The Abuse Survivors' Aftereffects Checklist

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The Abuse Survivors' Aftereffects Checklist

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The Abuse Survivors' Aftereffects Checklist
Do you find many characteristics of yourself on this list? If so, you could be a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. Survivors, particularly incest survivors, may experience suppressed memory in reference to their abuse. Memories of the actual trauma may be hidden by the mind as a means of protecting the individual from the pain associated with the event. As a result, many abuse survivors experience a host of trauma-related symptoms which seem to have no recognizable source.

* Fear of being alone in the dark, of sleeping alone; nightmares, night terror (especially of pursuit, threat, entrapment).

* Swallowing and gagging sensitivity; repugnance to water on one's face when bathing or swimming (suffocation feelings).

* Alienation from the body - not at home in own body; failure to heed body signals or take care of one's body; poor body image; manipulating body size to avoid sexual attention.

* Gastrointestinal problems; gynecological disorders (including spontaneous ******l infections); headaches; arthritis or joint pain.

* Wearing a lot of clothing, even in summer; baggy clothes; failure to remove clothing even when appropriate to do so (while swimming, bathing, sleeping); extreme requirement for privacy when using bathroom.

* Eating disorders, drug or alcohol abuse (or total abstinence); other addictions; compulsive behaviors.

* Self-destructiveness; skin carving, self-abuse.

* Phobias.

* Need to be invisible, perfect, or perfectly bad.

* Suicidal thoughts, attempts, obsession (including "passive suicide").

* Depression (sometimes paralyzing); seemingly baseless crying.

* Anger issues; inability to recognize, own or express anger, fear of actual or imagined rate; constant anger, intense hostility toward entire gender or ethnic group of the perpetrator.

* Splitting (depersonalization); going into shock, shutdown in crisis; a stressful situation always in a crisis; psychic numbing; physical pain or numbness associated with a particular memory, emotion (e.g., anger), or situation (e.g., sex).

* Rigid control of one's thought process; humorlessness or extreme solemnity.

* Childhood hiding, hanging on, cowering in corners (security-seeking behaviors); adult nervousness over being watched or surprised; feeling watched; startle response.

* Trust issue; inability to trust (trust is not safe); total trust; trusting indiscriminately.

* High risk taking ("daring the fates"); inability to take risks.
Boundary issues; control, power, territoriality issues; fear of losing control; obsessive/compulsive behaviors (attempts to control things that don't matter, just to control something).

* Guilt, shame; low self-esteem, feeling worthless; high appreciation of small favors by others.

* Pattern of being a victim (victimizing oneself after being victimized by others), especially sexually; no sense of own-power or right to set limits or say no; pattern of relationships with much older persons (onset in adolescence).

* Feeling demand to "produce and be loved"; instinctively knowing and doing what the other person needs or wants; relationships mean big tradeoffs (love was taken, not given).

* Abandonment issues.

* Blocking out some period of early years (especially 1-12), or a specific person or place.

* Feeling of carrying an awful secret; urge to tell, fear of its being revealed; certainty that no one will listen; being generally seductive; feeling "marked" (the "scarlet letter").

* Feeling crazy; feeling different; feeling oneself to be unreal and everyone else to be real, or vice versa; creating fantasy worlds, relationships, or identities (especially for women: imagining or wishing self to be male, i.e., not a victim).

* Denial: no awareness at all; repression of memories; pretending; minimizing ("it wasn't that bad"); having dreams or memories ("maybe it's my imagination"); strong, deep, "inappropriate" negative reactions to a person, place or event; "sensory flashes" (a light, a place, a physical feeling) without a sense of their meaning; remembering the surroundings but not the event.

* Sexual issues: sex feel "dirty", aversion to being touched, especially in gynecological exam; strong aversion to (or need for) particular sex acts; feeling betrayed by one's body; trouble integrating sexuality and emotionality; confusion or overlapping of affection, sex, dominance, aggression, and violence; having to pursue power in the sexual arena which is actually sexual acting out (self-abuse and manipulation, especially among women; abuse of others, especially among men); compulsively "seductive' or compulsively asexual; must be sexual aggressor or cannot be; impersonal, "promiscuous" sex with strangers concurrent with inability to have sex in intimate relationship (conflict between sex and caring); prostitute, stripper, "sex symbol", porn actress; sexual acting out to meet anger or revenge needs; "sexaholism"; avoidance; shutdown, crying after orgasm; all pursuit feels like violation; sexualizing of meaningful relationships; erotic response to abuse or anger, sexual fantasies of dominance or rape (Note: Homosexuality is not an aftereffect).

* Pattern of ambivalent or intensely conflictive relationships (intimacy is a problem; also focus shifted from incest issues).

* Avoidance of mirrors (connected with invisibility, shame/self-esteem issues, distrust of perceived body image).

* Desire to change one's name (to disassociate from the perpetrator or to take control through self-labeling).

* Limited tolerance for happiness; active withdrawal from happiness, reluctance to trust happiness "ice=thin").

* Aversion to making noise (including during sex, crying, laughing, or other body functions); verbal hypervigilance (careful monitoring of one's words); quite-voiced, especially when needing to be heard.

* Stealing (adults); stealing and starting fires (children).

* Multiple personality.

E. Sue Blume