Physical Child Abuse Effects

In order to understand methods of reducing the long lasting effects of physical child abuse, one must first comprehend how these effects alter the course of an individual 's life. Surviving as a victim of abuse is more than leaving the abuser’s house. It will pertain scientific, social, economic, and cultural effects that will morph every aspect of an individual 's life. Each of these effects bears consequences that are often overlooked since they are not as halting as a black eye or broken rib, but the negative impacts of physical abuse have lasting effects that affect a victim’s future eternally. Abuse is a scar carried with a victim forever, but it does not have to suppress a bright future. In a study using brain scans to see the harm of child abuse, a part of the brain called the Hippocampus was shown to be harmed through size reduction when a child is physically abused (Szalavitz). According to the study, abuse causes, “...toxic levels of neurotransmitters that kill brain cells — particularly in the

Just as a house needs a foundation to keep it standing, a child needs a stable home to keep his or her life steady; parents act as this foundation of support throughout the stages of adolescence. Abuse has such lasting effects because it violates the child’s primary source of trust (Impact of Child Abuse). Once this trust has been violated with abuse, it affects an individual’s capacity to establish and sustain significant attachments throughout the duration of life. A traumatized child attempting to deal with life’s problems alone provokes a state of internal chaos. This clutter of emotions in the child’s brain prevents any consistency, and in turn, the child may overreact with insufficient or atypical methods to a normal situation. Such irregular behavior inhibits life progression. If an individual endures job disappointments, financial setbacks, family problems, and troubled relationships, then the only consistency one has in one’s life is a sense of