We Are Adult Survivors of Child Abuse and Neglect

Attachment is important. It is the base upon which the emotional health, social relationships, and one’s worldview are built. The ability to trust and form relationships will affect the emotional health, security, and safety of the child, as well as the child’s development and future relationships.

Child abuse predators, sad to say, are most of the time our fathers, uncles, grandfathers, stepfathers, brothers, cousins, or mother’s boyfriends. Because these perpetrators did not get their own developmental needs met when they grew up, they turn to their own children, especially when there is marital strife,

The NIMH has studied the difference between how depressed mothers relate to their children versus healthy mothers. Studies have shown that depressed mothers are more likely to be critical of their children and less likely to talk to them,

Are you a female child sexual abuse survivor who has experienced the death of the abuser? If so, researchers would like to hear about your experience with this. Researchers at Purdue University are conducting a study to learn more about what child sexual abuse survivors experience when the abuser dies.

There is an old Native American story about two women sitting on a river bank watching dead babies floating downstream. They decided instead of just pointing out to others what they had seen, they would go upstream to stop whoever was killing the babies. This story is a perfect description

Studies conducted for over 30 years all point to the same conclusion:  exposure to media portrayals of violence increases aggressive behavior in children. The National Institute of Mental Health has reported, “In magnitude, exposure to television violence is as strongly correlated with aggressive behavior as any other behavioral variable that has been measured.”[1]

Brain deficits develop in children exposed to neglect and abuse. It is critical that researchers and society understand these devastating consequences and how children are impacted later in life. Theoretically, during early brain development, neglect and abuse lead to deprivation of input needed by the infant brain. Thus, subsequent brain functioning is impaired.[1]

One of the survival techniques we learned as survivors when growing up in an abusive home was what is called distorted thinking. Since we were never exposed to healthy ways of managing or expressing what was happening to us, we developed a different way of thinking to cope with the situation.