Health and Psychology

CHILD ABUSE

I come from a horrific history of child abuse.  I've had some therapists refer to my history as child torture.  It started from the day I was born and adopted out, until the time 3 days later when I went to a neonatal intensive care unit with ruptured ear drums, and my adoptive parents said they didn't want me any longer.  To the adoption agency lying about my background, history, ethnicity, religious background and medical condition to the physician signing off that I was "completely healthy" at six months even though I weighed a pound less than I did at birth.  And to the abusive adoptive couple that eventually raised me.  The abuse stopped when I was 12.  It stopped because I threated to kill my adoptive mother.  Not everyone has those experiences.  But a lot have some of them.

There is research showing there are long term medical consequences of child abuse.  This is also true with the obese, who lose weight only to gain it back.  So I assume most medical psychology patients have an abuse or neglect background.  But child abuse provides a benefit to people as well. The benefit to that history isn't discussed because it's not politically correct to do so.  How can anyone say there are some advantages to having been abused as a child?  

Child abuse provides an internal strength and an ability to endure difficult situations and to push forward that people without that early background don't quite have.  Child abuse provides a meaure of resilience.  

While other people are wondering how misfortune could possibly be happening to them, people with child abuse histories don't wonder.  Of course it's happening to me.  Who else would it be happening to?  I have the ability to deal with problems better than most people.

For child abuse survivors what's important is to stop enduring and to look to find joy.  I met someone who celebrates every bad occurence in her life as if it's a holiday.  She endures and wants to remember the struggles.  I have a friend who found out from a relative that her abuse goes back to infancy and the police, although called, did nothing.  "Who does those things to a baby?" she asked, before reflecting on how well her son is doing and how proud she is of him.  And it's that change of focus that allows for people to improve their lives, find meaning, be resilient, and to find joy.

What happens to child abuse victims very early in life is that they make a conscious decision to live.  From that decision they forge meaning, and become resolute.  While therapy helps to change the focus to improving the future and your own life, the basic building blocks are already in place.