20% of the US population will have some form of mental illness in their lifetime.
- Carol C. Nadelson, M.D.
Even after someone is removed from an abusive situation, there will be psychological effects. A low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, PTSD, and self- harm are a few examples. The victim will still have a skewed way of looking at the world. Everyone carries thier own programming that they learned in childhood, and the ideals or experiences that were ingrained in youth will still be programmed into the victim's mind. They will react to different stimuli, especially in cases of stress, the same as if they were still a child being abused. (Please note that this does not mean abuse recoverers are all mentally ill, unless otherwise diagnosed.)
Children of dysfunctional families have trouble experiencing: appropriate levels of self-esteem; setting functional boundaries; owning and expressing their own reality; taking care of their adult needs and wants; experiencing and expressing their reality moderately; i.e. exhilaratingly happy or absolutely miserable, incredibly involved or extremely detatched. There is no middle ground in the body, thinking, feelings, behavior. Everything is black or white, good or evil.
PTSD: Out of Sight, Into Your Mind
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder affects one out of seven Americans. While on this website we focus on issues as it relates to child abuse, it does have other origins, such as an accident, war, terrorist attack, kidnapping, being in a disaster, etc. Some symptoms include, but are not excluded to:
Upsetting memories or thoughts about the trauma
Flashbacks
Nightmares
Smells, sights, words, sounds may cause a flashback
Angry and defensive
Having difficulty concentrating and remembering things
Hypervigilant
Panic attacks
Insomnia*
I strongly recommend the above site for details on PTSD, from treatment and coping mechanisims to just general information.
* Initial insomnia is difficulty falling asleep. Middle insomnia is waking during the night and having difficulty falling asleep. Terminal insomnia is waking too early. Hypersomnia is oversleeping.
Inappropriate Levels of Self-Esteem
Self-esteem is how you feel about yourself and how you view your existance. It is more common to feel a low self-esteem, but it's possible for a person to develop a high opinion of himself due to the same circumstances to counteract the challenge to his/her self-worth. Inappropriately high self-esteem typically manifests itself as malignant narcissisim. I will focus on low self-esteem for this article. Right away I'm going to refer you to the book Self-Esteem by Matthew McKay, Ph.D, and Patrick Fanning. You can get affordable copies of it at Amazon.com. When growing up in an abusive home, a child's self-esteem is destroyed, and it is up to that individual to work on getting a healthy view of him/herself. A low self-esteem can cause you to never realize your full potential, and tends to sabotage yourself in your own efforts to succeed in business and in relationships. Here are a couple links to get you started on rebuilding your self-esteem.
Clinical depression (also called major depressive disorder, or unipolar depression when compared to bipolar disorder) is a state of intense sadness, melancholia or despair that has advanced to the point of being disruptive to an individual's social functioning and/or activities of daily living.
Two hallmarks of depression — symptoms key to establishing a diagnosis — are:
Loss of interest in normal daily activities. You lose interest in or pleasure from activities that you used to enjoy.
Depressed mood. You feel sad, helpless or hopeless, and may have crying spells.
In addition, for a doctor or other health professional to diagnose depression, most of the following signs and symptoms also must be present for at least two weeks.
Sleep disturbances. Sleeping too much or having problems sleeping can be a sign you're depressed. Waking in the middle of the night or early in the morning and not being able to get back to sleep are typical.
Impaired thinking or concentration. You may have trouble concentrating or making decisions and have problems with memory.
Changes in weight. An increased or reduced appetite and unexplained weight gain or loss may indicate depression.
Agitation. You may seem restless, agitated, irritable and easily annoyed.
Fatigue or slowing of body movements. You feel weariness and lack of energy nearly every day. You may feel as tired in the morning as you did when you went to bed the night before. You may feel like you're doing everything in slow motion, or you may speak in a slow, monotonous tone.
Low self-esteem. You feel worthless and have excessive guilt.
Less interest in sex. If you were sexually active before developing depression, you may notice a dramatic decrease in your level of interest in having sexual relations.
Thoughts of death. You have a persistent negative view of yourself, your situation and the future. You may have thoughts of death, dying or suicide.
Depression Statistics
Depressive disorders affect approximately 18.8 million American adults or about 9.5% of the U.S. population age 18 and older in a given year. This includes major depressive disorder, dysthymic disorder, and bipolar disorder. [1]
Everyone, will at some time in their life be affected by depression -- their own or someone else's, according to Australian Government statistics. (Depression statistics in Australia are comparable to those of the US and UK.) [2]
Depression is a topic that is easy to research over the internet, because there are so many websites dedicated to it. I could never list them all, simply Google "depression" and you are set.
Please visit our DID / MPD page for complete information.
Self-Injury
Self-injury is not failed attempts at suicide, and is not masochisim. It is what some people do to cope with emotions they do not know how to cope healthily with. I also have engaged in self-injury, my method being superficial cuts to my forearms and wound interference. People who don't know anything about delayed effects of trauma, or have no depression or borderline personality disorders, cannot comprehend why anyone would purposefully injure themselves. To them it is extreme, morbid, frightening. The ones who self-harm feel deep shame. To me, Secret Shame is the definitive information site on self-injury on the web.
Pressure Building: Distractiong activity, call supportive persons, hot line, or therapist, "containment" imagery, safe expression of feelings, physical activity, spiritual practices, self-negotiations to "buy time."
Relapse: Distract self immediately, re-focus on personal goals, rational self-talk, follow your "Relapse Plan."
Initial Response (after self-injury): Attend to your body and obtain any medical help, honesty with self and others, difference between lapse and relapse, recommit yourself to recovery, watch for shame and self-hate, process in therapy.
Long-term Response: Analyze your self-injury cycle, improve coping methods, improve safety plan, examine and correct thinking errors, focus on strengths, develop support system, visualize desired future and how to make it happen.
Drug abuse and alcoholism is a form of escapisim, meaning a way of escaping from reality. Mind- and emotion-altering substances are readily available and of course, addictive. Abused individuals find it much easier to escape their suffering through temporary fixes, turning a blind eye to the lasting damages it causes.
Infantilism [Do Not click link unless over 18 years of age. It isn't porn but it is age sensitive content] is adults or older children pretending to be babies or toddlers that wear diapers. The best description I've seen is Psychosexual Infantilism in Adults: The Eroticization of Regression, a title of a book by Thomas John Speaker. It usually manifests as a fetishism for wearing diapers and goes from there. This behavior typically appears as a result of lack of nurturing from the mother and/or father, a bad toilet training experience, sexual abuse, physical abuse, bedwetting problems, or forced shame about behavior that seems -to the parent- infantile and not age appropriate. In most cases, the infantilist wants a caregiver to nurture him, and at some point sexuality enters into play. This is NOT being multiple, this is role play. One characteristic of infantilism is a fixation on baby items, such as onesies, cribs, diapers, baby bottles, bibs, booties, all baby things. The person will try to regress mentally as far as s/he is able when in private, and in public may wear diapers under adult clothes. This disorder causes the "adult baby" much shame, but it is very difficult to be cured from it, as, unlike other disorders and addictions, it seems to make no victims and brings good feelings that may not diminish with time and usage, unlike the body building a resistance to drugs. There are "caretakers" who cater to these desires willingly, and enjoy mothering these adults and encourage them to regress fully, so they can have control over the adult baby and fill their maternal desires. At times hypnosis is used to regress further.
