One of the main reasons I love watching Joyce Meyer so much is because our histories are pretty similar. I would absolutely love to get lunch with her someday because we really have so much in common. Granted what happened to her with her dad was quite a bit worse than what happened to me with my dad, but the aftermath that we both had was similar.
Any victim of sexual abuse is going to struggle a lot with anger and have a very hard time with being able to trust people.
Often times the anger that an abuse victim has pent up inside does not come out until their first significant relationship. Something about love makes a person open up like a flower after a rain. But then sadly the people who love you the most who try to help you the most, end up getting hurt the most. Like the saying goes, "Hurt people hurt people." And any abuse victim has definitely been hurt.
So the main by product of sexual abuse, or any kind of abuse, is anger. Why? Because major boundaries were violated. When you are abused as a kid, there isn't much you can do about it, so the anger gets stuffed deep down in your heart. This anger can actually manifest in physical ways before it ever does emotionally. Anger can lead to ulcers, headaches, backaches etc. Sometimes people don't even realize they were abused, the memory was repressed, but they start having all the physical symptoms or by products of abuse.
The aftermath of abuse comes out in some way, whether you want it to or not. That is why talking about your abuse is so important, whether to a counselor, a friend, or your spouse etc.
When abuse happens it is like having a massive scrape on your leg. The scrape might scab over and seem to have healed, but then it starts to become infected. Sometimes it is necessary to re-open the wound and scrape out the infection before you can really and actually heal. This process is very, very painful though. I know because I have been through this painful scraping process through about 2 intense years of going to counseling when I was in college.
No one wants to remember the pain of a past abuse. No one wants to re-live the traumatizing and upsetting memories. Most people absolutely love to stick their head in the sand and act like everything is fine. My phrase for it was always, "Why would I want to bring it out on the table? I like it being under the table." :) No one wants to admit they have a problem, or that their heart has a problem because of what someone else did to them. But the reality has to be faced sooner or later. Someone else made the mess and you have to clean it up. No one else can clean it up for you. You have to. It's not fair, of course, but it's necessary if you want to have a healthy and whole life.
Some people can effectively ignore past abuse for quite awhile. They can go on with life and no one would ever know that they were abused in the past. But eventually, they might have a mental break down of some kind.
The body cannot handle the stress of keeping such secrets for too long. Your soul cannot hide such a massive wound for very long. It is like a balloon being filled up more and more the more you try to keep it hidden inside, but eventually the balloon will pop. This is why you need to scrub the wound out before the balloon pops. Because the balloon popping could come at a very inconvenient time in your life and could lead to you loosing a lot.
Another issue that most people who were abused struggle with is trusting others. This is definitely a big one. When your trust was broken by someone very close to you, it makes it hard to ever trust anyone close to you again. God can help you with this, but this is why it is also important to talk to friends, church people etc. to re-build your trust in humanity.
The only way to heal from a bad relationship is to have good, healthy relationships. It is not in hiding, it is in forming good bonds with good people. You need to get good people in your life to reverse the lie that Satan started with your abuse, that all people are evil and are only out to hurt you. Make sure you pick good people though, because if they are bad they will only perpetuate this lie that all people are out to hurt you.
The fact is, all humans were made in the image of God, so Christian or not, most people are not out to hurt you. The Bible says that the law is written on our hearts. Every person alive is born with God's law written on their hearts. Granted people are capable of unspeakable evil, but generally that is because they are demon possessed. I think my dad was quite possibly possessed when he abused me.
Satan is our real enemy, not other people. Satan can cause people to do unimaginable things. It can help in your healing process to realize that Satan was the cause of your pain, not God and not really the person who hurt you. All evil in this world is caused by Satan, because his only objective is to "steal, kill and destroy" humans.
So learn to trust people again, and talk about your anger so that it does not come out in other ways. Ask God to heal you, but also ask him to send great people in your life to help you heal. You can become a new creation in Christ where old things are gone and all things become new. You just have to believe that you can, and you can. May God heal any wounds you might have from any abuse and give you hope for the future and joy again. In Jesus' name Amen. God bless!
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