#molestor

         Childhood abuse can have a major impact on adult life and well-being of a survivor. The trauma they suffered can impact their lives in many different ways. Most survivors can go on to develop different mental health issues. Here are several ways in which experiences of childhood trauma can affect adult well-being, by the Canadian Mental Health Association:

·        Trust—Abuse may impair your sense that the world is a safe place and impair your ability to trust others. This may be particularly difficult if you had a close relationship with the abuser.

·        Self-esteem—You may blame yourself for the abuse, even though it isn’t your fault. You may have a hard time feeling good about yourself or hopeful about your future.

·        Coping with stress—You may have a lot of negative feelings, which may make it hard to cope with everyday stress.

·        Impulsivity—Impulsivity means acting on urges before thinking through the consequences, which can lead to risky activities.

·        Anger—You may have a hard time controlling your anger.

·        Dissociation—With dissociation, your mind “separates” itself from painful events to protect itself. You may have a hard time remembering what happened, feel like the world around you isn’t real, or feel like you aren’t connected to your body. It’s a common reaction to pain and fear.

·        Self-harm—You may harm yourself, but not intend to end your life. It may be a way to cope with difficult thoughts or feelings.

·        Mental illness—Experiencing childhood sexual abuse does not mean that you will develop a mental illness, but it is one of many risk factors. People who experience childhood sexual abuse may have a higher risk of experiencing anxiety disorders (such as post-traumatic stress disorder), depression, eating disorders, dissociative disorders, and personality disorders.

It is easier to understand why children don’t come forward about the abuse they are facing, but many Childhood Sexual Abuse survivors stay silent about the abuse they faced even when they are adults. They may never disclose the abuse to anyone in their lives. At Psychology Today, Beverly Engel, a counselor, discusses the main reason why victims of CSA may never disclose the abuse:

Confusion

Many former victims of child sexual abuse are confused as to whether they were, in fact, sexually abused. This can be due to a lack of understanding as to what constitutes sexual abuse because many people are misinformed as to what child sexual abuse is. For example, many people think of childhood sexual abuse as an adult having intercourse with a child—penetration of a penis inside a vagina or in the case of male on male sexual abuse, a male penetrating the child’s anus. But most childhood sexual abuse does not involve intercourse. Also, many people think of childhood sexual abuse as being an adult molesting a child. But childhood sexual abuse also includes an older child molesting a younger child. Child sexual abuse includes any contact between an adult and a child or an older child and a younger child for the purposes of sexual stimulation that results in sexual gratification for the older person. This can range from non-touching offenses, such as exhibitionism and showing child pornography, to fondling and oral sex, to penetration and child prostitution.

Another issue that may add to the confusion is the issue of receiving pleasure. Although there is often physical pain involved with child sexual abuse, that isn’t always the case. For some victims, there is no physical pain at all. And victims have often reported experiencing some physical pleasure, even with the most violent and sadistic types of sexual abuse. This confuses victims, causing them to believe that perhaps they gave consent or may have even instigated the sexual involvement. The reasoning goes like this, “If my body responded (through a pleasurable sensation, an orgasm, and an erection) it must mean that I wanted it.”

It is very important to understand that experiencing physical pleasure does not signify consent. Our bodies are created to respond to physical touch, no matter who is doing the touching. And many victims of abuse were so deprived of affection that they spontaneously accept and respond to any physical attention, no matter what its source.

Another reason why many questions whether they were really abused is that they may not have a clear memory of what happened. They may have only vague memories or no memories at all, just a strong suspicion based on their feelings and perhaps their symptoms. It’s difficult to believe your feelings when you have no or very few actual memories. Some people will even doubt the memories they do have, fearing that “I’m just imagining” or “I’m making this up.”

         As per First 5 Los Angeles, here is how communication is key in the prevention of Child Sexual Abuse:

         "Child sexual abuse is pervasive, but hidden," said Joan Cole Duffell, Executive Director of the nonprofit Committee for Children. "Yet research shows that the best way to protect children from sexual abuse is to bring it out of the shadows. If we can break the taboo of talking about it, we will take away the offenders' best defense: secrecy."

The Committee for Children recently launched #KeepKidsSafe, a campaign to educate people on the importance of having open communication with children, even very young kids, to decrease their vulnerability to abuse."We've learned that people have a hard time talking about child sexual abuse, so much so that it is vastly unreported — and yet mental health and child protection professionals agree that it's common and represents a serious national problem," continued Duffell.

