For your personal information I want to advise that I’m not a professional in the area of psychiatry, my only credentials for writing on the subject of adults suffering from childhood abuse are my personal experiences with childhood abuse, my use of God’s Word to overcome it, and my ministry studies.   

Many adults don’t realize that many of their problems stem from past abuse or abuse that has continued.  I hope that if you’re struggling in life because you were abused as a child, the following information will help you recognize any scars you might have or bad habits that are holding you back from enjoying your life.

Treatment For Achieving Help and Healing 

I suggest that if you can’t shake problems caused by past abuse, that you take a pro-active attitude by looking to yourself rather than outward by blaming others, even if certain people are the cause of your problems.

No matter who has caused you harm, only you can take responsibility to fix the damage, move on if necessary and make the changes in your life and character that will not allow further damage to your heart, soul and body.

You may need to see a professional to help you overcome past abuse, but no matter what outside help you get, I encourage you to make God’s Word a part of it.  with treatments.  Work with your doctor or counselor and use God’s Word and prayer to work through their treatment for healing to become a whole person.   

I don’t want to dredge up your past if it’s forgotten, I only want to define if there was abuse in your life so that you can better define how to receive healing of a problem that you can’t seem to control such as substance abuse. Once you know you can move forward and be free.  

I believe it’s fruitless to live in the past, and since God’s Word only works in the present, it’s important to live in the “now.” But it’s also important to identify feelings created from our past to overcome them.   

Adult Abuse Victim Signs In Marriage:

If you have an explosive relationship with your husband or wife, this could be a problem caused by abuse in your family.  If you tolerate it you may have been a victim of childhood abuse or you watched a parent be abused over many years. The continuing abuse of parents can become a pattern of abuse in the lives of their children.

If you’re an abuser this experience could have been yours. Both roles as either an abuser or a victim need attention. Both are dangerous. If this is you or a person in your household you need to get help now.

It’s important to acknowledge that women can be the aggressor in a relationship and the male the victim. This is just as wrong as the male being aggressive. It’s just less common or reported because of the shame a male feels as a victim to a woman.

If any chance for healing exists, attention must be given to the problem by both persons.

It’s important to note that even though a person is an abuser because of childhood abuse, they must still take responsibility for their actions and get help right away.

Even abusers might deserve compassion, but the people who they abuse are victims living with a great deal of pain that will be transferred from one generation to the next. End abuse in your family now! If you’re the abuser, it begins with you! God will help you through Jesus Christ!

Healing A Marriage Takes Two People Or One With Great Faith and Determination

Both husband and wife must want to change and heal. I suggest looking to a large community church for guidance and transformation, and also to get the answers you need for your situation.

 

You should both attend classes for Christian growth and get counseling, even if you have to pay a fee. Many communities offer family counseling with fees based upon income. Some are even free.

If only one person desires change, that person will have to get the help needed for the sake of the family on their own. However, if physical or emotional abuse is causing a dangerous situation, it’s imperative to make your family safe immediately. Get help from your church and local government agencies.

You can be blamed for abuse to your children by remaining in an abusive relationship that extends to your children. This means your children can be taken from you and placed within the legal system of your community. Getting them back could take many years.

Whatever help is needed you must be the one to initiate it and go full circle, using God’s Word and faith daily for a positive outcome for yourself and children.

 

Wisdom For Thought:  Both husband and wife must remove themselves from their past abusers or those who were abusive around them as children. Avoid siblings or anyone who denies your experience and condemns you for expressing it. They may not have seen your abuse and cannot fathom the thought of their loving parents or relative causing abuse, even if they suspect it’s true.

A plan agreeable to both husband and wife needs to be created for change. This should include separation if needed for safety, especially if children are involved with plans for seeking help and restoration of marriage after healing.

If only one person desires change and the domestic situation is dangerous or explosive a complete separation must occur to obtain a safe, healthy life. However, this must be done safely. If you’re a woman, get help from your local area and perhaps the legal system to safely leave your household by checking for homes that shelter abused and battered women and their children. Then proceed with getting the help you need.

