What is Childhood Sexual Abuse?

Sexual abuse is when a person behaves in a sexual way towards a child, regardless of how the child feels. Children, of all ages, are sexually abused in many different ways.

There may have been one abuser, or many. The abuser may be known to you – father or stepfather, mother or stepmother, brother, sister, cousin, aunt, uncle or grandparent, teacher, priest, youth leader or ‘family friend’. The abuse may have happened once or happened over many weeks, months or years.

In whatever form you’ve experienced childhood sexual abuse, being abused can continue to have a huge impact on your life as an adult. You might, for instance, feel:

bad about yourself
guilty – that you were in some way to blame
depressed
tired and not able to sleep well
unable to control the flashbacks, memories or nightmares
that it has affected your relationships with other people, including partners and children.

You might cope with these feelings by:

Using drugs and/or alcohol to block out the memories
Self harming
Distancing yourself from other people, in case you get hurt
Using food as a way of trying to control life.