The purpose of the ‘numbing’ strategies is to numb the feelings about the trauma. These strategies often have the side-effect of numbing other feelings and experiences too. Struggling to manage difficult feelings is a very common effect of childhood sexual abuse. Some men feel joyless, and ‘empty inside’. A very common feeling following abuse is shame. This feeling may ‘cover’ the whole person, so that by the time the child becomes an adult he feels worthless and unlovable. Numbing strategiesĬommon emotional responses to child sexual assault are long-term depression, sadness, anxiety, intense fear of feelings or memories of the abuse, and anger. Here are some of the most common strategies.
![young boy 1st gay blowjob young boy 1st gay blowjob](https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3zspkjQBs58/TpI-R6zoxcI/AAAAAAAACo0/d5kvBjMthaw/s320/karate-pepi%2B%252810%2529.jpg)
![young boy 1st gay blowjob young boy 1st gay blowjob](http://tekstovoi.ru/card/559365985_08302259p666040477_text_pesni_1st_studio_siberian_mouse_hd_86_masha.jpg)
It only becomes a problem when it becomes dysfunctional or painful in some way, or gets in the way of other positive things in a person’s life. We should also add that just because some activity or way of thinking is being used as a strategy, that does not mean it is an inherently unhealthy or problematic activity/thought. All strategies make sense when they are first developed. If it hadn’t worked to manage the feelings caused by the abuse, you would not have kept using it. Nevertheless it is worth making that point that just because a strategy may cause difficulties, that does not mean it didn’t make sense in the first place. The strategy may then take on a ‘life of its own’, and ultimately become a problem in itself. A child can’t be expected to think though all the consequences of the strategy, and sometimes is in too much pain or danger to be able to afford to. Very often strategies are developed in childhood, using a child’s mind. The purpose of the strategies is to avoid the feelings which are linked to the memories of the abuse. There are multiple strategies children develop to do this.Īll the strategies we are going to talk about work the same way. Thinking about the abuse triggers the feelings that are attached to the memories, so the child learns ways to not remember or think about the abuse. When a child is not able to avoid the abusive situation physically, he must learn to avoid the memories and feelings about the abuse psychologically. This is actually a biological process that has an adaptive advantage: It makes us want to avoid that same situation again, which helps us to survive.īut, where we are not able to avoid the threatening situation – such as when a boy is being hurt by the very family which keeps him fed and alive – then these memories and feelings can build up and start to feel unbearable. When a human being experiences a terrible event like child sexual abuse, the memories of that event become charged with very strong emotions, like feelings of horror and disgust. Strategies: When some solutions become the problemĬhildhood sexual abuse can have many links to the present So rather than listing all the negative effects that sexual abuse can have on a man’s life, in the following section we will talk about some of the strategies men use to manage the impacts of their abuse, and how these strategies can sometimes ‘take over’. Men are sometimes surprised to find that what they think of as their current problem was originally developed as a strategy for dealing with their abuse. What brings men to services like Living Well is quite often not the original abuse, but a crisis involving the strategies the man has been using to manage the effects of the abuse. For instance, a drinking problem gets so bad the man had to go into rehabilitation a way of managing relationships becomes so dysfunctional that a partner threatens to leave, and so on. However in our experience with men who have been sexually abused in childhood, what we are working with is not only the effects of the abuse, but also the unwanted side-effects of the strategies some men adopt to help them deal with these effects.Īnyone who has lived through traumatic experiences in childhood has, out of necessity, developed a range of creative, effective strategies that helped them survive and go on to live their life. Very often, however, the strategies that worked in childhood don’t work so well in the adult world.
![young boy 1st gay blowjob young boy 1st gay blowjob](https://64.media.tumblr.com/ca625b863c4f45037455ab52c4076b34/tumblr_phibbkdwBp1uymm4uo1_640.jpg)
![young boy 1st gay blowjob young boy 1st gay blowjob](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Rb6f1A0MvJ0/TpTbtHQ4VXI/AAAAAAAADB8/P9raN6S8QVY/s512/karate%252520%252528134%252529.jpg)
The impacts of child sexual abuse can be complex and severe. While it is not always the case, it is common that a man who has experienced child sexual abuse will experience a range of negative effects many years after the abuse.