Why Do Victims of Abuse Re-emerge Years After Abuse? Shouldn’t They Have Gotten Over it?

Written by Chaitanya Lila dd (psychotherapist, trauma therapist, hypnotherapist)

Through my recent awareness of a child sexual abuse case that’s re-emerged 30 years after the abuse occurred and seeing various reactions to this re-appearance, I felt compelled to reflect on this topic given my line of work. 

The abuser is a spiritual leader and some of the disciples and friends of this individual, due to their attachment to the person in position, stand faithfully on their side, unable to perhaps see clearly the other side of the picture. And this is natural; it’s hard to comprehend that spiritual figures who are meant to imbibe purity and divinity struggle with material vices…and worse, act in harmful ways. It’s easier for people to cut this out of their awareness to save the image they want to believe in.  

To the common man, why would someone be resurrecting something that occurred 20 years ago if it wasn’t just to drag a person in position down? Surely they should be “over” it now, surely they’re just envious, angry people? It happened so long ago, let it go right?

I agree that some individuals can just be simply  jealous of people’s achievements and status in life and in order to feel good means lowering others. 

However for most genuine abuse victims, this is not the case. 

I understand from my own life experience of psychological and spiritual abuse and professionally from working with abuse victims that the injustice lived with is like an extension of the pain and abuse. Witnessing one’s abuser flourishing in life is a reminder that they “got away with it” and it negates the reality – the truth of the abuse that most definitely did occur. Due to this lack of external acknowledgment of the horror, the abuse remains internalized, it lives then solely in isolation within the mind and body of the abused. And this is simply just an extension… a continuation of the abuse that occurred long ago. 

It is true that ultimately the abused must free themselves at some point from this internalized pain, however a large part of that freedom is the external acknowledgment from the abuser. Something that isn’t always achieved successfully, due to the nature of the abusive mind. So victims must find their own emancipation as well as fighting for justice. 

The other aspect of understanding the impact of abuse, is understanding trauma and another complicated layer, is to understand trauma in childhood. 

When a traumatic incident occurs, at the time of the event, the body shuts down in order for energy and focused attention to be localised where needed in that sudden moment. This is the hyperaroused state of the nervous system. In this process the cerebral cortex of the brain also reduces in activity. The person is mainly responding from the limbic system – the part of the brain that is instinctual – for survival. It is the part of us that in a sudden event, causes us to fight, flight or freeze. This is why many victims of abuse often say “I dont know”, are unable to describe what happened with clarity or have parts of the memory blacked out, because at the time of the event, they are physically and neurologically shut down.

Those memories are then left as impressions within the mind which are “unprocessed” – meaning the shock, the emotions, the pain are essentially stored beneath the conscious mind – within the subconscious mind. Now this is the reason why, victims of abuse will come out to talk about their abuse many many years later. It is because it can take years for the stored and suppressed emotion to rise up to the surface (usually by life events that trigger them and the inability to function, dysfunctionally with parts of them suppressed). 

Now when the abuse occurs in children, the suppression of emotions are more significant because a child is less equipped to comprehend, vocalise and process events, even soon after the abuse occurs. Their brains have not yet fully physically developed. Furthermore, the presence of an adult/authority figure imposes a power imbalance, where they are likely to feel “wrong” in how they feel and that the adult/authority is correct. If an account of abuse is ignored or disbelieved, this caused further pain, suffering and confusion for the child. It ultimately further pushing down their instinctual feelings of what they felt as wrong, they negate the trust they have in themselves and they ultimately feel unseen, unheard… non-existent. And that pain can be worse then death. 

I have worked with many adults who have experienced childhood abuse and therefore I know that trauma in childhood, can take many years to resolve. It takes a long time for the individual to recover from the damage in order to re-align the “cut off” and suppressed parts of them with their whole self. When they can re-align themselves, they often then feel the need to resolve, find justice, be heard and really heal from the trauma they years ago endured. Although trauma can change a person, that change can be for the greater good actually and the pain can certainly be resolved.