Today, child sexual abuse is becoming a scourge, with all the consequences that this entails for the victims. Approximately 25% of girls are sexually abused or assaulted before they reach adulthood, and in boys the statistic is approximately 16%. These are very high values that society often does not want to see or finds difficult to digest. Even so, in books, films and series, they are very much discussed and I think that little by little there is beginning to be an awareness of all this.

But what is harder to accept is that the vast majority of these sexual abuses occur within the victim’s family , which makes the trauma even more painful and difficult to overcome.

Sexual abuse within the family

On many occasions, the people who abuse the child are a father, a grandfather, an uncle, a cousin, a friend of the family, people who are close to the child, who gain the child’s trust, sometimes for years, and then use the child to manipulate him or her by treating the child like an object.

The psychological damage suffered by the victim of sexual abuse by a relative is tremendous, because not only does it have the consequences that victims of abuse by strangers suffer, but also their trust is totally betrayed . Not only is there a lack of understanding of what happened, social isolation, feeling stigmatized or marked, but also a feeling is created that no one can be trusted and that no one will be able to offer help in an authentic way.

Moreover, sexual abuse within the family does not usually occur through a single isolated event that does not happen again, but becomes a lifestyle that children can suffer for years, with the incongruity that the abuser may be the only one who actually listens to the victim in his home, or is the same person who at the same time takes care of the victim when she is sick, feeds her, and tells her continuously how much he loves her.

The psychological consequences

These are some of the consequences of sexual abuse :

  • Concentration problems.
  • Problems integrating into the peer group.
  • Night terrors and fears in general.
  • Serious self-esteem problems.
  • Depersonalization.
  • Anxiety attacks .
  • Depression.
  • Sexual problems.
  • Problems in healthy bonding with other people.
  • Eating disorders and problems with body image perception and body rejection
  • Addictive disorders: alcohol and drug use, gambling, kleptomania.
  • Self-harm.
  • Suicide attempts .
  • Problems with impulse control.
  • Possible development of personality disorders, type TLP, avoidance disorder, emotional dependence disorder…
  • Serious difficulties in personal self-care.
  • Relationship problems .
  • Irritability.
  • Sleep problems and bad dreams.
  • Difficulty in setting limits for others.
  • Great social isolation.

Sequelae in adulthood

I have actually put forward only some of the repercussions that child sexual abuse can have, and more so when it has been committed by a family member, obviously the closer that family member is the worse. That doesn’t mean that all victims have these symptoms , but surely if any victim is reading this article, he or she is possibly identified by several of these points.

Furthermore, the fact that this symptomatology begins during the processes of abuse does not mean that it ceases when the abuse has disappeared, not even when the person reaches adulthood. In fact, it gives rise to problems that creep up, and which generally get worse over time and create new traumas that the person accumulates.

Even so, all this can be treated, but we must face the problem, see that the symptomatology may be due to this and not to other causes that seem more superficial. Of course, it is everyone’s job to help, to denounce, and to help heal people who in their own home have had to live in fear.