T.W: Mentions of child sexual abuse, eating disorder, self harm and suicide.
Unconvincing explanations of a child’s injuries.
Mom: Hey baby? What are all those cuts on your back from?
Kid: Those are just heat scrapes, Mommy. You know from the sun?
Abuse can lead to many changes in a child’s behavior. Abused children often appear scared, anxious, depressed, withdrawn or more aggressive.
Kid: *Hyperventilating, sweating, leg viciously bouncing up and down*
Teacher: “You are breathing too loud and it's distracting the others. Can you stop bouncing your leg?! If you don’t stop being so disruptive I’m going to have to send you to the principal's office and call your parents .”
3.Returning to earlier behaviors.
Abused children may display behaviors shown at earlier ages such as thumb-sucking, bed-wetting, fear of the dark or strangers. For some children, even loss of acquired language or memory problems may be an issue.
At 12 years old he still sleeps with the light on and wakes up in a sweaty panic after he wets his bed, most nights after each nightmare.
Abused children may express apprehension or anxiety about leaving school or about going places with the person who is abusing them.
Parents: You’re going to go over to Joseph's house for the day tomorrow while we go into town.
Kid: *Begins to cry and throw a tantrum *
Please don’t leave me with him! Please just take me with you! I’ll be good! I promise! I don’t want to go play with Joseph. Please just bring me with you!
5.Changes in eating behaviors.
The stress, fear and anxiety caused by abuse can lead to changes in a child's eating behaviors, which may result in weight gain or weight loss.
By the age of fifteen the now teenager has developed an avid eating disorder. A vicious cycle of restricting- binging and purging while his weight fluctuates going way up and then way down.
6.Changes in sleeping habits.
Abused children may have frequent nightmares or have difficulty falling asleep, and as a result may appear tired or fatigued.
Since the age of five he has suffered from extreme recurring nightmares and has been plagued by brutal night terrors since the age of ten, and has now developed insomnia out of immense fear of going to sleep.
7.Changes in school performance and attendance.
Abused children may have difficulty concentrating in school or have excessive absences, sometimes due to adults trying to hide the children’s injuries from authorities.
Since starting public school in the third grade. He has immensely struggled to focus and pull through in class. Constantly falling asleep in class and forgetting his homework. He shows little interest in learning. He cries when he gets in trouble and hysterically panics when the teacher threatens to call his parents.
Young people who are being abused may engage in high-risk activities such as using drugs or alcohol or carrying a weapon.
Every day of elementary school he purposefully gets injured in P.E. or causes enough drama with his fellow classmates that drives them to physically beat him up after school or during recess. Constantly having one or two black eyes and multiple other bruises and cuts all over his body, even sometimes coming to school with a brace on his fingers, arms, wrists, ankles, and knees from sprains or minor fractures. In eighth grade it gets less obvious as he begins self harming by scraping and cutting parts of his body such as thighs, forearms and shoulders with staples, safety pins, scissors and even taking apart pencil sharpeners and using the dull blade. He has also started burning his hands and arms with erasers. He always has something with him to harm himself either in his pocket or the backpack he carries around. He tries to hide all this with his long sleeves, but he lives in Texas and it’s getting close to summer so it’s at least 98 degrees outside... and he’s wearing a long sleeve every day. This goes on until in college they add in experimenting with over the counter drugs to their self harm routine. Every night taking a different concoction in different amounts hoping one night they will have made the potion that will allow them to not wake up.
9.Inappropriate sexual behaviors.
Children who have been sexually abused may exhibit overly sexualized behavior or use explicit sexual language.
At five years old he was taught to touch himself in places people rarely see when no one was around. He never understood what he was doing but it’s what Joseph told him to do so he did it without question, but he knew to keep it a secret. He’s kept that secret for eighteen years. He also would routinely get in trouble for passionately kissing his friends and hitting the older boys on their butts whenever they bent over. When he was In high school he is super weird when it comes to sex. Being hyper-monogamous and being uber christian, taking purity incredibly seriously. His senior year of high school he goes on his first date with a boy and they date for nine months. During those nine months He gets increasingly more aware and terrified of the sexually charged energy between the two of them when they are alone. So he starts finding ways to not be alone with this boy all the while giving him lots of “NO SEX-EVER” talks, that to the boyfriend, are seemingly unprompted and go on for way too long. He starts having sex and rape nightmares almost every night. He flinches anytime a person touches them, especially their boyfriend. Begging their friends and even his parents to not leave him and his boyfriend alone.
And when He finally came out and said what had happened to him
You all had the AUDACITY to say
“Oh now everything makes sense.”
You mean to tell me that you had
Do you still think he’s happy?
So why didn’t anyone say anything?
Why didn’t his parents say something?
Why didn’t his aunt or uncle say something?
Why didn’t his teachers say something?
Why didn’t the school nurse say something?
Why didn’t the P.E teacher say something?
Why didn’t the family friend say something?
Why didn’t the school principal say something?
Why didn’t the family doctor say something?
Maybe if you had acted on that unsettling feeling you apparently had....
You could have stopped it.
You could have gotten him help sooner.
You could have saved him from believing that he was crazy all this time.
You could have shown him that he wasn’t alone.
You could have advocated for him.
You could have done something...
Rather than wait almost twenty years for him to feel safe enough to find the
right words to explain to you what happened.
It still would have been a huge fight for him to have to battle but
at least he could have gotten on the path to recovery sooner and maybe it
Would have saved him some harm and shame.
There were so many damn signs and nobody said
A freaking word about it.
Choosing not to see what is right in front of you Kills.
His heart may still be barely beating
Let this story be a reminder to you all.
If you see or hear something that puts that unsettling or uneasy feeling in
your gut and in your mind…
then for the love of a child’s freaking life
SAY SOMETHING. REPORT THAT SHIT. STAND UP FOR THE KID.
DON’T LET THE FEAR OF BEING WRONG KEEP YOU FROM POSSIBLY
BEING THE ONLY PERSON BRAVE ENOUGH TO ACTUALLY SEE THE
SIGNS AND SAVE A KID’S LIFE. YOU MAY BE THE ONLY PERSON IN
THAT CHILD’S LIFE TO EVER SPEAK UP FOR THEM.
DON’T BE ANOTHER PERSON IN A CHILD’S LIFE TO
NOT SEE THEM WHEN THEY SO
DESPERATELY NEED TO BE SEEN.
CHILD ABUSE CAN BE CAUGHT AND STOPPED.
KNOW THE SIGNS AND SAVE A LIFE.
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