SEXUAL ABUSE TRAUMA
Abstract
Children who are victims of sexual abuse will often face secondary trauma regarding their crisis of discovery. Their respective attempts of reconciling their private experiences with the realities of the outer world are downplayed by non-belief, rejection, and blame they might end up experiencing from adults. The normal behavior of the children regarding their respective coping due to the experiences is contradicted by the entrenched expectations and beliefs often held by adults. As a result, the child is overly stigmatized backed by various claims and charges directed to them by adults. The issues of lying, manipulation, or imagination as components structured by the respective child are directed to the children in case of such occurrences. These processes will ideally result into the aspect of abandonment of the abused children. As a result, the children will ideally form various actions which will therefore make the child develop some counter conducts. Self-blame, hating on themselves, alienation from the society and social units, and other issues amount therefore to trauma experienced by the children. In trying to discuss the various traumas experienced by sexually abused children, it is then vital to align the discussion on a certain line. As a result, the main questions that arise and are used to discuss the traumatic happenings of child sexual abuse regards adults and their input are ‘are adults responsible for most of the traumatic happenings of the children? Is child trauma resultant from sexual abuse preventable by adults? And lastly, how do sexual predators arise?’ These are some of the questions that have been used in developing the following discussions. Their respective answers have been incorporated in the discussion though not directly.
Body
Touching sexual offences include; kissing, making a children touch the private parts of those doing those actions, sexual intercourse with a children, exposing children’s genital parts. Non-touching sexual offences on the other case include showing children pornographic material, producing pornography materials using children’s private parts, child molestation, and masturbating in front of a child (Fontes, 2008, p. 235).
Basically, there has to be trauma experienced by the individual child who has been a victim of sexual abuse. The trauma can be displayed in various ways depending on also a number of psychological elements. One of the traumas that are displayed by a sexually abused child would be a sudden developed fear. To a large extent, the abused child develops fear within themselves in regard to their previous episode. In general, the concerned child will in this case display fear to adults. They basically develop the thinking that if people around them know about this, they will be treated differently.
Stress that is caused by sexual problems can result to changes in brain development and functioning. Recent studies show that sexual abuse in a child results to damage of brain development, this neurological damage can cause poor performance in class. A child can not be able to think critically and produce excellent results (Harris & Copeland, 2000, p. 24). After a child has been sexually abused it is important to put a child to treatment to ensure they are well in their current mental health and also helps to prevent future occurrence. The treatment should be administered instantly to avoid the symptoms that may occur after the abuse (Arehart, 2001, p. 30). This treatment is one of the crucial processes for helping the child know how to distinguish between their health and destructive coping skills. Treating a child requires strong family involvement (Cohen, Deblinger& Mannarino, 2006, p. 56). Treatment of physical signs like injuries, infections can be treated as any other kinds of bruises.
Self-blame by the respective children will always be a result of an abuse case. Considering that children are ideally fearful that they have a hand in their respective ordeal, it is evident that they will develop self-resentment (Browne, 1986, p. 66). This traumatic consequence can however be directly related to the respective conduct and reaction regarding cases of child abuse. Children who are victims of sexual abuse will tend to believe that the concerned adults, such as parents, will treat them wrongly and consequently blame them for the ordeal. It is actually a case that occurs whereby parents blame the children after they have been sexually abused. To a large extent, this is the basis of the self-blame and hate that is developed by the children. It is vital to note that the children might actually live with the blame for a long time. The consequences of blame resulting from the parents or concerned authority to them can ideally translate into other traumas.
The above discussed traumatic element to the victim is basically as a result of another trauma. Children who have been molested or sexually abused will also tend to develop the trauma of guilt. This implies that the concerned victim will think that they have a role in their experiences. The children generally develop the guilt that they have a role in the occurred abuse. This is a very common traumatic element after a typical case of child abuse. It is probably the reason that abused children will seldom indicate this to various concerned authority like their parents. It is also the trauma that results in the children believing that they will be treated wrongly or differently upon the discovery of their abuse.
Post traumatic stress will also likely be a result of a case of child abuse. Post traumatic stress disorder is characterized by various symptoms. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) will generally be resultant immediately or after a few days after the actual child sexual abuse (Maletzky, 1993, p.12). As a result of this event, there will be reoccurring intrusive thoughts regarding the often scaring and painful events of the experience. This way trauma has the ripple effect of impacting negatively on the individual health of the concerned child. As a result, the child will often try to avoid anything that might result into remembrance of their respective experience during the assault. The child in question will therefore avoid such places that are similar in anyway. People, related smell, sounds, and other sensory triggers of such an event will be largely avoided by the abused children.
An abused child will often have an emotional imbalance not only immediately after the occurred assault, but also long after the exact happening (Caffaro & Conncaffaro , 2005, p. 600). This will especially be so if certain actions regarding the effective healing of the child are done in due time effectively. Emotional hyper arousal on the concerned children will be resultant. Emotional hyper arousal is often characterized by certain mood swings d by displayed by the child. Further, the sexually abused children will also have rapidly building anger, resentment, or crying that can only be defined as out of proportion to the apparent stimulus.
How do sex offenders develop? This is one of the questions that can be developed in this review. It not only helps to relevantly put the content in place, but also acts as a resourceful entity. As a notable component of derived trauma from a sexually abused child, is referenced from the aspect of sexualized behavior of the children. Generally, as a result of the experience of the child, the concerned children will often develop a keen interest in sexual related issues (Harris & Copeland, 2000, p. 44). This can be ideally picked as a character from the individuals. The children will therefore tend to have more knowledge regarding sex and related issues than most of their peers. This behavior might dangerously develop into a sex addiction. This might actually turn out to be an avenue of the respective individuals being sex abusers in the making.
Conclusion
Sexual abuse is generally a societal wrong that cannot be overlooked. Child sexual abuse, which is the basis of this discussion, is in apparent existence. The current weight as given to child sexual abuse is highly large and active. There is huge concern regarding child sexual abuse. This can be specifically picked out from the fact that there are very strict laws and regulations regarding the respective treatment of offenders. There have also been numerous researches regarding this subject by various scholars and concerned individuals especially in disciplines such as medicine and psychology. It is also evident that there will be more research conducted in future regarding this aspect. To a large extend, the impact of future research and practice regarding this issues might ideally address any existing differences in this area. There is also the possibility that the future research and practice will ideally bring a connection throughout related issues all over the world.
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