Coping mechanisms in survivors of child sexual abuse
Abusive anger and depression
It can be challenging for survivors to embrace anger as a positive healing force. Traditionally women have been taught to be nice, conciliatory, understanding and polite. Angry women are often given negative labels. Most religious or spiritual doctrines encourage us to forgive and love. Even in some psychotherapy circles, anger is seen as a stage to work through or as something toxic to eliminate. As a result, many survivors suppress their anger, and turn it inward. Other survivors have been angry their whole lives. They grew up in families or circumstances so pitted against each other that they learned early to fight for survival. Anger was a continual armoring for battle. And sometimes the line between anger and violence blurred, and it became a destructive force.
Anger is a natural response to abuse. If a survivor is unable to focus her rage at the abuser, it will go somewhere else. Many survivors turn it on themselves, leading to depression and self-destruction. They may have wanted to hurt or kill themselves. They may feel that they are essentially bad, criticizing themselves unrelentingly, and devaluing themselves. Or they might stuff their anger with food, or drown it with alcohol and stifle it with drugs. As Adrienne Rich writes: “Most women have not even been able to touch this anger, except to drive it inwards like a rusted nail.”
Some survivors turn their anger against partners and lovers, friends, co-workers, and children, lashing out at those who they don’t mean to harm. They may find themselves punching their lover when they get mad, or verbally assaulting their parents. Although it may be anger triggered in the present that is appropriate to the current situation, they may also be trapped into the wells of old rage from childhood. When the two blur, the survivor may react in ways that are out of proportion to what’s going on now. Healing is not possible from the effects of sexual violence while continuing to perpetrate abuse on others.
Self-injuring
The term self-injuring refers to the deliberate injuring of oneself and can include actions such as cutting/ burning/ or bruising one’s self. For some survivors, self-injury provides them with intense feelings of relief and self-control, and gives them a means to express their anger and feelings. It can also be a way to re-create abusive situations, producing familiar results. In childhood, they were indoctrinated to abuse, and now they continue the pattern themselves, never knowing any other alternatives.
Like sexual abuse, self-injury is often a source of great humiliation and shame, and grows in secrecy. Self-injury also provides an intense feeling of relief and a release that many survivors crave. It can be an attempt to feel a sense of control, a type of punishment, a means of expressing anger, and a way to have feelings. For some survivors, it may be the only way to cope.
There is help available if you are self-injuring and would like to stop. Professional counselors are available on- and off-campus. Please follow these links for more information.
