Last updated March 15, 2005
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What to look for to recognize a child who is sexually abused? |
What type of people sexually abuse children? |
Please let me know if the list below is helpful to you by e-mailing me at wilseykansas@yahoo.com.
Do you find several of these characteristics exhibited or feelings expressed by one person? Do you see it in yourself, a friend, or family member?
---Low self-esteem, feeling worthless
---No sense of having a right to say "No" or set limits
---Feeling different, alone, unreal, marked, crazy, while others are real
---Feelings of guilt or shame
---Poor body image or dislike the way you look
---Avoidance of mirrors (associated with shame/self-esteem issues, dislike of body, etc.)
---Problems with trust-- inability to trust, feeling it is not safe to trust, or do you do just the opposite by totally trusting others, trusting others indiscriminately, or flip-flopping between those two extremes without reason
---Extreme fear of abandonment in relationships; "abandonment issues"
---Anger issues: inability to recognize, 'own'/accept that you are angry, or express anger; fear of actual or imagined rage from oneself; constant anger; intense hostility toward an entire gender or ethnic group related to a bad feeling about one particular person of that group
---Limited tolerance for happiness; active withdrawl from happiness, reluctance to 'accept' that things are really good, happy, pleasant
---Depression or crying for no reason
---Feeling like you are 'not really in your body' sometimes; depersonalization
---Having sudden, unexplainable dreams, memories, skin or body sensations/pains/body feelings that feel bad or seem unreal
---Great appreciation of small favors by others
---Consistently choosing to be around or in relationships with people who are mean or controlling towards you
---Eating disorders; drug or alcohol addiction or total abstinence; other addictions; compulsive behavior
---Mental and/or physical pain or numbness associated with a particular memory, emotion, or situation
---Blocking out, repressing, or refusing to talk about and personally 'deal with' some period of your life, a specific person, or a specific place
---Feeling of carrying an awful secret; urge to tell but fear of it being revealed; being secretive
---Rigid control of your own thoughts; humorlessness or extremely solemn
---Feeling of needing control of things, power, 'territoriality', fear of losing control; feeling obsessed with doing something or compelled to do something repeatedly to just feel in control of something
---Self-destructive behaviors: cutting one self, skin carving, self-abuse
---Need to seem 'invisible' and completely blend in with the people around you
---Feel need to be perfect: Perfect in a good sense or doing everything wrong so that no one could possibly expect you to be perfect
---Suicidal thoughts, attempts, obsession (including "passive suicide", 'if I just keep doing [fill in the blank], it will kill me.']
---Going into shock or shutting down when a crisis occurs; any stressful situation quickly becomes a crisis
---In childhood--hiding, hanging on, cowering in corners; in adulthood--nervousness over being watched, or surprised, feeling watched or excessive startle response
---Pattern of relationships with much older persons, especially beginning in adolescence
---Feeling you have to "produce to be loved", feeling you have to give more in the relationship to get the love you want or need, instinctively knowing and doing what the other person needs or wants
---Creating fantasy worlds, relationships, or identities where you are in control of things
---Minimizing of events you have had that are really bad
---Strong, deep, "inappropriate" negative reactions to a person, place, or event
---Excessive risk taking in driving or other activities, or as completely avoiding risks as well as you possibly can
---Fear of being alone in the dark, of sleeping alone
---Nightmares, night terrors (especially of pursuit, threat, entrapment)
---Swallowing and gagging sensitivity
---Repugnance to water on one's face when bathing or swimming (suffocation feelings)
---Alienation from your body--don't feel at home in your own body
---Failure to heed body signals or take care of one's body
---Gaining weight to avoid sexual attention
---Gastrointestinal problems
---Pattern of ambivalence or intense conflict in intimate relationships
---Desire to change one's name
---Gynecological disorders (including spontaneous vaginal infections)
---Wearing a lot of clothing, even in the summer; or baggy clothes; not removing clothes even when it is appropriate such as to bath, swim, or sleep
---Extreme requirement for privacy when using the bathroom
---Phobias
---Sex feels dirty; strong dislike of being touched, especially in ways that might suggest something sexual
---Strong dislike for or need for particular sex acts
---Trouble connecting sex with emotions; impersonal or "promiscuous" sex with strangers, but having trouble having sex in intimate emotional relationship(s)
---Confusion or connection of physical attractiveness, sex, dominance/control, aggression, and violence;
---Attempting to control others by controlling sexual activity frequency or character with them
---Compulsively having sex with or without having a relationship; sexualizing or sexual fantasies about most all positive or meaningful relationships
---Avoiding sex or sexual thoughts; Strong, unexplainable negative feelings when upon starting into, engaging in, or in response to interactions that cause sexual feelings to be aroused
---Aversion to making noise (crying, laughing, during sex, or other bodily functions)
---Verbal hypervigilance (careful monitoring of what one says and how); quiet voice especially when needing to be heard, or saying something particularly important
---Stealing (as adult); stealing and fire starting (as child)
---'Losing time', not able to remember parts of days or whole days, finding things you don't remember buying or getting, things disappearing when you are certain where you put them, injuries or scars on your body that you can't explain
---Multiple personalities or Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)
If you feel that several of these describe you or know someone who would, these are common after effects from being the victim of sexual abuse or rape.
Adapted with significant variation in wording, but not, in my mind, general meaning from Secret Survivors: Uncovering Incest and Its Aftereffects in Women by E. Sue Blume, copyright 1990
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Please be cautious labelling someone "an abuse survivor" that does not say that about themselves. I am merely presenting someone else's list. i am NOT a trained counsellor, psychologist, or any other sort of mental health professional. i AM a survivor of sexual abuse that went on through much of my childhood, and read extensively on this and many other topics in the social and natural sciences.
Feel free to e-mail me at
wilseykansas@yahoo.com with comments about this list or other related topics.
I do not have a "guest book". Sorry.
Last updated March 15, 2005