Defining Abuse

As adults we may want to minimize the issues and deny the effects of child abuse, but the conclusion is inescapable. The abuse we suffered as children continues to influence our lives. We cling to familiar habits, self-defeating behaviors, and conflict dominates our lives, but we can change. We can change ourselves, and recapture our lives, gaining our own personal power and strength.

We couldn't choose our parents (caretakers), yet in childhood, the very nature of being a child is to believe the world revolves around us. Our parents were our first teachers, first instructors, and our guides into this confusing world, and yet, when a parent can't meet our basic needs it is the child's nature to believe that there must be something wrong with us. If our parents couldn't respect us, talk to us, love us and care for us, then how could we learn to care for ourselves, with difficult I would imagine. Thus, it is no wonder that most survivors feel that the abuse they survived was their fault, only the abuse wasn't. It was never the child's fault!

To be able to understand your past, one needs to understand the different kinds of abuse and how they can effect our lives. Each abuse has its own influence as well as a combined effect on our lives, one can not run from its effects, but must look honestly at themselves, and the behaviors the children developed to survived in a hostile and dangerous enivornment. Remember that no matter what abuse you endured as a child, IT WAS NEVER THE CHILD'S FAULT and IT WAS NOT YOUR FAULT!

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