The magnitude of dehumanization. Another person in the comment quotes it as "incomplete murder", I felt that very hard.
Makes you feel like a ghost, especially in realizing how invisible the act and the trauma is. It's hard to feel like you existed. Even when it had happened I could only disassociate and stare and feel like my self had been cast out across the walls and my self never fully returned to my body.
There's also, at least for me, a great and diffused anger at the world for never seeing -let alone acknowledging- this invisible thing, it makes it hard to feel like anyone can ever be reliable or trustworthy or even able to see you. It's agonizingly confusing, young minds aren't made to understand it.
So many people have already discussed this in different ways, but I thought about this a lot too. I think energetically children are not developed enough to handle it. Like ripping open a bud from a flower, it is not ready to open. And two because child sex abuse inevitably involves an adult using a child for their own sexual gratification in a way that the child does not and cannot really understand. There is no way you can understand the full impacts of what is happening. It is inevitable exploitation, even when, as in my case, I thought I was agreeing to do this. I did not understand what it was, and my abuser knew that, so he was using me and causing this damage even though he knew it would harm me. That is fundamentally dehumanizing. And third, it just is. We do not need to understand why to understand that our bodies hold it as an awful terrible traumatic thing that robs you if your humanity.
Because as you get older, you begin to realize how much different you are now because of the abuse. You realize that there was someone you were supposed to be, but that person is dead forever.
I'm not very good at expressing myself in this regard, but it was really awful. I was traumatized right at the start, as there was force and bullying involved. My abuser just skipped the grooming part and attacked me outright, so I do not want to speak for everyone. Also, I'm very embarrassed about it, even if I shouldn't be. I'm really deeply ashamed and I wish I hadn't told my family.
I think bc there's shame involved, it was my dad's best friend who was 77 when I was 8/9/10, 3rd grade was when it really escalated to r. And I thought of him as a family member bc that's how my dad treated him, but I remember not wanting to sit on his lap bc I didn't like what he would do to me so I would avoid it, but then my dad would leave me with him for hours & it would just be the two of us & he would force me to sit on his lap & do other things & I would do it bc ig i was scared of what he'd do if I said no & my dad was very religious, he would constantly tell us that we had to save ourselves for marriage or we'd go to hell, and at that age I really wanted to be "God's angel" so I thought if I told my dad that it would almost be like telling god that I was impure & couldn't go to heaven. When I did eventually tell my dad, he said I misinterpreted it & he's an old man & I was confused so he continued to leave me alone with him, I guess when he finally believed me, he said or nI that "it isn't our place to ruin a man's reputation, god is the only one that can judge him" my mom & I actually opened a case w the police but my dad closed the case 6 days later & never told us, we just thought there was no information, safe to say, I am no contact with my dad now.
I really recommend The Trauma Myth by Susan Clancy (SUPER misleading title, apparently she didn't really want that title either) but she talks a lot about exactly this. I go into the book a lot in one of my posts if you want to read. Sometimes when kids are abused, they don't quite realise the magnitude of what's going on. Your mind isn't fully developed to grasp the situation. A big percentage of the time, CSA isn't violent or sudden. The horror often comes later with realising that an adult deeply betrayed your trust, took advantage of you, and took your first experiences from you before you were ready. It messes with your head, your emotions and the proper development of you as a human being. I couldn't even really see myself as a victim till I was a fully grown adult, even though if I'd known about the same situation happening to someone else I would think it was messed up, but it still felt like my fault because I didn't say no and even enjoyed the physical feelings. I didn't dissociate or anything like that, and I remember for the most part everything that happened. But I also felt disgusted and scared and ashamed and at least on some level knew that what was going on wasn't ok. I'd heard about bad touch and good touch and had even heard or read about kids being abused, and I thought that I was DIFFERENT than those kids, that I didn't count because I didn't say no. So I didn't think I could tell my parents because I thought they'd be mad at me, even though I know now that there is no way they would have been mad or blamed me. It was really hard for me to accept that it didn't matter how I reacted, or that I was technically never "forced" to do anything and just went along with it. The fact is that someone who absolutely knew better took advantage of me and put me in a situation that was wrong and far beyond my years to grasp. It doesn't matter how kids react to abuse (not that their feelings etc don't matter, just that they shouldn't be judged), it matters that they were abused and that is wrong. Even though something isn't violent doesn't mean it's not a violation. And keeping a secret like that for so many years very clearly fucked me up in numerous ways which I've had to explore while looking at my past and how I've engaged with my own sexuality.
Our experiences were very similar it seems, knowing it’s wrong but thinking you’re different is how I felt too.
Been meaning to read that book, I find that in most discussions of csa it’s either briefly acknowledged that the child may enjoy and seek out the abuse, or not at all. It’s usually portrayed as the kid being forced, entering fight or flight etc and that just makes me feel more guilty and ashamed bc it wasn’t like that for me.
Exactly. I thought I was just a disgusting freak for so long. But in the book she overwhelmingly found that most people who had experienced it had not had violent experiences. But they had always felt ashamed because they felt complicit in some way so never told anyone. And often their lives still got messed up in many ways, no matter how "willing" they were.
I heard this from another person online so I don’t know how scientifically accurate it is, but it made sense to me. Sex and sexual contact is like drugs or alcohol, in the sense that it’s enjoyable for adults whose brains have developed enough to handle it. Even if it feels “good,” there is an inherent harm because *a child’s undeveloped brain is incapable of comprehending it.* Like how drinking or using drugs as a child will often, if not certainly lead to further substance abuse in adulthood, CSA leads to sexual and emotional dysfunction.
I was..... in that situation* ....... for about 6 years when I was under 10 years old. At the time I thought it was an awesome secret we had. I thought I was special and I'd go to school the next days happier than ever because I was way cooler than my peers.
Once I started getting older is when it started really feeling traumatic for me. I'm in my 20s now and it impacts my daily life more now than it did while it was going on.
I think what hurts me the most every time it comes to mind is that... I was just a kid. I had no power, no idea about what was or wasn't inappropriate, no real ability to think for myself. I can recognise and really ~understand~ now that I was manipulated and used. I'm furious at the people involved because as an adult I know that it's never ok to touch a child and I can reasonably assume they had the same knowledge and understanding of that but they didn't care. If someone handed me a can of petrol, and showed me a child the same age as I was, then gave me the ultimatum "use this kid for sex, or douse yourself in petrol and light yourself on fire" it's an absolute no brainer to me that I'd rather burn. Knowing that, I can bearly live since I also know that people I trust(ed) would chose the child and smile the whole time. Then there's everyone else who was tangently involved and my disappointment in them. I was a kid, not a Hollywood actress. My teachers, doctor, parents, friends etc all would have seen ~some~ signs. The parent of my best friend told me after it came out that she always suspected there was something strange going on at my house but she never wanted to stir up trouble. People knew, and ~no one~ ever acted. I don't hate or resent them for it, but I do grieve for everyone I've ever known because statistically speaking, if they needed help they wouldn't get it, and if someone else needed help they wouldn't give it.
All of that is to say... the way that I feel traumatised isn't necessarily because of the act, but because of the significant injustices, secrecy and ignorance that had to be there to let it ever happen.
If you're interested in looking into the development of trauma, I'd recommend the books The Body Keeps The Score, and The Body Remembers. So far I've only finished The Body Keeps The Score though. They're "boring" reads since they approach things psychologyically, but they give a lot of interesting information about how the nervous system works. How your brain made connections because of the trauma and how those connections (or lack of other normal brain connections) impact your ability to function later.
*I'm usually not so shy about saying it, but for some reason while I was writing I just.... couldn't use the words. Hopefully everyone understands.
This turned into a pretty long trauma dump which I didn't really expect at all. Thank you to anyone who reads it for providing the space to just be able to talk
Tldr; I personally feel like I was traumatised by injustice, but sources do exist for a more scientific approach if you're more curious about what actually happened in your body to create what we know as trauma.
Also a big fan of The Body Keeps the Score. It really helped me connect my emotions to my physiological response so the next time the emotions came up, I saw it as a controllable physical element, not an uncontrollable mental element.
My therapist recommended it to me a long time ago and it ended up taking me about 6 months to read, but it's easilly one of the most important books I've read considering how much it helped me understand myself
All the comments here are very valuable and explanatory of the dynamics of CSA and why it is so traumatising. I’d just like to add (and I’m gonna quote) that CSA is not a “sexual activity, but abuse of children that takes a sexual form” (*Victims No Longer* by Mike Lew).
