This is part three of a series on child abuse and the professionals who are tasked with handling these cases. Read part one and part two.
When a child has experienced abuse, they don’t often disclose it right away and sometimes that disclosure comes by accident or discovery.
Marzieh Cassidy, the Developmental Specialist and Licensed Counselor at PB&J Family Services, said whether you’re a child who has experienced abuse—or an adult reflecting back on your childhood and realizing you could have been abused—not to feel shame about it.
She said younger children might not realize that what they’re experiencing isn’t normal. As they get older, that changes.
“They start to have more awareness of the world around them, and awareness of what relationship dynamics may look like in other families. In other settings they start to develop an awareness of abuse,” Cassidy said.
But still, they might not disclose what they’re experiencing because they begin to feel things like shame or fear of being taken away by their parents, Cassidy said.
“Even though their parents or someone else may be abusing them, they still don’t want things to necessarily change in terms of those relationships and so they also might be afraid the abuser might find out and then there might be consequences for the child. They might get in more trouble,” she said.
Cassidy said that often when young children do disclose abuse, it may not be on purpose.
“A preschooler might just be telling a story,” she said. “They might be talking about the time with their family and not realize that what I experienced was abuse…because what they perceive in this relationship is normal.”
Family members might also think that it’s normal, Cassidy said, because the abuse has been normalized from generation to generation so nobody thinks to say anything about the abuse.
An older child may start to learn about what abuse is at school and begin to realize that what is happening to them is not OK and that they might be able to make it stop.
“At that point it’s a question of whether or not they have any sense of shame (or) fear of further punishment by their abuser,” Cassidy said.
Someone who believes them
In a recent interview with City Desk ABQ, Senior Trial Attorney Rebekah Reyes, who works in the Special Victims Unit at the Second Judicial District Attorney’s Office, said there’s a lot she wants the community to know about child abuse and sex offenses and the issue of disclosure is one of them.
“Particularly with child sex abuse, kids delay their disclosure, they don’t tell right away, and this is such a hard thing for people to understand, but it’s normal,” she said.
Reyes said when children and teens do disclose abuse, it’s important that someone believes them.
“ We say…why didn’t you want to tell right away,” she said. “I would say the majority of them, the one thing they tell us is I was scared no one would believe me. It’s a really powerful thing to be able to say to a child, I believe you. I believe you so much that I’m going to try and make sure that this person is punished for what they did to you.”
Reyes said she hopes that someday it becomes normal to tell, as opposed to something that is supposed to be a secret that stays within a family or that isn’t talked about.
“Unfortunately, for many, home is not a safe place to come forward, because they may have a caregiver who isn’t going to believe them, or they may have other stuff going on at home or at school that makes it unsafe for them,” she said.
It’s uncommon, Reyes said, for anyone to make up these types of allegations, especially children.
“We believe them, and that’s really very important for them to know that we believe them,” she said.
Because of delays in when abuse is reported, Deputy Commander of the Albuquerque Police Department’s Special Victims Unit Jay Ratliff said the cases can be a long-term commitment. He said the cases are more difficult to get across the prosecution finish line.
“Think of how trauma affects each of us, even as adults, but even more so as a child. We know that sometimes that initial disclosure isn’t always there. It may come through counseling services, it may manifest itself in other ways,” he said.