These include depression, suicide, drug use, alcoholism, sexual promiscuity, and divorce. The effects depend on several factors including the age of the child when the abuse occurred, the nature of the abuse, the duration of the abuse, and psychological support within the family. In the short-term, victims are typically traumatized but forced to keep the secret through coercion. The seriousness of the damage often does not become ap parent until adolescence and early adulthood. Sexual abuse seriously disrupts the normal development of psychological and physical self concepts.
Victims often separate their physical and psychological selves in order to cope with sexual abuse.
This i s called dissociation and creates major adjustment problems in early adulthood. Sexual abuse also distorts parent-child relationships as the abuse is seen as a betrayal. Younger children may not initially realize that the abuse is wrong. But they soon find out.