Childhood Why Is Childhood Sexual Abuse Damaging ?

[ghotiff]

The next step in my healing journey seems to be stuck on this point.... That I don't understand the "why" of why being sexually abused as a child is damaging.

My second abuser (outside the home) was not violent, he emotionally trapped me and then sexually abused me for years. The level of sexual abuse wasn't even that bad (no penetration etc). I hated it but at the beginning I thought he loved me.

I just keep getting stuck on this point of "why" or "how" does this cause my adult problems. I know it has, I just don't understand why.

Any insights would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Lucycat]

In my opinion it as about damage of trust and confusion of perspective. You thought you were loved and maybe you were but it felt wrong.

It is about the fact that you could not understand or work out what any of it meant. As a child you are constantly seeking meaning in all things. Here it gets lost. You are therefore confused. It doesn't feel right. But you feel loved and maybe love the person back. You think it should be ok but are not sure.

I am only surmising but I think it is this total confusion and internal contradiction that causes the damage.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

At what age were you abused? My abuse was at age 3-4, which is when a child forms a sense of safety with the world. Hence why I have ongoing safety issues, and am guessing that I will have them for life.

 

[ghotiff]

Thanks for you replies. I can't write much right now but to answer your question....

I am a bit unclear on when the first abuser started but he stopped when I was 7 (went to jail), I think he started at 5 or 6. Probably 6 yrs old.

My second abuser had regular access to me from 6 and was definitely abusing from 10 to 15 yrs old. I would guess he started at 8, but maybe he started at 6, I doubt I will ever know.

 

[In Exile]

Yup, from what I understand that causes a lot of problems. My sisters were molested a little older than that, my older problem raped me when I was 12ish and my father would tell me about what he did with my sister, in full detail around the same time.

That's caused enough problems.

Everything suggests that the younger the abuse starts, the worse.

 

[digger]

Confused why this was moved from the 'sexual abuse' forum?? Did you ask for it to be moved @ghotiff ? :confused:

Anyway, some thoughts... I think in some ways, although the damage was done at the time, it is when you recognise that it was abuse when you are older that is damaging too. That is I think when it had more impact for/on me and when it affected my life and how I live more.

As a child you don't really recognise what is being done to you. When you look back as a teenager or adult, you realise all the complexities between right and wrong. What and who you've learned to trust, you realise you couldn't/shouldn't trust. So how do you know now who to trust? The time for learning that was messed up. How do you form healthy relationships when the guidance you've had in that is so flawed?

When you look back and realise the reality of things and how unsafe and unprotected you were - how do you know what is safe now.

We learn so much as children. Our lives are built on what we learn then, so if those foundations are skewed, everything built on top of it is skewed too.

 

[ghotiff]

@digger your reply is very interesting and I will need more time to digest it.

Your comment
" it is when you recognise that it was abuse when you are older that is damaging too"

It was when I was 10 that I understood that it wasn't just me and that it was abuse. I still remember how much that hurt.

After thinking more about @soleras reply I have realized that a critical point for me was that there were two of them and they were unrelated (knew nothing of each other). I always felt I was a target? That I was more at risk than the average girl. I was also the confident in my early teens with many girls coming and telling me their sexual abuse problems so I saw the risks of being a girl very clearly.

Thanks everyone, this is really helping me. More comments are greatly appreciated.

 

[Hope4Now]

My abuse story is complicated (long repressed memories emerging in middle age). What happened to me started when I was very young. The issue now (aside from flashbacks, chronic pain, and a multitude of other confusing and disturbing symptoms that have sent my life into a big overwhelming mess) is that I dissociated the experiences. Pretty much completely. For most of my life. Went into survival mode, probably as an infant, and am just now starting to process it all at 50 years old. I somehow separated my body and emotions from my "self." In spite of having built a quite good life for myself on the outside, I'm stuck being a child on many ways on the inside. Deeply confused about who I am, never feeling fully relaxed or safe (although nobody really knows that). I rarely feel connected to my body in the present, or to my experiences. I think that part is called depersonalization. My own life has never felt "real" to me. I go through the motions, do what I'm supposed to do. I do feel love and joy and grief and sorrow, but in a pretty controlled way that I don't quite understand yet. I've just begun talking to my husband of many years about all this. He's having a lot of "Oh, now I get it" moments, particularly with regard to our sexual relations, but also in relation to how I get overwhelmed, how I isolate myself, why I intellectualize everything, etc.

All of this is to say that I think any kind of abuse is damaging to one's sense of self and place in the world until it gets processed with a proper trauma therapist. Sexual abuse seems particularly damaging because of its intimacy. It violates everything. And all abuse is "violent"--even if it isn't violent physically in the common sense of the word, it is deeply violent emotionally. Try not to undermine yourself or minimize what happened to you.

 

[anthony]

Confused why this was moved from the 'sexual abuse' forum??

Because it is childhood trauma. Childhood trauma discussion belongs in this forum. Whether it be sexual abuse, torture, emotional abuse, so forth... childhood trauma.

 

[digger]

Thanks for the clarification. Is the 'sexual abuse' forum only for adult sexual abuse now then? Apologies for the confusion, but when it was merged from being a separate forum it was for all sexual abuse and so is where I've continued posting.

 

[anthony]

Pretty much, you could say that, as there is a childhood forum for all childhood trauma discussion. Again though, if you got sexually abused as a child it does not mean everything goes in here, but only specifics to childhood trauma.

 

[digger]

Again though, if you got sexually abused as a child it does not mean everything goes in here, but only specifics to childhood trauma.

More confused than I was before now. Can you give an example? What things related to being sexually abused as a child don't go in here?

Are all the previous posts that are already there (the sexual abuse forum) that relate to child sexual abuse being moved over to here?

Apologies @ghotiff - I should probably have asked this somewhere else.