Living with sexual abuse is like having a hungry tiger pacing the rooms of your home and periodically attacking you while bystanders sheepishly look on.
When you get hurt, you believe it’s your fault. You believe you should :
- have kept out of IT sight/smell;
- have been nicer to IT;
- have been able to tame IT;
- not have provocked IT;
- have been quick enough to get the hell out
and the list of reasons why you believe it’s your fault just goes on.
It seems obvious that for many victims of sexual abuse, riding out of the storm is a long and painful journey. And yet, we are extremely demanding of ourselves and expect to get over it in the blink of an eye.
Most of us have trouble standing up for ourselves as we move through life. Other difficulties sometimes encounteered by survivors are (this list is not exhaustive)
Anxiety and/or confusion; panic attacks; fears and phobias
Depression—often including suicidal thoughts or attempts
Low self-esteem—a feeling of being flawed or bad
Shame and guilt—over acts of commission and/or omission
Inability to trust themselves or others
Fear of feelings—a need to control feelings and behavior (their own and others’); compulsive caretaking
Nightmares and flashbacks—intensely arousing recollections
Insomnia—and other sleep disorders
Amnesia—memory loss, forgetting pieces of childhood
Violence—or fear of violence
Discomfort with being touched
Compulsive sexual activity
Sexual dysfunction
Hypervigilance—extreme startle response
Social alienation—feeling isolated and alone
Inability to sustain intimacy in relationships and/or entering abusive relationships in which they are revictimized
Overachievement and/or underachievement/underemployment—feeling like an imposter professionally
As adults, becoming abusers and/or protectors
As adults, becoming victims of other abuse
Having split or multiple personalities—or feeling as though they do
Substance abuse—drugs, alcohol, and so on
Eating disorders
Unrealistic and negative body image—feeling distant from their own bodies
Feeling like a frightened child
Hyperconscious of body and appearance
extract of http://surrealist.org/gurukula/abusesymptoms.html
