Childhood Trauma or Abuse

Childhood experiences

Child abuse is physical, sexual, and, or psychological maltreatment or neglect of a child or children, especially by a parent or a caregiver. Child abuse may include any act or failure to act by a parent or a caregiver that results in actual or potential harm to a child, and can occur in a child’s home, or in the organisations, schools or communities the child interacts with. 

Could I have prevented it?

• Consider the power difference between yourself and your abuser or its role in creating the trauma.
• Consider your understanding at the time.
• Consider your dependency on the person.

Will I become an abuser?

• The majority of people that have been abused do not go on to abuse children.
• Some people who abuse have been abused themselves.

Children don’t tell for various reasons

• They do not recognise it as abuse.
• They are attached to the abuser.
• They are threatened by the abuser.
• They believe they are to blame.
• They are afraid of the consequences for themselves or others.
• There is no-one safe to tell.
• They lack the words to describe what is happening.
• They have memories that are unprocessed.

Adults don’t tell too

• The fear of not being believed.
• The fear that they should have told when it was happening.
• Feeling ashamed or that it was their fault.
• They have repressed, dissociated or unprocessed memories.
• They fear the abuser’s reaction.
• They worry about the impact on the family.

Silent ways of telling

• Withdrawing, dissociating or sleeping a lot.
• Becoming ‘clingy’.
• Being awkward or disruptive.
• Under or over-achieving.
• Self-harming.
• Running away.

Why do people tell?

• They are concerned the abuser poses a risk to others.
• They are safe enough to do it. For example, they may have moved from home, or their abuser may be dead.
• Particular life events may have occurred. For example, childbirth, their child reaching the age they were when the abuse started. Some life events may trigger the individuals memories.
• Or maybe they are asked a question about abuse and have the opportunity to disclose without raising it themselves.