Something dreadful happened on the way to adulthood for far too many children. Perhaps you’re one of them. Perhaps the childhood you so desperately wanted didn’t happen for you.

Instead, your childhood wasn’t something you dreamed about; your childhood was a nightmare you survived. And for some of you, just barely.

Recovery from childhood abuse requires healing on a variety of levels, including the physical, but once the scars and bruises heal, the long-term physical consequences may not be over.

Physical healing requires intentionality and effort.

1. NO FAMILY IS PERFECT

Everyone knows there is no perfect family. No father is always loving and patient and engaged. No mother is always understanding and helpful and kind.

No older sibling is always inclusive and attentive and affectionate. No younger sibling is always respectful and considerate and agreeable.

Those who enter into a family do not always embrace all members of that family. Behind closed doors, people can and do act badly, make mistakes, and give in to their weaknesses.

The perfect family, the perfect parent or sibling, the perfect childhood is an ephemeral dream that evaporates in the harsh light of human failings and unforeseen circumstances.

Yet I have come to believe that the idea of “perfect” is still a compelling dream for children, and the adults they become. Children dream of a life where they are truly loved and cared for, and wish for that dream with all their might.

When they are deprived of that dream, children mourn its loss, through frustration, disappointment, anger, regret, and tragically, blame and shame.

2. LOST IN AN IMAGINARY WORLD

As they wish for and dream of the what-if perfect life, children learn to settle for something much less. Their lives may not be perfect, but what about normal?

Normal makes you no better or no worse than everyone else.

Normal means that when bad things happen to you, those are “just because” instead of “because of me.” Normal protects against shame. Reaching for normal can take the target off your back. Considering your life, such as it is, to be “normal” can depersonalize the difficult.

A person can look back on a difficult childhood through a lens of normalcy. But when does normal stop being normal and become something else?

When does that continuum of perfect-to-normal veer off into the realm of abuse? When does the pathway from everything you wish for plummet into everything you fear?

Children live in a world where their choices are made for them and power over their lives rests in the hands of adults. Within that state, what child wants to acknowledge a horrific childhood, with little hope and no end in sight?

Isn’t it better to use the one power children do have—the power of imagination—to pretend things aren’t so bad?

3. IT ALWAYS SHOWS UP LATER IN LIFE

“I kept running away from the truth that I wasn’t loved,” Kea admitted. “I guess, in a way, I’ve always been running away from it. Growing up, I didn’t get what I so desperately wanted. Now, I never will. How do I accept that?”

Kea is like many people with a background of childhood abuse who I’ve encountered over my years of counseling. As an adult, Kea wanted to be able to claim a perfect childhood for herself, where she was loved and special and cared for.

Intellectually, as an adult, she knew that hadn’t happened. Emotionally, to cope with the loss, she settled for viewing her childhood as not great but, at least, normal. Kea’s childhood, though, was not normal.

Oh, she caught infrequent glimpses of what a normal childhood might look and feel like. These scraps of affection were enough to keep an emotionally starved child alive one more day, surviving on hopes and dreams and desperate wishes for more.

Do you remember, as a child, being trapped in some difficult or traumatic event and shutting your eyes and telling yourself that whatever it was would soon be over? As long as you didn’t look at it or hear it or acknowledge it, the bad thing surely would go away.

“Don’t think about it,” you would tell yourself. “Find a way to get beyond it, then pretend like it didn’t happen.” Children find such ways to survive difficult things.

They tell themselves over and over again it isn’t so bad. If there’s no escaping the bad, then they pretend it isn’t so bad. Admitting the bad just makes it more real.

4. DECEPTION, ILLUSION AND TRUTH

This blog is about the torment of childhood abuse. Children, sadly, are abused in too many ways, from physical beatings to sexual exploitation to psychological torment.

I have found children, and the adults they become, have similar ways to cope with the nightmare of their childhood abuse.

Many camouflage their abusive past under the gloss of normalcy and the rationale of “it wasn’t so bad.” Others have no illusion about the wretched nature of their childhoods.

They are quite aware that the verbal tirades or the beatings or the sexual abuse were not normal. Yet they still desperately seek to conceal their past from others under a shroud of normalcy.

Some know their lives were not normal but consider themselves, not the actions of others, the source of the abnormality. They blame themselves and seek to hide their shame.

For children who have been abused, I have found hiding behind a curtain of normalcy is a way to survive the past. Stopping to really look at and accept the past as not normal can feel like experiencing a death—the death of the dream of “what should have been.”

When that dream is all you have to hold on to, why in the world would you want to let it go? Why exchange a comforting fantasy for a painful reality?

5. THERE IS HOPE IN SIGHT

My hope is to answer those questions, to give you reasons to accept your past, abuse included. My hope is to provide you with a way to separate what parts of your life you can claim as normal and what parts of your life were not.

And, most of all, my hope is to help you untangle shame and blame, what you knew growing up from who you are now. To paraphrase the Serenity Prayer, my hope is for you to accept the things about your childhood you cannot change, find the courage to change the things you can, and gain wisdom to know the difference so you can move forward with your life.

This wisdom to know the difference between truth and illusion is not easy to come by. If you’ve lived a great deal of your life under an illusion, how are you to see the truth?

How do you go back and look at your life and decide where your experiences fit? What was truly normal? What was, sadly, abusive? And are you the only judge?

What if you were never physically beaten or sexually exploited? When there are no welts or bruises or broken bones, no molestation or penetration, were you still abused? What about emotional abuse?

Societal norms add another layer to these questions. Back when you were growing up, “normal” looked different than it does now. For example, what used to be considered proper parental discipline in some circles is now acknowledged by many as physical abuse.

Some sexual customs, once considered private and inviolate, are now viewed as sexually abusive and societally unacceptable. In the past, how a child was psychologically treated was considered irrelevant, as long as the child had a roof over their head, clothes on their body, and food to eat.

Now, however, the psychological treatment and mistreatment of children is increasingly studied and given special importance.

FINDING YOUR WAY FORWARD

Childhood is supposed to be a loving, nurturing, and empowering time for children to be strengthened and supported into adulthood.

When childhood abuse enters into that picture, that reality becomes torn and tattered. How do you find a way to pick up those fragments of your life and move forward?

As a pastor, I’ve heard that question asked in innumerable ways over the years.

I’ve heard that question asked by women and men of different ages, beliefs, backgrounds, and economic circumstances. The question is, in many ways, a universal one.

While the question may be universal for those who have experienced childhood abuse, the answers are extremely personal.

This blog (and subsequent others in the series) is written as a guide to understanding the challenges of overcoming childhood abuse, and I’ll present the research and information in a type of overview.

However, these articles are also written to help each reader reach back into their own childhood and then move forward for those personal answers that create healing and recovery.

Is the search for answers difficult? Yes, but people who reach the point of searching are already in pain.

The pain, their own or the pain of their family and loved ones, is a powerful motivator to find the way forward—past the discomfort and into a more positive future.

I believe that while the past affects the future, the future need not be enslaved to the past. Yesterday cannot be changed, but tomorrow hasn’t been written yet.

Each new day brings the promise of hope. I’ve found in my own life, both personally and professionally, that hope is incredibly powerful.

You will find great hope in asking questions, because behind every question lies the hope of an answer. As you read these articles, discover your questions, search for your answers, and hang on to hope. Watch for hope to do amazing things.

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Disclaimer: Fictional names were used and identifying details of the stories told were omitted for privacy purposes

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