Most of you will notice that your child before and after their sexual abuse is different. Your child has an altered future. The change may be subtle so you may not notice right away, or you may just think it’s a phase. Their perception of the world has been changed, and their actual brain chemistry has been changed. (Feel free to look up the impact of trauma on the hypothalamus ) The end result is often ADD or ADHD like behaviors (PTSD is frequently misdiagnosed as ADD or ADHD). Bipolar behavior is also pretty common. There are also a variety of negative side effects that can lead to antisocial or self destructive behavior.
It’s Not All Bad
The flip side of these conditions is that people with ADD, ADHD and Bipolar disorder go on to do other things like found Apple, Microsoft, Netscape, etc. Maybe you’ve heard of some of them. I don’t know if any of them were actually sexually abused, but the behaviors can lead to greatness. The question is whether your child will descend into a life of self destructive behavior, or change the world? There are no guarantees either way, but safe to say, you child is probably not going to fit into the world the way you may have originally thought. I don’t know if there have been any formal studies, but if your child has some of the classic symptoms of sexual abuse, they may be destined to be entrepreneurs. Here’s a short video that might give you some ideas.
Let us know if we can help you dealing with your family’s sexual abuse situation. For ideas to get started please check out our book on what to do during the early days after disclosure.