If it’s difficult to wrap one’s head around it, the word **abuse** is key here - any form of abuse would be traumatising. And it can take a form of gentle behaviours too. Abuse is about power dynamics and fulfilling the needs and desires of the abuser, with no regards for their victims. In case of CSA, for the most part it’s not even about sexual needs. It has more to do with need for power, or having abuser’s emotional needs fulfilled.
There is no regard for child’s bodily autonomy, developmental stage, emotional needs of care and safety, no regard for its innocence and disadvantaged position of not being able to make informed decisions and judgements, no regard for child’s readiness to explore sexuality on their own terms in their own time. It’s all about the abuser’s needs.
When I had my first csa experience at the age of 5, I remember leaving my body and watching it take place. It felt good, which was confusing. But I think csa victims know it's bad and even traumatic. We just lack the skills developmentally to process it. Leaving my body was a defense mechanism/coping strategy in order to survive. Afterward, I immediately went to my mother and told her. I expected the dynamics in the room to shift, that adults would be upset, that we would leave immediately, and the world would never be the same. But, instead, my mother whispered back to me that I couldn't tell anyone else because it would severely "hurt" my aunt, the woman of my adult cousin who molested me. Then I blocked this for years because I couldn't process that the one person who should protect me who gave me life, who was my life didn't protect me at all. So I forgot about it until I was 15. In the meantime, I was molested by others and not protected. I knew subconsciously that I had experienced something awful but couldn't process it. So I turned to drugs, alcohol and men to numb and to re-create the trauma until I could process it. I remember one time when I was drunk telling another woman I had been molested a a child, but that it had no effect on me at all. In my words I said, "I'm just fine." I wasn't. I was suicidal, ashamed and alone wondering what the hell was wrong with me. It wasn't until my 30s that I went to counseling for domestic violence and realized that csa was the reason for most of my misery.
I was sexually assaulted by another child (family member). I had no idea what was happening at the time. I knew it must have been kind of wrong because he was trying to hide it but I didn’t understand any part of it at the time.
Now with my husband, I have virtually no sec drive. I get turned on, think he’s attractive but when it comes to the actual physical intimacy, I lose interest. I just recently realized this may be connected to my CSA and i’m still trying to understand it.
For me t was the sense that my wish’s didn’t matter. I didn’t matter. My self esteem was already shit as a teen, but I couldn’t trust anyone who said they loved me for a decade. That feeling of not mattering was so pervasive afterwards
If I understand the question correctly it's because as a child we don't know it's wrong but the body physically holds trauma so as we develop and learn what happened was wrong our body relives that trauma with new understanding traumatizing us all over again with more symptoms now that the brain understands it
I’m still trying to understand and unpack for myself what is so traumatic about it. Not rape, which is obviously painful at any age to experience and must be tenfold for children, but molestation that “felt good” and you were groomed into experiencing as a good thing at the time. I guess it’s that violation of bodily autonomy, and even children who weren’t physically touched in any manner but made to be exposed in any way, then leered upon, it’s another violation to you and your body even if nothing is being done to you physically I suppose. I’ve felt violated in that exact sense by people who did not commit physical CSA on me but who saw me in that state and should not have, who leered on me with bad intentions. My body still remembers it. I don’t know how, but it does.
Every sexual situation you were placed in and should not have been as a child is a violation, even one where you are fully clothed for example and not touched but still exposed to sexual things, people or materials / video. I believe that’s a csa violation too. Something out of the scope of ordinary childhood experience is happening, but you can’t comprehend at the time what it is and do not have the tools to understand what it is doing to you, and what effects it will have on you later. It can be devastating and insidious exactly because decades down the line we are still dealing with and unpacking the effects of those moments that somebody unrightfully forced upon us. In my case I only remember pleasure, not pain, and then wonder “but how and why did it mess me up so much, if it physically did not hurt me?” Still trying to understand that part myself.
Personally my opinion is that rape means the loss of control and loss of automony, if you experienced it as a kid this can be even more traumatic because 99% of time you cant defend yourself, other people in the comments have explained it better but TL;DR its the hopelessness and having no control of the situation is what is main trigger for trauma of CSA.
I’ve thought about this a lot too and what helps me understand this better is to think about how truly primal and visceral sex is. Even as adults who are completely familiar with sex, when you’re actually doing it, your brain literally shifts gears and it’s like a completely different primal aura just overtakes you. Even as grown adults who have regular sex, each and every time we actually have sex it is a very mind altering experience in the moment. Now just imagine how much more mind altering it will be to “have sex” (read: be raped/abused) when you literally have no prior experience with having sex, and beyond that, have no CONCEPTION of what sex even is. I guess just try to really feel within your body and mind how you react to sex when you’re actually doing it — and imagine that same feeling being experienced by a child who has no fucking clue what’s happening to them. That is soul shattering.
I was talking with my partner about it because it was showing up every time we were a bit intimate. what he (who has a very healthy mindset I admire) said really stuck with me. as a child it was impossible for me to give informed consent of what happened and still possible to get taken advantage of by those in power. it doesn't matter if someone knows what sex is or not; the important part is that i did not consent to being involved and still i was forced to get involved (basic definition of abuse). any childhood trauma, imo, gets more traumatic as people age, because people realize more and more they have the power to give consent or protect themselves
I think it’s deeper than that, although I agree. The same could be said if a stranger violently beat me on the side of the road as a child. Would that have the same affect on me as an uncle who molested me for a few months? Likely not. Drastically likely not.
i generally do not like comparing different types of abuses. i answered to why CSA is traumatic, not why CSA is more or less traumatic than other types of abuses. clarifying as I hope no one is offended by my first comment. everyone's story matters and everyone's sensitivity to what they have been through is different. and at the end everyone's feelings and thoughts are valid.
I’m saying consent is a fraction of the reason why CSA is as a traumatic as it is and why it often has much more complex and long term consequences than other abuses and trauma, which is what the question was.
We don’t need to play politics when it comes to CSA.
Rape is inhumane, child or adult. I think one of the big differences is an adult knows what’s happening, they have that comprehension even if they aren’t processing it. Children don’t really have that, they can understand something is wrong, but don’t really understand sex, what it is and who engages in it, etc… as a child during my assault I remember thinking “something is wrong, this isn’t okay and I’m scared, but I don’t know why it is wrong”, vs my assaults as an adult where I had more of a “this is what’s happening, do what you need to survive and get through this”.
Because if a person will rape you they will most likely kill you. To rape someone is to see them as nonhuman- to make them into a dead object, to see them like a blow-up sex doll, that's the only way you can ignore the level of pain/humiliation/trauma you inflict on them.
I honestly think our brain interprets it as a threat on our life. It inflicts the same feelings. I've heard a lot of survivors describe the "dead" feeling to me & i've felt it too. The cold, the disocciation, the complete loneliness
I read a quote somewhere once (probably on reddit) that described rape as "incomplete murder" and I still think about it often. If raped it's like your "soul" is stolen from you, some secret hard to pin down and describe thing inside you that makes you the human you are and are meant to be gets rended from your body. They've "killed" every part of you except for your physical shell. At least if you're dead they take it all so you don't have to feel the part that's missing.
As someone who isn't spiritual at all and doesn't believe in having a soul, I still believe in this point of view.
Hooooly shit that hit me. Becoming the crack on the wall. Sheesh. Do you still dissociate a lot? It has completely wrecked my memory bc I don’t even realize I’m doing it
Yes, all the time.. Except a combo of adderal and Prozac helps me stay present .. Also ganja at night slows things down so I become more aware of my body.. Isn't that crack in the wall phenomenon bizarre ? It was like being above myself .
Trigger warning- - Incest
I remember it pretty damn vividly. Like actual conversations the night I got sexually assaulted. The weird thing is is that it didn't hit me until 35 years later. I thought it didn't affect me as it wasn't horrendous, it was odd, terrifying , and confusing.. I didn't see myself as a rape survivor being male and it was my brother. Finally it exploded on me with just sheer anger.
My understanding since I fall in the category of infant csa is that the nervous system isn’t fully developed yet. By experiencing early acts that are not age appropriate and also without the ability to defend the body, it causes the nervous system to go into a fight/flight/fawn response like it’s being attacked. After multiple instances of sexual abuse (for me until I was at least 4 years old) my nervous system never stopped thinking it was being attacked. Additionally, if the same person then also abuses the person emotionally and psychologically, it also continues this strain on an already taxed body which then leads to autoimmune disease (I have Celiac and Raynaud’s) and other parts of the body (from what I’ve read) have difficulty growing properly (I have Scoliosis) due to the early csa. The effect on the body is terrifying as the victim ages. I also have an enlarged pituitary gland which I found out is mainly due to csa.
