How sexual harassment can erode a survivor's personality

The past few weeks have been traumatizing for many women who are retelling and in some way reliving their gut wrenching past of being sexually abused or harassed.
But some stories have been questioned; to the extent that victims have been asked why they didn't say NO or fight back. Research has found that instead of the fight or flight reaction, most trauma victims freeze, also known as tonic immobility, to sexual assault. People who undergo freezing reaction are more likely to suffer from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and severe depression.

Trauma of a sexual abuse or molestation encounter is a sinister trauma; there are two ways trauma victims store their memories - explicit and implicit. The former is the memory that victims can put in words, the latter is the memory they cannot put in words but something only their bodies can feel. Implicit memories can make them withdraw or have an outburst - it's like the re-enactment of that trauma.

Researchers have still not fully understood the way implicit memory works in our body. But yes, getting reminded of a traumatic memory triggers a bodily response.

Mental health repercussions of a trauma can be severe. According to psychotherapist Dr Gaurav Deka, "Betrayal takes only a few seconds. One leering look, one pat on the butt, one word or suggestive remark, one slipping of the fingers into someone’s pants, and their world is never the same. Sexual Harassment at the end is nothing but ‘abuse.’ And the first effect of abuse is the breaking away of all trust and the invasion of fear into the biology, into the energy body, into the system as a whole. Survivors of sexual harassment go through immense internal conflict of trust, guilt and shame. They end up carrying the unfelt shame of their perpetrators and internalize it to the extent where they are totally disconnected from their body and the alignment between their mind and body is lost. One remains in a constant state of hyper-vigilance, fear induced aggression, distress and phobia that something invasive may happen any minute. The chronic persistence of these symptoms will eventually manifest in the body and find expression as extreme physical reminders like excessive sweating, nausea and pounding heart. If unresolved or unhealed, or in occasions of multiple events of abuse, the stress levels may become so high, that cortisol levels may rise and the body may go into an overdrive of hormonal imbalance and finally PTSD may set in. It takes years for people to get out and heal from sexual abuse and trauma. It is never as simple as finding their original self back just before that one second of betrayal."

Dr Deka has also had cases where people have begun to hate one particular body part of theirs, because the hatred for the perpetrator or the abuser is so much internalised and directed towards the self. "So there is a creation of a victim as well as abuser within the client themselves. They themselves start hating one part of themselves. Hence a split happens within them. A polarisation occurs within them."

Furthermore, a new study has stated that women can experience lingering health problems years after workplace sexual harassment or sexual assault. The problems can range from high blood pressure, anxiety, poor sleep, weight issues and certain symptoms of depression. However, since the sample size was relatively small in the study, the outcome cannot be seen as absolutely certain but definitely a headway in research on women's health. Moreover, the right kind of support and emotional support can dramatically help an abuse survivor recover. Clearly understanding what went wrong during and after abuse can help researchers figure out how to make things right.