years after abuse

[tigers9ers]

This is for the administrator, can someone get depression 25-30 years after abuse happened? I ask because I thought I had dealt with my issues earlier in life then got married and was very happy. We were married for 4 years before we decided to have children and after the children were born I began to drift away. Could this be because of the abuse I had as a child? My oldest child is now the same age I was so can this cause trouble as well? Thank you for reading

[Mark]

There isn't any time table for depression, which occurs across the lifespan. Your question is more specific though, as you are asking if something that happened a long time ago which was abusive/traumatic could cause a problem many years later. The answer is yes; this sort of thing happens frequently. Your changing life circumstances may have triggered you to think about the issues that were more or less dormant (but not having lost their power), and you become symptomatic.

What does "drifting away" look or feel like? It is common enough for people who have been abused to experience dissociative issues, which may be what you're referring to.

[tigers9ers]

For the past couple of years my wife would say ,"you're here but you're not here," I would just always feel somewhere else. I didn't pay much attention to her or my children.

[Mark]

That could be simple and common preoccupation; there's no reason to call that dissociation :)