Why do many women who suffer with the effects of traume Believe That They Are "Just Crazy"?

This can happen because many people do not realize or believe their past abuse can be affecting their lives so many years later.

Some people may experience a few traumatic events over time before they develop a trauma response. It may be hard, then, to connect the childhood experience with the effects in adulthood. blamed for what happened.
* Our society often blames the victim for the abuse she suffered, instead of the abuser

Guilt and self-blame can make women:

-Become socially siolated
-Feel depressed
-Hate themselves
-Misuse drugs or alcohol
-Mutilates themselves and/or attempt suicide

How Trauma Affects Women's Sexuality

Sexual abuse in childhood can affect woman's sexuality in the long term. A woman may confuse sex with love and care-getting or caregiving. This is because the abuser only gave her attention through sexual contact. Expierences like this make a woman more vulnerable to unwanted, or forced, sex.

Sexual feelings and contact can also frighten and negatively affect some woman because of abuse. When women are sexual as adults, they often have flashbacks of being abused. Some women have learned to avoid sex or intimacy, because it brings up negative emotions and memories connected with past abuse.

Problems with sexuality are very common long-term effects of sexual abuse.

<font color=red>not all of the stuff I wanted to point out got highlight, they all are, it's too much of a pain to go through to fix them... hope that is ok.</font color=red>

Some women experience sexual assault as adults and only then recall the abuse they suffered as a children.

Also, the very nature of the trauma responses can make women feel like they are "going crazy".

The lack of understanding about the effects of abuse-related trauma is our society may also contribute to women (men too) struggling with these effects, feeling as if they are "crazy".

The feel of "being crazy" most often comes on when women have flashbacks. A flashback feels like a sudden, intrusive and vivid re-experincing of the early childhod abuse. Flashbacks feel out of control and seem to come out of nowhere. A flashback may involve all of just some of the senses. It may come as smells, tastes,bodily feeligs , sights and sounds. These sesory memories can be very vivid - a woman may even become temporarily unaware of where she actually is.

As adults, women often experience trauma responses that seem out of their control. Women may feel either emotionally numb. Or suddenly [b] alert and panckiy. They may not realize that they are reacting to something in the environment that, consciously or unconsciously , reminds them of the abuse. These reminders are called "Triggers".

When our bodies have learned to be prepared for great danger, they are ready to respond to even small reminders of abuse. That is because our bodies need to be fully protected. So women who experienced abuse are easily triggered by aspects of their environment that remind them of the abuse. When this happens, their bodies often feel as if they are reliving the trauma. . If triggered, women may also have flashbacks related to specific memories of abuse.

What makes traumas worse?

Our society still doesn't fully recognize how much sexual and other kinds of abuse affect women's and children's lives. We are also not fully aware of the complex and long-lasting affects of this abuse.

Women who have been hurt by abuse may seek help from physicians or other mental health providers. Yes these caregivers don't always link how women are reacting with abuse-related trauma. Women can be misdiagnosed and given unsuitable treamtents, including some medicines. In these cases, the basic reasons for the effects are not addressed. Too often, the effects themselves are seen as the problem, and the key questions is not asked: "What has happened in this woman's life to cause these effects?"

A woman who has been traumatized may try to talk to others about experiencing abuse. If they tell her to "just forget it and get on with your life," she becomes isolated and silenced. Being in an intimate relationship with a partner who is emotionally, physically, or sexually abusive makes the effects of the original trauma worse. It also doesn't allow the woman the safety she deserves and needs for healing.

The social enviornment in which women experience everyday slights and discrimination creates ongoing stress. Each small instance psychologically weakens a woman who is already traumatized from abuse in childhood. For women of colour traumatized by abuse in childgood, racism adds to the lack of saftety.

Proverty limits women's life choices, also adding to the problems of many women traumatized by abuse in early childhood. These social conditions are expierenced by many women whose lives have been negatively affected by abuse in childhood. Yet women from all economic and social backgrounds have expierenced childhood sexual abuse.

Trauma and Relationships

Trauma often results in being hurt by another person, espeically a family member. In this case, it can undermine basic trust in people, making it seem as if no one is safe.

Being violated and betrayed in childhood can affect a woman's trust in two different ways. Some women will grow up expecting that others will hurt and violate them. As a result, this is a very common way of reaction to childhood abuse.

Another common response to trauma often goes unrecoginized: abuse can have opposite effect of trust, this is, some women abused as children may end up trusting too easily. Having difficulty judging who is safe, these women do not listen to their gut instincts. The learned in childhood that the very family members they loved and trusted were the abusers. As a result, they learned that they are supposed to hand over their trust without ever asking for it to be earned or deserved. They may have never expereinced , then, an early trustworthy relationship. So they have not really learned what trust is or how to recoginize a trust worthy person.

Stigmantization And Shame

One common effect of abuse on women's lives is that many women continue to feel ashamed, guilty and stigmantized.

This happens when:

* The abuser and others blame and shame the victim for the abuse
* The abuser pressures the child for secrecy, thelling her that what is being done is their little secret, or that it would hurt others if they knew.
* Some children at first enjoy some parts of the abusive sexual touching and may wrongly believe that they must have willingly joined in , or "wanted" the abuse.
* Women tell others about their abuse experiences and are not believed or, even worse, are blamed for what happened.

<font color=red>~Sundance~</font color=red>

<font color=blue>"Never react emotionally to criticism. Analyze yourself to determine whether it is justified. If it is, correct yourself. Otherwise, go on about your business."</font color=blue>

<font color=black>Norman Vincent Peale</font color=black>