Do everything necessary to brake the cycle of abuse for yourself and your future generations. Otherwise you’ll never realize a cure. This is why all abused persons must take responsibility to change rather than blaming their abusers. This is how to find your way to a future free of abuse.

Adult Abuse Victim Signs In Unmarried Abusive Relationships:

If you’re a Christian and in an abusive relationship but you’re not married, you’ll be advised in any church you attend that respects God’s Word to either be married or stop living together. This will be the first step to healing. A person has to think very little about who they are if they aren’t even married and yet allow someone to abuse them. This is a large sign of past abuse or perhaps desperation to be with someone or receive financial support. Safely get help if you feel that your life and your children’s lives are in danger.

If you’re only thinking about living with someone, consider very carefully about what you’re doing. Moving yourself and children into the home of a woman or man to have an intimate relationship with them without marriage puts yourself and family in danger–especially if you know little about this person. However, this extends to moving in with people just to find a place to live. Always be cautious and seeks God’s guidance!

Something made you think it’s okay to take a chance with your life and your children’s lives. The cause could be the environment in which you have lived that finds this as acceptable behavior or it could be past abuse causing you to believe that you can’t function in life on your own. Whatever the reason, get into a church which teaches God’s Word to learn how to value your life, and more important, your children’s lives. Seek a Christian counselor if you can’t find a church that will give you counseling to help you trust God to handle your life alone until the right person comes into your life.

Adult Abuse Victim Signs Of Parental or Family Manipulation:

One of the most vicious and insidious scars of childhood abuse is parental manipulation. In most cases it never ends. Many times when the victim of manipulation tries to break free by honestly sharing how they feel about the relationship, the manipulative parent, sibling or relative accuses them of being a trouble maker and selfish.

They can turn the whole situation around to make the victim feel guilty by getting ill or accusing them that they have never appreciated everything that was done for them. In order to avoid confrontation and continue to get along with relatives, the abused person can continue with the relationship, only to become weaker and more bitter over time.

When a person has been manipulated by a parent or relative most their life or since they can remember, their reality is tainted. They believe they’re the bad person when accused by their manipulator. They’re asked to do things that are wrong, harmful to themselves or others or simply to satisfy their manipulator more than themselves.  

The manipulated person is expected to put their parent or whoever has brainwashed them before even their own children and spouse if they have a family.  All that matters is that the manipulator’s desires are quenched because they enjoy making someone else weak.

For instance a person can be manipulated by the claim of fake illnesses at strategic times that keep them from enjoying a special time, getting married to someone or just feeling happy. They can even go as far as trying to create a wedge between a husband and wife in order to cause dissension.

If this is happening to you, this is a sign that you’re still being abused. If you’re a Christian, it will help you to keep the proper order of family and friends to maintain peace and be blessed. First comes God, then spouse, then children. Relatives and friends come last. Spouses should always come before parents! And children are always more important than the whims and desires of grandparents, relatives and friends regarding their well-being.  

Life success can never be achieved until an abused person decides to change their realty by putting their life and family first over the needs of their abusers.

It’s important to note that this type of manipulation is easily reinforced because the victim was probably brainwashed from birth or their early formative years (ages birth-4) to earn their parent’s or relative’s love by pleasing them at all costs.

This love by guilt and manipulation gives unbalance to a person’s life because they have no idea what real love is or that their life is just as important as the person manipulating them. They can only recognize their worth by the way their manipulator treats them which isn’t respectful.

This normally leaves the victim believing with all their heart, mind and soul that they’re responsible for their abuser’s happiness and that they’re a bad person if they don’t put their manipulator first. 

Physical Abuse, Domestic Violence and Molestation:

The other types of abuse a child can suffer are physical abuse, domestic violence and molestation.  All of these forms of abuse harm the soul, leaving a person empty or broken.  Physical violence does damage to every part of a person, not just the body. Also as Christians our bodies are the temple of God, so whoever abuses us is vandalizing God’s temple. God will help us become free safely.

