Abuse f*cks up a child's ability to create for themselves their own view of the world and themselves on their own. Rather than having any foundation upon which to build their perception of themselves, they just have what they are told by others. Any attempt to individualize is destroyed. In my opinion it is more or less related to the structure of how a person forms their own complete self and personality. With normal children, they have a normal healthy sense of self and can supply their own interpretation of themselves about themselves, to themselves.
With abused children, they have no sense of self and they derive who they are from their environment. Thus, who they are changes with the people around them. Or, they can only allow certain information to stick, that is, information that is the most common and understood: They are wrong, bad, etc. People with good self esteem and sense of self don't go around saying "I'm good" as much as an abused person attributes everything they are and do with being "Bad", as a person with a good sense of self is generally aware that one isn't fundamentally good or bad, that all they can control is how they act.
With abuse, you feel fundamentally flawed because that is what was told to you. You re-absorb information that meshes with that worldview and reject new, contradictory information because it is literally easier to be a bad person than it is to change your entire perception of yourself, your abuse, of the world, and of practically everything around you in terms of what is good and bad and everything in between. With being "good" comes the expectation that you will remain good, etc. This is generally because of core invalidation which occurs as a child before a child is able to create their own perception of themselves and their world.
And as a result of that, it renders a person basically incapable of perceiving themselves on their own. They constantly look to the outside world for affirmation, for acceptance, and for validation. As a healthy kid, you would have learned how to validate yourself, affirm yourself, and accept yourself. Because you don't know how to do this, the only other option is substituting that with other people's opinions. Thus, your core self is constantly changing with the whims of everyone around you whose opinions may alter on a daily basis.
And, it is what continues the cycle of abuse in terms of revictimization. An abuse victim understands abuse, and understands the views of themselves by an abuser, thus they consistently seek out abusive individuals because those individuals make sense in their distorted worldview and they themselves continue the cycle all on their own. I've rambled on, sorry. Sure none of this is even relevant. Anyway...
