In Anytown, USA or Anytown, The World, there’s a widget factory that employs 100 people. There’s production, shipping, administrative, sales, all the departments any factory would have. Things are going along as always until one day one of the administrative people gets sick. She’s the girl who orders all the supplies for the supervisors. It’s no big deal because she keeps things well-stocked and no one misses her.

The folks on the production floor hear about her illness and shrug.

“Doesn’t affect me,” they say, going on about their business.

The folks in sales hear about her illness and shrug.

“Doesn’t affect me,” they say, going on about their business.

The folks in shipping and receiving hear about her illness and shrug.

“Doesn’t affect me,” they say, going on about their business.

Then one day the forms for one division run out. The supervisor is angry. This has never happened before. He remembers he heard that the woman who orders the forms was sick and that no one else knows how many forms to order. So he photocopies the last form he has and requests that someone order more. He realizes he needs a carbon copy to turn in to sales and to other departments and realizes his workload just got a little bit bigger. He now has to photocopy each completed form and then put it in the workflow. He usually does this as each form is filled out, but going to the copier every hour takes too much time. So he does it at the end of the day, delaying the ordering process by a day.

It causes other departments to slow down as it disrupts their process, but people adjust. The change is so incremental they don’t realize their production is off too. Things begin to clog up all over the factory. But no one does anything because “someone” will take care of it or “IT” will sort itself out. They still don’t realize where the problem is.

One day there are the usual problems with a machine and production grinds to a halt so the supervisor gives the photocopying job to a worker who is idle because of the shutdown so he can deal with the machinery. The worker knows how to run a copy machine, but doesn’t understand the importance of the job. Halfway through the photocopying job the machine starts running and the worker is called back to the production line. He places the half-finished job on the supervisor’s desk and doesn’t have time to leave him a note that the job is not finished.

The supervisor comes back, sees the stack on his desk, leafs through the copies and assumes the job is finished. So he puts the paperwork in the mail to the different departments. Half of the departments don’t get their copies so they don’t start the appropriate steps they need to take to reorder parts, supplies, boxes and whatever is needed so they can do their job. What they do is write up a report that sales are down. The CEO goes to sales and asks what the problem is. Sales hears this and shows her their records–which show that sales are the highest they’ve ever been.

Sales are high, but without the proper supplies to produce the widgets haven’t been ordered, so production slows. Because production slows widget buyers get impatient, cancel their orders or find other suppliers and sales drop. The huge order of supplies comes in so now the company can meet the demand, but the demand is false. And so it goes, all because one critical, but seemingly insignificant person became ill.

The impact of one employee, one person is far reaching. So when someone gave me the gift of the remark, “Why should I get all upset about child sexual abuse, or rape, or all these things you’re talking about if they don’t affect me?” Thus the story. The truth is, those things do affect you, just not in a way you can see it. From the Child Welfare Government site:

Direct costs. Direct costs include those associated with maintaining a child welfare system to investigate and respond to allegations of child abuse and neglect, as well as expenditures by the judicial, law enforcement, health, and mental health systems. A 2001 report by Prevent Child Abuse America estimated these costs at $24 billion per year. More recent reports place it at $61 Billion a year.

Indirect costs. Indirect costs represent the long-term economic consequences of child abuse and neglect. These include costs associated with juvenile and adult criminal activity, mental illness, substance abuse, and domestic violence. They can also include loss of productivity due to unemployment and underemployment, the cost of special education services, and increased use of the health care system. Prevent Child Abuse America estimated these costs at more than $69 billion per year (2001)

Behavioral Consequences

Not all victims of child abuse and neglect will experience behavioral consequences. However, behavioral problems appear to be more likely among this group, even at a young age. An NSCAW survey of children ages 3 to 5 in foster care found these children displayed clinical or borderline levels of behavioral problems at a rate of more than twice that of the general population (ACF, 2004b). Later in life, child abuse and neglect appear to make the following more likely:

Difficulties during adolescence. Studies have found abused and neglected children to be at least 25 percent more likely to experience problems such as delinquency, teen pregnancy, low academic achievement, drug use, and mental health problems (Kelley, Thornberry, & Smith, 1997). Other studies suggest that abused or neglected children are more likely to engage in sexual risk-taking as they reach adolescence, thereby increasing their chances of contracting a sexually transmitted disease (Johnson, Rew, & Sternglanz, 2006).

Juvenile delinquency and adult criminality. According to a National Institute of Justice study, abused and neglected children were 11 times more likely to be arrested for criminal behavior as a juvenile, 2.7 times more likely to be arrested for violent and criminal behavior as an adult, and 3.1 times more likely to be arrested for one of many forms of violent crime (juvenile or adult) (English, Widom, & Brandford, 2004).

