Abuse Disrupts the Normal Development CyclePin
|

Abuse Disrupts the Normal Development Cycle

ByMike McBride Reading Time: 3 minutes

Abuse Disrupts the Normal Development CyclePinRecently, I have seen too many studies to link here, talking about how the effects of child abuse are being confused for ADHD, or lead to a variety of mental health issues, or even physical health issues. Just today, I saw this quote in an article about a male support group in Canada:

Many of the men in the group, including Schottmann and Allan, have struggled with addiction. Allan points to a 2004 Health Canada Survey that found 93 per cent of those seeking treatment for addictions report being sexually abused.

All of these things started coming together in my head, along with my own experience, and I realized something. When a child is abused, there is an unnatural disruption in their normal development. For me, I was so busy trying to survive what was happening, and pretending that it wasn’t happening, that I developed some really unhealthy habits. Dissociation, depression, withdrawal, and becoming numb were how the little kid I was made it through what was happening. That’s all well and good, but it’s impossible to develop into a healthy adult when that is how you’re developing.

Think about it. I’ve seen people genuinely surprised by studies that seem to show that the same effects are seen in adults who were emotionally and physically abused as children as those who were sexually abused. We know that depression, bipolar, addiction, anxiety, violence, and myriad other problems that we see in adults can be attributed mostly to these adults simply being maladjusted, and unprepared for the stress and responsibility of adult life. Gee, I wonder if being abused as a child forced them to grow up without the normal development cycle?

Again, I don’t want to speak for every survivor, but in my case, the depression and suicide attempt in my twenties was absolutely a result of my not knowing how to be an adult. When things got stressful, I shut down, just like I did as a kid being abused. I hadn’t learned anything else! So yeah, it doesn’t surprise me at all that many survivors would turn to drink, or substance abuse to cope with stress. Or that they would struggle with depression and feelings of worthlessness.

We were never given the chance to develop in a nurturing, caring environment in the way that children are meant to develop. Once that environment ceased to exist, we were left to our own devices to figure out how to cope, not how to develop. We’re developing late, and that can be messy, ugly, and chaotic. It can even lead to very tragic lives.

The good news, though, is that this is a development issue. That means that all those things we didn’t learn as a child, can be learned now. Again, it won’t necessarily look pretty at times. We’ll struggle, the same way that children struggle, and we won’t have the safety net of caring parents to keep us safe, but we can still learn.

Keep developing. There’s a good, healthy, adult life out there waiting.

Similar Posts

  • |

    How We Make It Harder For Kids to Tell

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

    I was dismayed, though not surprised at all, when I saw many Facebook users and pages link to an article about an inmate convicted of child molestation being murdered in prison. The posts were, for the most part, followed by near-unanimous comments celebrating the death of a pedophile. Look, I get it. I don’t have…

  • Focus on happiness

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Someone left a comment the other day in which they talked about anger, and the struggle to live with the anger over what had happened to them. My response was something along the lines that, for me, the anger will never completely go away, but it gets replaced. As I learn to live my own…

  • Some Conversations Are Easier Online

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

    I have understood this for a long time. I can write here without having to see anyone react immediately when they read it. I can see their reaction when I tell someone about being abused in person. I can watch their facial expressions and body language. I can see every bit of their discomfort, and their signs of dismissal cut me. If you don’t think telling someone in person that you need their help isn’t scary, I can only assume that is because you’ve never done it.

    So when you see someone share something on social media about their mental health, and your response is to wonder why they didn’t just talk to you about it, remember how much harder that is. Maybe they aren’t ready yet, or you just haven’t done enough to earn that trust. Consider how many people in your life may be dealing with very difficult things they just haven’t told anyone about yet.

  • Migraines and Depression

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 1 minute

    According to this Psychology Today article people who regularly get migraines are more likely to suffer from major depression than people who don’t. I suffered from major depression for a long time and have had migraines for as long as I can remember. But I don’t think the migraines caused the depression, the child abuse…

29 Comments

  1. Childhood DV has so many ramifications for the adult life of the child. I am glad some research about that is coming out now. I am surprised it has taken this long for it to be acknowledged as a “thing”. Thanks for spreading the word!

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Your post must include a link to this post.

How does this work?
Write a response on your own website and include a link to this post. Then submit your response’s URL here. Your response may appear here after moderation. To update or remove it, edit or delete your original post and submit the same URL again. Learn more about Webmentions.