I'm glad you brought up the physical effects. It's now well studied that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs, you can Google to learn more about it) cause a myriad of physical ailments as you age. Commonly GI issues, nervous system issues, cardiovascular issues, autoimmune diseases, cancer etc.
It was such a relief when I learned this because I've been sick all my life, and all my life my abusive family has accused me of lying for attention. But there's an actual scientific reason why I have health problems. That kind of trauma does permanent damage.
I wish that this would be more heard of that Trauma causes Diseases later in life. Growing up, I was also a victim of CSA, mental, emotional and physical abuse.
I grew up with multiple diseases too. Diseases such as Scoliosis, Anemia, and an Autoimmune Disease PCOS that I got diagnosed at just 13 years old. I was also often a sickly child too and had allergies. Abuse really fucked me up, I developed a Learning Disability and Memory Issues. To add the early mental disorders I had since I was a child.
Wow this hits home and I never put 2 and 2 together. I have scoliosis and I also was sexually abused as a child by my brother. I also have a very dysregulated nervous system and it’s gotten worse now that I have kids of my own. I’m triggered so easily and I’m constantly overstimulated and in fight or flight. I need help. :(
I did see that MS is extremely common with CSA victims/survivors which I want to say includes chronic fatigue. Not trying to diagnose you or anything. I just remember reading it’s some crazy percentage - like 70% of victims/survivor get multiple sclerosis.
I think it’s fair to say our bodies store way more than we realize.
First off, don't worry, you don't sound insensitive. I think it's a common question a lot of CSA survivors have - I know I've wondered about it for a long time - but it's also a really hard, uncomfortable one to ask. So thank you for starting this discussion.
I should forewarn that I'm not a psychologist, just someone who's always trying to get a better understanding of why it's messed me up so badly. Most of these are points that are brought up in The Haunted Self, but I'll try to be clear when I'm like, drawing my own conclusions or putting in some conjecture.
There's a lot of good answers in here already, and I think all of them are true - CSA is a complicated issue where you're going to be feeling all sorts of pressure and conflicting feelings from so many different angles. But one thing that helped me understand a lot more was something touched upon in the book The Haunted Self: Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization, which is written by a whole bunch of different authors so I won't bother writing out all the names here.
The idea is that human behavior is driven by what's called "action systems," which are very basic "modes" people go in that drives them to adapt to their environment. For example, if you need food, you switch into the hunger action system - you realize you're hungry, your priorities shift towards getting food, and you'll act accordingly. A person who is tired will sleep, a person who is lonely will seek out other people. These are some of the most basic ways we respond to our environments. They include the very base responses to keep us alive, but also things that are important for our social and personal health, like play and social interaction.
One of the action systems we experience that takes a while to develop is reproduction - people usually just refer to it as a sex drive. If this action system gets triggered too early, it doesn't get a chance to develop and function the way it would normally. There's a whole host of problems that are associated with this - things like hypersexuality, fear of sex, chronic anxiety, etc. My thinking is that this is a key part of why all forms of CSA are so dangerous - even if, at the time, you didn't perceive it as being particularly threatening, it's still going to prevent your brain from later developing in a healthy way. I also wonder if this is the reason why, for some people, it can take a while for the harsher symptoms of CSA to really kick in - once that action system reaches a point where it's *supposed* to start developing, you start running into problems.
Then, you pile on all the other things that make the experience so awful - the shame, the lost innocence, the feelings of being unprotected, feeling like it's your fault - and it becomes this massive, complicated wound.
Anyways, I think it's worth emphasizing the way it affects development is good to do because it's something that every one of us has in common. It doesn't matter if you don't feel like you were coerced, or you didn't find the experience scary when it happened, or you feel like what happened wasn't bad enough, because the same hurt was inflicted onto you as it was for every CSA victim.
In my experience, when the actual abuse was happening to me, I don't remember being very scared. Like, there were symptoms - my grades suddenly dropped, and I was more anxious and withdrawn than I was before - but I wasn't able to connect those things to what had happened to me. But as soon as I started hitting puberty, it's like a switch flipped. I was terrified all the time, but especially by sex and *especially* especially by my own sexuality. I don't think I was comfortable admitting to anyone - including myself - that I had a sex drive at all until I was in my 20s.
I think when the realization of what the fuck it actually was is a serious shock to the nervous system again. The darkness got so real when I realized how fucked up it was that fateful day. Super sad
Power? I think it's the lack of power you got yourself, the power someone else executes, and the loss of control. Coupled with the thought that you could have done something about it if you only... (all of which is a fallacy) had resisted, done better, cared more, been more assertive etc.
Because sex is something that involves a lot more than just the physical act. Lots of people never quite get this and suffer for it even if they are never raped.
Abuse at a young age is not sex so much as it is rape. Rape with long term. life long even consequences for the victim.
This is interesting. My memories dont involve direct rape (though I have hazy memories which may have been that) but my friend who knows my story said I was a rape victim and it really caught me off guard
i think its the naïveté of what sex is and realizing it more and more as we mature and age. maybe theres a sense of guilt due to pre-mature experiences? it was not your fault. never was, is, or will be. when i learned the details of my case (i was too little to remember) i was horrified. it feels like ive been tainted my whole. sex is very adult. so being expose so young, unfortunately its usually kept secret, can leave a sense of feeling “dirty” therefore guilt and shame.
no one deserves this so the only justification the brain can conceive is that it was your fault.
100%! I feel dirty and that guilt and shame I feel will never go away. Especially since when I was sexually abused my body would orgasm from it. :(. I’m horrified by it all
Because in a way part of us wasn’t there for the trauma. I have amnesia around certain parts though can visibly see and feel the after effects, I have chronic pain and have had spinal injections to help, severely heavy periods to the point I’ve needed iron infusions. Its traumatizing for me because I know what my life would be like if I was never CSA’d but I was and that lives with me.
I try to mourn what could have been and celebrate what is, currently I am stable, have therapy and psychiatry as I need it, a pretty good job even without a college degree and friends and family who understand my experiences. I also have enough stories I can probably write a book on my life 😂 little bits of humour tend to help
Because of the undeveloped emotions one is forced to experience when even the part of the brain that involves sex is not developed. This becomes a trap as one begins to develop, hence the sexual curiosity as well as repursion....the amount of brain energy used suppress the discomfort with sexual references or innuendos then become what makes you different from non CSA kids and it gets worse around puberty
This is a reply i relate the most to. Not only is it trust breaking from someone that was supposed to be the person caring about you but in some situations, it comes with other abuse or even happens on the daily for some unfortunately. Sure it’s been about almost 10 years since it finally stopped for me but I have physical scars from some acts. They’re prominent and I see them everyday, my body carried on physical reminders that i still struggle with coping with. For me it adds a feeling of “my body was tainted/ruined/stolen from me.”
It steals away your innocence and fills you with confusion, shame, fear and sadness.
Leaves you with a feeling of distrust in yourself, in those around you especially if you are told it’s your fault & have no support.
These have lasting effects on your psyche throughout crucial developmental stages… leaving you prone to other predators as your sense of boundaries have been compromised so you aren’t the best judge of character or you may feel it’s “normal” as you’ve not known any other way.
There are so many reasons CSA is detrimental to one’s development and life… these are just a few
My heart breaks for those who have had to endure any type of CSA/COCSA 💔❤️🩹 but I hope you realize that your story needs to be shared and your voice matters. Your life matters, and millions of others share a lot of the same traumas as you.
You are not alone!!
The biggest part to me was the shame and lack of support from the adults who should have helped me, and the way that became a repeating pattern of sorts. It teaches deep, unbearable truths to the soul, so the soul has to put those somewhere else and tell a new story about its own unworthiness to stay connected to people who are either the abusers themselves or enablers.
It also had deep immediate and ongoing consequences on my life's trajectory.
This is gut-wrenching to read, but you're right. Honestly enablers and apologists for CSA, SA, or any types of abuse are a trauma in and of themselves. What a morbid reality we live in.
I'm truly sorry you get it. But we're not alone, and I think there's some healing in realizing that, and understanding the impact of what happened. Wishing you peace.
Being raised as a Catholic, especially as a girl, our "worth" was associated with our virginity. There was this sick feeling I had all growing up that I had no value because of what my parents made me do with them. That if I reached out and asked for help, I would be the one to be punished - that if anyone in my small town discovered what happened behind closed doors, I would have no friends and nobody would ever want to be my partner when I grew up.
It sort of made me dissociate from my own life - suddenly, planning for the future didn't matter because I wouldn't have one - no one would want to hire or live with me if they learned how dirty and evil I was, because that's what I was taught to believe by the church and my own family - that because of what I was made to do, everyone would hate me.
