Child sexual abuse or child molestation is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation.  The aftereffects of child sexual abuse can include depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, propensity to future victimization, among numerous other problems experienced from childhood through adulthood.  Sexual abuse by a family member is a form of incest, and can result in more serious and long-term psychological trauma.

The occurance of sexual abuse at a young age can result in both short-term and long-term harm, including psychopathology in later life.  Indicators and effects include depression, anxiety, eating disorders, poor self-esteem, somatization, sleep disturbances, and dissociative and anxiety disorders including post-traumatic stress disorder.  The strongest indicator of sexual abuse is sexual acting out and inappropriate sexual knowledge and interest.  Victims may withdraw from school and social activities and exhibit various learning and behavioral problems including attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, conduct disorder, and oppositional defiant disorder.  

An association has been found between childhood sexual abuse and various adult psychopathologies, including crime and suicide, in addition to alcoholism and drug abuse. Teenage pregnancy and risky sexual behaviors may appear in adolescence.  Child sexual abuse victims report almost four times as many incidences of self-inflicted harm.  Children of victims of child sexual abuse also tend to exhibit more conduct problems, peer problems, and emotional problems than their peers.

Adults with a history of sexual abuse often present for treatment with a secondary mental health issue, which can include substance abuse, eating disorders, personality disorders, depression, and conflict in romantic or interpersonal relationships.  Frequently, adult victims of childhood molestation do not make the connection between their past abuse and their present pathology.

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I remember being a little girl playing outside in the recluse of my backyard. I have always been a strange, lonely girl and I have always felt a certain wanting inside of me, as if I was longing for something else, somewhere else, something extraordinary.

I remember that even as a child, I felt a feeling of distance inside of me. It was a familiar feeling, too. I knew, even at this young and tender age, that I had experienced trauma, and I had experienced abuse, and I didn’t know quite what that meant, or what all of the feelings and emotions stirring inside of me meant, either.

I remember that although I was strange and lonely, I would always find friends in the unlikeliest of places. I caught butterflies and daddy-long-legs and after my initial excitement and glee, I would hold them in my hand and examine them, these tiny living gifts. I remember looking at how intricately and delicately they were constructed. I recall marveling at how a God could create such a tiny, beautiful creature and then entrust that creature into my care, into the palm of my hand. It seemed kind of cruel to me, that this God knew full well that I could destroy that little life if I so chose, yet he didn’t do anything to prevent me from doing so. 

I stared at the bug, studying its movements. I felt comfortable with this tiny life crawling about in my hand, trusting me completely. I took comfort in the fact that I could spend the day playing with my new friend, and it wouldn’t judge me or call me weird or think of me as strange because I didn’t have any other friends to play with. 

I suppose that even then I felt like the butterflies and the spiders. We held a sort of kinship in my mind. I suppose that I felt it cruel that God placed me in the palm of his hand, watching me wriggle around, slightly amused with me, knowing full well that he could smite me in an instant if he so chose. I often wonder if he ever wanted to. He never did. Instead he just watched me. 

These thoughts left me with a feeling of vulnerability, and even when I was young I knew what vulnerability felt like. I knew that one day all this pain would amount to something. Maybe something tragic, maybe something beautiful. Something. 

… 

On the particular day that this photograph was taken, I had my good friend Andrew over. It had been a while since I had seen him, and we spend the initial few hours catching up like we always do. I can guarantee that one or both of us is almost always feeling melancholy, and this day was no different. (True friends always understand.) 

I found myself in a particularly heartfelt, wistful mood after our chat. I told my friend that I’d like to take some pictures, and he told me that he’d like to take some pictures of me. We left the kitchen and proceeded to my backyard. Mind you, this is the same backyard in which I grew up in, the same backyard in which I laughed and cried countless times in my life. The same backyard in which my happiness lifted me and in which my loneliness consumed me. This truth was well on my mind. By this time, it was late afternoon, early evening. The sun was low in the sky, which filled the air with a lovely orange hue. 

There’s something about orange-colored days.

The same heartfelt, wistfulness that I experienced that day is reflected in my eyes here. I think for an instant, I caught a glimpse of myself as a little girl playing in my backyard. 

I present to you this photograph, beautiful within its vulnerability or vulnerable within its beauty. I really like it. I hope that you do, too. 

Photography by Andrew P Gibson

featuring Miss Leanna Banana

(via leannabanana.com & bleedingfragments)

but you have also been so blessed. 

I felt my heart.  I felt it in my chest.  I felt it in my throat.  I felt it in my head.  I couldn’t bear it…”

- Charles Bukowski, Women