Adult sufferers of child abuse

Adult survivors of child abuse make up a great portion of society that adversely affects all of us with their learned destructive behaviors. Sinful acts of violence and lawlessness, irresponsibility, bad credit, under achievement, poverty, insanity, no self control; all this chaos impacts the environment at large around us. Understand though, that abuse survivors don’t need pity, nor do they need to be made to feel like they don’t have a right to grieve lost childhood. What they need is as much care understanding and support as sufferers of cancer, diabetes, sickle cell, drug addiction or mental illnesses.  Recognizing and rehabilitating abuse survivors will be beneficial to all of us in the long run. If we would imagine a world free of child abuse, drug abuse, crime and immorality we should consider paying greater attention to the result of child abuse in the adult survivor.

            By no means should the destructive behaviors of abuse survivors be excused but frankly, we must admit that abusers tend to act out when they feel they are not being heard or understood. When there is no safe place to hide the pain, they must carry it around with them usually in a state of anxiety and depression. When anger can’t be labeled or the origin of the anger can’t be identified, it will manifest as something else; perhaps rape or stealing or murder, insanity, self mutilation, lack of motivation which might look like laziness or ultimately, suicide. Indiscipline or an inability to commit to anything from finishing school to holding down a job to maintaining relationships might all have roots in the inconsistencies that abound in the early life of a neglected child. The helplessness and shame and guilt an unwanted child lives with can become the unreliable foundation on which the adult attempts to build a life. This faulty foundation will fail every time throwing the survivor’s building into destruction while the debris clouds up everything around them including every relationship they attempt thereby, impacting even the lives of those persons involved with them.

But who has considered the emotional internal bleeding of adults wounded in childhood? Who has ever pondered such a thing as emotional blood? It is not thick and red and life sustaining as blood that you can see pulsing through a vein. It is dark and poisonous and shows up as the unacceptable or troublesome behaviors of a traumatized heart or soul and just as destructive as the red liquid of a flesh wound pouring out of control. Emotional blood is not readily perceived by most of us who don’t understand the type of injury it originates from. Because we cannot see the limp of an emotionally crippled person, we often discount their suffering and are impatient with them as we urge them to just get over it.

I implore you to pause for a moment to think of those persons traumatized in childhood by abuse, neglect and abandonment to be in real pain I promise you they wish they didn’t have to feel. 

            Some adult survivors are victimized all over again by those who tell them to stop being a victim, to grow up, to forgive and get on with the life that is their responsibility and no longer that of their parents. In response to this pressure they learn to mask the retarded emotional state by doing whatever it takes to prove something- that they are ok. Unfortunately, all the energy put into proving they are ok can become an irritant to the healthier among us with solid self esteem who actually know they are ok. These irritating survivors are overly argumentative, too defensive, overly sensitive, preoccupied with pretending they are not hurting, or are completely unaware that they are hurt. They might be obsessively giving and accommodating; disregarding their own needs and continue allowing themselves to be used and mistreated. Covering up the fact that they feel inadequate, they might refuse help and attempt to do it all on their own, since no one can be trusted anyway. Some are so self absorbed with making sure they appear to be ‘good’ that they are deeply wounded by criticism and correction because then they have to face that they have faults they are not successful in hiding and their secret issues are showing.

If a hurting adult survivor of child abuse never considered his or her self a victim before being accused of acting like one and then told to stop, the confused question becomes, what exactly is a victim and how do I un become one? Well, truth is, first we must admit that we have in fact been victimized by child abuse, including neglect and abandonment; that we feel rejected and cast off, that we are very much aware that we are different and unwanted and that our self esteem was shattered. No, I don’t mean just somewhat affected, cracked, even broken but, shattered. The self esteem of the abused is in innumerable pieces like humpty dumpty was and luckily some persons like myself have come to know Jesus otherwise, there would be no way to put us back together again.

Many adult survivors of abuse might get to a place where they can see the scars left by evil parenting but continue to suffer in silence because they are told they should have gotten over that stuff by now. Oh really, how? It’s not that they wouldn’t like to but, were you there? Can you possibly feel what that survivor feels if you have not lived through their pain? How do they get over it and will you stand with them while they do because if you won’t they can just go on pretending in silence that they are doing fine while evidences in their lives prove otherwise. In addition to those mentioned above, dismantled relationships, lost jobs, emotional outbursts, alternative lifestyles are only a few of the manifestations of a troubled adult whom we might as well term ‘at risk’ adults. Some can get married have children, hold down a career and from all appearances seem to have it together while if the truth were really told they are not very alive on the inside. The evidence of this is seen in the competitiveness of the super over achiever who is obsessed with winning, the need to be perfect, drinking, sex addiction, overspending, eating disorders or a disregard for God and any authority.

I am advocating for adult survivors of child abuse because there are many programs for children and not enough for the adult sufferer. There are many a book and ministries telling problem adults to get well already but, who is taking the time to validate that the pain of a mutilated childhood is real before dispensing advice. When I worked with troubled adults I watched painfully as many well meaning technicians dove quickly into dispensing counsel before listening, thereby discounting the feelings of the sufferer with their self serving preaching. I saw the sufferer listen out of respect but were not affected at the root because the core problem was never validated.  However, I found that when I took time to empathize, allowed them to cry, tell them I’ve been there myself and am now past it or still working through it and I’m ok it helped. A hurting person hears this and then they are ready to hear how I did it and then they can dare hope they can make it as well. I used myself as the example of this approach to counseling and support to the emotionally wounded for I don’t care one bit what you tell me if I feel that you have not heard me. I mean really, how can you help me heal if you don’t know what’s wrong with me? When I go to the doctor I have to describe some symptoms before he can prescribe medicine. When we pray the word says ask for what we want and believe, even though God already knows what we want. When Jesus spoke with the woman at the well, he asked her some questions and he listened, the same with the woman caught in the act of adultery. To help a person who cannot keep a job it might not be enough to say you need to go to work for this will frustrate that person who feels that they have been trying the best they can. If you really want to help, you must assist that job hopper to figure out why they are having trouble staying steadily employed, and then you can advise and preach to support their recovery.

Adult survivors of child abuse finally have a voice in OUTSPOKEN and are finally being given the right to say to parents and guardians, you failed me and you made my life a living hell. They can own the right to feel sorry for themselves, grieve the lost childhood, take the time they need to process the pain and having done that can get on with the business of healing in a manner that works best for them. My prayer is that they find a way to love and that forgiveness becomes a major part of the rebuilding process.