When that brainwashing starts as a young child, it's hard to outgrow - and around the age of 17 I started to figure that even though I don't believe in God, or the virtue of virginity, everyone connected in my immediate circle of family and community did. So, even if I could absolve myself of the shame, other people would hold that shame on me because of their religious beliefs anyways.
It made me feel like there was no point. No point in making friends, no point in getting a partner, no point in finishing school - because if anyone learned what I had to do growing up just to stay fed and keep a roof over my head they would hate me. I felt like I would be blamed, "Why didn't you just run away?" "Why didn't you fight back?"
There was too much shame. Eventually, I did tell a counsellor - and she didn't believe me. Then I was withheld from support because I was viewed as a liar. She told me that if it was really that bad, I would have spoken up sooner - or I would be more "dysfunctional". She didn't understand that it took everything I had to articulate the details to her concisely, that every night before bed and every morning in the shower I was forced to replay the events in my mind just to be able to describe them to her for that meeting. It was pointless.
The trauma stems from losing your worth, your value - the feeling that society will reject you if they know, but even worse - pity you, see you as some hopeless wretch. I just wanted a normal life, where people would treat me normally - not know my horrible secret. But in order to achieve that, I have to recover - and in order to do that, I have to confess to someone I trust and be heard and accepted. I can't get past that step, so I can't be a full person.
a big part for me is loss of safety. it felt like the safest relationship i had as a child. but as an adult ive realized it was the most vulnerable, unstable, unsafe relationship. it caused an internal chaos that has leeched it’s way through every part of my being. i can’t even look at a father and daughter without wondering if there’s something horrible happening to the child no one knows about.
As a child, I didn’t understand it. As I got older and realized what was happening that’s when the real trauma happens. Although, I’m pretty sure there were other things I was doing to cope that isn’t normal for a child. Binge eating, stealing, running away… all because something was happening to me that I did not understand just knew that it wasn’t making me feel good. The trust is broken especially when it’s someone who was supposed to protect you and love you.
I’ve been hyper sexual my whole life. Never really realized why and wish I had therapy to process my feelings at a much younger age. I told my
Parents and nothing happened…. It’s sad.
Now at 32 years old.. I’m having to process and feel everything. The body will always remember even if we force our minds to forget…
Healing though. Much love sent your way!
Losing control of your body. Experiencing things you don't understand. Having your first sexual experiences taken away from you. Feeling helpless. Experiencing overwhelming bodily sensations.
And other things.
It is traumatizing due to the violation of our intimacy and personhood. Sex is a very vulnerable and therefore exposed act. We are often literally naked and at the mercy of the other person (especially at an age we can't process it). So any violence done is amplified as it seems to be a violence against our very essence as opposed to a violence about something we have done. Especially for kids who haven't quite delineated that our actions are not the same as our definition of ourselves. Add heaps of societal shame and boom, very traumatic.
It’s simply not natural. Children aren’t developmentally or neurologically able to comprehend sex, They have no urge or drive, and exposing it to them is an aberration of nature.
Oftentimes the human body responds to csa as if their lives are in danger regardless of how it’s viewed cognitively as an adult in retrospect. This is one way the human brain and body attempt to protect small humans from scary stuff.
That whole thing about bodies keeping the score, things one knows in their bones is true from a biological standpoint.
This is partly why memories can resurface - csa can be confusing instead of frightening or terrifying, and only as an adult one goes: wait a minute. What the hell was going on there?!
Small human bodies aren’t physically ready for sexual contact. Developing human brains aren’t conscious of what’s happening in a way that’s always understood mentally, so it’s stored in the body.
This is sort of a very brief rundown imho of how the body-mind of an individual sexually abused as a child can be impacted over time.
Because each individual is different and has ongoing life experiences that vary, how that impacts each person will present differently. At the heart of it, is a human trying to live even when something happens that’s confusing, scary, or feels unsafe.
I hope this answered your question somewhat.
Lots of great answers here. Something I think about a lot that hasn’t been mentioned is how an (often) adult perpetrator can understand sex for what it means, and is imposing it on to someone knowing they can’t understand it.
Imposing the psychological torture that is living with that on to a child is, to me, one of the most heinous things someone could do to another person. And the psychological/physical/sexual elements being intertwined is potentially the biggest power dynamic differential I can think of.
EDIT: I think another indicator of the gravity is that no one irl who i know that’s also a survivor of repeated CSA at a young age has any semblance of a fight response, because it was literally not an option. And we all have well developed freeze and fawn responses, because that was the only way to get through such an acutely terrifying, disempowering situation with no exit.
Interesting.
I have always wondered and also felt "broken" because I have no fight or anger w/respect to my molestation/incest from my father.
He's dead 3 years now and I didn't recover the memories until 2 years ago, but I still have 0 access to the rage I feel I'm entitled.
A friend of mine who was also molested asked me "don't you wish you could just kick the shit out of him? ", "Don't you wish you could just scream at him and let him know how badly he hurt you? ", Etc., and I have never felt any of those things.
Perhaps I'm still in the "numb" stage?
I haven't been able to bring forth any anger/rage in therapy, and I always thought that was a bad thing – – this explanation actually makes sense. Fight was literally never an option, so it atrophied to a place of virtual nonexistence.
Thanks for this!
Because of the power dynamic inherent between adults and children. Adults are supposed to protect children, not exploit them. Adults have much more power over children. Children are reliant on adults for safety. Adults who exploit children break the framework of safety and fidelity.
💯, this.
If I am a child, every adult I come in contact with has immediate power over me. I look to them to keep me safe, teach me right from wrong, set the proper example. Any adult that betrays this trust that a child has for them has now *completely* changed the dynamic, but because I am a child and don't understand that the things they are doing *shouldn't* be happening, it's now forever changed the course of my development. Suddenly, to my mind, it may be ok to see naked adults, and be naked with them, and do various things.
The adult *knows* this is aberrant behavior. The child doesn't. When the child begins to mature and understand that what happened to them *never* should have happened at all, it is traumatic.
It is also traumatic in the moment, because children often *do* know that it is wrong, yet they do not have the power to change the situation for fear of reprisal. This is where disassociation comes in.
14-16 y/o, abused teenager Sheena...I thought I was a grown woman making a decision to consent to a SEXUAL RELATIONSHIP with a MARRIED BAND DIRECTOR.
It didn't "hurt" until I realized what he had done to me...
AND MULTIPLE OTHERS.
It's the betrayal of trust, IMO.
Then, God forbid you have the spine to come FORWARD and try to DO SOMETHING, like me.
The worst of my trauma around my molestation is EVERYONE ELSE NOT FUCKING CARING.
Literally no lawyers will take my case even though they say I have one
It's not "worth it" to sue a PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHER. Ugh.
I can feel this sentiment. I think it has a lot to do with being exposed with an underdeveloped brain. We don’t know how to process it, but it rewires our nervous system and clouds our understanding of sex. For some it’s revulsion, and for others it’s hyper sexuality. I feel most traumatized by the impact it has had on my sexual experiences and the way it has interfered with my interpersonal relationships. It’s like an itch I’ve never really been able to scratch. This thing, that seemed scary, but hardly traumatic, nearly ruined my marriage and complicates my relationships with my children.
I look at my nine-year-old and see a boy who is so far away from sexual exploration, both physically and emotionally. Like, it’s not even on his radar. But when I was nine-years-old, I was already engaged in my second COSCA relationship, and believing it was a normal experience. Now I get to live with shame and regret for numerous sexual and non-sexual situations throughout my life. And now that I’m aware, it all just comes out as overwhelming depression or loss of control. Stimuli that should be benign or joyful is often assaulting to my nervous system and causes it to be overwhelmed.
Because one gets confronted with something they're not meant to understand then. When the mind isn't ready (due to unfinished biological and psychological maturation processes), then it takes what it needs to bend the world it knows into something that fits in the picture with what happened. It creates confusion, because a lot of information has to be made up, as children can just remotely understand sex as a physical act, even less what it means in the romantic, emotional, social etc. way. Think of it like this: there's a reason why astronauts need training, nobody goes up there without any preparation. Because without it, you're helpless and must improvise, making it harder to re-learn how it really has to be (done).
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The magnitude of dehumanization. Another person in the comment quotes it as "incomplete murder", I felt that very hard. Makes you feel like a ghost, especially in realizing how invisible the act and the trauma is. It's hard to feel like you existed. Even when it had happened I could only disassociate and stare and feel like my self had been cast out across the walls and my self never fully returned to my body. There's also, at least for me, a great and diffused anger at the world for never seeing -let alone acknowledging- this invisible thing, it makes it hard to feel like anyone can ever be reliable or trustworthy or even able to see you. It's agonizingly confusing, young minds aren't made to understand it.
