guess this means that he moves around from team to team filling in a bit like a locum in other professions when regular players are unavailable. He earned close to $14 million over eight Major League seasons with various teams.
With those earnings I have made the reasonable presumption that this man is a millionaire.
