Many child abuse survivors ask the question, “Which type of child abuse is the worst?” I guess child abuse survivors want to figure out where they fall in the pecking order of pain. Some might want to reassures themselves that their abuse really was that bad while others are still trying to convince themselves that it wasn’t.
I asked my therapist this question. He replied that there is no value in comparing abuses. Pain is pain, and all pain hurts. I agree with him that all abuse is bad and that even “just one time” is enough to damage a child’s spirit. However, the question still remains: Which type is worse?
As someone who has experienced most forms of abuse, I can speak intelligently to this question. Physical abuse is hard because it is physically painful, leaves your body sore as a reminder of the abuse, and is terrifying because a much larger person is manipulating your body. You have the fear of losing your life at the hands of a much larger person.
Sexual abuse is hard because the abuse moves inside of your body to a place where you thought you were protected. Sexual abuse feels as if the person is reaching inside of you to harm your spirit. Also, the body can “betray” you by responding with positive sensations as you are being harmed, causing you to question whether you have any right to complain.
Ritual abuse is hard because you are being abused by “professionals” who have a calculated plan of how to harm you. There is nothing impulsive about the things being done to you. It is hard to work through knowing that these people conspired to break you.
When I looked back over my child abuse memories, the emotional elements of all of these abuses have been the hardest for me to heal. While my body would heal from the physical abuse, the emotional scars remained. The sexual abuse left no marks anywhere except on my wounded spirit. What made the ritual abuse so bad was the emotional element: That is where my ritual abusers put their greatest focus.
So, my answer to the question, “Which type of child abuse is the worst?” would be emotional abuse, and emotional abuse is present in all forms of abuse. This brings us back to what my therapist said when I asked him this question: All abuse is bad.
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Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt
Blooming Lotus 
Thanks, Faith, for posting this message to me. I wasn’t really physically abused, but all abuse hurts emotionally. The trusting of another person with who you are is hard when the emotional damage is done. That affects the future relationships.
[…] my post Which Type of Child Abuse is the Worst?, I stated that I believe that emotional abuse is the hardest type of abuse to overcome. All forms […]
i agree that all abuse hurts. differently for everyone but it still hurts. i have found that RA is especially hard because of what they “said/not said” to me and the support in the community for them. i am a survivor of sexual, physical, emotional, psychological, spiritual, and ritual abuse, just so that you know. take care of yourself. i found your blog randomly through searching tag of ritual abuse.
Yes — I find the least amount of support for the ritual abuse. I also feel most reluctant in talking about the RA with people in my off-line life. The RA makes me feel the most isolated — even more so than the mother-daughter sexual abuse (mdsa). Even though most people have trouble wrapping their minds around mdsa, at least they are familiar with “Sybil” as well as a few cases in the news about women killing their own children. When it comes to RA, most people think is sounds like a scary movie but not reality. I fear that they won’t believe me when I talk about it, so I am very reluctant to share much unless I really trust the person. Even then, I question whether I will be believed.
I need to write more on RA on this blog.
Take care,
– Faith
This is a really great post. I often ddo the minimizing thing.
Sadly some people seem to need to feed off of another persons pain. I have been physically, sexually, verbally, emotionally abused and I can’t pick apart an order of better to worse. It is all scaring and damaging to your heart, soul, personality and every aspect of self. people harden themselves to deal with the pain and push off any further attempts of abuse and in turn the world becomes what it is now, crude with little passion for others wellbeing
I’ve had people that tell that their abuse was worse than mine. This is not meant to be a competition. What happened was not right and was very painful. Comparing is one of the worst things someone can do.
Sometimes I have personally felt like what I went through was not that bad, others have been through way worse. Then why do I have PTSD?
Everybody’s emotional makeup is different and everyone’s experience is different and everyone’s natural reaction to what happened is different.