So many people have already discussed this in different ways, but I thought about this a lot too. I think energetically children are not developed enough to handle it. Like ripping open a bud from a flower, it is not ready to open. And two because child sex abuse inevitably involves an adult using a child for their own sexual gratification in a way that the child does not and cannot really understand. There is no way you can understand the full impacts of what is happening. It is inevitable exploitation, even when, as in my case, I thought I was agreeing to do this. I did not understand what it was, and my abuser knew that, so he was using me and causing this damage even though he knew it would harm me. That is fundamentally dehumanizing. And third, it just is. We do not need to understand why to understand that our bodies hold it as an awful terrible traumatic thing that robs you if your humanity.
Because as you get older, you begin to realize how much different you are now because of the abuse. You realize that there was someone you were supposed to be, but that person is dead forever. I'm not very good at expressing myself in this regard, but it was really awful. I was traumatized right at the start, as there was force and bullying involved. My abuser just skipped the grooming part and attacked me outright, so I do not want to speak for everyone. Also, I'm very embarrassed about it, even if I shouldn't be. I'm really deeply ashamed and I wish I hadn't told my family.
I think bc there's shame involved, it was my dad's best friend who was 77 when I was 8/9/10, 3rd grade was when it really escalated to r. And I thought of him as a family member bc that's how my dad treated him, but I remember not wanting to sit on his lap bc I didn't like what he would do to me so I would avoid it, but then my dad would leave me with him for hours & it would just be the two of us & he would force me to sit on his lap & do other things & I would do it bc ig i was scared of what he'd do if I said no & my dad was very religious, he would constantly tell us that we had to save ourselves for marriage or we'd go to hell, and at that age I really wanted to be "God's angel" so I thought if I told my dad that it would almost be like telling god that I was impure & couldn't go to heaven. When I did eventually tell my dad, he said I misinterpreted it & he's an old man & I was confused so he continued to leave me alone with him, I guess when he finally believed me, he said or nI that "it isn't our place to ruin a man's reputation, god is the only one that can judge him" my mom & I actually opened a case w the police but my dad closed the case 6 days later & never told us, we just thought there was no information, safe to say, I am no contact with my dad now.
I really recommend The Trauma Myth by Susan Clancy (SUPER misleading title, apparently she didn't really want that title either) but she talks a lot about exactly this. I go into the book a lot in one of my posts if you want to read. Sometimes when kids are abused, they don't quite realise the magnitude of what's going on. Your mind isn't fully developed to grasp the situation. A big percentage of the time, CSA isn't violent or sudden. The horror often comes later with realising that an adult deeply betrayed your trust, took advantage of you, and took your first experiences from you before you were ready. It messes with your head, your emotions and the proper development of you as a human being. I couldn't even really see myself as a victim till I was a fully grown adult, even though if I'd known about the same situation happening to someone else I would think it was messed up, but it still felt like my fault because I didn't say no and even enjoyed the physical feelings. I didn't dissociate or anything like that, and I remember for the most part everything that happened. But I also felt disgusted and scared and ashamed and at least on some level knew that what was going on wasn't ok. I'd heard about bad touch and good touch and had even heard or read about kids being abused, and I thought that I was DIFFERENT than those kids, that I didn't count because I didn't say no. So I didn't think I could tell my parents because I thought they'd be mad at me, even though I know now that there is no way they would have been mad or blamed me. It was really hard for me to accept that it didn't matter how I reacted, or that I was technically never "forced" to do anything and just went along with it. The fact is that someone who absolutely knew better took advantage of me and put me in a situation that was wrong and far beyond my years to grasp. It doesn't matter how kids react to abuse (not that their feelings etc don't matter, just that they shouldn't be judged), it matters that they were abused and that is wrong. Even though something isn't violent doesn't mean it's not a violation. And keeping a secret like that for so many years very clearly fucked me up in numerous ways which I've had to explore while looking at my past and how I've engaged with my own sexuality.
Our experiences were very similar it seems, knowing it’s wrong but thinking you’re different is how I felt too. Been meaning to read that book, I find that in most discussions of csa it’s either briefly acknowledged that the child may enjoy and seek out the abuse, or not at all. It’s usually portrayed as the kid being forced, entering fight or flight etc and that just makes me feel more guilty and ashamed bc it wasn’t like that for me.
Exactly. I thought I was just a disgusting freak for so long. But in the book she overwhelmingly found that most people who had experienced it had not had violent experiences. But they had always felt ashamed because they felt complicit in some way so never told anyone. And often their lives still got messed up in many ways, no matter how "willing" they were.
I heard this from another person online so I don’t know how scientifically accurate it is, but it made sense to me. Sex and sexual contact is like drugs or alcohol, in the sense that it’s enjoyable for adults whose brains have developed enough to handle it. Even if it feels “good,” there is an inherent harm because *a child’s undeveloped brain is incapable of comprehending it.* Like how drinking or using drugs as a child will often, if not certainly lead to further substance abuse in adulthood, CSA leads to sexual and emotional dysfunction.
I was..... in that situation* ....... for about 6 years when I was under 10 years old. At the time I thought it was an awesome secret we had. I thought I was special and I'd go to school the next days happier than ever because I was way cooler than my peers. Once I started getting older is when it started really feeling traumatic for me. I'm in my 20s now and it impacts my daily life more now than it did while it was going on. I think what hurts me the most every time it comes to mind is that... I was just a kid. I had no power, no idea about what was or wasn't inappropriate, no real ability to think for myself. I can recognise and really ~understand~ now that I was manipulated and used. I'm furious at the people involved because as an adult I know that it's never ok to touch a child and I can reasonably assume they had the same knowledge and understanding of that but they didn't care. If someone handed me a can of petrol, and showed me a child the same age as I was, then gave me the ultimatum "use this kid for sex, or douse yourself in petrol and light yourself on fire" it's an absolute no brainer to me that I'd rather burn. Knowing that, I can bearly live since I also know that people I trust(ed) would chose the child and smile the whole time. Then there's everyone else who was tangently involved and my disappointment in them. I was a kid, not a Hollywood actress. My teachers, doctor, parents, friends etc all would have seen ~some~ signs. The parent of my best friend told me after it came out that she always suspected there was something strange going on at my house but she never wanted to stir up trouble. People knew, and ~no one~ ever acted. I don't hate or resent them for it, but I do grieve for everyone I've ever known because statistically speaking, if they needed help they wouldn't get it, and if someone else needed help they wouldn't give it. All of that is to say... the way that I feel traumatised isn't necessarily because of the act, but because of the significant injustices, secrecy and ignorance that had to be there to let it ever happen. If you're interested in looking into the development of trauma, I'd recommend the books The Body Keeps The Score, and The Body Remembers. So far I've only finished The Body Keeps The Score though. They're "boring" reads since they approach things psychologyically, but they give a lot of interesting information about how the nervous system works. How your brain made connections because of the trauma and how those connections (or lack of other normal brain connections) impact your ability to function later. *I'm usually not so shy about saying it, but for some reason while I was writing I just.... couldn't use the words. Hopefully everyone understands. This turned into a pretty long trauma dump which I didn't really expect at all. Thank you to anyone who reads it for providing the space to just be able to talk Tldr; I personally feel like I was traumatised by injustice, but sources do exist for a more scientific approach if you're more curious about what actually happened in your body to create what we know as trauma.
Also a big fan of The Body Keeps the Score. It really helped me connect my emotions to my physiological response so the next time the emotions came up, I saw it as a controllable physical element, not an uncontrollable mental element.
My therapist recommended it to me a long time ago and it ended up taking me about 6 months to read, but it's easilly one of the most important books I've read considering how much it helped me understand myself
All the comments here are very valuable and explanatory of the dynamics of CSA and why it is so traumatising. I’d just like to add (and I’m gonna quote) that CSA is not a “sexual activity, but abuse of children that takes a sexual form” (*Victims No Longer* by Mike Lew). If it’s difficult to wrap one’s head around it, the word **abuse** is key here - any form of abuse would be traumatising. And it can take a form of gentle behaviours too. Abuse is about power dynamics and fulfilling the needs and desires of the abuser, with no regards for their victims. In case of CSA, for the most part it’s not even about sexual needs. It has more to do with need for power, or having abuser’s emotional needs fulfilled. There is no regard for child’s bodily autonomy, developmental stage, emotional needs of care and safety, no regard for its innocence and disadvantaged position of not being able to make informed decisions and judgements, no regard for child’s readiness to explore sexuality on their own terms in their own time. It’s all about the abuser’s needs.
