Child Sexual Abuse: The Confusion It Can Create

Trigger warning: This post regards child sexual abuse.

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For some, the experience of childhood sexual abuse is confusing. It may not have felt coercive. The period of grooming may have been long and indeed felt nurturing.

There may have been limited care and attention from one or both parents. Indeed one or both parents may have been quite unavailable to scary and abusive.

The context can make ripe the child for exploitation.

For the child, the sexual exploitation may have been the price for the felt nurturing and affection. So confusing.

For some, this is a bigger secret than the abuse itself, the fact that there was a component of enjoying the relationship if not the experience.

How torn and confusing this mix of so called love and harm, all beyond the ability of the child at such an age to fully understand.

This scenario also causes many a child, come adult to believe they were complicit in their own exploitation. They feel guilty instead of angry.

These secrets are harder to tell another.

It is less the fear of upsetting some apple carts than be seen as someone who may have actually appreciated the experience.

If this is you, do know that the sexual abuse was still only the responsibility of the abuser.

No reasonable person exploits a child for their own sexual gratification.

No reasonable person uses the challenging emotional circumstances of the child for their own gain.

Such a person exploiting a child is using the situation of the child to emotional and psychologically manipulate them for their own needs, not the child’s.

The confusion can last well into adulthood. So too a sense of shame and guilt.

You were but a child.

As much as you were manipulated into feeling complicit, you weren’t.

You were but a child.

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I am Gary Direnfeld and I am a social worker. Check out all my services and then call me if you need help with a personal issue, mental health concern, child behavior or relationship, divorce or separation issue or even help growing your practice. I am available in person and by video conferencing.

Gary Direnfeld, MSW, RSW

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Gary Direnfeld is a social worker. Courts in Ontario, Canada, consider him an expert in social work, marital and family therapy, child development, parent-child relations and custody and access matters. Gary is the host of the TV reality show, Newlywed, Nearly Dead, former parenting columnist for the Hamilton Spectator and author of Marriage Rescue: Overcoming the ten deadly sins in failing relationships. Gary maintains a private practice in Georgina Ontario, providing a range of services for people in distress. He speaks at conferences and workshops throughout North America. He consults to mental health professionals as well as to mediators and collaborative law professionals about good practice as well as building their practice.