Women Survivors of Childhood Abuse: The Impact of Traumatic Stress on Education and Work

Abstract

A disempowering after-effect of childhood abuse that is not well-researched in nursing is the inability of many women abuse survivors to perform successfully in adulthood tasks such as working, managing money, and parenting. This inability often results from lack of family support, cultural impoverishment, limited formal education, and for some, illiteracy. By default, many women survivors engage in criminal, usually dangerous forms of work. A critical/feminist interview study involved 20 urban low income abuse survivors, who were mostly women of color. Participants were recovering cocaine misusers who had suffered multiple forms of childhood maltreatment. This article reports on a secondary analysis of narratives given by survivors, focused on learning and work difficulties. Findings were grouped into five broad domains: (1) school as problematic, (2) lack of adult life skills, (3) problems with academic and health literacy, (4) legitimate and illicit forms of work, and (5) means of help. In vivo quotes support these themes, and policy and practice implications are discussed.

Relationship between adverse childhood experiences and unemployment among adults from five US states

“…As previously noted, most prior studies of this relationship have been limited by their reliance on relatively small samples and lack of a control group [40,41]. In addition, a few studies showed markedly greater risk for unemployment among adults who had had adverse childhood experiences as our results did.…”

Understanding the Complexity of Child Sexual Abuse: A Review of the Literature With Implications for Family Counseling

“…There is a great deal of qualitative evidence, based on research studies conducted among clinical populations of victims, that shows the potentially devastating impact that child sexual abuse can have on the lives of men and women (Briggs, 1995b;Cameron, 2000;Darlington, 1996;Dolezal & Carballo-Dieguez, 2002;Etherington, 1997Etherington, , 2000Fater & Mullaney, 2000;Gill & Tutty, 1999;Hall, 2000;Lev-Wiesel, 2000;Ray, 1996Ray, , 2001. This is supported by evidence from large-scale studies that have identified correlations between child sexual abuse and psychological distress (de Visser, Smith, Rissel, Richters, & Grulich, 2003;Edwards, Holden, Felitti, & Anda, 2003; W. C. Holmes & Slap, 1998;Neumann, Houskamp, Pollock, & Briere, 1996), adult psychopathology including depression (Horwitz, Widom, McLaughlin, & White, 2001), alcohol abuse (Horwitz et al, 2001;MacMillan et al, 2001), antisocial behavior (Horwitz et al, 2001;MacMillan et al, 2001;Putnam, 2003), suicide risk (Dube et al, 2001), anxiety about sex (de Visser et al, 2003), and personal problems such as increased numbers of divorces and increased likelihood of unfaithfulness within relationships (Colman & Widom, 2004) among men and women.…”

Child Abuse, Sexual Assault, Community Violence and High School Graduation

“…5 Educational psychologists emphasize that the capacity to interact effectively with peers and teachers is essential to academic functioning and success in the K-12 years. Unfortunately, there is also evidence that maltreated children, including those who have experienced violence, struggle with social competencies (Lynch and Cicchetti, 1991;Shonk and Cicchetti, 2001;van der Kolk et al, 1996) and are less trustful of others (Hall, 2000), both of which hinder learning and cognitive development. In addition, they are more prone to engage in aggressive behaviors (Erickson et al, 1989) to cope with the negative feelings and thoughts that haunt them, and such acts -which often lead to disciplinary problems (Eckenrode et al, 1993) -do not promote educational attainment.…”