Just read a blog of a CSA survivor that cites a Yale professors study that sexual abuse damages or shrinks the hippocampus part of the brain which controls stress and memory

http://garnetbird.hubpages.com/hub/Child...-Alarming-Study

This reminds me of something I read that childhood abuse may be a cause of Adult Attention Deficit Disorder. They theory was that a child develops a pattern of thinking about anything not related to the abuse to separate themselves from what was happening. This pattern of thinking about multiple random things, all at the same time imprints on the brain for life and becomes ADD. Interesting theory, but not yet proven.

http://www.zocdoc.com/answers/4618/can-childhood-abuse-cause-attention-deficit-in-adults

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1934403/
(I don't know why the above study was only on girls.)

I just realized that I "ADD'd" by reading your post and diverting to another topic.

I'm reading a book which gives good information on the damage that child abuse does to our brain.

Psychological Trauma and the Developing Brain, by Phyllis Stein and Joshua C Kendall

http://www.amazon.com/Psychological-Trauma-Developing-Brain-Neurologically/dp/0789017881/

The earlier the abuse, the more damage it does. I'm going to post a review of this book very soon. It actually provides encouragement that the brain of a child, and to a lesser extent of an adult, is plastic and capable of restructuring itself. On the down side, it relates how early abuse in a child such as I was causes dyslexia, ADHD, complex PTSD, and social malfunction. It relates these malfunctions and others to documented damage to the brain of a young child. I had all those symptoms. They didn't know ANYTHING about this when I was a child. The book gives recommendations for treating children.

For adults, some of the things which will benefit you are: writing out your stories, as in writing in MS, playing video games, especially the arcade games such as Pacman, talking out your story with a counselor, vision therapy and EMDR.

Puffer

Very interesting stuff Puffer. I can see how the stress of abuse causes a child to disconnect their active thoughts from what is happening. I know that happened to me with the sexual abuse and how my father treated me too. I had to disconnect in order to survive.

As for talking with a counselor, I am not sure that's helpful to me anymore. Fist of all, I have no financial resources for counseling. The counselor I went to for 10 sessions told me a few helpful things, but generally he harmed me a lot more than helped. He gave me reason to, "go off the deep end." Not only all this, but it's only because I saw him that I can't sue the Boy Scouts and my perp, because of Colorado's evil statute of limitations.

Here's the other message I got from counseling: When I got too old to appeal sexually to my perp, he didn't have anything to do with me. Rejection! My father never wanted me nor loved me and he bailed out on our family. Rejection again! When I had no money for counseling, the counselor didn't give a rip about me. Rejection again. So here's the message I get loud and clear. Sex and money = acceptance. Me, myself and I = rejection/loser/unwanted/not cared about/unloved

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