Dr. Cathy Ayoub
speaker
148 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard Dec 2024
Dr. Cathy Ayoub’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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maybe some oppositionality, maybe is lying, maybe having some other issues. I do have one young man in who I've followed. He was severely abused. I saw him at seven. I saw him at 12 and actually did some testing. He went to live with a paternal aunt and uncle. And he was very wary, was superficially happy, but you couldn't get under the surface.
And when I tested him, he had some psychotic process going on. that was traumatically related. And by the time he was 16 or 17, his paternal uncle and family had, it was a failed adoption. Now, I don't know what kind of issues this young man would have had otherwise, but a great deal, and he had a very sadistic mom.
So one of the things that we've actually recommended is that these children have some follow-up before they're 12 or 13 and that someone really work with them during early adolescence to help them understand what happened to them. Because this not understanding what happened to you leave you with all of these struggles about what's real, what's not real, what do I need to do to get attention?
Oftentimes, these children are really seeking a lot of attention. They got attention for the wrong things from their biological parents, but they think that's the way they need to be. And so oftentimes they can, if they go to live with a relative or even go into foster care, they really struggle with building relationships.
And we see this through adulthood too, that a number of the survivors are just, they're very cautious about building long-term relationships. We saw a lot of kids with PTSD and a lot of kids with identity problems, the children who really were were subjected to this form of abuse for a long time, also did sometimes end up fabricating, exaggerating and inducing their own illness.
And then those are the kids that we saw as adults that are crippled and die in their twenties. And then there are people who have really struggled and been able to lead good lives and develop strong relationships. But I think it's something that you always overcome to think that you had a parent that really saw you as who you weren't. There are
Basics, basic issues around identification and also having some control. I've had a number of young adult victims say to me, I had to learn to take control of my own life because someone controlled everything that I did for so long. I have no identity because it was just what someone else put on me.
One of the things at least that I've heard from survivors is the first thing is they need to understand what happened to them. So oftentimes, survivors take a journey. They go back and they talk to the doctor that saw them. I think of Mary Burke, who was one of the first survivors who came forward.
And she tells a beautiful story about how she went back to the doctor who treated her and said, you know, I want to see my medical records. You know, I need to tell you, doctor, what happened to me. You know, my mother actually pulled a hammer out of her bedside table at the same time every day and pounded on my joints. And that's why they were the way they were.
So in whatever way, that's certainly not the only way. But there are a number of ways, you know, some people like Julie Gregory write a beautiful book. Some people really decide they need to tell their stories in other ways and they need to work with other adults who were victimized. I think there are probably many, many ways of doing this.
But one is connecting and understanding what really happened, because that really breaks through the whole traumatic consequence of building around building relationships and around really being able to set your life on a pattern where you really firm your own identity. This is what happened to me. This is what occurred to me. And here's how I'm going to work through it and beyond it.
So at least we believe fairly strongly that this needed to happen. And that if children are out of an abusive situation, that this is something that they really might want to be offered the opportunity to do in adolescence, to really Here's what happened. Do you want to see your medical records?
One of the things that I've really advocated for is if victims want to see their own records, I'll say, I'd be glad to sit down and go through them with you. Let's figure out what they say. Some people may not want to do that. And then the second step is really understanding who is safe and who isn't safe. And it's very, very hard for
adult victims, their mothers are often very persistent about seeing them, connecting with them, being with them. And that is a lot of energy. Um, and again, they have to decide what they want to do, how much contact they want to have, um, Many of the victims, again, I go back to Judy Lebow's study 20 years ago, where she asked victims, well, what happens when you go see your mother?
And most of them said, well, when I go there, she still tries to make me sick. So when we say this is a persistent disorder, you know, of the perpetrators, it is. So to also help victims understand and come to some peace with the notion that this is who this important parent is. I mean, we usually only have one mother, and this is really problematic.
The other thing that's really helpful for victims is to have people on their side, other family, other friends. But family is absolutely critical. We saw about 43% of the children in this study go into foster care and their long-term outcomes about 24% of them went to grandparents. And I believe something like 17% of them went to fathers.
I hope there are more children going to fathers, but it's very hard because these women assault the families in which these children are living. even as they move on to be adults. And we've had some fathers who have essentially given the children, I have two, who gave the child back to mom. She said, I just can't deal with this anymore. She is after me every day.
She's destroying my relationships at work. She's trying to get me fired. She's wanting this child. She's accusing me. She's whoever the caregiver is of the child after they're out of the situation needs support. And so does the child. The adult victims that have struggled the most have been those without family.
And we had 43% of the children that we saw in this study that remained in temporary placements. So not having a permanent placement with people who care and love you is critical. And they were in long-term limbo. And I think that just did
Yes, absolutely. And it's really so destructive. So again, I think that for these children as they grow, they need protection from that. And it's very hard to deliver that if you're the adult caregiver for them and you're having to try to protect them from all these assaults, so to speak.
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