FOR MANY VICTIMS OF CHILDHOOD SEXUAL ABUSE LIFE BECOMES A GAME OF RUSSIAN ROULETTE

Revictimization is critical to the issue of Childhood Sexual Abuse (CSA). The high rate of revictimization among women who have been sexually abused is well documented in the research literature. Emotional, physical, and sexual abuse continue into adulthood and sometimes into marriage. Life choices become a game of Russian roulette. The abuse continues to happen, always involving a trusted someone, but in a situation where the individual fears for their life.

If you have been reading the material posted, you know it is impossible to truly assess the long term effects of childhood sexual abuse. Most victims, never say anything, ever. It is a deep, dark, secret trauma. Some victims speak out, when they are older, but rarely ever when they were being abused as a child.

The funny thing is what may look like a “normal” child may not be a “normal” child. Some children may not even appear upset or “visibly” traumatized. In many cases of CSA, the effects are revealed much later in life. Post traumatic stress disorder attests to the long term effects of CSA.

However, it is important to know, that for children, whether they seem visibly traumatized or not, that trauma is present.

What happens to children

• capacity to trust is shattered
• sense of self, who they are, is shaped by abuse, they see themselves as powerless, helpless, and afraid, as victims, and rarely as survivors
• their sexual identity is also shaped by the abuse where sex is seen not as equal terrain for both partners, but one where there is domination, anger, rage, where the victim continues to be a victim, even in adulthood
• sexual orientation can also be shaped by abuse, sexual identity confusion, females who have been sexually abused may shy away from relationships with men, boys who may have been sexually abused may continue to have relationships with men

When working with clients who were victims of CSA, it is important to understand some critical concepts:

• TRAUMATIC SEXUALIZATION: misconceptions about sexual behavior and norms where the individual learns to associate sexual activity with negative feelings and may confuse sex with love and affection
• BETRAYAL & TRUST: children are vulnerable, they look to adults for love and protection, sexual abuse is the ultimate betrayal that can taint a child’s trust in adults forever
• POWERLESSNESS: children often ask the abuser to stop, but when those wishes, and needs, are totally undermined and disregarded, the child grows up with a sense of hopelessness, as though he/she doesn’t have the power to change their lives or to effect change in their lives
• FEAR: sexual abuse and molestation are akin to torture, mental and phyiscal, there is an ominous sense of fear that the child feels 
• BLAME/SHAME: the victim feels like he/she is to blame and there in enters the shame
• GUILT: fueled by cultural and religious taboos
• ENFORCED SILENCE: most abusers threaten the life of the children they are abusing, so abused children often self-impose silence which is so hard to break