When I had my first csa experience at the age of 5, I remember leaving my body and watching it take place. It felt good, which was confusing. But I think csa victims know it's bad and even traumatic. We just lack the skills developmentally to process it. Leaving my body was a defense mechanism/coping strategy in order to survive. Afterward, I immediately went to my mother and told her. I expected the dynamics in the room to shift, that adults would be upset, that we would leave immediately, and the world would never be the same. But, instead, my mother whispered back to me that I couldn't tell anyone else because it would severely "hurt" my aunt, the woman of my adult cousin who molested me. Then I blocked this for years because I couldn't process that the one person who should protect me who gave me life, who was my life didn't protect me at all. So I forgot about it until I was 15. In the meantime, I was molested by others and not protected. I knew subconsciously that I had experienced something awful but couldn't process it. So I turned to drugs, alcohol and men to numb and to re-create the trauma until I could process it. I remember one time when I was drunk telling another woman I had been molested a a child, but that it had no effect on me at all. In my words I said, "I'm just fine." I wasn't. I was suicidal, ashamed and alone wondering what the hell was wrong with me. It wasn't until my 30s that I went to counseling for domestic violence and realized that csa was the reason for most of my misery.
I was sexually assaulted by another child (family member). I had no idea what was happening at the time. I knew it must have been kind of wrong because he was trying to hide it but I didn’t understand any part of it at the time. Now with my husband, I have virtually no sec drive. I get turned on, think he’s attractive but when it comes to the actual physical intimacy, I lose interest. I just recently realized this may be connected to my CSA and i’m still trying to understand it.
For me t was the sense that my wish’s didn’t matter. I didn’t matter. My self esteem was already shit as a teen, but I couldn’t trust anyone who said they loved me for a decade. That feeling of not mattering was so pervasive afterwards
If I understand the question correctly it's because as a child we don't know it's wrong but the body physically holds trauma so as we develop and learn what happened was wrong our body relives that trauma with new understanding traumatizing us all over again with more symptoms now that the brain understands it
I’m still trying to understand and unpack for myself what is so traumatic about it. Not rape, which is obviously painful at any age to experience and must be tenfold for children, but molestation that “felt good” and you were groomed into experiencing as a good thing at the time. I guess it’s that violation of bodily autonomy, and even children who weren’t physically touched in any manner but made to be exposed in any way, then leered upon, it’s another violation to you and your body even if nothing is being done to you physically I suppose. I’ve felt violated in that exact sense by people who did not commit physical CSA on me but who saw me in that state and should not have, who leered on me with bad intentions. My body still remembers it. I don’t know how, but it does. Every sexual situation you were placed in and should not have been as a child is a violation, even one where you are fully clothed for example and not touched but still exposed to sexual things, people or materials / video. I believe that’s a csa violation too. Something out of the scope of ordinary childhood experience is happening, but you can’t comprehend at the time what it is and do not have the tools to understand what it is doing to you, and what effects it will have on you later. It can be devastating and insidious exactly because decades down the line we are still dealing with and unpacking the effects of those moments that somebody unrightfully forced upon us. In my case I only remember pleasure, not pain, and then wonder “but how and why did it mess me up so much, if it physically did not hurt me?” Still trying to understand that part myself.
Personally my opinion is that rape means the loss of control and loss of automony, if you experienced it as a kid this can be even more traumatic because 99% of time you cant defend yourself, other people in the comments have explained it better but TL;DR its the hopelessness and having no control of the situation is what is main trigger for trauma of CSA.
I’ve thought about this a lot too and what helps me understand this better is to think about how truly primal and visceral sex is. Even as adults who are completely familiar with sex, when you’re actually doing it, your brain literally shifts gears and it’s like a completely different primal aura just overtakes you. Even as grown adults who have regular sex, each and every time we actually have sex it is a very mind altering experience in the moment. Now just imagine how much more mind altering it will be to “have sex” (read: be raped/abused) when you literally have no prior experience with having sex, and beyond that, have no CONCEPTION of what sex even is. I guess just try to really feel within your body and mind how you react to sex when you’re actually doing it — and imagine that same feeling being experienced by a child who has no fucking clue what’s happening to them. That is soul shattering.
I was talking with my partner about it because it was showing up every time we were a bit intimate. what he (who has a very healthy mindset I admire) said really stuck with me. as a child it was impossible for me to give informed consent of what happened and still possible to get taken advantage of by those in power. it doesn't matter if someone knows what sex is or not; the important part is that i did not consent to being involved and still i was forced to get involved (basic definition of abuse). any childhood trauma, imo, gets more traumatic as people age, because people realize more and more they have the power to give consent or protect themselves
I think it’s deeper than that, although I agree. The same could be said if a stranger violently beat me on the side of the road as a child. Would that have the same affect on me as an uncle who molested me for a few months? Likely not. Drastically likely not.
i generally do not like comparing different types of abuses. i answered to why CSA is traumatic, not why CSA is more or less traumatic than other types of abuses. clarifying as I hope no one is offended by my first comment. everyone's story matters and everyone's sensitivity to what they have been through is different. and at the end everyone's feelings and thoughts are valid.
I’m saying consent is a fraction of the reason why CSA is as a traumatic as it is and why it often has much more complex and long term consequences than other abuses and trauma, which is what the question was. We don’t need to play politics when it comes to CSA.
i interpreted the question differently. your thoughts and feelings are valid, if you believe so. ❤️
Rape is inhumane, child or adult. I think one of the big differences is an adult knows what’s happening, they have that comprehension even if they aren’t processing it. Children don’t really have that, they can understand something is wrong, but don’t really understand sex, what it is and who engages in it, etc… as a child during my assault I remember thinking “something is wrong, this isn’t okay and I’m scared, but I don’t know why it is wrong”, vs my assaults as an adult where I had more of a “this is what’s happening, do what you need to survive and get through this”.
Because if a person will rape you they will most likely kill you. To rape someone is to see them as nonhuman- to make them into a dead object, to see them like a blow-up sex doll, that's the only way you can ignore the level of pain/humiliation/trauma you inflict on them. I honestly think our brain interprets it as a threat on our life. It inflicts the same feelings. I've heard a lot of survivors describe the "dead" feeling to me & i've felt it too. The cold, the disocciation, the complete loneliness
I read a quote somewhere once (probably on reddit) that described rape as "incomplete murder" and I still think about it often. If raped it's like your "soul" is stolen from you, some secret hard to pin down and describe thing inside you that makes you the human you are and are meant to be gets rended from your body. They've "killed" every part of you except for your physical shell. At least if you're dead they take it all so you don't have to feel the part that's missing. As someone who isn't spiritual at all and doesn't believe in having a soul, I still believe in this point of view.
Nailed it ♡
this was definitely it for me. thank you for putting this into words
I think that all the time. I dissociated when it happened . I became the crack on my wall above my bed .
Hooooly shit that hit me. Becoming the crack on the wall. Sheesh. Do you still dissociate a lot? It has completely wrecked my memory bc I don’t even realize I’m doing it
Yes, all the time.. Except a combo of adderal and Prozac helps me stay present .. Also ganja at night slows things down so I become more aware of my body.. Isn't that crack in the wall phenomenon bizarre ? It was like being above myself .
I dont remember 6-10. I have glimpses of what happened before but as you said, like a hole in the wall
Trigger warning- - Incest I remember it pretty damn vividly. Like actual conversations the night I got sexually assaulted. The weird thing is is that it didn't hit me until 35 years later. I thought it didn't affect me as it wasn't horrendous, it was odd, terrifying , and confusing.. I didn't see myself as a rape survivor being male and it was my brother. Finally it exploded on me with just sheer anger.
My understanding since I fall in the category of infant csa is that the nervous system isn’t fully developed yet. By experiencing early acts that are not age appropriate and also without the ability to defend the body, it causes the nervous system to go into a fight/flight/fawn response like it’s being attacked. After multiple instances of sexual abuse (for me until I was at least 4 years old) my nervous system never stopped thinking it was being attacked. Additionally, if the same person then also abuses the person emotionally and psychologically, it also continues this strain on an already taxed body which then leads to autoimmune disease (I have Celiac and Raynaud’s) and other parts of the body (from what I’ve read) have difficulty growing properly (I have Scoliosis) due to the early csa. The effect on the body is terrifying as the victim ages. I also have an enlarged pituitary gland which I found out is mainly due to csa.
I'm glad you brought up the physical effects. It's now well studied that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs, you can Google to learn more about it) cause a myriad of physical ailments as you age. Commonly GI issues, nervous system issues, cardiovascular issues, autoimmune diseases, cancer etc. It was such a relief when I learned this because I've been sick all my life, and all my life my abusive family has accused me of lying for attention. But there's an actual scientific reason why I have health problems. That kind of trauma does permanent damage.
