The most innocent and naive vicitm that an abuser can abuse is a newborn child. They trust and love unconditionally and without question or judgment, they are totally dependent on that person, they have known no other life other than the one that they are born into to.

The innocence of being a child will not allow them to understand the reality and the horrors of abuse that is put upon them by their abusers. They can not know the meaning of abuse or how  wrong and harmful it is. They cannot say no or fight back either mentally or physically.  Nor can they cry or reach out for help if they do not know when something is so wrong. All they can do is continue to grow up trusting and loving the only life they know, because it is all that they know!

At this time.. the seed is sown into their psyche, this seed grows into what I have named.. 'The Brier patch of thoughts and memories'. Filled with thorns and twisted barbed wire which tangles their ability to think each time a trigger is met throughout their entire life. This is what happens when the innocence of a child is abused. Their wounds turn into scars which will be forced to settle very deep in the back of their minds out of a pure instinct to survive. These scars are not only impenetrable but they are also almost impossible to identify with, treat and/or understand.

These scars also result in an inability to attach emotionally throughout the victims life. This is known (in layman's terms)  as 'Detachment Disorder'!

Detachment Disorder makes it very difficult and even impossible for the victims to enjoy a normal relationship of any type. They flee emotional attachment without even understanding why. It is an instinctive knee jerk reaction that comes from a time when their innocence physiologically had no idea it was being abused. At this time the intelligence and natural instinct of their brain took over and disconnected their conscious, burying deep inside their subconscious the horror of the experiences of being abused without realization.

When a child is deceived and lied to by a person they love, trust and depend on, it makes understanding of love very difficult also which in turn creates this innate desperation to be loved and accepted by someone other than themselves. This is where their self-esteem, self-worth and inability to love themselves unconditionally results from.

When the abuser is a family member, this factor alone robs the child of what should be known as a safe nest. The child will never be able to understand the meaning of a healthy role model. Nor will they ever know the feelings of what innocent nurturing should be like. If this child does not learn to identify the wrong that has been done, so they can untangle the Brier patch they are stuck in, their healing will never have a chance to begin.

How can they ever have a future as a loving parent to their own child?

A victim will through human desire have no choice but to live. Their only alternatives are to commit suicide or learn to cope. So many victims choose denial, self-medication with drugs, alcohol, sex, and/or become an abuser to others.

They are always moving from one disastrous relationship to another or even worse, they only get involved with others that abuse them because it is the only loving feeling they have ever known as a child. The hardest reality for a victim to grasp is that they were abused and they were hurt and through that they have grown up to be very confused and unsure of  their own emotions and thoughts. These unsure thoughts make it very difficult to point the blame at the abuser and not at themselves.

Once a victim has identified with the fact that their childhood was stolen, they then can begin to find a way to living in the present and not in the past. To be reborn needs no age preference. A person can be reborn at any given date in their lives so long as they choose to.

Taking back your life is the only way to end the abuse and to fade away the scars.

So what are you waiting for..it happened..you know...so let it go...today is a new day...today is a new you!

DorothyL

Leave a Comment

<<<Return to the Main Abuse Information Page

Stories of other abuse victims are available on my website here:

http://www.womensselfesteem.com/abuseandsurvival.html


A form for your own abuse/survival story is here:

http://www.womensselfesteem.com/submitstory.html