re: Child Abuse May Cause Depression Later in Life

ddavison1 — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 01:36:58 GMT

I think, from personal experience, this must be true. And I also think that sometimes when parents are the abusers, they continue the abusive pattern by blaming the children for the bi-products of their own abuse. For example, in my disfunctional family, the older, but not wiser generation, who has been both physically and emotionally abusive, is unforgiving when certain members of the younger generation develop such bi-products of abuse as depression, anxiety, and/or addiction.

It is truly a travesty that children, who come into the world so innocent, are often subjected to the "sins of the father."

What I want to know, is what is the solution?

re: Child Abuse May Cause Depression Later in Life

Kato2 — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 20:00:54 GMT

Very correct observation with this article. My sister suffered serious abuse as a baby by a babysitter; my sister is now 46yrs old, and unfortunately my mother always assumed that a baby can't remember and so is not damaged. This thinking was a serious mistake: my sister could never remember what happened because her sense of self, and brain were not developed to understand what was happening to her except that it caused her to have life long, extreme, night terrors, people phobias, and self mutillation and suicide episodes. My sister has had to be "rescued" from financial difficulties and abusive relationships her entire adult life. She has been diagnosed as borderline personality disorder, with no hope of any real recovery. Her brain chemicals literally remapped her brain due to the early trauma. She is stressed by just ordinary living and anything more stressful than that sends her into serious rage, flight or fight responses mixed with "dont' leave me" episodes as well.....very bizarre. Her body is now physically much older than I am (Iam only a year older, but my sister looks 60yrs old already from life of unhandled stress and mental disease).

I have a photo of my sister when she was only 3 years old; to my mother, she looks like she is perhaps sad or about to cry and trying to smile. As a more intuitive person, and as someone who has worked with traumatized children, I see my sister as not straining to smile, but making a horrified look of literal mental and or physical agony. She looks like she is literally being tortured by something, that is what her face looks like. All of this because of a single horrific act by a male babysitter when she was a baby.

My point is, even if people can't remember, their bodies do; they can be severely damaged for life. I do not expect my sister to live another decade; her mental state is clearly doing internal damage to her body - she is rapidly aging.