childsemotions. These emotions and the effects are listed below: Confusion:” This is usually the initial reaction of the child. They will usually question, “What is going on?” and ” Is thisright or wrong?”.
For a young child these types of questionscan be an emense burden on their physcological development. Once the abuse begins the victim experience a tremnedous conflict with their emotions. They feel pleasant due to the attention they are recieving from the parent, as well as the sensual pleasure. Onthe other hand they experience pain, guilt, and anger for what is being done.
The question, “Is this right or wrong?” posses the greatestconflict within the childs mind. The abuse feels so wrong yetthe abuser insits it is okay, taking advantage of the childsmistrust and naivety. Below are the thoughts of an abused victim as she thinks back to her abuse and questions her father. It isan example of this mistrust as well as the confusion which goesthrough a childs mind.
“Since I was a little tenyearold child, I had to deceive (#(#Kand hide from the world and my mother that my father tooka sexual interest in me. Remember how you taught me thatart of deceit? First you put me in a situation that had tobe kept a secret then you pledged me to secrecy…
As a tenyearold child, what was I supposed to do? You are an (#(#Kintelligent manyou figure out the options available to a (#(#Ktenyearold in that position.” (Rush, 1980)’ P(P(P( Guilt:The abused will feel tremendous guilt for a numerousreasons: They feel they did nothing to stop the abuse thereforethey are responsible and it should continue.7 They felt uncomfortable but the abuse was sometimespleasureable.They somehow deserved and/or caused the abuse.
Avictim will usually feel this way when their selfesteemhas diminshed and they have no more answers for what isFhappenning.”A nineyearold girl had a nightmare and went to herfathers room for comfort but instead he sexually abused her.The girl then concluded that she caused the abuse by goingto his room. The abuse thereafter continued and she nowfelt she deserved for it to continue.
” (Landau, 1990)This fictional example helps to further illustrate the final2 points which were presented above. The guilt hits the child sohard that they are unable to clearly see reality.Another major source of guilt comes from the mother. Oftenwhen the mother is told about the abuse she will not want tobelieve the accusations and will blame the child.
Other reasonsfor why the mother may pass guilt: 1) she may feel inequipped tochallange the husbands domination in any area of life thereforeshe shes passes the husbands faults and looks at the child. 2) The mother doesn’t want to lose her husband. She does not wantto give up the security provided by her husband and will blockout the abuse.
