- [Narrator] How does abuse affect a person?
Is the road to healing as unpaved as it seems?
The Social Care Institute for Excellence
has ranked multiple forms of abuse,
including physical, domestic, sexual, emotional
financial, discriminatory, and organizational abuse.
Healing for abuse survivors of all kind
is a highly relative process.
While it is possible to move towards healing the trauma
to become whole and healthy individuals,
at times, it may have lingering effects
throughout your life experiences
and you may even blame yourself for the way you are.
Acknowledging all forms of possible abuse
helps bring awareness.
If you've experienced abuse of any form,
check in with yourself to see
if you can relate to any of the following signs
of lingering effects due to your trauma.
Number one, you have difficulty
in navigating social situations.
Do you exercise extreme caution
in introducing new faces into your life?
As an abuse survivor, your basic need for safety
was constantly endangered.
This conditioned your brain
to be consistently on alert for future dangers.
Your sudden reactions to certain people or settings
show it reminds you of one of the mental
or emotional abuses that you've experienced.
Using body language cues is one way to self soothe
when experiencing social anxiety due to abuse trauma.
Using open body language,
which includes keeping your legs uncrossed
or maintaining comfortable eye contact,
can help communicate your willingness
to be open with others.
Number two, physical health problems.
Does your stomach, head, or other body pains
seem to have no identifiable cause?
Maltreatment or abuse
can cause physical health problems too.
Abuse triggers extreme stress levels,
which causes your immune system
to be negatively impacted.
A study concluded that childhood abuse
impairs regions of the brain
related to function or growth.
Reaching out for support can help you check in
with the aspect of you that felt most hurt due to the abuse.
Notice if you treat your body, mind, or heart kindly
and supportively.
Number three, body language comprehension.
How observant would you call yourself?
Are you a pro at reading the micro expressions
flickering across someone's face?
As an abuse survivor, you grow to become excellent readers
of body language and nonverbal cues.
This skill originates from your need to protect yourself
from a young age.
Your hypervigilance allowed you
to identify those who feel safe
in opposition to those that felt dangerous
to your wellbeing.
When you're able to read a person, the room, or a situation
there's a greater chance of feeling secure in your standings
and maintaining control over your surroundings.
Number four, chronic anxiety and depression.
Research found that abuse survivors
were two and a half times more likely
to have major depression
and are also more susceptible to emotional dysregulation.
Your tendency to self-protect from early on
can translate into anxiety later.
While depression may emerge
from a deep sadness within the abuse survivor,
your struggle with mental health issues due to abuse trauma
may lead to having intrusive thoughts,
feeling stuck in a mental loop, or not having the motivation
to complete task throughout your day.
Their presence points towards an unlatched wound
in need of tending,
which might help to dissipate frustration towards yourself.
Number five, emotional numbness.
Do you dread opening up
to the notion of moving forward emotionally and mentally?
In your moments of duress,
your body's immediate reaction was to protect you from harm
as much as it possibly could.
Your mind helped you detach from the experience
to shield you from going into shock.
This represses the trauma from a conscious view,
allowing you to continue functioning normally
even after experiencing the danger you've endured.
But repressed trauma can cause a multitude of side effects.
One of which being emotional numbness.
While it may feel safe to detach emotionally,
healing and allowing for emotions to come through
is also the key to pushing the negative emotions out.
It's okay to feel sad about what happened to you.
You have every right to feel that.
But you also have every right to feel proud
of how far you've come since then.
And number six, low self-esteem.
Do you put yourself down first
to avoid conflict or confrontation?
If you can relate, you've likely maintained low self-esteem
as a result of the trauma you've experienced earlier on.
And you surely aren't at fault
for this mistaken understanding of self.
You're prone to feeling unworthy,
undeserving due to the dysfunction
within your early environment.
Self-esteem can be greatly impacted by your environment.
Relabeling upsetting thoughts
helps to focus on the positive.
Spend time with your feel good squad.
Indeed, the past can't be rewritten in physical terms
but that doesn't mean you're not allowed
to rewrite the character you play in your own story.
Allow yourself to recast yourself as your own hero.
Abuse has an uncanny way of blurring one's vision.
What you experienced was never your fault.
It can be a difficult task to evade its clutches.
It can continue to trickle into your life
in the most reticent ways.
Abusers are known to use manipulation tactics,
like gaslighting, to entrap their victims
to believe on a subconscious level
that they've been at fault
and have played a role in their trauma.
This negatively impacts your sense of self
and personal growth.
And even while your younger or earlier self
may have believed these statements on some level,
know that allowed to reconsider this thought.
What happened to you was never your fault.
Do you recognize any of these signs?
If so, do you think this video helped you identify them?
Feel free to leave a comment down below
with your thoughts, experiences, or suggestions.
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Thanks for watching and see you soon.