Domestic violence and rape exposed
by
Add rape to the distressing picture, and the extent of
the agony women across the land face day in and day out would become clear.
Ironically, they suffer as a result of the
actions of spouses who commit the offenses and then claim love made them do it.
Tragically, some women have embraced that fallacious notion.
When the United States State Department issues its annual global human
rights report in a few weeks or months, it's bound to
include a loud complaint about physical, verbal and sexual abuse of women and
children in
But what isn't often written or talked about
are the lifelong consequences of that abuse. The neurological damage it causes
often leaves victims with psychological scars that impair future relationships
and prevent them from leading normal lives.
Flashbacks and nightmares
Called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), it manifests itself in flashbacks
and nightmares, a constant reliving of the terrible events
which have changed lives forever. The effects can also include chronic
insomnia, quick-trigger anger or an inability to trust people of the opposite
sex.
Adult rape victims and young girls who were sexually assaulted by close
relatives and others in whom they had placed deep trust and confidence often
find it difficult to overcome the trauma, decades after the abuse.
But women aren't alone. Men who have suffered
war injuries, police officers who have been beaten by
suspects, witnesses to violent or accidental deaths of close friends, or males
who may have been sexually abused as young boys by religious ministers and
other authority figures often suffer from PTSD.
The Roman Catholic Church in the
As a matter of fact, psychologists and others
insist five per cent of American men have suffered from PTSD at some point in
their lives.
However, the rate for women is double that, largely because of domestic
violence, sexual abuse or rape. As a matter of fact, two
in five female rape victims suffer from PTSD within six months of being raped,
according to scientific researchers.
While there aren't any comparable figures for
victims in
Not enough solutions
The problem is there aren't many solutions on
the horizon.
"It can go on forever," Dr Kathleen Brady, a professor of
psychiatry at the Medical Center of South Carolina, said of the effects of
abuse.
Little wonder, then, that tales of woe are routinely
told by women and men who are unable to cope with life after the initial abuse.
For example, an American woman who was sexually abused
by a neighbour when she was a child told an
international publication of bouts of depression, crying fits and tremors some
20-plus years after the initial attack.
"I was probably on half-dozen different kinds of anti-depressants
over the years, and they have never worked for me," said Gail Westerfield, a writer who is now in her 40s. "I've had
this my whole life, pretty much."
How, then, can the problem be tackled?
Experts argue that treatment for PTSD includes a mix of drugs,
anti-depressants and psychotherapy.
Dr Brady says therapy can be useful.
"There is a lot of evidence supporting exposure-based therapy,
which means reliving events in a safe setting so patients can separate the
inappropriate effect from the trauma," she said.
The trouble is that at least a quarter of the chronic cases of PTSD,
reports The Economist, "is resistant to all
treatments."
Search for treatment
The search for treatment explains why there is growing interest in the
use of banned substances, including marijuana, hallucinogenic mushrooms, LSD,
and other psychoactive compounds that aim to treat anxiety, cluster headaches,
addiction and obsessive compulsive disorders.
What is complicating the use and the related research
is that many of the substances are illegal. For in addition to
marijuana, there is the interest in methylenedioxymethamphetamine,
more widely known Ecstasy.
Imagine a woman appearing in the Magistrates' Courts in
Chances are, it wouldn't be an acceptable defence.
Originally published by: http://www.nationnews.com/editorial/293472813548266.php