What are the consequences of sexual abuse? What are the
effects of child abuse? What are the symptoms of child
molestation?
Answer:
Note that other traumatic events can cause the same
symptoms as sexual molestation. Thus, occurrence of the
symptoms listed below is not proof of sexual molestation.
Depending on the seriousness, the duration and the
sort of abuse, some of those who were abused in their
childhood, or recently retain certain problems due to this
trauma. These can be divided into psychological, social,
sexual and physical problems.
Psychological problems:
Fears, panic attacks, sleeping problems, nightmares,
irritability, outbursts of anger and sudden shock reactions
when being touched.
Little confidence, and self-respect and respect for one's
own body may change.
Behavior that harms the body: addiction to alcohol and
other substances, excessive work or sports, depression,
self-destruction and prostitution.
Social problems:
Have little confidence in other people.
Fear of loss of control in relationships.
Sexual problem:
While making love problems often occur. The partner may
be confused by a certain remark, touch or behavior that
brings back memories of the abuse.
Patients sometimes don't want to make love at all anymore
or make love less.
Sexual relation problems may occur, together whit pain
while making love, not wanting to make love and problems in
getting aroused. Problems with the orgasm and coming also
occur.
Physical complaints:
Abdominal pain, pain while making love, menstrual pain,
intestinal complaints, stomach ache, nausea, headache, back
pain, painful shoulders, in short all kinds of chronic pain
may occur. The pain is often inexplicable.
Eating disorders often occur in sexually abused
people.
More.
When the patients, in reaction to a harmful event,
disordered for more than a month in such a way that they
can't go to school, can't work, isolate themselves or
experience other negative consequences, one can talk about a
posttraumatic stress syndrome . This disorder
originates in reaction to a very harmful event and has three
characteristic symptoms:
- Denial and repression
- alternating with re-experiencing,
- and they are always over irritated.
Denial and repression ; they deny or repress the
harmful event(s): they don't want to talk about or avoid
certain situations. At an older age, memory of sexual abuse
is often completely suppressed, but can sometimes be
recovered in psychotherapy.
It is, however, difficult to determine if such recovered
memories are memories of real experiences of memories of
dreams or imagined events. This difficulty can be a problem
if you want to prosecute the abuser, but it is not a problem
for treatment using modern psychotherapeutic methods.
Re-experiencing ; they experience the event(s)
again; unintentionally they are confronted with memories of
the abuse, for example through nightmares, sudden memories
or unexplainable physical problems.
Over irritation ; they are easily affected,
hot-tempered, jumpy, excessively alert and don't fall asleep
easily.