It Still Hurts After All These Years: How Domestic Abuse Affects Children Long-Term

By Lisa Kroulik © March 7, 2011

It's been over 30 years, and I still don't sleep well at night. The dreams start in on me right away. I'm usually running away from an unknown force who is trying to hurt me. Tossing and turning and mumbling “no” in my sleep, I sometimes fight back, flailing my arms in a desperate attempt to keep the terrifying monster at bay. When my dreams bring me back to the present, I realize that I am safe and fall asleep peacefully. The slightest noise, however, jars me back awake and the process starts all over again.

I was sleeping soundly that night in June of 1978. I was ten years old, and what happened that night changed my life forever. My father's yelling woke me up first. He was mad again and drunk again, that was nothing new. I pulled my pillow up over my ears and tried to go back to sleep. Then I heard something fall hard against their bedroom wall, which adjoined mine. It was my mother crashing against the wall after my father had thrown her across the room. Terror gripped me. What was happening?

Next I heard her screams and her begging him to stop. She ran out of their bedroom, but he followed in pursuit of her, punching her in the face, kicking her in the leg, pulling out a huge chunk of her hair. The one detail I don't remember is how many of us five kids were at home that night. I am the youngest and ran to find an older sister to protect me. Someone tried to call the police, but my father yanked the phone right out of the wall. The irony here? My father was also a police officer. What provoked him to such terrible violence? His snoring was keeping my mother awake and she woke him up to ask for the key to our camper so she could sleep out there.

This was long before the days of cell phones, so with no way to call for help, my sister and I ran out of the house and drove to the police station. She was 19, thank goodness. We told them what was going on at home, and the officer laughed a little bit and said to go wait at Country Kitchen until it blew over. I wonder to this day if it was someone my father knew. Police officers were dispatched to our house and finally the abuse of my mother stopped. My father took off somewhere for the night; six months later, he moved out for good.

The next day brought lots of questions from my neighborhood friends who had seen the police car at our house the night before. I don't remember what I told them. I do remember the deep humiliation and shame of knowing that the whole neighborhood knew what went on at our house. You see, it wasn't the first time my father had gotten physically violent. In the previous two to three years, I had seen him beat my mother, brother, and one of my three sisters. I probably remember this incident so well because it was the last one.

This is my story, and unfortunately, it's also the story of far too many children who witness abuse within the home. Abuse doesn't just hurt the one who is being beaten. Besides my personal experience, I have also researched the long-term effects of witnessing abuse in childhood and will share that with you now.

Within the days and weeks following the abuse, children may display various emotional problems such as crying, confusion, anger, depression, nightmares, fears and phobias. In younger, pre-verbal children, it is common for them to display problems with eating or sleeping. They tend to be at one end of the extreme or another in regards to being overly aggressive or withdrawn. Regressive behavior is common. New physical symptoms may appear as well, such as suddenly wetting the bed at night or the development of nervous tics.

One-third of children who witness domestic violence between their parents or other caregivers can be expected to develop serious emotional problems. As the weeks turn into months and then years, and if children have never been encouraged to talk about their experience of witnessing abuse, the likelihood of them developing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) increases greatly. PTSD is described as any or all of the following: flashbacks, intrusive imagery, nightmares, anxiety, emotional numbing, insomnia, hyper-vigilance, and avoidance of traumatic triggers.

Depression is very common among adults who witnessed abuse as children. At a time when the child was learning about the world and who they could trust, the people closest to them were modeling violence. They learned to trust no one and were likely neglected. This can create a feeling of hopelessness that can quickly spiral into severe depression.

It probably goes without saying that the likelihood of other serious issues, such as drug and alcohol addiction or becoming a batterer or a direct victim themselves in the future is much greater for children from violent homes.

I believe that my father's violence toward my mother and siblings had such far-reaching ramifications for me that no area of my life was immune. The biggest things I struggled with throughout the years were Survivor's Guilt and depression.

Survivor's Guilt was a term originally coined during times of war, but I believe it also applies to the war within the home. I have three sisters and one brother and for whatever reason, my father only chose to beat two of them. As ridiculous as it sounds for a ten-year-old child to be able to save her mother and siblings, in my mind, I thought that I should have. I felt deep shame over the fact that I hid to protect myself rather than help my family.

Beginning in my late teens, I struggled with bouts of depression so severe that I could barely function.  It stole huge chunks of my life that I can't get back.  I battled it into my thirties, when the right combination of faith, counseling and medication finally put it to rest.

I have also spent my entire life avoiding conflict, although that has gotten better with awareness. If there was even the slightest bit of tension in a relationship or situation, I would leave. I've lost count of the number of jobs I have quit without notice or the relationships I thought I no longer wanted, only to wish later that I would have tried to work things out.

What is ironic to me is that I thought I had found someone opposite my father in my first husband. He was quiet (moody) and non-violent, but his emotional abuse was just as intense as my father's physical abuse. It took being away from my ex-husband for some time to realize that I did indeed marry someone like my father.

I am at a good place in my life today. I have taken responsibility for my own healing and surrounded myself with people who love and support me. My father is 77 years old, an old man, not the one who terrified me as a child. He has never accepted responsibility or apologized to anyone for his abuse,  which has made forgiveness challenging over the years.  I have forgiven him to the best of my human ability and given the rest over to God. 

I am also immensely proud of myself and my siblings because we have broken the cycle of violence. My grandfather was an abuser, my father was an abuser, but not us. This generation has risen up and said enough is enough.