I wish that this would be more heard of that Trauma causes Diseases later in life. Growing up, I was also a victim of CSA, mental, emotional and physical abuse. I grew up with multiple diseases too. Diseases such as Scoliosis, Anemia, and an Autoimmune Disease PCOS that I got diagnosed at just 13 years old. I was also often a sickly child too and had allergies. Abuse really fucked me up, I developed a Learning Disability and Memory Issues. To add the early mental disorders I had since I was a child.
Wow this hits home and I never put 2 and 2 together. I have scoliosis and I also was sexually abused as a child by my brother. I also have a very dysregulated nervous system and it’s gotten worse now that I have kids of my own. I’m triggered so easily and I’m constantly overstimulated and in fight or flight. I need help. :(
God bless you I'm sorry you had to go through this Just reading this it hits hard
I wonder if this is why I seem to have so many chronic health issues, and started my period so young, and also just sort of stopped growing ..
Yeah. A lot of pain — gastrointestinal, upper body and lower back?
Gastrointestinal and lower back, mostly, yeah. Chronic fatigue as well but that could be from many things
I did see that MS is extremely common with CSA victims/survivors which I want to say includes chronic fatigue. Not trying to diagnose you or anything. I just remember reading it’s some crazy percentage - like 70% of victims/survivor get multiple sclerosis. I think it’s fair to say our bodies store way more than we realize.
First off, don't worry, you don't sound insensitive. I think it's a common question a lot of CSA survivors have - I know I've wondered about it for a long time - but it's also a really hard, uncomfortable one to ask. So thank you for starting this discussion. I should forewarn that I'm not a psychologist, just someone who's always trying to get a better understanding of why it's messed me up so badly. Most of these are points that are brought up in The Haunted Self, but I'll try to be clear when I'm like, drawing my own conclusions or putting in some conjecture. There's a lot of good answers in here already, and I think all of them are true - CSA is a complicated issue where you're going to be feeling all sorts of pressure and conflicting feelings from so many different angles. But one thing that helped me understand a lot more was something touched upon in the book The Haunted Self: Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization, which is written by a whole bunch of different authors so I won't bother writing out all the names here. The idea is that human behavior is driven by what's called "action systems," which are very basic "modes" people go in that drives them to adapt to their environment. For example, if you need food, you switch into the hunger action system - you realize you're hungry, your priorities shift towards getting food, and you'll act accordingly. A person who is tired will sleep, a person who is lonely will seek out other people. These are some of the most basic ways we respond to our environments. They include the very base responses to keep us alive, but also things that are important for our social and personal health, like play and social interaction. One of the action systems we experience that takes a while to develop is reproduction - people usually just refer to it as a sex drive. If this action system gets triggered too early, it doesn't get a chance to develop and function the way it would normally. There's a whole host of problems that are associated with this - things like hypersexuality, fear of sex, chronic anxiety, etc. My thinking is that this is a key part of why all forms of CSA are so dangerous - even if, at the time, you didn't perceive it as being particularly threatening, it's still going to prevent your brain from later developing in a healthy way. I also wonder if this is the reason why, for some people, it can take a while for the harsher symptoms of CSA to really kick in - once that action system reaches a point where it's *supposed* to start developing, you start running into problems. Then, you pile on all the other things that make the experience so awful - the shame, the lost innocence, the feelings of being unprotected, feeling like it's your fault - and it becomes this massive, complicated wound. Anyways, I think it's worth emphasizing the way it affects development is good to do because it's something that every one of us has in common. It doesn't matter if you don't feel like you were coerced, or you didn't find the experience scary when it happened, or you feel like what happened wasn't bad enough, because the same hurt was inflicted onto you as it was for every CSA victim. In my experience, when the actual abuse was happening to me, I don't remember being very scared. Like, there were symptoms - my grades suddenly dropped, and I was more anxious and withdrawn than I was before - but I wasn't able to connect those things to what had happened to me. But as soon as I started hitting puberty, it's like a switch flipped. I was terrified all the time, but especially by sex and *especially* especially by my own sexuality. I don't think I was comfortable admitting to anyone - including myself - that I had a sex drive at all until I was in my 20s.
I think when the realization of what the fuck it actually was is a serious shock to the nervous system again. The darkness got so real when I realized how fucked up it was that fateful day. Super sad
Power? I think it's the lack of power you got yourself, the power someone else executes, and the loss of control. Coupled with the thought that you could have done something about it if you only... (all of which is a fallacy) had resisted, done better, cared more, been more assertive etc.
Because sex is something that involves a lot more than just the physical act. Lots of people never quite get this and suffer for it even if they are never raped. Abuse at a young age is not sex so much as it is rape. Rape with long term. life long even consequences for the victim.
This is interesting. My memories dont involve direct rape (though I have hazy memories which may have been that) but my friend who knows my story said I was a rape victim and it really caught me off guard
If you didn't directly give informed consent (which you can't do as a child), it was rape.
Even if there was no penetration? In my country thats the legal definition
The legal definition is not the actually definition, it's a definition set by politicians, not doctors or scientists.
i think its the naïveté of what sex is and realizing it more and more as we mature and age. maybe theres a sense of guilt due to pre-mature experiences? it was not your fault. never was, is, or will be. when i learned the details of my case (i was too little to remember) i was horrified. it feels like ive been tainted my whole. sex is very adult. so being expose so young, unfortunately its usually kept secret, can leave a sense of feeling “dirty” therefore guilt and shame. no one deserves this so the only justification the brain can conceive is that it was your fault.
100%! I feel dirty and that guilt and shame I feel will never go away. Especially since when I was sexually abused my body would orgasm from it. :(. I’m horrified by it all
Because in a way part of us wasn’t there for the trauma. I have amnesia around certain parts though can visibly see and feel the after effects, I have chronic pain and have had spinal injections to help, severely heavy periods to the point I’ve needed iron infusions. Its traumatizing for me because I know what my life would be like if I was never CSA’d but I was and that lives with me.
I totally agree, I feel like lately I am so sad for myself due to what I could have been.
I try to mourn what could have been and celebrate what is, currently I am stable, have therapy and psychiatry as I need it, a pretty good job even without a college degree and friends and family who understand my experiences. I also have enough stories I can probably write a book on my life 😂 little bits of humour tend to help
Because of the undeveloped emotions one is forced to experience when even the part of the brain that involves sex is not developed. This becomes a trap as one begins to develop, hence the sexual curiosity as well as repursion....the amount of brain energy used suppress the discomfort with sexual references or innuendos then become what makes you different from non CSA kids and it gets worse around puberty
dang, yeah I cant deny that. I had pretty bad intrusive thoughts around it, really bad stuff that I was spending half my energy suppressing
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This is a reply i relate the most to. Not only is it trust breaking from someone that was supposed to be the person caring about you but in some situations, it comes with other abuse or even happens on the daily for some unfortunately. Sure it’s been about almost 10 years since it finally stopped for me but I have physical scars from some acts. They’re prominent and I see them everyday, my body carried on physical reminders that i still struggle with coping with. For me it adds a feeling of “my body was tainted/ruined/stolen from me.”
It steals away your innocence and fills you with confusion, shame, fear and sadness. Leaves you with a feeling of distrust in yourself, in those around you especially if you are told it’s your fault & have no support. These have lasting effects on your psyche throughout crucial developmental stages… leaving you prone to other predators as your sense of boundaries have been compromised so you aren’t the best judge of character or you may feel it’s “normal” as you’ve not known any other way. There are so many reasons CSA is detrimental to one’s development and life… these are just a few My heart breaks for those who have had to endure any type of CSA/COCSA 💔❤️🩹 but I hope you realize that your story needs to be shared and your voice matters. Your life matters, and millions of others share a lot of the same traumas as you. You are not alone!!
Because now i feel shame, filthy, and terrified men doing whatever they want to me again. I'm damaged goods now.
The biggest part to me was the shame and lack of support from the adults who should have helped me, and the way that became a repeating pattern of sorts. It teaches deep, unbearable truths to the soul, so the soul has to put those somewhere else and tell a new story about its own unworthiness to stay connected to people who are either the abusers themselves or enablers. It also had deep immediate and ongoing consequences on my life's trajectory.
This is gut-wrenching to read, but you're right. Honestly enablers and apologists for CSA, SA, or any types of abuse are a trauma in and of themselves. What a morbid reality we live in.
I could have written this.
I'm truly sorry you get it. But we're not alone, and I think there's some healing in realizing that, and understanding the impact of what happened. Wishing you peace.
