The silent scars of child abuse

Child abuse is a topic that is oftentimes a sensitive topic for children and adults alike. While the action of child abuse is often times spotted in news articles and on the news the after effects those children who have faced child abuse face are often times not documented or talked about on a national level. The long-lasting effects of child abuse can affect children for their entire lifetime causing life to be much harder for them growing up compared to kids who did not suffer the same abuse as them. Child abuse is far more common than what would be perceived even in just our local area which can lead to mental health problems while growing up in life. The lasting effects of child abuse should be talked about just as much as child abuse itself does. Being able to notice and spot the effects of child abuse can help get those effects talked about more on a national level. While not everyone has faced child abuse we may still face the repercussions of the after-effects of child abuse. Being able to understand some of the symptoms caused by child abuse can help spread awareness of the issues at hand. Getting into relationships with a person who has faced child abuse can not only be difficult for them but for the other person involved too. Having personal experience in being in a relationship with someone who has faced childhood trauma I can tell you how much it does affect them as a person. This is why long-lasting mental health issues should be talked about more frequently than they are.

Childhood abuse is a lot more common than we would like to think. Perry Vandell a local Arizona news writer shows the stats of how often child abuse is happening in just Arizona alone “A national survey released last year found that 44.4 percent of Arizona children ages 12 to 17 suffered two or more such traumatic experiences…” (Vandell). The graph above shows a visual of how big of a percentage that is and that is just locally in Arizona. with just over 44% of Arizona kids aged 12–17 being abused that doesn’t count for the mental health aftereffects kids deal with afterwords which would be a vast majority of the kids who were abused. The mental struggles kids deal with after child abuse is hardly talked about due to most kids keeping the trauma to themselves. Those mental struggles not being talked about not only affects the kids who have suffered child abuse but the outside people who have come into contact with those kids.

Child abuse trauma can be more dangerous than child abuse itself. Nadine Burke Harris who is known to link childhood trauma with health issues later on in life talks about how dangerous the aftereffects of child abuse can be on people’s health. In the ted talk, she states how serious these after-effects can be and how it can take up to 20 years of a person’s life away. With how serious that is we would think that the after-effects would be talked about when they are not. But not every person’s lasting trauma is the same there are multiple mental health disorders that can be caused by childhood trauma. One of the main mental disorders that are formed is bipolar disorder. With developing bipolar disorder people also view themselves in a much more negative light than they once did. Nikolaus Kleindienst explains how bipolar disorder can affect anyone who has suffered childhood abuse. “The few pioneering studies on evaluation of the own body in BPD have demonstrated that most patients with a BPD diagnosis evaluate their body as highly negative” (Kleindienst) Bipolar disorder is just one of the many mental health struggles that come with childhood trauma yet it is not talked about when it is as serious as it is.

While not everyone has experienced childhood trauma or abuse in their lifetime we may have become friends or even gotten into a relationship with someone who has. The trauma that person has faced now not only affects them but can have an impact on our lives too. I have personally been in a relationship with someone who suffers from the lasting effects of child abuse and faces the repercussions every day. Being in a relationship with someone who has childhood trauma is something I had never experienced before and was new to me. The lasting effects not being talked about by major news outlets made it very difficult for me to adapt and know what to do in situations where the person I was with needed time to cope and needed space. Sangeun Lee puts it perfectly in his article when he states “it is important to understand the function of coping when dealing with psychological trauma. The individual coping ability has been reported as a protective factor for mental health because appropriate management of stressful situations enhances personal growth”. letting the person be able to cope and have a chance to grow is such a big help with childhood trauma yet it is not talked about nearly as much as it should.

Childhood trauma can cause many kids to suffer throughout their lifetime. Just because the abuse has stopped doesn't mean the kids go back to the life they once lived before. Childhood trauma is oftentimes not talked about when the topic of child abuse is brought up yet it can lead to the most damage to a child. Even if someone hasn't faced child abuse they may be close to someone who has experienced child abuse in their lifetime. being able to understand and know the symptoms can help us being able to understand where they are coming from and how we can give them the time or space they need to cope with everything that has happened to them. Being able to understand people who have faced child abuse can help all of us learn how to help and what is truly going on in their situation. Mental health can be a scary topic to talk about but talking about it and bringing light to the situation will only help people improve and give it more coverage in the media.

works cited

Lee, Sangeun, et al. “Associations between Childhood Psychological Trauma, Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms, and Mental Health in Female College Students: Mediation of Coping Styles.” Perspectives in Psychiatric Care, vol. 58, no. 4, Oct. 2022, pp. 1763–75. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.ezp.mesacc.edu/10.1111/ppc.12986.

Vandell, Perry. “The Hidden Costs of Child Maltreatment the Cost of a Child’s Scars.” Arizona Republic, Oct 22, 2015. ProQuest, https://login.ezp.mesacc.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/hidden-costs-child-maltreatment-cost-childs-scars/docview/1725013420/se-2.

Kleindienst, Nikolaus, et al. “Evaluation of the Own Body in Women with Current and Remitted Borderline Personality Disorder: Evidence for Long-Lasting Effects of Childhood Sexual Abuse.” European Journal of Psychotraumatology, vol. 11, no. 1, Jan. 2020, pp. 1–11. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.ezp.mesacc.edu/10.1080/20008198.2020.1764707.