Justice on Hold Is Harm: What a Five-Year Wait Does to CSA Survivors
People fear what they do not understand, that is how the saying goes, and it is certainly true when it comes to Childhood Sexual Abuse. But that isn’t to say it is not understandable. We will never truly understand why people prey upon children, but we do have a vast understanding of what the impact and trauma of abuse does to an individual.
We have the understanding, but we live in the dark ages when it comes to implementation. For 4.5 years now I have been living with an ongoing criminal investigation into my abuser, a family member. I have been trapped in a Criminal Justice System that is not fit for purpose. My abuser has been charged with three offences:
· 1 account of attempted rape of a child under 14
· 1 account of indecent assault on a male under 14
· 1 account of indecent assault on a male under 16
The Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry says that the essence of psychological trauma lies in an overwhelming sense of "intense fear, helplessness, loss of control, and threat of annihilation."1
Trauma doesn’t replay as a neat story. It returns in flashes of images, sounds, body sensations that are loaded with fear and helplessness. There isn’t a beginning, middle or end and when escape or resistance isn’t possible, the body’s defence system overloads. Parts of that emergency response then stick around in distorted ways long after the danger has passed, altering arousal, emotions, thinking, and memory.
This is the basic essence of trauma which leads to mental distortions like Complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD) which includes the core PTSD features (intrusive memories, avoidance, hyper-alertness) plus longer-term changes in how emotions, self-worth, and relationships work.
In our brains we have hippocampi, two seahorse-shaped structures, which help turn experience into memory. We also have the amygdala which fires during major stress, it floods the system with adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol that disrupts the hippocampi’s ability to stitch events into a clear, time-stamped story. Think of the stress system (fight/flight/freeze/fawn) like a smoke alarm: with C-PTSD it becomes oversensitive. The body’s circuits, the sympathetic nervous system and HPA axis, stay on high alert or swing between over- and under-activation. Over time this chronic activation creates allostatic load, wear and tear that makes focus, sleep, immunity, and mood regulation harder.
As daily stress stacks up, the window of tolerance narrows: triggers hit harder, and recovery takes longer. Now place that nervous system inside an active court case that forces daily contact with memories of childhood abuse for almost half a decade. The alarm is constantly pinged. Functioning becomes less about ‘staying positive’ and more about surviving a process that keeps the body in emergency mode.
One of the primary coping mechanisms for trauma is Dissociation, a disconnect in how you experience yourself, your body, your memories, emotions, or surroundings. It’s the brain’s way of turning the volume down when something feels overwhelming. It’s a survival response, like hitting an internal circuit breaker. When the nervous system judges “too much,” it protects you by disconnecting (freeze/collapse) rather than fight/flight.
But like everything in life, it goes a lot deeper than that.
A basic form of structural dissociation involves the coexistence of and alternation between a so-called Apparently Normal [Part of the] Personality (ANP) and a so-called Emotional [Part of the] Personality (EP). Survivors as ANP are fixated in trying to go on with normal life, thus are directed by action systems for daily life, while avoiding traumatic memories. As EP, they are fixated in the action or subsystems that were activated at the time of traumatisation.2
EP’s contain traumatic memories that are overwhelming or vehement in comparison to the ANP. Vehement emotion differs from intense emotion in that it is not adaptive, is overwhelming to the individual, and its expression is not helpful. In fact, the more it is expressed, the more dysfunctional and overwhelmed the survivor becomes.3
There are three kinds of dissociation:
Primary structural dissociation. The most simple and basic trauma related division of the personality is between a single ANP and a single EP. We have referred to this as primary structural dissociation.4
Secondary structural dissociation. When traumatising events are increasingly overwhelming or prolonged, further division of EP may occur, while a single ANP remains intact. This secondary structural dissociation may be based on the failed integration among various kinds of defence that have different psychobiological configurations, including different combinations of affects, cognitions, perceptions, and motor actions. These involve conditions such as freeze, fight, flight, and total submission. 5
Tertiary structural dissociation. This is when a division of ANP may occur, in addition to divisions of EP. This tertiary structural dissociation occurs when inescapable aspects of daily life have become associated with past trauma; that is, triggers tend to reactivate traumatic memories through the process of generalisation learning. Alternately when the functioning of ANP is so poor that normal life itself is overwhelming, new ANPs may develop.6
A high level of mental efficiency is needed for an individual’s personality to remain relatively unified after exposure to extreme stressors. Structural dissociation occurs when an individual’s mental efficiency and mental energy are too low to fully integrate what happened. Mental efficiency varies from person to person, increases with age (but generally decreases with old age), and tends to change with variables such as physical and mental energy level, physical and mental health, mood and emotion, and stress exposure. 7
Integration is prevented when an individual avoids traumatic memories, suppresses thoughts about the traumatic experience, has a negative interpretation of intrusive trauma-related memories, or is exhausted. This is particularly true of the apparently normal part of the personality (ANP), the dissociative part of the personality which avoids traumatic memory. However, the emotional part of the personality (EP), fixated in traumatic memories, can also avoid ANP as well as the present reality.8
This all sounds complex, because it is, but a basic understanding of this is needed to fully comprehend why delays in the Criminal Justice System for CSA survivors like me aren’t just ‘stressful’. They are a life endangering health risk. The court process repeatedly recreates the conditions of trauma, hypervigilance, freeze, dissociation, while asking CSA Survivors to stay calm, consistent, and functional with minimal to no support.
