Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse.

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Psychology101 Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse. Survivors of childhood sexual abuse experience an array of overwhelming and intense feelings. These may include feelings of fear, guilt, and shame. Therefore, abusers have been known to tell children that it is the fault of the child that they are abused, shifting the blame away from the abuser, where it belongs, and placing it on the child. As a result, along with this, abusers may threaten or bribe the child into not speaking up; convincing the child that he or she will never be believed. For example, the reaction of a survivor’s friends and family to the disclosure of the abuse also has the potential to trigger immense feelings of guilt, same and distrust, particularly if those individuals denied that the abuse was taking place, or chose to ignore it. While each individual’s experiences and reactions are unique, there are some responses to child sexual abuse that are common to many survivors. First of all, adult survivor's may feel guilt or shame because they made no direct attempt to stop the abuse or because they experienced physical pleasure. In addition, survivor's may have trouble sleeping because of the trauma, anxiety or may directly be related to the experience they had as a child; children may be sexually abused in their own beds. Many survivors were betrayed by the very people they are dependent upon (family, teachers etc.) who cared for them, who insisted they loved them even while abusing them; learning to trust can be extremely difficult under these circumstances. Therefore, this is often the most difficult emotion for an adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse to get in touch with. For many survivors, these emotions are such a basic part of their day-to-day life that they don’t realist that there are alternatives. They may try to regulate their emotions through alcohol,

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