Alcohol and other drug abuse. Research consistently reflects an increased likelihood that abused and neglected children will smoke cigarettes, abuse alcohol, or take illicit drugs during their lifetime (Dube et al., 2001). According to a report from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, as many as two-thirds of people in drug treatment programs reported being abused as children (Swan, 1998).

Abusive behavior. Abusive parents often have experienced abuse during their own childhoods. It is estimated approximately one-third of abused and neglected children will eventually victimize their own children (Prevent Child Abuse New York, 2003).

There are dozens and dozens of additional examples of how you are affected by child sexual abuse. It’s not just your taxes though. It’s your life and your property since reenactment of childhood victimization is the major cause of violence in our society.

• Numerous-studies have documented that most violent criminals were physically or sexually abused as children. (Groth, 1979; Seghorn et al, 1987)
• Over 95% of perpetrators who sexually abuse female children and over 80% of those who abuse male children, are men. Most of these men were abused themselves in childhood. (Fergusson & Mullen, 1999)
• Children from violent homes are 24 times more likely to commit sexual assault than their counterparts from non-violent homes. (Dinzinger, 1996)
  Of 14 juveniles condemned to death for murder in the US in 1987, 12 had been brutally physically abused and five had been sodomized by relatives as children. (Lewis et al, 1998)
• A study of convicted killers reports 83.8% suffered severe physical and emotional abuse and 32.2% were sexually violated as children. (Blake, 1995)

• The mental health system is filled with survivors of prolonged, repeated childhood trauma.
  50 to 70% of all women and a substantial number of men treated in psychiatric settings have histories of sexual or physical abuse, or both. (Carmen et al, 1984; Bryer et al., 1987; Craine et al., 1988)
• As high as 81% of men and women in psychiatric hospitals with a variety of major mental illness diagnoses, have experienced physical and/or sexual abuse. 67% of these men and women were abused as children. (Jacobson & Richardson, 1987)
• 74% of Maine’s Augusta Mental Health Institute patients, interviewed as class members, report histories of sexual and physical abuse. (Maine BDS, 1998)
• The majority of adults diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (81%) or Dissociative Identity Disorder (90%) were sexually and/or physically abused as children. (Herman et al, 1989; Ross et al, 1990)
• Women molested as children are four times more at risk for Major Depression as those with no such history. They are significantly more likely to develop bulimia and chronic PTSD. (Stein et al, 1988; Root & Fallon, 1988; Sloane, 1986; Craine, 1990)
• 97% of mentally ill homeless women have experienced severe physical and/or sexual abuse. 87% experienced this abuse both as children and as adults. (Goodman, Johnson, Dutton & Harris. (1997)
• 85% of boys and girls committed to the Maine Youth Center report a history of childhood trauma. (MAYSI: Massachusetts Assessment Youth Screening Inventory Assessment. Sept. 1999)
• Over 75% of juvenile girls identified as delinquent by court have been sexually abused. When they run away from the abuse at home, they are often labeled as delinquent. (Calhoun et al 1993)
• 80% of women in prison and jails have been victims of sexual and physical abuse. These women are far more likely to be abused while in prison. (Smith, 1998)
• Without help, one-third of those abused in childhood may abuse or neglect their own children, perpetuating an intergenerational cycle of abuse. (Kaufman, 1987)

I often wonder who and what I could have become had I not been so severely abused. What could I have given to society as a doctor, researcher or educator - all things I wanted to be at one time? I’m healing, but I look around at the quality of my life over the years and grieve at what could have been. You think you’re not affected? You are. You are affected by the loss of all the potential of those folks you encounter. Customer service sucks? Statistically you’re being impacted because at least one-quarter of those people you deal with don’t have the requisite skills they need to do their job because of their background of abuse. As more and more people with abuse issues enter an increasingly high-tech society with higher demands for creative and social skills more people are going to be out of work or become a greater burden on society that is already struggling with a lack of resources.

Many workers don’t even deal or experience the worst of their emotional and psychological issues until their mid 20’s or early 30’s their most productive work years. Add divorce, a bad economy and the usual life stress issues to the mix and if you aren’t a victim of abuse you may be married to one, dating one, divorced from one or employing one. Every facet of your life is affected, from people who don’t understand boundaries, to people who violate yours in small to large ways every day. Your children are engaging with children in school who are being victimized right now. That kid with the drug problem urging your child to try smoking pot or popping pills? Good chance he/she is being molested or abused by someone.

Managers aren’t dealing with the root of the problem. They’re saying, “Get over it, don’t think about it, forget it,” or are asking employees to self-medicate or not take care of themselves in order to deliver work at a level many can’t do because of the abuse.

The educational system thinks the issue is drug and alcohol use and control.

Your neighbors think it’s a moral, religious, personal issue they shouldn’t get involved in. And so it goes on, the illness that affects one person affects us all, whether we realize life is a widget factory or not.

Still think you’re not impacted?