I’m not writing this for catharsis. I’m writing it because the gap between what the courts claim and what survivors endure is wide enough to swallow people. The public assumes justice is slow but steady. For CSA survivors, ‘slow’ can mean life shrinking around a case that always feels imminent and never arrives. Work, sleep, relationships, basic stability, everything bends around the collapsed Criminal Justice System.
To fully grasp the magnitude of this problem, we need to understand Trauma, and it’s impacts. Psychic trauma is related to the presence of “vehement” emotions, such as panic and emotional chaos, during and after overwhelming events. Vehement emotion involves maladaptive substitutes for adaptive action; that is, reactivity rather than reflective thinking through and careful action.9
Traumatic memories, which are characteristic of EP, are different from narrative memory. They are hallucinatory, solitary, and involuntary experiences that consist of visual images, sensations, and physical acts which may occupy the entire perceptual field and are terrifying to the individual. Although traumatic memories are experienced as reliving traumatic events, they are still not reproductions but rather representations of such events.10
As EP, survivors have been unable to create a complete personal story and are unable to share the original experience verbally and socially. They are stuck in the traumatic experience where they relive rather than retell their terror. Traumatic memories are sensorimotor and affective experiences rather than “stories”.11
Traumatic memories are subjectively characterised by a sense of timelessness and immutability. When traumatic memories are reactivated, access to other memories is more or less obstructed. EP often seems unaware of much, if anything, about the present, and does not necessarily have access to skills and factual knowledge that are available to ANP.12
Traumatic memories are automatically reactivated by specific stimuli; these stimuli are known as triggers, reactivating stimuli, or conditioned stimuli They include:
various sensory experiences.
time-related stimuli (e.g., anniversary reactions).
daily life events.
events during a therapy session.
emotions.
physiological conditions (e.g., hyperarousal).
stimuli recalling intimidation by perpetrators.
current traumatisation.13
Waiting five years for a ‘historical’ abuse trial isn’t neutral time; it’s triggered time. Traumatic memory doesn’t sit quietly and wait its turn. It’s reactivated by cues, the above triggers, that thread through ordinary life. Five years of this isn’t ‘patience’; it’s sustained exposure without adequate containment. The nervous system learns to brace. Your window of tolerance narrows.
Calling the case ‘historical’ suggests distance. The truth is closer to continuous: a live circuit kept active. This is the dilemma of the five-year wait: the process meant to deliver justice can, by design and delay, keep the trauma current. People like me who grew up with chronic abuse and neglect often didn’t get the chance to learn some basic life skills. It can be hard to calm big feelings or settle the body, to know who you are and feel steady inside, and to connect with other people in a safe way. Things many take for granted, like noticing what you feel in the moment, handling stress without exploding or shutting down, telling the difference between what’s happening outside and what’s happening in your head, being okay on your own, or soothing yourself, can be really tough.
Shame, guilt, and self-criticism can run hot. On top of this, the body’s stress system can swing to extremes: sometimes revved up and jittery (hyperarousal), sometimes flat and shut down (hypoarousal). All of this makes daily life harder, but it’s understandable given what we have lived through, and continue to endure.
A five-year wait for trial doesn’t just test coping skills, it erodes them. Coping is like a muscle: it strengthens with practice and rest. The court process removes the rest. Each letter, adjournment, and ‘warning letter’ pings the alarm again. Skills that worked in ordinary stress, grounding, breathing, routine, talking to trusted people, start to feel too small for a threat that never ends.
At first you use your tools. You breathe through the spikes, keep a sleep routine, journal, exercise. Then the delays stack. Sleep is broken by nightmares. Grounding exercises that once settled you now barely dent the adrenaline. Your body learns that calm is temporary and danger is chronic. The window of tolerance narrows: triggers hit harder, lows last longer, and it takes more time and effort to get back to baseline.
