Child Abuse: Can It Be Hard For Someone To Accept That They Were Abused As A Child?

If someone was abused during their development years, it could take many, many years before they actually realise this. This could seem strange; especially as these early experiences will have had an effect on them.

How much of an impact this stage will have had on them is likely to depend on a number of different factors. Firstly, there will be what actually took place and secondly, there will be how they responded to what happened.

Two Parts

Their formative years may have been a time when they were abused in a number of different ways and neglected. Either way, this would have been a time when they were deprived of what they needed.

What will have played a part in how they responded to what happened will have been what their time was like in their mother’s womb and what their birth and early period were like. Furthermore, their sex, the type of support that was available and the trauma that they were born with would have also played a part.

Hidden

To handle the pain that they experienced during their childhood years and to function and keep it together, their brain would have automatically blocked out how they felt and the arousal they experienced. What this would have also done is caused their conscious mind to forget all about what took place.

The years would then have continued to pass and this stage of their life would have faded away. Nonetheless, even if their brain has been and is very effective at keeping their history out of their conscious awareness, input from their unconscious mind is still likely to have broken through and breakthrough.

The Signs

For example, they could often experience a fair amount of fear and anxiety and even have moments when they have panic attacks. Along with this, they could have a number of strong fears.

Without having access to the feelings and memories that their brain will do its best to keep at bay, it could seem as though what is going on for them is irrational. There is then going to be no reason for them to experience life in this way.

Another Part

They may also have the tendency to end up in relationships that are extremely dysfunctional, if not abusive. As for what is going on in this area of their life, it could be as if they are simply unlucky and just end up with the wrong people.

Due to this conclusion, they are merely going to be a victim and they won’t have any control over this area of their life. Once again, without access to what took place before and how what is taking place is most likely a continuation of what happened all those years ago; they won’t be able to join the dots, so to speak.

Shinning the light

Now, if they were to end up looking into some of the common effects of early abuse and neglect, they could find that they are able to relate to a lot of what is mentioned. Still, this doesn’t mean that they will simply be able to accept that their early years were abusive.

Instead, they could say that their parent or parents did the best that they could or even that they did a good job, for instance, and feel the need to protect them. As a result of this, they won’t be able to go further – to acknowledge what happened and face how they feel.

The Next Phase

However, a small part of them might not be willing to completely forget about what they came across and might want to know more. Another, bigger part of them, though, won’t want to go deeper and will just want to carry on as before.

What this will show is that they are experiencing inner inflict and this is making it hard for them to explore and go deeper into themselves. When it comes to why there is resistance, it can show that part of them has an idealised view of their parent or parents and doesn’t want to accept that this view doesn’t match up with reality.

A Big Step

There is a strong chance that this idealised view was created during their early years in order to shield them from reality. At this age, accepting that their parent or parents were abusive and unable to love them would have been too much for them to handle and they would have felt totally powerless

Believing that they were to blame, something that would have occurred due to them being egocentric, would have also allowed them to believe that they could do something about what was going on. This was an illusion, of course, but it was an illusion that was necessary for them to be able to survive and not experience total despair.

No rush

This is then why it will take time for them to face the reality of what happened and there are likely to be moments when they go back into denial. They are likely to be carrying a lot of pain and it will be too much for them to face this pain in one go.

So, as with the grieving process, facing up to and working through the pain that they experienced is not going to be a linear process. They are likely to need a lot of emotional support, validation and compassion.

Awareness
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If someone can relate to this and they are ready to change their life, they may need to reach out for external support. This is something that can be provided with the assistance of a therapist or healer.