Effects
Sexual abuse, sexual assault, and sex trafficking violate the will, injure the body, deceive the mind, traumatize the heart, and humiliate the soul. They damage the survivor’s relationships with others and perceptions of God. The effects are both immediate and enduring. However, the severity of the effects can be alleviated by mitigating factors at the time of the abuse, assault or trafficking as well as during a later recovery process. There is always hope for healing.
EFFECTS ON THE INDIVIDUAL
Not all victims and survivors experience all of the effects described below, but most of them experience a combination of several of them. Survivors need to know that these are normal consequences of abuse and assault, and their traumatic and post-traumatic experiences are shared by other survivors. Families, friends, and communities of survivors need to understand what survivors experience in order to support them.
*Please note that the list of effects given below meant to give a general idea to readers of what effects of abuse and assault may be. Survivors may experience a number of other effects not listed. Those interested in a deeper understanding are referred to the books in listed on the JSASSN Resources page.
The will (volitional effects): God gave human beings free will as a gift, and the will is part of a person’s core identity. Abuse, assault, and trafficking violate the will and make the violated person feel powerless and devalued as a person.
The body (physical effects):
Immediate effects: pleasure and pain
God designed the body to respond to sexual stimulation with physical pleasure. The body often does what it is designed to do, even in situations of abuse and assault. This can be especially confusing for children, who do not recognize their pleasurable responses as involuntary. They may believe that the fact they experienced physical pleasure means that they somehow consented to what was being done to them—a lie abusers often reinforce.
In situations of assault, the body experiences pain, such as bruising, bleeding, broken bones as well as soreness, aching, tenderness in the genital and other areas of the body. When abusers threaten to inflict pain, the body’s stress reactions can produce pain throughout the body, whether abusers follow through on their threats or not.
Research has also shown that traumatic sexual abuse and assault changes the chemistry and pathways of the brain, so that the brain itself suffers not only at the time of abuse and assault but later in life as well. Memory can be affected.
Enduring effects: chronic pain, sexual dysfunction, secondary effects
Survivors of sexual abuse and assault often suffer from chronic pain as a result of their experiences. The lower back is often in pain since the sensory receptors for the genital areas of the body are located there. Other chronic pain from post-traumatic stress may include mid and upper-back pain, headaches, digestive disorders, shaking, re-experiencing the pain from the abuse or assault when memories of it are cued, and so on.
Survivors also suffer from a variety of sexual dysfunctions. Women may experience vaginissimus, an involuntary and painful tightening of the vaginal muscles that can prevent sexual intercourse. Women and men may be unable to experience orgasm. Certain aspects of healthy adult sexuality may cue memories of past sexual abuse or assault. Sexual experience, which was designed by God to be enjoyable, becomes so closely linked to trauma that survivors often cannot experience it as truly fulfilling. On the other hand, some survivors develop sexual addictions, lack sexual boundaries, and put themselves at risk with multiple partners. All survivors of sexual abuse and assault can benefit from learning and counseling as well as the love and understanding of their intimate partners in sexual relationships.
In addition to what has been specified above, some secondary psychological effects with physical manifestations include post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, hyper-vigilance, and chronic fatigue (all of which change body chemistry), eating disorders (such as anorexia or bulimia), chronic minor illnesses, cutting and self-mutilation, substance abuse, promiscuity, prostitution, re-enactment of abusive situations, and suicidal ideation. These effects require intervention and treatment.
The mind (mental effects):
Immediate effects: shock, dissociation
When people are abused or assaulted, they will often go into a state of shock and dissociate, that is, mentally disengage from the terror of reality and emotionally disconnect from traumatic experience. These responses allow victims to establish psychological barriers between their minds and what is happening to their bodies that help them to survive.
Enduring effects: dissociation, denial, memory repression, dreams, nightmares, hallucinations
In his book, The Invisible Wound, Wayne Kritsberg describes the sexual traumatization process: the trauma results in shock, the inability to resolve trauma, and the activation of the mind’s “core defenses”: dissociation, memory repression, and denial. In adulthood, this leads to “survival living” (p. 45). Because sexual abuse and assault are so traumatizing, survivors often avoid the stimuli that will trigger their memories, and they actively repress their memories of devastating past experience. However, because God designed us to be inwardly whole, the subconscious mind actively resists fragmentation of the psyche and repression of memories, especially through dreams, nightmares, and hallucinations. Denial occurs when survivors deny what happened to them or minimize the the extent and impact of the abuse. Dissociation, memory repression, and denial are short-term survival techniques that, over the long term, are extremely damaging to a person. They can be replaced with healthier strategies for surviving and thriving through the healing process.
The heart (emotional effects):
Immediate and enduring effects: debilitating fear, terror, anger, rage, depression, guilt, shame, sorrow, grief, frustration, distress
People who are abused or assaulted experience fear because their lives are profoundly endangered by what is happening to them. This terror is immediate, and it continues to affect most aspects of survivors’ lives until its power is broken. As a direct consequence of this fear, survivors experience rage about being violated. Unexpressed anger often turns into severe depression, especially in women. Expressed anger often turns into violence, especially in men. Survivors need the opportunity to express fear in safe environments and anger in healthy ways.
Survivors also experience guilt that comes when they blame themselves for the abuse. They experience shame that comes from the lies they were told by their abusers or from the doubting, denying, or blaming responses of the people from whom they sought help but did not receive it.
Underneath these emotions is often a profound sense of sorrow and grief over the survivors’ loss of safety, loss of innocence, and loss of a sense of worthiness, beauty, and strength. Because abused and assaulted people have been treated as objects and not children of God, because they have been injured when they should have been loved, their souls are in pain. When survivors seek help but cannot get it, they feel profoundly frustrated. Their inner emotional world becomes overwhelming in its intensity. This results in an overall sense of distress.
