Annie’s Story

Presumption and Identification of Survivor’s Needs

Mental health professionals now realize that surviving sexual abuse is in many ways like surviving war. Survivors on both fronts suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This disorder involves a cluster of characteristic symptoms which develop following a psychologically distressing event that is outside the usual range of human experience.
Symptoms of PTSD may include amnesia, nightmares, and disturbing flashbacks.
Memories are selective and muted, but flashbacks are intense bits of memories which bring back all the terror of the original event. Many find that once the flashbacks begin there is no way of stopping them.

Meet Annie

Reflecting on the story, it is clear that Annie is a survivor of sexual abuse with PTSD. In this case I would consider that Annie might have suffered similar experiences. Her psychological, psychosocial, spiritual, and physical dimension is affected. The healing process is becoming very hard for her. Her trust and confidence with people is gone. She worries that every person might secretly be a sexual abuser. Looking at her situation, it’s difficult to counsel her as a Christian because she doesn’t even believe in God. Instead she has many unanswered questions swirling in her mind. Annie is also not open about her real story, what really happened in her life. She met her mother, but did not tell her what she had gone through. I can understand Annie’s pain and we try to help her.

Annie is physically, emotionally, cognitive and impacted affected by her abuse but still she seeks to live. I listened her story carefully. Sometimes she blames herself. She is angry with herself and other people as well. Finkelhor’s model suggests four ways in which sexual abuse causes problems. The model discusses that victims deal with feelings of traumatic sexualization, stigmatization, and powerlessness. They also wonder why the experience happened to them.