Research shows that the greatest risk of sexual crimes against a child often comes at the hands of someone they know, and not typically a stranger. In fact, studies show that 93 percent of victims know their abusers, 34 percent are abused by family members and 59 percent are abused by someone their family trusts.Dr. Lori Vollandt, a coordinator of Health Education Programs with the Los Angeles Unified School District, said no child is immune from child abuse, as it affects kids of every gender, age, race, ethnicity, background, socioeconomic status, and family structure.

“Our first job in life is keeping kids safe and healthy," said Vollandt. "We teach them how to be safe about crossing the street or about using a bicycle helmet and talking to them about sexual abuse helps protect them, too. Los Angeles parents want to do the right thing, but many aren’t sure how. That’s why these Keep Kids Safe resources are so great — they show parents how to start that conversation.”

Communicate Often and Early is the Key to Prevent Child Sexual Abuse:

·        It's never too early to begin a conversation with children on this important subject.

·        Encourage children to share their feelings, concerns, and problems.

·        Explain to children that no one has the right to touch them in a way that makes them uncomfortable, including adults whom they know and trust.

·        Teach children that it’s a parent or caregiver’s job to protect them and that they can only protect them if they tell them when something is wrong.

·        Explain that people who hurt children may tell the child to keep it a secret and threaten to hurt the child or their parents if the child shares the secret. Teach children that adults who say that are wrong and that a child can share anything with a parent.

·        Make sure children understand that if someone does make them feel uncomfortable or confused, no one will blame them.

Recovery expert, Sharie Stines shares 5 steps that can help survivors overcome the impact of the trauma. Here is what Stines suggests:

·        Break your silence

The saying, “you’re as sick as your secrets” definitely applies to childhood sexual abuse.  Children and adults who have been subjected to the dishonorable experience of having an adult use them for their sexual gratification, have no desire, ever, to tell anyone of their secret, because of their deep-seated feelings of shame and humiliation.  However, the only way to heal from this horrendous crime is for the victim to “find her voice.”

·        Journal

Write often about how you have been personally affected by the abuse. List how you were betrayed by those who were supposed to protect you and nurture you.List and describe the different ways you suffered and what you lost because of the abuse. It is important to assess and face the damage in order to heal.

·        Face the Shame

There is great healing to be found in facing the shame your perpetrator put on you; talk about it, and place it off yourself and back on the shoulders of the person responsible for abusing you.  Facing your shame and giving it back to your abuser (figuratively) helps you embrace your vulnerability and see yourself in a new light.

·        Grieve your losses

In order to recover from abuse, it is necessary to fully discover and complete the pain caused by your losses.  You may feel many losses from being abused, such as, a loss of safety, comfort, innocence, trust, a childhood; a loss of being seen, known, and valued, etc. Think specifically about how your life has been impacted by abuse and write each loss, fully allowing yourself to grieve.  Write about how you’ve been betrayed. Share your experience with a safe listening partner.

·        Be Compassionate with yourself

·        Feelings of shame subside.

Keeping trauma a secret can reinforce the feeling that there's something shameful about what happened—or even about oneself on a more fundamental level. We might believe that others will think less of us if we tell them about our traumatic experience.

When we tell our story and find support instead of shame or criticism, we discover we have nothing to hide. You might even notice a shift in your posture over time—that thinking about or describing your trauma no longer makes you feel like cowering physically and emotionally. Instead, you can hold your head high, both literally and figuratively.

·        Unhelpful beliefs about the event are corrected.

Many people experience shifts in their beliefs about themselves, other people, and the world following a traumatic event. For example, a person might think they're weak because of what happened, or those other people can never be trusted. When we keep the story inside, we tend to focus on the parts that are most frightening or that make us feel self-critical.

I've often been struck during my work with trauma survivors by the power of simply telling one's story to shift these unhelpful beliefs. These shifts typically don't require heavy lifting by the therapist to help the trauma survivor recognize the distorted beliefs. Instead, there's something about opening the book of one's trauma memory and reading it aloud, "from cover to cover," that exposes false beliefs.

