After having worked in a residential treatment facility for abused and neglected girls for 8 years, I observed that the phenomenon of learned helplessness had become an all-to-common denominator for these children. It was very rare that an abused child was placed with us for a single incident of abuse. By the time these children reached our facility, many of them had already been physically or sexually abused numerous times throughout their childhood and adolescence.
Many times these children had been abused not by a single perpetrator but by several different people, including members of their families and outsiders from the community or in their schools, even after they had been removed from danger. One might assume that once children have been delivered from such abuse, they would immediately take advantage of their sanctum by staying away from dangerous situations, choosing more trustworthy friends and safer boyfriends. Yet again and again, these victims of abuse continued to find themselves with partners that would ultimately perpetrate on them or take advantage of them in some way. Once children are taught they have no control in their lives, it is extremely difficult to learn they can ever have it or that they even deserve to have any control at all...read more>>>...
