Author Denise Shellyann Clarke gets candid about the sexual abuse she faced as a child by her father in her latest book, My Protector Was My Molester 978-1-951630-57-7. After staying silent for years, Clarke finally found the courage to share her story with her readers. The book was a way for Clarke to reach out to other survivors, who are feeling isolated from the world. She writes about the struggles she faced throughout her life and how the abuse affected every part of her life. Childhood trauma’s roots can grow deep into the survivor’s mind. The effects can last well into adulthood and at times, the effects become prominent as the child grows older. It can be very difficult for survivors to trust their surroundings and the people in their lives.
Numerous forms of emotional deregulation have been connected to childhood trauma. People who have grown up in abusive environments have less of a reaction to stress and more interpersonal problems as adults. One way to help survivors heal and recover is to recognize and understand the effect of childhood trauma. How it manifests in survivors. E. B. Johnson lists the impacts childhood trauma can have on a child:
· Passive-aggressive behavior — Adult survivors of childhood trauma usually carry a lot of anger that they don’t know how to deal with. Rather than confront and deal with these painful emotions honestly, they bury them, resorting in passive-aggressive behavior that can isolate them and destroy important relationships. These are the people who often strike out with sarcasm they call a joke or “mistakes” they claim were innocent. They don’t feel comfortable showing their anger because they don’t know what will happen if they do. So, they act out passive-aggressively instead, protecting their already patched-up hearts in a self-defeating way.
· Attachment disorders — Those who are traumatized between 6 months and three years of age are more prone to have trouble forming healthy attachments with the people that they care for. Usually, this condition is referred to as RAD or reactive attachment disorder, which affects your ability to form adequate social relationships. RAD can impact everything from your mood to your behavior. It also makes it hard for those suffering from it to trust others.
· Lowered cognitive ability — When children are regularly abused or neglected, they often develop cognitive problems. This can include memory problems, poor verbal skills, and problems focusing or concentrating on tasks.
· Inconsistent self-concept — Having an inconsistent self-concept means that you don’t know how to interpret the thoughts and feelings you have about yourself. Being unable to distinguish these emotions and perceptions makes you see yourself in a distorted view or possibly as “incompatible” with certain groups of people.
· Altered states of consciousness — If childhood trauma repeats over many years, it can force children (and even some adults) into a dissociative state. As children, we can’t recognize different states of consciousness, so we aren’t able to stop ourselves from slipping into them. These altered states of reality cause us to lose touch with our authentic selves and the things that bring value to our lives. Even years later, we rely on these delusional states to help us survive when the going gets tough.
· Poor behavioral control — Chances are that if you’re an impulsive adult, you’ve experienced some type of trauma in your childhood. Those who experience trauma in their youth often have a hard time controlling their behavior. They do whatever they feel like in the present moment because they have never learned to do otherwise. For many, it is the only way they know how to get the attention they were otherwise denied.
· Perpetual victimhood — When we’re children, we can’t understand why bad things are happening. For that reason, many of us often revert to absurd or even illogical reasoning to explain for the negative events in our lives and this carries on into our adulthood. Being abused or emotionally neglected forces us to form our identities in a state of victimhood and when that happens it becomes hard to see yourself as someone who has any power over their own life.
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