Normal Life Within Victims' Grasp Despite Childhood Trauma of Abuse
By Kendall Anderson and Mark Wrolstad
Originally published in The Dallas Morning News, June 16, 2001
Paul McLaughlin is a survivor, which is not to say that he is unscathed.
But something within his soul gave him the strength and determination to survive what he calls 18 years of physical and emotional punishment at the hands of his mother, and then to overcome it with a self-made crusade against child abuse.
"The darn thing is, I lived," Mr. McLaughlin, 52, said Friday from his home in Eugene, Ore. "I lived to tell about it, and I'm doing something about it."
The victims of severe child abuse and neglect, such as the 8-year-old girl who was imprisoned in a Hutchins trailer home, often need years of therapy and attentive care—immediately and then later in life—to overcome the damage done to their young lives. Some of their scars can only be covered, not erased.
But many abused and neglected children possess a resilience that allows them to recover enough of their hope and their identities to live normal, rewarding lives, according to mental-health professionals.
Among the severely abused, "the ones who do better had found some kind of healthy family or friendship outside the abusive relationship," said Dr. Barbara Rila, a Dallas psychologist who specializes in child trauma cases. Children also have a better chance of recovering if the neglect occurs when they're older, and if they're removed from their abusive home and given the chance to develop new family relationships, usually through adoption, Dr. Rila said.
"That's what really predicts a good outcome in cases of severe neglect," she said.
Those factors may indicate a particular reason for hopefulness in the case of Lauren Calhoun, who was rescued this week from a filthy closet where she was kept for months at a time, authorities say. For the first eight months of her life, the girl lived with a couple who wanted to adopt her, but the adoption fell through.
She was removed from her home Monday and has been hospitalized. The girl's mother and stepfather have been charged with injury to a child.
Although some people triumph over extreme neglect or abuse, most suffer lifelong physical or emotional problems, experts said.
"If a child has been repeatedly abused or neglected and you find them alive at the end of it, then they had to survive. They acquired a separate set of skills which helped them get through the abuse," said Dr. Donna Persaud, pediatrician at Children's Medical Center and associate professor of pediatrics at UT Southwestern.
Studies show that an emotionally nurturing environment in infancy is crucial to a child's developing communication skills and the ability to form relationships—to receive and return affection.
Neglect, defined as the absence of appropriate experiences at a time when a child needs them, can be more destructive than the effects of physical—and even sexual—abuse, experts said.
"Even bad interaction may be better than no interaction," said Dr. Peter Stavinoha, pediatric neuropsychologist at Children's Medical Center and assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.
Neglect, such as the kind that police say Lauren endured, can compromise a child's development, including learning, language, attention, judgment and social skills.
The chances for full recovery drop if brain damage has occurred. Significant brain development occurs in infancy and childhood.
"If there is malnutrition or physical abuse harming brain development, that compounds the cards against the child," Dr. Stavinoha said. "If there aren't brain-based limitations, that child's potential for resilience is substantially greater, though still unpredictable."
"Neglect, especially emotionally, can be just as deadly as the other forms of abuse," said Cindy Alexander, clinical supervisor at the Dallas Children's Advocacy Center, which counsels survivors in cases that are extreme, but not rare.
One child and his brother were beaten by their father three years ago. The brother was killed. The survivor, now 10, is doing well in an adoptive home, Ms. Alexander said.
"That's not to say he's not going to have problems later on," she said.
Helen Gemeinhardt's adopted 16-year-old suffered minor developmental damage because of the neglect and sexual abuse she endured in foster homes from ages 2 to 6. The girl functions like a 13-year-old. But she has made dramatic progress, thanks to education, therapy and, above all, love, her mother said.
"If you saw her now, you'd never dream she went through what she did," she said. When the Gemeinhardts adopted the girl at age 6, she threw temper tantrums, hoarded food and checked the refrigerator repeatedly.
Inappropriate ways of coping with anger and engaging in strange food rituals are common in neglected and abused children, experts say.
"Initially I didn't know what to do—we were blind to these things," Mrs. Gemeinhardt said. "Punishing her didn't work because she couldn't control the tantrums. We were very frustrated—we even thought maybe we were not the right parents for her."
Years of counseling and reassuring the girl that she would not be without food or her parents has made her "extremely loving and caring," her mother said.
"I think she's overly loyal and dedicated to her family and friends because she didn't have that." Abused and neglected children often develop coping skills that normal children do not. Occasionally these can be strengths, but more often than not the skills are "maladaptive" in normal situations, experts say.
Excessive aggression or compliance and manipulation or intuition are among the skills some children develop, experts said.
Studies show that abused and neglected children are more prone to depression and suicide, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, learning problems and relationship troubles.
They even can develop a higher heart rate because of long-term abuse. They are more prone to abusing their own children, studies show. Mrs. Gemeinhardt said she hopes the love she and her husband have given their daughter will stop that cycle, even if the girl's memories remain.
"She was left alone in a park for punishment once and every time we see a blue van, she points to it and says, 'That's the kind of van they took me to the park in,'" Mrs. Gemeinhardt said. "That just sticks with her."
The effects and healing process for abuse and neglect often last a lifetime. One way to try to prevent horrific cases of neglect such as Lauren's, experts say, is to increase public education about the phases of child development.
There are far fewer medical journal articles on neglect compared to abuse, said Dr. Bruce Perry, head of the Child Trauma Academy at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
"People do not understand that what is neglectful at one age is not at another," he said. "Neglect is not because people are evil but because they are ignorant about what children need."
Mr. McLaughlin, who said he remembers being placed on a hot stove as a child and beaten with sticks, as was his twin sister, has been calling attention to the problem of child abuse for more than 25 years. One day in the mid-1970s, he decided to stand on a street corner with a sign reading "Stop Child Abuse"—something he did off and on for the next two decades.
"This is the way I got the community involved," said Mr. McLaughlin, who isn't sure whether his learning disabilities and other physical problems are genetic or resulted from abuse.
His mother has acknowledged punishing her twins and regretting it, but not abusing them. His activism led to speaking engagements, fund-raisers, small publications and a Web site (www.efn.org/~scan)—and also became his therapy.
"I forced myself to speak out on child abuse instead of going to counseling," said Mr. McLaughlin, who has attended only a few sessions to deal with the abuse.
"Yeah, I'm still angry about it. This is going to be with me forever."
