In summary, the legacy of every unhealed sexual abuse survivor includes diminished self-worth, limited ability to trust, and the burden of a shameful secret she or he cannot express. This legacy leaves the survivor’s ability to develop necessary social contacts inhibited. She remains co-dependent on her caretakers–her nuclear or extended family, foster parents or her surrogate family, babysitter, doctor or priest–who are frequently her abusers. Tragically, once she has been abused, other perpetrators recognize her vulnerability and she will become victim to another abuser. She is left with the tremendous conflict of–feeling a need to .keep her guard up. while never ‘needing anyone’; simultaneously, the festering wound of the abuse and neglect forces her desperation to ‘fill it.’ The conflicting messages in her childhood were not, ‘Come here and I will abuse you,’ but, ‘Come here because I love you and I want to show affection’; she was deceived, and the affection she expected was in fact abuse. Thus, the expected affection can no longer be trusted. She has learned that the appearance of love is something quite different, and she cannot trust it or feel safe.

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