The Lasting Impact of Sexual Abuse on Our Children

And I can tell you that, unless treated, the emotional scars can last a lifetime.

My clients include women who in their child or teen years were sexually molested or initiated into sex games by their father, an older sibling or relative, neighbor or trusted family friend, coach or other in a position of authority.

In one extreme instance, my client, as a teenager, had been forcefully held captive as a sex slave for five months in another country by someone her parents had trusted in a professional capacity.

In every woman’s case, years of traditional therapy had not erased the pain of recurring nightmares and intrusive memories.

The results are always the same: self-blame, a feeling of isolation and profound damage to the psyche:

Nobody knows what I’ve gone through. Nobody will believe me.

Alcohol and drug abuse often shadow the anger, shame and humiliation of victims. As do broken relationships. Because, sadly, early sexual abuse often repeats as echoes in future romantic betrayals.

We can force our feelings into a box. We can attempt to disconnect our emotions. But the emotional impact doesn’t wear off with time. We lose a sense of our own value.

The long-term effects include chronic nightmares, and post traumatic stress disorder. Sexual abuse renders a person emotionally fragile. Feeling trapped.

Through tears, clients told of feeling disrespected, worthless, degraded, unloved, hurt, scarred, damaged. Angry. Abandoned. Depersonalized. Some had attempted suicide more than once.

Trauma Victims’ Core Issues

In their words . . . from my files:

o Deep inner shame that I did not understand.

o Deep emotional pain, self-hatred because I believed somehow it was all my fault, depression, despair.

o Shame and compulsive thoughts and trying to figure out what I did wrong for him to abuse me so much.

o Regret, failure and beating myself up. Self-hatred for all the mistakes and bad decisions.

o Deep, deep loss. Sadness inside. Overwhelming grief.

o Severe depression, anxiety.

o Feeling unable to cope with life, hopeless, helpless, exhausted and depressed.

o Hopelessness, shame, guilt, regret for all the mistakes.

o I deal with anxiety & panic, also deal with depression and PTSD.

o Feelings of rage, helplessness hate and shame.

o Sleep problems, broken sleep where I don’t sleep through the night. I wake up constantly, have weird dreams etc.

o The anxiety is for me the hardest, or has been, because the symptoms are uncomfortable.

There is hope, however. There is a way out. And that will be the topic of my next post.