This is just my personal experience and mine alone, but I have only gotten worse and worse as I aged. The effects of childhood abuse and neglect have scarred me for life, and often times the abuse suffered during childhood primes you for more struggle later down the line- especially when it comes to opening the door towards more abusive relationships in adulthood.
For me, it isn't just the memories that haunt me, nor the nightmares of being screamed at and insulted by my family daily, or twisted reanctments of the sexual abuse I suffered at the hands of others, it's the downstream consequences of the abuse that impact every aspect of your life, the things you can't run away from or ignore.
Not only are you socialized differently if you were abused as a child- often being afraid to stand up for yourself, to speak up, and having difficulty forming and maintaining relationships, but it tends to impact one's socio-economic standing as well.
I constantly have to live with the knowledge that I have no childhood friends, no family, no safety net, and no prospects because you've spent your entire life being beaten down, groomed, or alone. Other people take their families and connections for granted, and you become well aware that you do not have that luxury if your family neglected or abused you.
I was born to an absent mother that didn't want me/couldn't take care of me and an alcoholic father who died when I was young. The only memories I have of my father are when he would get absurdly drunk and act out, it took me so long not to jump at the sight of a gun because when I was a little child my father pulled a gun on us while drunk and said he was going to blow his brains out then and there. Others cannot fathom witnessing a scene like this in early childhood.
I have never known the love of a mother or father, and that irreparably screws up the development of a young mind. You feel no sense of security and stability, you're afraid to express your needs, you lack confidence, and you stumble through life without purpose because there is no one there to guide you. When all your other family members do is berate you, you grow up feeling like no one in the world is on your side, and as an adult it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy because everyone shuns the developmentally stunted child once they become a haphazard, broken adult.
Sexual abuse is a whole other beast as well, I cannot even begin to describe how it feels, but if you've been through it, you'll know how it warps you as a person, your preferences, and your ability to have relationships. There's always a fear that other people are going to hurt you and take advantage of you again, and when innocuous touch feels violating, others grow volatile and angry, insisting you grow up and get over it.
Having spent years and years in the mental health system, and studying brain development, I can safely say that not even "experts" know how to deal with the aftermath of childhood trauma. People expect you to simply get over it and fix yourself, but sometimes this just isn't possible. It's like telling someone with a pile of sticks at their disposal to build a mansion.
I have known many other people who have went through CSA as well as other forms of childhood neglect and abuse, and they constantly get tossed from useless therapist to therapist or on the pill mill with no reprieve, while the mental health staff claim they're just not trying hard enough to process their trauma or some other bootstrapper logic.
Many of us go on to develop chronic health conditions as well and get treated like we are fakers and that it's all a manifestation of victims not dealing with their trauma efficiently. It feels like when you've been through this sort of nightmare the hell never ends even when you become an adult because others will continue to cast blame on you for being unable to move past the horrors.
Didn't mean to go on a huge rant about myself here, but I'm so tired and worn out, I can't take it anymore and I can't withstand the way the media and mainstream psychology talks about trauma as if it's a temporary booboo that can ALWAYS be fixed. Sometimes, it is a death sentence. Being traumatized as a child is what is inevitably going to bury me.