Telling the trauma story to a supportive therapist is one of the key components of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), which is one of the most effective treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I recently explored the latest findings on PTSD treatment research with psychologist Dr. Mark Powers, Director of Trauma Research at Baylor Scott and White Health.

·        The memory becomes less triggering.

Revisiting a trauma memory can be very upsetting, triggering strong emotional and physical reactions and even flashbacks to the event. Those reactions can stay in place for years if we have unprocessed trauma memories, especially when we're trying to avoid thinking about the trauma.

Through retelling the story of what happened, we find that our distress about it goes down. The first time, it's likely to be very upsetting, even overwhelming, and we might think we'll never be able to tolerate the memory. With repeated retelling to people who love and care about us, though, we find the opposite—that the memory no longer grips us. As Dr. Powers noted, we find that the memory no longer controls us. It will never be a pleasant memory, of course, but it won't have the same raw intensity that it once had.

·        You find a sense of mastery.

As we talk about our trauma, we find that we're not broken. In fact, as Dr. Powers pointed out, we can come to see that our reactions to trauma actually make sense. For example, it's understandable that our nervous systems are on high alert since they're working to protect us from similar dangers in the future.

“Cognitive and language deficits in abused children have been noted clinically (Augoustinos, 1987; Azar et al., 1988; Fantuzzo, 1990; Kolko, 1992). Abused and neglected children with no evidence of neurological impairment have also shown delayed intellectual development, particularlyin the area of verbal intelligence (Augoustinos, 1987). Some studies have found lowered intellectual functioning and reduced cognitive functioning in abused children (Hoffman-Plotkin and Twentyman, 1984; Perry et al., 1983). However, others have not found differences in intellectual and cognitive functioning, language skills, or verbal ability (Alessandri, 1991; Allen and Oliver, 1982; Elmer, 1977; Lynch and Roberts, 1982).

         Problematic school performance (e.g., low grades, poor standardized test scores, and frequent retention in grade) is a fairly consistent finding in studies of physically abused and neglected children (Eckenrode et al., 1991; Salzinger et al., 1984; Wolfe and Mosk, 1983), with neglected children appearing the most adversely affected. The findings for sexually abused children are inconsistent.

Dodge and colleagues (1990) found that physically harmed 4-year-old children showed deviant patterns of processing social information, related to aggressive behavior, at age 5. Physically harmed children (relative to nonphysically harmed children) were significantly less attentive to social cues, more inclined to attribute hostile intent, and less able to manage personal problems. They explain possible cognitive deficits in abused and neglected children by suggesting that physical abuse affects the development of social-information-processing patterns, which in turn lead to chronic aggressive behavior. The experience of severe physical harm is associated with the "acquisition of a set of biased and deficient patterns of processing social provocation information" (p. 1679).

Differences in findings on the cognitive and intellectual consequences of childhood maltreatment may be related to the failure to control for important variables, such as socioeconomic status, and the lack of statistical power of small sample sizes.2 Other possible explanations for the inconsistencies in this literature are the tendency of earlier studies to aggregate different types of maltreatment (which may mask different consequences associated with specific forms of child maltreatment) or the inclusion of children who had neurological dysfunction, to begin with (which can dramatically influence cognitive and intellectual performance). More recent studies have excluded children with obvious neurological impairments. Yet maltreatment, especially early maltreatment, can cause injury to the central nervous system that results in future cognitive impairments (Lewis and Shanok, 1977).

Many childhood sexual abuse survivors cannot understand the importance of facing the trauma that resulted from an event that took place years ago. Revisiting the trauma and memories of that event can throw their life back into turmoil, making it difficult for them to function in their daily life, for this reason many survivors avoid getting any help in later years of life. But healing is more than just a possibility. Once a person can see the effect the abuse has had on their life and themselves, even unconsciously. Survivors can bring themselves to make the active decision to deal with their trauma and heal from it.

         The process of healing from childhood sexual abuse trauma is divided into many stages. The Emergency stage follows after the survivor has taken the decision to resolve and heal from the trauma and abuse. The Emergency stage can be the most difficult part of recovery, when survivors have to bring up suppressed memories and feelings in order to process what they had gone through. It is important for survivors to remember that this stage is only a stage, it will pass over the course of time. Many survivors, who had adopted the defense mechanism of suppression, can start to doubt if the abuse really took place or not. Accepting the trauma took place in real life and the emotions were real as well, is an essential part of healing.