Sexual abuse happens in families, outside families and even in schools and churches.  In short, it can happen to a child anywhere. Children are helpless. They’re left to suffer in silence if they don’t know how to share their abuse. If they become an adult without getting help, their lives can only get worse.

While some children may tell their parents, sometimes the parent may not want to hear it and they protect the abuser, causing an even deeper pain in the child.

Many adults continue their childhood abuse by victimizing others, even when they work hard to change. Other adults who suffered from childhood abuse become victims. Being a victim leaves one with a broken soul, not knowing how to love because they can’t love themselves. There are so many problems in adulthood that result from so much pain in their lives as a child that was never resolved.

Healing and Renewal 

If any chance for healing and renewal exists in the lives of adults who suffered so greatly as a child, there are steps that must be acknowledged and taken. The most important step is to get away from the person or individuals safely.

Get whatever help you believe you need to be free of the damage done to you. However, If you choose therapy and find yourself still working at getting better six months or a year later, you’re moving too slow. Recovery doesn’t have to take a lifetime. It can begin immediately and take effect right away with God’s Word. So choose your treatment wisely.

It’s important to note that even when this type of abused person learns how to successfully turn away from an abusive parent, there are still damaged behaviors that need to be addressed such as “secret keeping” or fear of relationships. They need to create a new identity to overcome the abused identity they had been given when their personality or character was developing.

This is why it is important to separate from past abusers, because they will have trouble regarded themselves in any other way than as their abusers see them. Continuing with an abused character can cause severe feelings of inadequacy, general depression or clinical depression.

The only way I was able to create change in my life was to change my reality in Christ.  It took longer than it should because I didn’t know how to begin or what I needed to do first.  Eventually I was able to put all the pieces together and when I did, great changes occurred in my life and relationships.

I’ve included short Bible studies with information that helped me here. I’ve also created a course that will change the reality of new Christians or Christians new to the Word to grow in confidence and ability to overcome childhood abuse.  Go to the 7 Day Christian Growth Challenge.  For more information about the course go here.  I’ve also created a Bible Study based upon the same information as the course.  

 

Conclusion Of Adult Abuse Victim Signs

No matter how difficult, it’s necessary to completely separate from the people who cause abuse or enable it. It’s necessary for recovery. When you look at the situation logically, you can only see that the abuser or abusers have no regard for their victim’s feelings. Many times they despise their victims. So the victim must disassociate their ties with abusers who are not sorry for what they did to you as a child.

If childhood abuse caused you to be abused as an adult and it still continues, you need to get help immediately.  Get involved in a large community church that’s non-denominational and Word-based.  Many of these churches today offer much help through the many classes they have as well as counseling.  Become a member and focus upon God’s healing power in your life through the Word.  

Don’t be concerned with making lots of friends and confiding in others.  You need a strong person to guide you who is experienced, compassionate and who know how to help you use the Word for your situation. If counseling isn’t available for free and you don’t have the hourly fee, ask for references to a Christian counselor who can help you and your spouse or family members including your children if necessary that you can pay with insurance. If you don’t have insurance keep checking with various churches.

Take Adult Abuse Victim Signs Seriously 

If you’re still being criminally abused you need to take care of the problem even if that means arrest.  I suggest that in your counsel you describe your abuser and ask help to understand if the abuse is at a level where the person can be healed by getting help or if their behavior is at a level where the police need to be notified.

Be sure about any and all accusations because if you make a mistake, you’ll add guilt to your list of problems.  You don’t need extra distractions to keep you from healing.

Having an abuser arrested can lead to other problems.  Family members may believe that you’re wrong and give you trouble, hate you or tell you that you’re the one causing trouble not the person who did the abuse.  

I didn’t have anyone arrested, but my family said that although I was abused, it didn’t matter because the person who harmed me was more important than I was.  I was told to “just get along” and be respectful so that our family gathers could remain the same.  I realized that it wasn’t worth losing the promise of a great life in Christ by putting my family over my mental and emotional health when they didn’t love me. 

If you’re suffering in any way from childhood abuse, prioritize your life today and make a plan for what you need to do to overcome your past and live a successful life in Christ.