| Traumatic Sexualization |
- Rewarding a child for sexual behaviour may heighten the salience of sexual issues for him or her
- Receiving attention and affection for sex can affect a survivor's ability to achieve a healthy sense of love and belonging
- Sexual parts of the child may be fetishized
- Abuse may impart misconceptions about sexuality (e.g., sexual identity, sexual orientation, sexual behaviour, and sexual morality)
- Sexual activities may become conditioned to negative emotions and memories, creating an aversion to sex or intimacy
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- Avoidance of all things sexual
- Preoccupation with sexual matters or compulsive sexual behaviours
- Precocious sexual activity
- Aggressive sexual behaviours
- Promiscuity
- Prostitution (making use of or working in the sex trade)
- Sexual dysfunctions (e.g., lack of desire, difficulty with sexual arousal, inability to experience orgasm, and avoidance of sexual intimacy)
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| Betrayal |
- Childhood sexual abuse manipulates a child's vulnerability, violates the expectation that others will provide care and protection, and may interfere with the ability to trust
- The child's autonomy and wellbeing are disregarded, which may affect the sense of self
- Deep-seated guilt and shame develop because children believe something bad about them caused the abuse
- Profound sense of grief over lost innocence or the "perfect" or "normal" family; depression
- Extreme anxiety or fear, which engenders a sense of dependency
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- Overdependence or clinginess
- Vulnerability to subsequent abuse and exploitation
- Failure to accurately judge the trustworthiness or motives of others, leading to subsequent abuse and exploitation and/or inability to protect one's own children from abuse
- Social withdrawal, isolation, and/or avoidance of intimate relationships
- Chronic relationship difficulties
- "Acting out" behaviours (e.g., aggression, delinquency, risk-taking, etc.)
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| Stigmatization |
- Abuser(s) and others blame or denigrate the victim engendering a sense of shame or guilt
- The abuser and others pressure child for secrecy
- The victim feels "damaged," "abnormal," "bad," which may contribute to a distorted sense of self and lowered self- esteem
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- Dysphoria or chronic depression
- Stigmatization, isolation, and marginalization may contribute to substance abuse
- Criminal behaviour
- Failure to care for oneself (e.g., risk-taking behaviours, poor hygiene, poor health practices)
- Self-harm or self-mutilation
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| Powerlessness |
- Unwanted invasion of one's body or personal space can interfere with the establishment and maintenance of healthy boundaries and increase risk of repeated victimization
- Abuser(s) may use violence, threats, trickery, or bribery to involve their victim
- If others do not believe and respond appropriately to disclosure of abuse, an individual may develop a lowered sense of efficacy
- Some victims develop a high need for personal control and may even identify with the abuser
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- Hyper-arousal (i.e., chronic anxiety, phobias, tendency to startle easily, irritability, poor sleep)
- Intrusion (e.g., flashbacks during waking states, traumatic nightmares during sleep)
- Constriction (dissociation to endure danger that one is unable to fight off or escape) -alters perception, sensation, and time sense and may result in avoidance of reminders of the trauma, emotional numbing/blunting, detachment, and an inability to experience joy
- Stress-related disease and illness; chronic and/or vague somatic problems
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