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how can abuse affect me?
A history of child abuse and neglect can impact on an adult's quality of life in fundamental ways. It can make basic day-to-day activities, such as eating, sleeping, working and study, very difficult. Child abuse and neglect can also effect your mental health, physical health, and your relationships with the people around you.
Survivors are often out of touch with their feelings - confused by emotions or reactions they cannot explain. They have often been raised in environments in which a child’s normal expressions of upset or discomfort were punished or ignored. They may have been taught to attribute the negative emotions associated with abuse, such as shame and anger, towards themselves, rather than towards their abusers. This confusion often persists into adult life, resulting in heightened experiences of:
- Anxiety
- Grief and sadness
- Shame, self blame and guilt
- Alienation
- Helplessness, hopelessness and powerlessness
Like everyone, survivors have a right to “a life worth living” (Linehan 1993), but instead survivors often live with chronic distress and pain. For many survivors, these emotions are such a basic part of their day-to-day life that they don’t realise that there are alternatives. They may try to regulate their emotions through alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling, or other compulsive behaviours. Many survivors also cut or burn themselves out of despair.
Learning about emotions – what they are, where they come from, and how to respond to them – is a crucial part of building a worthwhile life. Survivors can learn new, effective ways of regulating the intensity of their feelings, so that they don’t need to use alcohol or drugs and/or cut to express their emotions. For many survivors, learning about the psychological impacts of abuse helps to clarify why they have struggled for so long, and how they are going to move forward.
Acknowledging these feelings, understanding where they come from and why they are so intense is an important part of any survivor’s journey.
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Survivors often find it difficult to trust. As children they might have been betrayed by the very adults who were meant to nurture and protect them. As a result, survivors often find it difficult to form and sustain relationships. A large survey of adult survivors of child abuse in Australia found that survivors had a higher rate of failed relationships and marriages, and reported lower levels of social interaction (Draper, Pirkis et al. 2008).
When children are abused they come to believe the messages their abusers deliver, such as: 'You are worthless' and 'You have no value'. Of course, these messages are not true, but children naturally accept the messages that adults pass on. These messages become internalised so that, when a child who has been abused grows up, the adult survivor will often experience feelings of low self-worth or poor self-confidence. Rebuilding self-esteem is a gradual process, but a crucial one.
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Childhood abuse doesn’t just affect the mind - it affects the body too. Children who feel perpetually in danger grow up with a heightened stress response. This in turn heightens their emotions, makes it difficult to sleep, lowers immune function, and, over time, increases the risk of a number of physical illnesses. Adult survivors of child abuse are at increased risk of chronic pain and fibromylgia, gynaecological problems, irritable bowel syndrome, diabetes, arthritis, headaches, cardiovascular disease, and chronic fatigue syndrome. Adult survivors of child abuse are also more likely to smoke and drink more than other people in the community, and be less physically active. These factors all impact on the burden of ill health in many survivors’ lives.
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