Trauma and Literature: Process Log 06

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• Chirag Mehta
• Trauma and Literature
• Prof. Martin J. Gliserman
• 4 Mar. 2003

Trauma and Literature: Process Log 06

Short term and long term effects of child abuse:

Jerzy Kosinski narrates the horrifying events that a six-year old child went through during the Holocaust in his novel The Painted Bird, and as the child grows older, long-term effects of his trauma slowly become apparent. It is well-known that abuse survivors suffer from many of the following symptoms late into their adulthood: high levels of anxiety, self-destructive behaviors like alcoholism or drug abuse, panic attacks, situation-specific anxiety disorders, insomnia, revictimization, problems in their adult relationships and adult sexual functioning. And there are signs of child abuse trauma in short term too: regressive behaviors, sleep disturbances, eating problems, behavior or performance problems at school, and nonparticipation in school and social activities. The boy, by the time he was in the orphanage towards the end of the story, was already showing most of the short term symptoms.

Though these short term effects are visible in most child abuse cases, it is not possible to determine whether they stem out of abuse or some physical ailments like manic depression, ADHD, and bipolar depression etc. That is, though signs are evident, the root cause is often hard to determine, and hence diagnosis becomes near impossible. Moreover children who have gone through traumatic episodes find it extremely difficult to explain their true story. Hence their situation gets worse and eventually they end up suffering, sometimes throughout their lives, probably because of one incident that happened at a very young age.

The length of the traumatic incidents is a major determinant of the victim's recovery. While one-time incidents like rape or abuse by a stranger can be as detrimental to the child's mental health as years of constant sexual abuse by family members, the latter results in many more obvious problems. Trust, for example. These children often end up having low self-esteem, have relationship and commitment anxieties, and are in perpetual fear of rejection and failure. Moreover, once they are in denial that the abuse actually happened or that it affected them permanently, they fail to realize that a lot of their personality disorders inherently originate from the abuse and hence despite going through therapy for seemingly obvious personality disorders, the true cause for the disorders remains unresolved.