So many of the girls and boys affected by childhood sexual abuse will wind up further vicitimized by their inability to find freedom from the shame and hurt and will wind up living lives of addiction to substances or promiscuity or further abuse. Secrets and shame destroy lives.
I had yet another reminder of these hard and evil realities this week as yet another mother heard a report from a child in a late night fit of drunken rage, DECADES later, how this now adult child was abused by someone in the past and the mother is hearing it now for the first time…. and has lived with the child’s anger, rebellion, and dysfunction for decades….
At what point does it behoove an adult to seek help for one’s dysfunction….. Sometimes it comes when a parent quits enabling and enduring bad behavior and tells the child it is time to assume responsibility for one’s own emotional life and pain. 40 is certainly old enough to seek help to figure out one’s own issues, put fault in the right place and quit punishing oneself and everyone else for one’s pain from childhood trauma….. unless one prefers to deny truth and scapegoat others. Not easy family solutions. But God….
