Even nurturance that is offered separate from the sexual abuse becomes hard to trust or to take in freely and openly. This leaves many survivors feeling a desperate need for love, and at the same time, highly conflicted about that need, and wary of those, particularly women who offer support. The grief connected to not receiving safe love from a mother or primary caregiver is profound. This is particularly true in light of the myth that women do not sexually abuse children. Many survivors have difficulty knowing that they are separate from and different than their perpetrators.
Many survivors have difficulty maintaining their boundaries, especially with other women.
They may be overly flexible or overly rigid. This is particularly true in light of the fact that they were abused by their mothers who are mythologized as all loving and caring. Many survivors do not want to be a woman, have trouble identifying as women, or do not like what they perceive women to be, because the abuser was a woman. Many survivors feel great shame about being a woman because of their identification with the perpetrator. Survivors often feel great shame about their bodies, particularly their bodies' womanliness, because the perpetrator had a woman's body.