Hate to bring this up but I have been looking at some youtube videos on evil people and many times commentators refer back to people childhoods.
In many cases mental abuse has horrific impact on children.
Any abuse is wrong but do some forms have longer impact than others? Any reference material listed will be read.
As an aside I was mentally abused from my earliest memories.
Thanks
Abuse - Physical, Sexual and Mental
by usualusername 9 Replies latest jw friends
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usualusername
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Lady Lee
Any kind of abuse has the power to affect people for their entire lives. Getting therapy can helps lessen the impact greatly.
Any kind of abuse that is left untreated and especially if it adversely continues to affect the victim/survivor can be serious. So you can't point to one type and say it is the worst.
In college I did a study on whether people considered they had been physically abused in their childhoods. We had plenty of people check off boxes that now most clinicians would say they were seriously abused. One really surprising find was one woman who said she had been abused. But she also said she had been slapped across the face once in her life. It seems that in some circumstances even one incidence of physical assault was enough for her to define herself as having been abused. It was an unexpected finding. But we also had plenty of people who said they had been spanked seriously enough to bruise them. They didn't think they had been abused. But that doesn't mean they weren't negatively affected by it.
When people are abused and don't get the help they need they are at a much higher risk of abusing others. With the appropriate counseling they can stop the intergenerational transmission of abuse.
Although there are a lot of studies that say people who were abused will become abusers or will become adult victims those studies are often on a very narrow population of subjects - most often in prison. That cannot be generalized to the greater population. Many people who were abused may conscience choices to never abuse a child.
The problem comes when they cannot define something as abuse. A hit is easy to identify. So is sexual abuse although many people are confused about various levels of sexual abuse.
Verbal, psychological, emotional and even spiritual abuse are a lot harder to identify. The old saying "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me" is an absolute lie. These kinds of abuse can often create long lasting effects simply because they are so hard to identify.
My suggestion to anyone who is having problems to talk top a counselor and work together to see what impact certain kinds of behaviors might be causing problems in the adult life.
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usualusername
Thx Lady Lee
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N.drew
There are some kinds of mental/emotional abuse that are very hard to prove.
Neglect is one. Maybe no name calling or physical contact, but there is not interaction and/or communication either. The children are not told what is expected of them in the social context, or what is told is not explained well.
There is another kind. It is a squelching of behavior that the squelcher does himself/herself. It is showing a double standard. Double standards are confusing and not nice. It teaches that an elder can do something even though he has had time to learn that it is wrong, but the child should not do it even though he has not been shown (taught) that it is wrong yet and has had no time to learn it.
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WTWizard
The worst form of sexual abuse, aside from doing it solely because you want to ruin the child's life (in which case, other abuse would also be present), is to brainwash the child at an early age that sex is filthy and get them hung up on it. This form of sexual abuse creates much shame and guilt that carries on into married life, reducing the amount they are able to enjoy sex at that stage. It also causes a certain amount of homosexuality, since boys and girls are separated most of the time. (And many cannot grow out of that hang-up, remaining immature.) When the same organization that dirtifies sex in the first place has one of its representatives then sexually molest the child again (this time, by performing the act they themselves condemned), that causes a great deal of confusion in those children, and that's what causes most of the mental problems.
And, shame on all the Christian (and Muslim) churches and mosques (and Jewish synagogues--you are not exempt, either) for brainwashing society into thinking sex is filthy. Virtually every single one of them is guilty--some are much worse than others, but they are all guilty. If they didn't make sex look dirty, then those seeking kicks would have to find something else to get them from doing than raping children. I also shame the churches that have pedophile problems (after making sex look filthy) and that hide them. Such churches (Catholics and Jehovah's Witlesses alike, and I am not sure how many others it is) first indoctrinate children, then force them to go against those doctrines, and the worst is when they threaten those children not to blow them in under penalty of disfellowshipping or hell threats. Anyone that does all the above ought to be the ones to burn in hell, die at Armageddon (a gruesome death), suffer unbearable stagnation through their lives (in a jail cell, preferably), or be reincarnated as a squash bug that is going to become a squashed bug.
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Lady Lee
Wiz I usually enjoy reading your posts but this??? Really???
The worst form of sexual abuse, aside from doing it solely because you want to ruin the child's life (in which case, other abuse would also be present),
Most sexual abusers have no desire to ruin anyone's life. They don't care enough about their victim to worry about their future. They abuse because it makes them feel powerful and sex is one way they can take power from someone else, like a defenseless child.
is to brainwash the child at an early age that sex is filthy and get them hung up on it.
More often they convince a young child that the sexual contact is n ice and their "special game" that is a secret Generally it isn't until the child is about 6-8 that they begin to realize there is something seriously wrong with this game but they feel trapped and incapable of stopping it or telling someone. And by this time the abuser has begun to threaten terrible things will happy if they tell. It is also around this age that a child has developed a sense of privacy, wanting to dress and clothe themselves in private and go to the washroom in private. The sexual abuse seriously damages the victim's need for this normal developmental stage and then the child begins to view the "game" as something bad. And of course the threats to not tell would amplify the badness of the sexual contact.
