Do Most Victims of Sexual Abuse Suffer no Lifelong Damage?

The victim of a sexual harassment incident is subjected to traumatic situations. The consequences could be social, emotional, or psychological. After being involved in such a case, the fear of losing the healthy lifestyle that one is accustomed to may lead to deception. The impact of the encounter, on the other hand, can last well into adulthood for the victim. Socially, the person may feel unwanted, and emotionally, he or she may believe that they are unworthy. The experienced sexual incident has a significant psychological impact on the individual’s judgment and reaction to issues. If proper counseling is not sought during the early stages of such condition, the event remains a nightmare that can easily haunt the peace of the individual for the rest of his/her life. In addition, even in case the necessary counseling has been carried out, some victims experience psychological unrest even up to over 20 years later. In this regard, the focal point of this analysis will be geared towards unraveling whether those individuals who have undergone sexual harassment in their tender ages end up suffering from permanent damages. Apparently, the evidence provided in this document shows that most sexual abuse victims suffer lifelong injuries.
Factors Resulting in Permanent Damage to the Victim
Depending on the circumstances in which the patient was attacked, the condition is likely to go away or become part of a person’s mind. Several aspects have been found to be common among the majority of the attacked people. The gender of the victim plays a significant role in their well-being. For girls, it is tough for them to adjust back to the healthy life. Most of the victims get to fear the gender of the person who committed the crime upon them. In the process of trying to act normal to avoid stigma, they lock the thoughts that may arise within. As a result, the victim gets difficult time dealing with the self-contempt and regrets.
However, for the boy children, the incident is not normally taken with the seriousness it requires. From several cultures of the world, it indicates that males cannot fall victim of sexual assault. In most cases of male sexual harassment, due to the fear of coming forward to seek help, the victim finds a way to cope with the situation. One of the most common approaches is through substance abuse and self-harm (Karakurt and Silver 79). The condition of male mistreatment can be easily dealt with. However, the victims are never willing to seek the required medication, making the state to remain a nightmare throughout their lives.
Sexual harassment usually has much worse effects if case the issues pertaining to sexual orientation arise. Whenever an incident of sexual assault stumbles upon a gay or a lesbian, the person fears to report the matter. The societal view towards their sexual affiliation is not favorable. Therefore, such individuals resort to alternative ways of solving the situation by inflicting pain upon themselves or drug abuse. Therefore, recovering becomes almost impossible.
Furthermore, about 30% incidences of sexual harassment to the weaker homosexual individuals in Washington involves putting the people engaged in jail or police custody (Goodtherapy.orgn.p ). Therefore, due to the fear of not being believed or stigmatized, the victim decides to live with the condition that later destroys him/her over the years. Moreover, should the individual come forward and tell her/his story, the chances that the patient will be objectified become high. As a result, the victim continues living a life of pain and regrets in the aftermath. The feeling of unworthiness takes control over such individuals, and hence, it becomes difficult for them to take control of their lives once again.
In cases when the perpetrator is a family member, it becomes hard for the child to live with such situation. The shame involved in the incident may be too vast for the child to share out. Continuing the life with the attacker in one house becomes a constant reminder of the incident. Only after the child starts showing signs of unrest after a long period, which may take up to two years, the incident gets realized by the child protection service (Raymond n.p). At that stage, one of the basic measures that can be taken is regulation of the non-ending effect experienced the child who underwent such a terrific damage.
However, one of the first consequences of the effect of sexual harassment on the individual is that it is not normally limited to his/her physical body. Chemically, the situation is much worse. Substances that are altered within the brain profile lead to inappropriate sexual and cognitive development. In the end, the child grows with a higher sexual argue at a younger stage, having lower educational abilities. Additionally, the victim develops mental problems, which is a clear indication that such incidences lead to complexions development within the child. Unfortunately, very little medical help has been synthesized help the victims overcome such conditions. Therefore, facing permanent damages becomes the inevitable result of the experienced attack.
Case Studies of Previous Sexual Harassment Incidences and how They Were Handled
As it became evident from the example of a man whose 34-year old father married a four-year-old child, the son has failed to get over the harassment he encountered on the part of his closest relative. After he had told his wife about the incident of his childhood, the spouse asked him to get over the past. However, the man feared that he would feel affection towards his son. In such a situation, the chemical composition of the individual has been dramatically affected. Notably, during his sexual development, engagement with young kids got assumed as a way of life (Davis 127). Through attending therapy, the man could be helped to overcome the anger he has for his father and have a clear and respectable boundary between him and his son.
Another incident involved a 22-year-old lesbian, who was raped by three male students, which was discovered after several weeks. Notably, she was taken to the therapist, and counseling was provided. The victim confessed that she had not told any member of her family about the incident. Furthermore, she admits that she had been undergoing post-traumatic stress, which made her skip classes and meals. Besides, she did not care about her outlook. Having been provided with help, she finally told her parents and her ex-girlfriend she had broken up with. In this case, the victim got help within a few weeks, which is a rather short term, and therefore, she is in a position to normalize her life.
The research done by Ashokl shows that the rate of obesity and depression grows higher as time elapses. As some therapist confessed, the victims, particularly ladies, experience lack of sleep due to the events that took place in their childhood. In a study performed in DC involving 80 ladies who were victims of sexual abuse, it was found out that the long-term effects of harassment can be overlooked. In fact, not all the victims suffered the same conditions. Some individuals have enough strength to continue leading their usual lives, which means that having been sexually abused does not mean the end of the victim’s happiness. Provided that the attention is sought early enough, the person can have the chances to lead a healthy life. Through counseling, the person can get help in moving on with the past events, forming part of the non-traumatizing experience.
Conclusion
The focus of this paper was to establish whether the victims of sexual harassment undergo permanent damages or not. From the events that have been discussed above, a large percentage of victims experience lasting impairments, suffering from traumas in the mental orientation or psychological and physical courses. However, is all cases discussed, one of the most problematic factors was the lack of guidance. The effects usually get much more pronounced if the victims are not taken through the necessary therapy. Furthermore, it is evident that even though an individual has suffered from the feeling of shame, regrets, and self-harm for some time, the effects caused can be reduced, and the person can still have chances to gain full recovery. With such evidence, it would be appropriate to claim that victims of sexual harassment suffer no lifelong damage.

_x005FWorks Cited
Ashokl, Jain, Mohan Nair and Robert Friedman. Drug-facilitated sexual assaults. Springer, 2016.
Davis, Thomas J. Evaluation of the mechanism of action of anti-fertility treatment in cases of sexual Assault: moral certitude and human acts. Springer, 2017.
Goodtherapy.org. Sexual assault / abuse. 2016. 11 December 2017 .
Karakurt, Gunnur and Kristin E. Silver. “Therapy for childhood sexual abuse survivors using attachment and family systems theory oOrientations.” The American Journal of Family Therapy, 2013: 42(1), 79-91.
Raymond, Joan. Effects of sexual assault last for decades, study finds. 2011. Accessed 11 December 2017 .