When children are sexually abused, their natural sexual capacity is stolen.
Minimizing - pretending that whatever happened wasn't really that bad.
Rationalizing - the means by which children explain away abuse. Rationalizing keeps the focus on the abuser. "It's a way of trying to forgive him, instead of allowing the real anger and fury I feel"
Denying - turning your head the other way and pretending that whatever is happening isn't, or what has happened didn't.
Forgetting - one of the most common and effective ways to deal with sexual abuse. Many children are able to forget about the abuse, even as it is happening to them.
Splitting - the tendency to view people or events as either all good or all bad. It is a way of coping that allows a person to hold opposite, unintegrated views.
Lack of integration - a byproduct of forgetting, can be a feeling of being divided into more than one person.
Leaving your body - children who were abused or battered often numb their bodies so they will not feel what is being done to them. Others actually leave their bodies and watch the abuse as if from a great distance.
Control - a thread that runs through the lives of many survivors. When survivors grow up in chaotic environments they often go to great lengths to keep their lives in order.
Chaos - survivors sometimes maintain control by creating chaos. If your behavior is out of control, you force people around you to drop what they're doing to respond to your latest problems.
Spacing out - survivors have an uncanny capacity to space out and not be present.
Being super alert - as a child tuning into every nuance of your environment may have saved you from being abused.
Humor - a tough sense of humor, a bitter wit, your sense of cynicism can get you through hard times...and as long as you keep laughing, you don't have to cry.
Busyness - staying busy can be a way to avoid being in the present moment, to avoid feelings.
Escape - as a child or an adolescent you may have made attempts to run away. If you were more passive, there was escape through sleep, books and television.
Mental illness - problems occur when the line between fantasy and reality blurs. For many survivors "going crazy" makes a lot of sense.
Self-mutilation - one way survivors control their experience of pain. Instead of the abuser hurting you, you hurt yourself.
Suicide attempts - suicide sometimes seems like the only option left in the life that feels out of control.
Addiction and isolation - addictions are common ways of coping with the pain of sexual abuse. Addictions must be curbed if you want to heal.
Eating difficulties - those who were sexually abused sometimes develop anorexia and bulimia. Compulsive overeating is another way of coping.
Lying - when children are told never to talk about the abuse, they become adept at lying.
Stealing is a totally absorbing activity. It enables you to forget everything for a brief moment.
Gambling - a way to maintain the hope that life can magically change.
Workaholism - survivors often feel an overwhelming need to achieve, to make up for the badness they feel is hidden inside.
Avoiding intimacy - if you don't let anyone close to you, no one can hurt you.
Religious addiction - safety can also be found by attaching yourself to a belief system that has clearly defined rules and boundaries.
Compulsively seeking or avoiding sex - if abuse was your sole means of getting physical contact when you were a child you may continue to look for closeness only in sexual ways...or go to great lengths to avoid sexuality.