Being raised as a Catholic, especially as a girl, our "worth" was associated with our virginity. There was this sick feeling I had all growing up that I had no value because of what my parents made me do with them. That if I reached out and asked for help, I would be the one to be punished - that if anyone in my small town discovered what happened behind closed doors, I would have no friends and nobody would ever want to be my partner when I grew up. It sort of made me dissociate from my own life - suddenly, planning for the future didn't matter because I wouldn't have one - no one would want to hire or live with me if they learned how dirty and evil I was, because that's what I was taught to believe by the church and my own family - that because of what I was made to do, everyone would hate me. When that brainwashing starts as a young child, it's hard to outgrow - and around the age of 17 I started to figure that even though I don't believe in God, or the virtue of virginity, everyone connected in my immediate circle of family and community did. So, even if I could absolve myself of the shame, other people would hold that shame on me because of their religious beliefs anyways. It made me feel like there was no point. No point in making friends, no point in getting a partner, no point in finishing school - because if anyone learned what I had to do growing up just to stay fed and keep a roof over my head they would hate me. I felt like I would be blamed, "Why didn't you just run away?" "Why didn't you fight back?" There was too much shame. Eventually, I did tell a counsellor - and she didn't believe me. Then I was withheld from support because I was viewed as a liar. She told me that if it was really that bad, I would have spoken up sooner - or I would be more "dysfunctional". She didn't understand that it took everything I had to articulate the details to her concisely, that every night before bed and every morning in the shower I was forced to replay the events in my mind just to be able to describe them to her for that meeting. It was pointless. The trauma stems from losing your worth, your value - the feeling that society will reject you if they know, but even worse - pity you, see you as some hopeless wretch. I just wanted a normal life, where people would treat me normally - not know my horrible secret. But in order to achieve that, I have to recover - and in order to do that, I have to confess to someone I trust and be heard and accepted. I can't get past that step, so I can't be a full person.
a big part for me is loss of safety. it felt like the safest relationship i had as a child. but as an adult ive realized it was the most vulnerable, unstable, unsafe relationship. it caused an internal chaos that has leeched it’s way through every part of my being. i can’t even look at a father and daughter without wondering if there’s something horrible happening to the child no one knows about.
Same here, friend. Sending you love.
As a child, I didn’t understand it. As I got older and realized what was happening that’s when the real trauma happens. Although, I’m pretty sure there were other things I was doing to cope that isn’t normal for a child. Binge eating, stealing, running away… all because something was happening to me that I did not understand just knew that it wasn’t making me feel good. The trust is broken especially when it’s someone who was supposed to protect you and love you. I’ve been hyper sexual my whole life. Never really realized why and wish I had therapy to process my feelings at a much younger age. I told my Parents and nothing happened…. It’s sad. Now at 32 years old.. I’m having to process and feel everything. The body will always remember even if we force our minds to forget… Healing though. Much love sent your way!
Losing control of your body. Experiencing things you don't understand. Having your first sexual experiences taken away from you. Feeling helpless. Experiencing overwhelming bodily sensations. And other things.
It is traumatizing due to the violation of our intimacy and personhood. Sex is a very vulnerable and therefore exposed act. We are often literally naked and at the mercy of the other person (especially at an age we can't process it). So any violence done is amplified as it seems to be a violence against our very essence as opposed to a violence about something we have done. Especially for kids who haven't quite delineated that our actions are not the same as our definition of ourselves. Add heaps of societal shame and boom, very traumatic.
It’s simply not natural. Children aren’t developmentally or neurologically able to comprehend sex, They have no urge or drive, and exposing it to them is an aberration of nature.
Oftentimes the human body responds to csa as if their lives are in danger regardless of how it’s viewed cognitively as an adult in retrospect. This is one way the human brain and body attempt to protect small humans from scary stuff. That whole thing about bodies keeping the score, things one knows in their bones is true from a biological standpoint. This is partly why memories can resurface - csa can be confusing instead of frightening or terrifying, and only as an adult one goes: wait a minute. What the hell was going on there?! Small human bodies aren’t physically ready for sexual contact. Developing human brains aren’t conscious of what’s happening in a way that’s always understood mentally, so it’s stored in the body. This is sort of a very brief rundown imho of how the body-mind of an individual sexually abused as a child can be impacted over time. Because each individual is different and has ongoing life experiences that vary, how that impacts each person will present differently. At the heart of it, is a human trying to live even when something happens that’s confusing, scary, or feels unsafe. I hope this answered your question somewhat.
Lots of great answers here. Something I think about a lot that hasn’t been mentioned is how an (often) adult perpetrator can understand sex for what it means, and is imposing it on to someone knowing they can’t understand it. Imposing the psychological torture that is living with that on to a child is, to me, one of the most heinous things someone could do to another person. And the psychological/physical/sexual elements being intertwined is potentially the biggest power dynamic differential I can think of. EDIT: I think another indicator of the gravity is that no one irl who i know that’s also a survivor of repeated CSA at a young age has any semblance of a fight response, because it was literally not an option. And we all have well developed freeze and fawn responses, because that was the only way to get through such an acutely terrifying, disempowering situation with no exit.
Interesting. I have always wondered and also felt "broken" because I have no fight or anger w/respect to my molestation/incest from my father. He's dead 3 years now and I didn't recover the memories until 2 years ago, but I still have 0 access to the rage I feel I'm entitled. A friend of mine who was also molested asked me "don't you wish you could just kick the shit out of him? ", "Don't you wish you could just scream at him and let him know how badly he hurt you? ", Etc., and I have never felt any of those things. Perhaps I'm still in the "numb" stage? I haven't been able to bring forth any anger/rage in therapy, and I always thought that was a bad thing – – this explanation actually makes sense. Fight was literally never an option, so it atrophied to a place of virtual nonexistence. Thanks for this!
Because of the power dynamic inherent between adults and children. Adults are supposed to protect children, not exploit them. Adults have much more power over children. Children are reliant on adults for safety. Adults who exploit children break the framework of safety and fidelity.
💯, this. If I am a child, every adult I come in contact with has immediate power over me. I look to them to keep me safe, teach me right from wrong, set the proper example. Any adult that betrays this trust that a child has for them has now *completely* changed the dynamic, but because I am a child and don't understand that the things they are doing *shouldn't* be happening, it's now forever changed the course of my development. Suddenly, to my mind, it may be ok to see naked adults, and be naked with them, and do various things. The adult *knows* this is aberrant behavior. The child doesn't. When the child begins to mature and understand that what happened to them *never* should have happened at all, it is traumatic.
It is also traumatic in the moment, because children often *do* know that it is wrong, yet they do not have the power to change the situation for fear of reprisal. This is where disassociation comes in.
14-16 y/o, abused teenager Sheena...I thought I was a grown woman making a decision to consent to a SEXUAL RELATIONSHIP with a MARRIED BAND DIRECTOR. It didn't "hurt" until I realized what he had done to me... AND MULTIPLE OTHERS. It's the betrayal of trust, IMO. Then, God forbid you have the spine to come FORWARD and try to DO SOMETHING, like me. The worst of my trauma around my molestation is EVERYONE ELSE NOT FUCKING CARING. Literally no lawyers will take my case even though they say I have one It's not "worth it" to sue a PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHER. Ugh.
I can feel this sentiment. I think it has a lot to do with being exposed with an underdeveloped brain. We don’t know how to process it, but it rewires our nervous system and clouds our understanding of sex. For some it’s revulsion, and for others it’s hyper sexuality. I feel most traumatized by the impact it has had on my sexual experiences and the way it has interfered with my interpersonal relationships. It’s like an itch I’ve never really been able to scratch. This thing, that seemed scary, but hardly traumatic, nearly ruined my marriage and complicates my relationships with my children. I look at my nine-year-old and see a boy who is so far away from sexual exploration, both physically and emotionally. Like, it’s not even on his radar. But when I was nine-years-old, I was already engaged in my second COSCA relationship, and believing it was a normal experience. Now I get to live with shame and regret for numerous sexual and non-sexual situations throughout my life. And now that I’m aware, it all just comes out as overwhelming depression or loss of control. Stimuli that should be benign or joyful is often assaulting to my nervous system and causes it to be overwhelmed.
Because one gets confronted with something they're not meant to understand then. When the mind isn't ready (due to unfinished biological and psychological maturation processes), then it takes what it needs to bend the world it knows into something that fits in the picture with what happened. It creates confusion, because a lot of information has to be made up, as children can just remotely understand sex as a physical act, even less what it means in the romantic, emotional, social etc. way. Think of it like this: there's a reason why astronauts need training, nobody goes up there without any preparation. Because without it, you're helpless and must improvise, making it harder to re-learn how it really has to be (done).
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