Pass them in the street and they look like everybody else. Watch them in the playground and they appear to interact normally. At family gatherings and church services, you'd never suspect a thing.

Yet beneath the surface thousands of men, women and children all share the same painful secret: they are victims of sexual abuse.

For some, the abuse has been a repetitive horror -- perhaps from early childhood -- while for others it was a one-off experience. Either way, they bear deep emotional scars, and an abiding sense of shame and defilement.

Sexual abuse is defined as the domination and exploitation of one person by another through sexual activity or superstition.

When the abuse occurs in childhood, the effects are long-ranging, devastating, and permeate all aspects of their lives. Relationships, sexuality, parenting, work and self-worth are all affected by what happens during those juvenile years. Time does not heal, nor do children -- as some think -- simply forget the abuse by the time they are grown up.

"People really don't understand the long-term effects of childhood sexual abuse -- how devastated they are and how it affects so many parts of their lives,'' counsellor and family life specialist, Dr. Denise Patton King said.

Indeed, severe mental disorders, including anxiety, eating, sexual, emotional and personality disorders, as well as substance abuse may have their origins in childhood sexual abuse.

Much of how an adult copes in life depends on how childhood abuse was handled.

"If a child's disclosure is met with compassion and effective intervention, the healing begins immediately,'' Dr. Patton King explained. "But if no-one notices or responds to the child, or if the child is blamed or not believed, or suffers further trauma, the damage is compounded.'' Just as the sexually abused come from all walks of life, so too do their abusers. They can range from parents, siblings and favourite relatives to babysitters, neighbours, teachers, business acquaintances, and even the clergy.

Like other deviants, sexual abusers are frequently furtive in their activities and eliminate exposure of their behaviour by controlling their victims with threats. This works particularly well with children.

"Sex is our little secret. If you tell anyone, something really terrible will happen to you,'' is a typical example.

To the oft-asked question: How could sexual abuse of children take place without other members of the family knowing or saying anything? There are many answers.

If the child has been abused from an early age and is forbidden to talk about it, it has no way of knowing such behaviour is abnormal. Or, the child may be afraid of parental reaction. Or, the parent may "approve'' of the arrangement.

Joan is a typical example. Abused from age three to 12 by someone she knew, she assumed that because it took place over nine years, it must be "normal''.

"It was something that happened and I was told not to tell anybody. It was a secret between the two of us,'' she explained.

Throughout her school life, Joan took great care to preserve her secret from her peers, partly because she felt different.

"As far as bonding was concerned, I didn't want to get too intimate with my school mates because I didn't want my secret to be known. I had friends but I always kept my distance. And I kept wondering if the teachers could tell what I was doing,'' she said. "Also, because I was involved in an adult act, I felt I was more mature than I actually was, so I skipped a lot of a normal childhood.'' But at age 12, Joan says she "gave her heart to the Lord'' and decided the abuse had to stop. She informed her abuser accordingly and assumed that was the end of it.

But she was wrong. Now a mature married woman, she is currently undergoing group counselling to repair the emotional damage she sustained.

"Sexual abuse affects every decision you make in life, even the partners you choose,'' she admitted. "During my teen years I went through a period of great anger. I wanted to go away to school, and the abuse had a lot to do with why I didn't.'' Communication among members of Joan's family is such that, to this day, she has no idea whether or not her siblings were abused or if they knew that she was.

Admitting that group counselling had been extremely beneficial in turning her life around, Joan smiled: "I feel like a caterpillar emerging into a butterfly.'' "Group counselling can be very beneficial for sexual abuse survivors,'' Dr.

Patton King explained. "It helps to reduce their sense of isolation, and allows them to accept themselves as good people.'' Other benefits include allowing participants to work through feelings of guilt and shame, breaking down denial through spontaneous sharing and confrontation, and divesting themselves of the burden of carrying their long-held secret.

Kris is another survivor reaping the benefits of group counselling. Abused just once by her father at the age of four, she tried to put the matter out of her mind as she grew up, but finally realised she had to deal with it.

"My father was a `typical' Bermuda father. He wasn't really very close with his children at all, but I was his favourite,'' she related. "The only thing he paid was the food bill. His attitude was, `I am your father but I have my own agenda'.'' As a result, Kris grew up much closer to her mother and her mother's friends.

"I would listen to them and their talk, so it was much easier to internalise what happened to me, and I didn't go through the normal sorts of things most sexually abused victims go through. I kept my childhood,'' she admitted.

As a vibrant teen, Kris didn't date because other activities, and particularly the arts, were more important to her. She was finally drawn to group counselling because she felt it was time to deal with what she calls her "unfinished business''.

"I didn't feel guilty about what happened because I knew it wasn't my fault,'' she said. "It was my own personal issues that I had never addressed.'' Indeed, denial and repression are typical characteristics of the sexually abused. As children they learned to block out the pain because it was so devastating.

"Later, they may claim that the abuse had little or no impact or that it has been dealt with when they are still showing many symptoms of its negative effects,'' Dr. Patton King confirmed.

Today, Kris says, "the group has helped me to release the anger, which at times is very intense. I see my father regularly, and the anger is still there -- not only for the sexual abuse, but also for not being the husband and father he should have been.'' Guilt and shame are common feelings among victimised children, who believe they have done something wrong or are "bad'' and therefore deserve such treatment.

"Self-blame may be reinforced by overt or covert messages from the abuser or others whom the child may have tried to tell about the abuse,'' Dr. Patton King said. "And adult survivors may continue to hold themselves responsible because they were passive or silent, or obtained physical, emotional or material gratification from the abuse. They may also excuse the abuser because he or she was drunk, sick, or sexually frustrated.'' Yet, Anne held no such feelings about the repeated sexual abuse from her uncle when she was ten. Today, the soft-spoken young wife and mother recalls "no feelings of guilt about it, although there must have been an innate sense that it wasn't right or I would have mentioned it to people''.

She did, however, experience denial because, when the relative did the same thing to her siblings, they told her mother. When asked if she too had been molested Anne lied outright.

"That was the last time it was ever discussed -- if you could call that a discussion,'' she said.

Although the uncle was forbidden to visit the family ever again, "you never forget it'', Anne said. "I spent my teens and early 20s leading a wildly promiscuous life. It pervaded all my relationships until I got married.'' As a mother, Anne realised she had to sort out her feelings to effectively guide and counsel her children against sexual abuse.

"The group is a starting point for me. I still have things to resolve, but I've taken the plunge and I feel a lot more comfortable now,'' she said. A 12-session Survivors of Sexual Abuse Therapy Group, sponsored by the Coalition for the Protection of Children, will begin in July at the Women's Resource Centre. Each two-hour session will take place on Wednesdays, beginning at 5.30 p.m., and be facilitated by Dr. Denise Patton King. For further information, telephone 292-2667.

Family life specialist Dr. Denise Patton King.