You are correct that other forms of abuse are present. Physical violence is often not present but the emotional and psychological abuse can be overwhelming to the child. If by "hung up on it" you mean the child knows they are trapped I agree.
It is also during this stage of awareness that the child begins to feel abandoned by other adults around him or her and can't understand why they can't see what is happening or don't care enough to help.
This form of sexual abuse creates much shame and guilt that carries on into married life, reducing the amount they are able to enjoy sex at that stage.
This form? All forms of sexual abuse wind up creating shame and guilt in the victim. In fact many of the abusers deliberately push the child into believing they are responsible for the abuse - that something they did or something about them makes the offender abuse them again. If they didn't say anything or weren't able to avoid the abuser, or if they looked one way or another way or wore certain clothes. . . just about anything they can think of winds up causing the abuser to step in for yet another attack.
All of this affects all of their relationships and creates havoc in a relationship. Sexual issues can often destroy the relationship unless both partners are willing to work things through together.
It also causes a certain amount of homosexuality, since boys and girls are separated most of the time. (And many cannot grow out of that hang-up, remaining immature.)
And you know this how? I worked with over 600 female survivors. I can think of only 5 who were lesbians. My clinic saw only about 20 men and only 1 was gay. As far as I have read there is no study that shows that either male or female victims grow up to be gay, lesbians or even bi-sexual. One thing I did see a lot of was survivors who were asexual. They preferred not to have any sexual partners. They often dressed in ways that disguised their body type. Now that I can attribute directly to the early abuse.
When the same organization that dirtifies sex in the first place has one of its representatives then sexually molest the child again (this time, by performing the act they themselves condemned), that causes a great deal of confusion in those children, and that's what causes most of the mental problems.
Ummm have you looked around. Sex in our society is glorified. It is everywhere. At the same time most parents would tell their child to wait until they are grown before having sex, knowing full well that a child will want to try it since it is all around them. Those are the kids who have not been abused.
Kids who have been abused aren't curious about sex. They know what it is and they are often just not that interested in sex for pleasure. The lessons many have learned due to the sex is that they are sexual objects. They have something that others will pay for and they learn to use sex to get what they want. That might be that sex will given in trade for a marriage licence and a home or for clothes or for money. They learned that their body is a commodity they can sell both at home or on the street.
As for your second paragraph -- I'm not even going to start on that one.
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Disillusioned Lost-Lamb
Mental abuse? Do as I say you unworthy ingrate or I'll make your whole family reject/neglect you and take all your friends; oh and by the way, YOU ARE NOT WORTHY.
CHECK!
Physical abuse? Witless parents are all too willing to beat the fear of God into their children whilst beating the shight out of them for doing ANYTHING wrong (and in witless land everything is wrong).
CHECK!
Sexual Abuse? They hide and protect abusers and molesters while oppressing and silencing victims.
CHECK!
Looks like the WTBT$ definitely has the trifecta of abuse.
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Nambo
I was physically and emotionally abused and neglected as a child from when my Grandmother died when I was 3, so had to go back to mother and her new husband who plainly didnt want me.
I would come home from school, was allowed to watch Bewitched or Lost in Space, but had to go up to my room before stepfather came home, alone for 14 hours every day, no wonder I had great difficulty conversing with people, I thank the JWs that they taught me how to communicate by giving me something IO wanted to talk about.
Stepfather used to send me to the hardware store with sixpence to buy a stick to be beaten with. Other times he would kick me in the stomach or repeatedly beat me around the head. I had purple marks around my neck for a week from where he strangled me, and when I genuinely thought I was about to die, nowadays the neighbour who asked what the marks where would have reported him and he would have gone to prison.
I was 5 when I experienced the happiest time of my childhood, life even, 3 years spent in a Childrens home in rural Kent run by the Church of England Childrens Society.
As a result I have never been able to form an emotional attachment to anyone, I have been diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder, previously I could never understand why I had to get rid of every girlfriend I ever had, and that includes a Pioneer discribed as the most beautifull sister on the circuit, something Ive kicked myself for ever since, for it doesnt mean I like being alone, I hate it, its like a living suicide where unless I have to get out of bed for work, I will sleep all day just so I can have a rest from the nightmare of being permanantly alone.
Sorry to the sisters I hurt, there was something wrong with me that I didnt know about, dont worry, Iam suffering more than you ever did.
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blindnomore
Nambo, my heart was aching as I was reading your story. I am so sorry all that what you had gone through as child.
I am glad you shared your heart here. May it be the begining of healing for you.
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Nambo
Thankyou blindnomore, back then it wasnt such a common event, but nowadays with the breakdown of the traditional family structure, I belive many many children will be suffering to at least some extent from the lack of an even basic family structure, and the long term damage to society as a whole will become very apparant.
The verse somewhere says God will bring about his destruction of this system of things because of the prevelance of fornication.
Unless of course it means Spiritual fornication I belive its not so much God doesnt want to see folk having sex outside of marriage, as the results and damage to innocent Children as a result of such.