“I need to move, my landlord ask me to trade myself for the rent. Help me find a new house.” One day, my client said to me when I interned at the State of New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department. This client is an African-American single mother with diagnosis of mild retardation. She does not have a job and all of her income is from Supplement Security Income. As a victim of child sexual abuse (CSA) who received services from different mental health settings since she was very young, she is unconfident in everything and has never escaped from the nightmare of being raped even after she grew up. Many men went in and out of her life and she experienced intimate partner violence (IPV) from time to time. Her parents want to get money from her and ask her to prostitute. It seems that everyone blames her and uses her. Impacts, including low self-esteem, internalized shame, sense of disempowerment, mental health issues, poverty, etc., come to her during her adulthood. Why did she have so many traumas during adulthood? Why did she feel worthless and valueless? Why could the interventions not help?
Tragically, she is not the only one …show more content…
How can they feel secure if their neighborhood or peers are whispering and talking, and even experience bullying only because they are victims of CSA? How do they feel when they lack of access to community resources and services? How do they feel when they were sexual abused or assaulted but the police could not find evidence? Hopeless. They are lacking in supportive and consistent community environment, a safe and affordable housing, and adequate and effective counseling in their community, especially in a rural area. Take my client as an example; there is no such a supportive groups for victims of CSA in her town. She was referred to different counseling and therapies after she received services from CPS, however, it seems that fewer of them
Tragically, she is not the only one …show more content…
How can they feel secure if their neighborhood or peers are whispering and talking, and even experience bullying only because they are victims of CSA? How do they feel when they lack of access to community resources and services? How do they feel when they were sexual abused or assaulted but the police could not find evidence? Hopeless. They are lacking in supportive and consistent community environment, a safe and affordable housing, and adequate and effective counseling in their community, especially in a rural area. Take my client as an example; there is no such a supportive groups for victims of CSA in her town. She was referred to different counseling and therapies after she received services from CPS, however, it seems that fewer of them