Physical Child Abuse

By Angie

Abuse is such a widespread epidemic, for lack of a better word. Yet it is incredibly difficult to know just how many kids are being abused at any one time. Why? Because it's a hidden secret. The abuser instills fear and shame in the child, so it makes it impossible for the child to tell someone they trust about what is going on. It makes it doubly important to be dilligent in protecting the children.

Along with sexual abuse comes emotional abuse. A child that is being abused is emotionally devastated as well. Think about it, what kind of torment does a child go through while being molested, yet being terrified of telling anyone about it and thinking they are alone.

I used to stay up until very late, every night, for fear that I would hear my dad coming up the stairs. I would lie awake until the wee hours of the morning, feeling as though I was completely alone. I knew I couldn't go to my mother, and if I told anyone else in my family, ie uncles or aunts, who would they believe? So I kept my secret all those years, feeling as though I was somehow damaged and bad.

It's a very emotionally damaging thing to be molested and thinking that you are the only person going through it. I myself felt very cut off from everyone else. I had this secret that I couldn't tell, felt as though I had caused it to happen without knowing it, had to keep it in for years for fear of my father causing harm to me or those I loved.

I've been told that those who are abused are emotionally stunted, we stay pretty much at a level of when we remember the abuse starting. I can see that happening in most cases, but I also believe that with awareness and understanding we can move beyond the abuse that was done to us. And it was done to us, we didn't cause it to happen. It's too bad that the survivors are the ones to have to live with this while the molester generally only seems to worry about being caught.