The text is summarized from the website of the School of Social Work at the University of Washington, Joshua Center on Child Sexual Abuse.

Source: Joshua Center on Child Sexual Abuse Prevention (2024). What are the effects of sexual abuse? https://uwjoshuacenter.org/what-are-effects-sexual-abuse

Experiencing sexual abuse in youth often leads to numerous negative effects—while the sexual abuse/violence is happening, after the adolescent discloses the sexual abuse/violence, or after others discover what happened, and later, when the adolescent grows into adulthood.

Many people who have survived sexual abuse/violence experience the most serious emotional consequences of childhood sexual abuse later in life, as adults. People who have experienced trauma and sexual abuse/violence can heal.

People who have experienced trauma and sexual abuse/violence can heal.

Traumatic aspects of sexual abuse/sexual violence

Someone who experienced sexual abuse/violence in youth may develop symptoms of post-traumatic stress, which is a clinical term for a collection of symptoms that follow a traumatic experience. This may include anxiety, depression, and intrusive flashbacks or memories of the sexual abuse/violence.

Sexual abuse is traumatic. Trauma is an event or experience that destroys a person’s sense of safety by harming them or exposing them to danger, that destroys a person’s relationships with others by breaking connection or betraying trust, and that impacts a person’s connectedness to their community.

This means that trauma affects both the individual who experiences it and their relationships with other people. There are many different reasons why sexual abuse/sexual violence can be traumatic.

Traumatic aspects of sexual abuse/sexual violence can include:

• Betrayal. Young people who have been victims of sexual abuse/sexual violence may feel betrayed by different people for different reasons. Youth who experience grooming may feel betrayed because someone who was supposed to have a relationship of trust, care, or mentorship with them used that relationship to obtain sexual access. Young people may feel betrayed by others in their lives who were unable to protect them from abuse, or by people who did not believe or support them after learning about the abuse. Some adolescents begin to experience feelings of betrayal when the sexual abuse/violence begins, while others who were victims of grooming may begin to feel betrayed only after the sexual abuse/violence is already over.
• Stigma. Young people may unjustly become the target of blame or shaming because they were abused. They may also be unfairly accused of lying about the sexual abuse/violence. How others respond upon learning that a young person was abused has nothing to do with the young person, and young people are certainly not at fault for these reactions. Such responses, including feelings of disbelief, are often rooted in unconscious feelings of fear and anxiety when someone learns that a person close to them has been sexually abused (because now they must face the realization that people they know and trust are capable of sexually abusing youth, or perhaps even realize that they themselves could be abused).
• Powerlessness. The very nature of sexual abuse/sexual violence can cause young people to feel powerless. This is true regardless of whether they believe they could have stopped the abuse/violence or if they feel they could have escaped the situation. Through the process of grooming, the perpetrator convinces the adolescent that they wanted the abuse, or that because they did not stop it from the beginning, it was somehow their idea. Sexual abuse/violence creates negative beliefs and thoughts, including self-blame, self-criticism, hopelessness, and feelings of powerlessness.
• Sexualization. Young people who were sexually abused are often forced into sexual acts before they are developed enough to understand or handle them. As a result, they may develop sexual feelings much earlier than usual, or from this premature sexual experience adopt beliefs about what is sexually appropriate (even if it is not) or sexually arousing.
• Secrecy. Almost all cases of sexual abuse/violence happen in secret, known only to the perpetrator and the adolescent. This can be extremely stressful for the adolescent, who must hide the abuse from others. The perpetrator often goes to great lengths to convince the adolescent not to tell anyone about the abuse, and threatens them with consequences if they do (for example, that they will harm the adolescent or their loved ones, or that they will tell others the adolescent is lying).

Perpetrators can also exploit the fact that they may mean a lot to the young person (apart from the abuse) and can intimidate them by threatening what will happen to the perpetrators themselves if the youth discloses the abuse.

Keeping such a heavy secret means that, over time, young people begin to feel different from others, separated from their family and friends, and generally socially isolated.

Consequences of sexual abuse/sexual violence

Experiencing sexual abuse/sexual violence in youth is associated with numerous emotional, behavioral, and health problems. These may appear during the abuse, after others find out about it, and/or much later in adulthood. A wide range of aspects of a person’s life can be negatively affected by sexual abuse/sexual violence, including:

• Zmožnost oblikovanja in vzdrževanja zdravih odnosov The ability to form and maintain healthy relationships with secure attachment. Survivors of sexual abuse/violence often develop negative patterns of behavior in relationships or avoid relationships altogether. There may also be disturbances in sexual life and poor interpersonal communication, which negatively affect relationships.
• Emotions and the ability to manage emotions, since sexual abuse/violence causes strong negative feelings such as shame, anger, sadness, guilt, and anxiety, and creates difficulties in regulating emotions, so that these often become overwhelming.
• Kako nekdo dojema samega sebeSelf-perception, which may result in low self-esteem and self-image (for example, whether one sees oneself as whole or damaged, competent or incompetent, deserving of positive or negative experiences, etc.).
• Behaviors that affect one’s own health, since sexual abuse/violence often leads to high-risk sexual behavior, use of drugs and alcohol, and poor self-care.
• Razvoj spolnega življenja: Sexual development, as consequences may include intrusive images of the sexual abuse/violence during safe sexual activity with a partner, avoidance of any sexual activity in adulthood, inability to achieve physical or emotional arousal in sexuality, and involvement in more risky sexual behavior. Some studies also show a connection between childhood sexual abuse/violence and later development of inappropriate sexual interests, such as feelings of attraction to much younger youth or interest in violent sexual activity.

Click: WHERE CAN I SEEK HELP FOR SEXUAL ABUSE/SEXUAL VIOLENCE?

FUN AND EDUCATIONAL ABOUT CONSENT

Here you can watch a fun and educational video on the topic of consent, titled Tea Consent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQbei5JGiT8