What are adult survivors of child abuse likely to experience?

Abuse can be mental, emotional, verbal, physical, sexual, or economic. Abuse evokes the stress response or 'fight or flight' response. If a child is stressed for too long or too often, the stress response becomes faulty and the child never returns to a calm state. This impacts the architecture of the developing brain which impacts long term health and human potential. An adult who was abused as a child without any protective factors to offset the effects of toxic stress will demonstrate a wide variety of symptoms. Physical health is compromised; cardiovascular, inflamatory, digestive and other chronic diseases result, including obesity and diabetes. Emotional and mental health show negative effects; depression, anxiety and mood disorders, bipolar disorder and socialization issues. Adults will be withdrawn, shy, insecure, unable to handle stress. The lifelong impact of toxic stress in children is profound.   

Adult survivors of child abuse experience a variety of long term effects. The severity and longevity of the abuse is not as much a variable as whether or not the individual received counseling, was supported by the immediate family, and was able to move on with such support, shortly after the abuse occurred. Should this person grow into an adult, without processing the realities of the abuse and the way it has colored their life, post-traumatic stress disorder is frequently the case. Post-traumatic stress disorder is apparent by a number of symptoms, such as flashbacks to the abusive situation, intrusive thoughts, hyper-vigilance, nightmares, anxiety and depression. It is never too late to seek treatment for childhood abuse. Some folk seek out a good therapist during a crisis period, some during a life changing moment such as getting married, having a child, the death of a parent. Developing a strong relationship with your therapist will allow you to explore early trauma, and how it has colored your worldview. Your childhood and family of origin does not have to determine your happiness and success as an adult. It does color it, but only you can define yourself.

The consequences of sexual abuse vary from survivor to survivor, but if you put a group of men and women survivors in a room and created enough safety, they likely would say many of the same things about their lives.

They would talk about struggles with self-esteem, oftentimes feelings of self-hatred they may have led to feeling suicidal, struggles with wanting to act on suicidal impulses, and for some, dealing with the after-effects of suicide attempts. Many survivors will never read these words because they did not get the help they needed and tragically ended their lives.

There is hope and healing possible for all survivors, I believe.

Many survivors face many difficult mental health challenges, including major depression; anxiety issues, including panic attacks; post traumatic disorder—including symptoms like flashbacks, intrusive memories, and hypervigilance; compulsive behaviors and addictions-including alcoholism, drug addiction, sex addiction, gambling addictions, and workaholism.

Many survivors struggle with allowing any intimacy in their lives. Their ability to trust has been so wounded that they are unable to allow anyone to even be kind to them. They expect people will hurt them and reject them, so they keep people at a distance.

Sexual orientation confusion, sexual functioning difficulties, and poor body image are also common problems. Some survivors struggle with eating disorders, including bulimia and anorexia.