Child Sexual Abuse: Moving on

Child Sexual Abuse: Moving On

Child sexual abuse is prevalent in our society. It is said that one in six women will be sexually abused and one in thirty-three men will be sexually abused during a lifetime. Of these instances, at least 15% are instances where children were the victims, under age 12. This may be disturbing and disgusting statistical information, but it’s not just statistics, it’s the truth. Child sexual abuse is a problem, and the child must live with it for the rest of their life, whether they choose to or not. Some factors related to child sexual abuse are depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and the medical problems and issues related to the act itself.

Everyone experiences some form of depression during their lifetime, but is it enough to “blank out” and forget certain parts of the past or to relapse and go into a psychotic episode? For people who are victims of child sexual abuse, it might be. Depression is not just a once in a while occurrence, it is an everyday uphill battle for these victims. They are too young to understand at the time what is going on or to see it coming to prevent it. Afterwards, they are distraught and wary of every single thing that may happen or come along in their life. They may no longer do well in school or socialize as before. This is going to change their temperament and these children will forever live in a whole different world. People are going to look at these children as depressed and suffering a problem, but they may never know what really happened or what they can do to stop these depressive modes. Because of this, the child may not know how to handle their depression or adapt to their surrounding and they will always live in a state of sadness and despair. Hope will not be available for children in this mindset.

Another factor to consider is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Lately, people have mostly referred to PTSD associated with military veterans coming back from overseas and fighting in the war, but there are non-veteran victims suffering from PTSD in the United States every day. PTSD is an emotional illness after experiencing a catastrophic event or an unsafe event. Children of sexual abuse will almost always fight PTSD in their coming years. These children may have recurrent dreams or thoughts of the horrible event or they may have nightmares about the event(s) that occurred. They may also develop phobias of people, places, or situations that resulted in the sexual abuse. Children will have trouble sleeping, problems with concentration, anger, and