Abuse is Oftentimes Misdiagnosed

By Dr Kathy Lacina

After 25 years of working with children and adults who have been sexually abused, I am still appalled at what children suffer at the hands of their parents. How can parents inflict such horrendous acts on their own children? The saddest thing I hear from these clients is the belief that they must have done something wrong to be treated that way. ALL of them blame themselves and consider themselves to be bad, terrible, or disgusting people which is further from the truth.

Anna, a client of mine, was a young adult-child of 39, who shared how she learned to shut down and comply with whatever was asked of her. The moment she heard her father’s footprints on the stairs, she disappeared into a cloud. She floated to the ceiling and watched some other little girl in her bed being abused.

When Mark came to my office and told me about a dream he had, it seemed familiar to what Anna was describing earlier in the day. Mark was a 42-year-old who had no memories of his abuse, but the reoccurring nightmares were haunting him. Mark had a dream of having two heads in a cloud, looking down on his bed, being attacked (sexually), by a monster.

Trauma is stored in the mind but doesn’t always come out or show its ugly face the same way, yet the ways of coping are similar. I have learned over the years the many signs and symptoms and I have come to recognize a nightmare about abuse when I hear it. I was 100% sure that Mark was telling me about an event that occurred in his childhood. It would take a few more visits before I would reveal to Mark my suspicions. Ideally, I prefer they discover them on their own.

Mark was abused by an uncle who came to live with the family when he was a young boy. He described his uncle as evil. “My uncle would hit my Mother and I heard him raping her. She would scream out but I didn’t know what to do. My uncle said if I told anyone he would kill my mother and I would have to live in a foster home.” Mark's mature adult face became childlike as if he were there at that moment of the event. It took a few times to talk about his uncle’s behaviors before Mark realized that his Uncle was the monster in his dream who raped him as a child.

Both Anna and Mark had learned how to escape through dissociation which is a remarkable way the mind works to save our souls. This method of coping is not a mental illness and should not be treated as such. Unfortunately, too many doctors only treat symptoms without digging deeper into the cause. The abused child is oftentimes misdiagnosed as a troubled child with an oppositional defiant disorder, detachment disorder or ADHD, and later in life may be diagnosed as having PTSD with no idea how it occurred other than having similar symptoms. Instead, Antidepressants, anti anxiety and/or antipsychotic drugs are prescribed to alleviate the symptoms.

This in itself is abuse and neglect of our medical industry. It is why “the system” fails these kids who grow up to be adult children. These kids have many behavior problems and oftentimes won’t tell you why they act out because they shut down the memory which is detached from the whole of the brain. One of my clients described it as "cubby holes" or "closed-off rooms in my head." The child knows something is wrong but can not express it. It's an invisible pain, and they know not from where it comes from. So, they act out in unusual behaviors, or some shut down completely in a state of depression or withdrawal and isolation. They are screaming for help through their actions but no one is listening.

It seems the only solution has come down to medication, behavioral modification, and special needs classes. When I worked as a behavior analyst going into the homes of these children, I could tell immediately if this type of therapy was going to work or not. In most cases, NOT. It was the parents that needed the modifications, not the child. Please know that I am not passing blame as much as trying to make the public aware. The parents that abuse, need help too. Hurt and dysfunctional people can only give what they are capable of. If we trace family history, you will find generations of hurting people passing on the hurt to others. This is not an area we want to "Pay it forward."

If you can’t tell by now that this subject is something I am passionate about, just keep reading other articles I've written. I will take this to the grave, kicking and screaming until we can decrease the number of children who are harmed!

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