But some survivors dissociate so profoundly as a result of sexual abuse and assault, separating their emotions from their experiences even into adulthood, that they are often emotionally numb and must learn how to feel at all through the healing process.
The soul (spiritual effects):
Immediate effects: loss of innocence and joy
People are made in the image of God, invited to be children of God and part of the Bride of Christ. This is the core truth about the human soul and about human identity, and that core does not change, no matter how terrible the suffering someone has experienced.
But sexual abuse and assault do steal the innocence and joy of the soul. These can be inwardly retained despite on-going abuse and assault, and they can be restored. But at the time of the initial abuse or assault, they are stolen, and this loss affects survivors for the rest of their lives.
Enduring effects: permanently altered identity, confusion over what is true, difficulty loving and forgiving
Sexual abuse and assault permanently alters the identity of survivors. This can be very difficult for survivors to recognize or accept since the alteration came about through a violation of their will. But once abuse or assault has taken place, it will always be true that it happened; it cannot be undone, and its effects unfold in the lives of survivors. Without enough protective factors and a recovery process, a person’s identity suffers from what has happened.
In addition, survivors may have difficulty recognizing what is true as well as difficulty loving and forgiving others. These are profound and enduring spiritual effects of sexual abuse and assault.
Actions (behavioral effects):
Immediate effects: freezing, silence, struggling, fighting back, crying, screaming
At the time of the sexual abuse or assault, people who are sexually abused or assaulted can respond by becoming “frozen”–that is, physically and psychologically paralyzed–and silent because they are in shock. Alternatively, they may respond by struggling and fighting back because their adrenaline-motivated “fight-or-flight” instinct kicks in. Whatever the reaction, abusers have usually arranged their approach or attack so that it is, for all practical purposes, impossible for the victim to escape.
Enduring effects: Dr. Leigh Baker, in her book Protecting Your Child from Sexual Predators, notes that “Left to their own devices, eventually abused children will act out their sexual stimulation by excessive masturbation, inappropriate sexual play with other children, a preoccupation with sex, and the development of deviant sexual attitudes and behaviors that continue into adulthood” (p.34). Adults, who are a different developmental stage physically and psychologically at the time of the abuse or assault, will not necessarily have the same responses as children.
Relationships (relational effects): fear of intimacy, inability to trust, confusion about sexual and relational boundaries
People who are abused or assaulted once or multiple times do not want to re-experience that kind of suffering again. Their fear makes it difficult for them to feel safe in close or intimate relationships. Their ability to trust needs to be strengthened in safe, loving relationships.
At the same time, adult survivors of childhood abuse and assault have a particularly difficult time sorting out appropriate boundaries in relationships. These were not modeled for them or experienced by them, so they have to learn about them and experiment with them, often feeling like they are destined for failure and loneliness. Survivors need hope that they can grow in good relationships that work for them and the people they love.
Perception of God:
Children and adults who are abused or assaulted find it very difficult to believe in an all-powerful, all-good, all-loving God. When perpetrators are pastors, priests, rabbis, youth workers, or members of religious communities, the damage done to survivors is even greater. If survivors do continue to believe in God, they often blame Him for what the abusers did to them, since He did not stop it.
Although I do not understand why God allows sexual abuse, sexual assault, and sex trafficking, I have come to believe that God never allows anything that he cannot redeem. I place the responsibility for the abuse on the abusers, on the demonic influences they allowed to rule them, and on sin—not on God, who is the only One who can truly heal. I continue to love and trust God, even when this is difficult, because I know He has a plan and the power to heal and to redeem.
Concluding thought
Sexual abuse and assault affects every part of a person. It affects all the senses of the body, the perceptions of the mind, the feelings of the heart, and the strength of the soul. It affects survivors’ behaviors, relationships, and beliefs. Because sexual abuse and assault is so devastating to the whole person, healing must be redemptive of the whole person.
PROTECTIVE FACTORS
Prevention, intervention, and redemption efforts are often partial or delayed in their availability, applicability, and acceptability to survivors. Fortunately, however, God’s grace allows for mitigating factors that can lessen or alleviate the effects of sexual abuse and assault. In the psychological literature, factors that increase the likelihood of negative outcomes have been referred to as “risk factors” while ones that decrease the likelihood of negative outcomes are referred to as “protective factors.”
The source for the information given below is: “The Effects of Child Abuse Depend on a Variety of Factors” - http://www.jimhopper.com/abstats
Factors research has shown to influence the effects of abuse:
-Age of the child when the abuse happened. Younger is usually more damaging, but different effects are associated with different developmental periods.
-Who committed the abuse. Effects are generally worse when it was a parent, step-parent, or trusted adult than a stranger.
-Whether the child told anyone, and if so, the person’s response. Doubting, ignoring, blaming, and shaming responses can be extremely damaging—in some cases, even more than the abuse itself.
-Whether or not violence was involved, and if so, how severe.
-How long the abuse went on.
Additional factors that are difficult to research and may differ in significance for different people:
-whether the abuse involved deliberately humiliating the child
-How “normal” such abuse was in the extended family and local culture
-Whether the child had loving family members and/or knew that someone loved him or her.
-Whether the child had some good relationships—with siblings, friends, teachers, coaches, and so on.
-Whether the child had relationships in which “negative” feelings were acceptable and could be expressed and managed safely and constructively
Some of these factors are about how severe the abuse was, and some are about the relational context of the abuse and the child’s reactions. Both types of factors are extremely important.
