Post-Traumatic Stress & Sexual Abuse

Sometimes a person may appear to be suffering from depression, anxiety, or another mood disorder. They may do disturbing things like cutting, burning themselves, or other similar behaviors. S/he may exhibit unhealthy eating or sleeping.

All or any of these may be symptoms of post-traumatic stress. Essentially, this means that the person has been exposed to one or more traumatic events, and has developed these symptoms in response.

Traumatic events can be caused by natural disasters such as tornadoes, floods, or hurricanes; or they can be caused by accidents such as automobile crashes, machine malfunctions, or household incidents. Very often, trauma develops from being engaged in or witness to combat, or being witness to or involved in crimes such as rape, other sexual abuse, or other violent crimes.

The fact that the person may not remember a specific incident doesn't mean it didn't happen. It's not unusual for people to experience a special form of amnesia which seems to protect the psyche from the pain or horror of the event. THERE IS NO SUCH CLINICAL CONCEPT CALLED FALSE MEMORY SYNDROME. It's important to keep this in mind since there is an organization that actively seeks to misrepresent this very common response to extreme trauma.

This controversy has developed because through the last twenty years, clinicians and their clients have discovered that often post-traumatic stress has developed in response to childhood sexual, physical, or emotional abuse. At times this has involved adults retrieving these traumatic memories while in therapy. In RARE instances, it has been found that through sloppy therapy or because the clinician has a personal agenda, the memories have not been valid. More importantly, it is critical to realize that there is a society-wide need not to face the reality of child abuse.

You see, we want to believe that we cherish our children, and that only monsters commit this kind of crime against our youth. Unfortunately, research shows that before the age of eighteen, as many as one in three girls is sexually abused, and as many as one in five boys is victimized this way. Millions of children are witness to, or are victims of domestic violence each year. If it's only monsters that do this, and it happens this often, than an awful lot of us must be monsters. Your brother, your father, your baby-sitter, your uncle, your stepdad, your sister, and even your mother may perpetrate these crimes. What we have to ask ourselves is does this criminal, violating behavior make them monsters. Until we can face this issue fully, people will continue to blame victims or deny their reality.

This reaction to recovered memory actually continues to make it hard for people to allow themselves to face the source of their emotional distress, and often has us medicating symptoms of the problem instead of getting to its roots.

If you believe you may be a victim of childhood trauma, you may want to explore issues of trauma and memory with a therapist before hiring him or her. It is critical that you have someone with an open mind working with you.