Meanwhile, isolation grows. You measure every conversation for legal risk. You censor posts. You stop asking for help because you’re tired of repeating the same story with no end date. Old survival strategies, numbing out, overworking, shutting down, slip back in because they’re fast and they ‘work.’
By year five, the message your nervous system has absorbed is simple: stay braced. And bracing is the opposite of healing. The system designed to deliver justice has trained the body to expect harm. That’s how a prolonged wait can undo good therapy, healthy routines, and hard-won coping: not in one dramatic moment, but drip by drip, until resilience feels like a memory.
Add to the mix the suspended time of a court case and it stops being an ‘unfortunate wait’. It becomes dangerous. The process forces repeated exposure to the worst memories without real control or recovery time. Over time, the body and mind pay for it.
Why is this so risky? Because it creates a trauma loop:
Trigger: a letter, a listing change, a name, a date.
Spike or shutdown: heart racing, nausea, panic; or numb, blank, checked-out.
Short-term coping: avoiding people, cancelling plans, overworking, scrolling, anything to take the edge off.
Shrinkage: sleep worsens, relationships thin out, work gets harder, income drops.
Sensitisation: the system becomes even more reactive, so smaller cues hit harder. Then the next trigger arrives, and the loop tightens.
This loop isn’t about ‘mindset.’ It’s physiology under pressure. With each cycle, allostatic load rises, the window of tolerance narrows, and the skills that used to help don’t reach as far. That’s why long delays aren’t a scheduling issue; they are a health hazard. A justice system that ignores this reality isn’t neutral, it is dangerous and it’s actively keeping people in harm’s way.
Waiting through this process is not ‘character building.’ It’s exposure to mortal danger. Years of listings and adjournments can push people toward hopelessness. For some survivors, thoughts of suicide appear or intensify, not because they are ‘weak,’ but because the process keeps the body and mind in distress with no clear end. It’s like forcing someone with a severe peanut allergy to eat a little bit every day and praising them for not collapsing. It’s like setting someone on fire and then asking them to stay calm, coherent, and respectful while they burn.
That’s what the system does when it drags a case on for years: it keeps feeding the body the very thing that harms it, then measures the survivor by how politely they endure. We wouldn’t call that resilience in any other area of life, we’d call it negligence.
It’s about time people in positions of power started recognising it as such and taking this problem seriously.
Sources:
1: Andreasen, N.C., 1985. Posttraumatic stress disorder. In: H.I. Kaplan and B.J. Sadock, eds., Kaplan & Sadock’s Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry. 4th ed. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, p. 919.
2: van der Hart, O., Nijenhuis, E.R.S. and Steele, K., 2006. The Haunted Self: Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization. New York: W.W. Norton, p.5
3: van der Hart, O., Nijenhuis, E.R.S. and Steele, K., 2006. The Haunted Self: Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization. New York: W.W. Norton, p.5
4: van der Hart, O., Nijenhuis, E.R.S. and Steele, K., 2006. The Haunted Self: Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization. New York: W.W. Norton, p.5
5: van der Hart, O., Nijenhuis, E.R.S. and Steele, K., 2006. The Haunted Self: Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization. New York: W.W. Norton, p.6
6: van der Hart, O., Nijenhuis, E.R.S. and Steele, K., 2006. The Haunted Self: Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization. New York: W.W. Norton, p.6
7: van der Hart, O., Nijenhuis, E.R.S. and Steele, K., 2006. The Haunted Self: Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization. New York: W.W. Norton, p.6
8: van der Hart, O., Nijenhuis, E.R.S. and Steele, K., 2006. The Haunted Self: Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization. New York: W.W. Norton, p.26
9: van der Hart, O., Nijenhuis, E.R.S. and Steele, K., 2006. The Haunted Self: Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization. New York: W.W. Norton, p.26
10: van der Hart, O., Nijenhuis, E.R.S. and Steele, K., 2006. The Haunted Self: Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization. New York: W.W. Norton, p.27
11: van der Hart, O., Nijenhuis, E.R.S. and Steele, K., 2006. The Haunted Self: Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization. New York: W.W. Norton, p.41
12: van der Hart, O., Nijenhuis, E.R.S. and Steele, K., 2006. The Haunted Self: Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization. New York: W.W. Norton, p.41
13: van der Hart, O., Nijenhuis, E.R.S. and Steele, K., 2006. The Haunted Self: Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization. New York: W.W. Norton, p.41
