The Theme Of Child Abuse In Thornton's Slingblade '

“I don’t think anything bad ought to happen to children. I think the bad stuff should be saved up for the people who’s grown up. That’s the way I see it.” These simple yet meaningful words told by Karl Childers tell how even someone with mental retardation knows how wrong child abuse is. What Karl knows from personal experience is that no child should have to suffer abuse. Any type of mistreatment a child goes through not only leaves physical wounds but just as importantly mental wounds. Slingblade by Billy Bob Thornton, “A Long way gone by Ishmael Beah, give readers and movie watchers both a chance to see some of the possible mental effects caused by child abuse.

Being abused as a child can cause someone to live with life threating trauma.

That carries on into their adulthood causing problems. Many people only pay attention to the physical aspects of child abuse. They forget all about the effects of mental abuse which can be just as traumatic. Child abuse properly defined as harm or threatened harm to the health or welfare of child including: non accidental physical injury (emotional/mental), sexual abuse or attempted sexual abuse, finally sexual exploitation or attempted sexual exploitation (Child Welfare). Being exposed to any of these factors of abuse can actually lead to PTSD and childhood psychiatric disorder. PTSD or also known as post-traumatic stress disorder occurs a lot more in child abuse cases than what society thinks. Those who we abused as a child and developed bipolar disorder where found to be four time more likely to suffer from PTSD on top of being twice as likely to attempt suicide.
The different types of child abuse are all equally unjustifiable. Whether it is sexual, physical, or mental abuse no child should have to experience such a tragedy. The mental effects a child might suffer range from wide variety of things. The most common are PTSD, childhood psychiatric disorder, depression and bipolar disorder. These disorders are not to be taken likely. For they have claimed the lives of many loved ones who were victims of child abuse. Treatments for the mental disorders caused by child abuse only go so far. A doctor can treat a patient as much as possible, but if they patient reject treatment then there’s no healing their broken past.
It has been found through research that many sexually abused adults have issues trusting other people even their physicians. If the relationship between doctor and patient is weak then it could lead to an array of problems. For example the patient could be reluctant to open up about their past experiences and current health problems. The patients actions could lead to either mistreatment or a misdiagnosis from the doctor. Another problem is the adult could long for the love and attention they never received as a child. Thus they find the selves right back in an abusive type relationship. “The cycle is repeated simply because they know no better than what they were raised upon (Campling).”
The mental scars left from child abuse can dictate a person’s lifestyle. The disorders they can suffer from are very real and very serious. Just because it isn’t visible from the outside doesn’t mean the pain isn’t there on the inside. Society needs to learn the importance of child mental health and the effects it could have on them even if they’ve been slightly abused.
Billy Bob Thornton’s Slingblade has received many reviews but none of a creditable literary source. Yet the movies still shows the use of abuse and its effects on the adult mind set.
Main character Karl Childers suffers from mental retardation since the day he was born. Yet as a child growing up he was exposed to the effects of abuse and mistreatment. At the age of twelve he murders his mother and her lover. He is then admitted to a mental hospital only to released twenty years after he is assumed to be better. With his new freedom he befriends a little about around the age of twelve. One thing the two have in common is the abuse they’ve both encountered abuse at a young age. Cause of Karl’s history of abuse he has underdeveloped social skills. Karl eventually ends up killing the younger boy’s soon to be abusive step farther. To prevent the little boy from growing in a life of agony and abuse Karl sacrifices his own life and freedom.
In Ishmael Beah’s book “A Long Way Gone” child soldiers are exposed to various amounts of abuse and it effects. He uses his personal life experience to fuel the book from beginning to end. “Beah then describes the unyielding circumstances that led to his induction into combat, the seductive methods used to redirect his moral compass, the brutality committed against him and by him, and the difficulty returning to a civilized life following his escape from combat”(Gregory). Ishmael went from living a quite happy life with his family to not knowing if she would survive the next day. Once he was captured by the rebels he was forced to take part in numerous amounts of killings, beatings and use of illegal narcotics at such a young age. Experiencing situations like Beah did can lead to a wide range of physical and psychological effects. The biggest effect they could suffer from is PTSD. This disorder is known to be affiliated with those who have gone through very traumatic events. Once he was rescued and brought to New York, Ishmael faced a long road to recovery to rehabilitate him from his child solider days.

The question is now how much of an impact can abuse have a child and their future lives and what are the biggest effects of being as an abused child. Thornton in Slingblade and Beah in “A Long Way Gone” both show the different struggles and effects of being abused as children. Also while both experiencing the struggles of living a normal life and having that social acceptance of their past from their peers in society.
The most common thought of from of abuse is physical abuse.

The effects physical abuse can have on a child can be traumatizing and lead to mental disorders. It has been linked that “Physical abuse of children is a significant cause of mental retardation and cerebral palsy.”(Clark). In Thornton’s Slingblade Karl is already born with a mental disorder but that didn’t change the fact that abuse as a child did have an effect in his adult years. The Physical abuse in the movie plays a large part in the bonding of Karl and the little boy Frank. Due to Karl being abused and mistreated as a child, he understands the struggles that Frank faces and offers his friendship as a sense of comfort to the

boy.
Another important form of physical abuse is sexual abuse. A study done in Canada known as the Ontario Child Health Study showed that, Males reported significantly more child physical abuse (33.7%), but not severe physical abuse (21.5%), than females (28.2% and 18.3%, respectively). Females reported significantly more child sexual abuse (22.1%) than males (8.3%). It’s not a shock to find that more women were sexually abused. Yet what are shocking are the effects of sexual abuse. Many long terms effects found in “Sexual violence was related to total, muscular-skeletal, and gastrointestinal-urinary symptoms” along with many signs of depression and suicidal acts (Baker). Although sexual abuse may not leave the scars like physical does, it can cause just as many physiological effects. It’s also common for child soldiers to end up as sex slaves to their commanders. “In El Salvador, Ethiopia, and Uganda, almost a third of the child soldiers are young girls, who are raped, enslaved, given to military commanders as "wives," and victimized by sexual violence on a daily basis (Tiefenbrun 423)”. It’s sad to think of children being used in sex trafficking, but the reality is that it happened years ago and still continues today.
Abuse doesn’t have to happen in the physical form, it also comes in the form of emotional abuse.

This form of abuse can’t be seen by the naked eye but it has just as much effect as physical abuse. Anything mistreatment where physical contact isn’t made can be labeled as emotional abuse. Name-calling, belittling, and yelling are a couple ways to abuse someone. It’s been known that “…individuals exposed to emotional abuse in childhood may be more likely to be emotionally abused in adulthood as well”, and because of that “…emotional abuse in adulthood increased suicidality” (Lee). The type of emotional abuse Ishmael suffered in “A Long Way Gone” was from the feeling of abandonment from the rest of his family. Also the death of his friends he made along the journey of being a child solider is a cause of emotional abuse. “…my father used to say, "If you are alive, there is hope for a better day and something good to happen. If there is nothing good left in the destiny of a person, he or she will die.”(Beah 54) it was in those words there what keep Ishmael going in his days of despair. When the emotional distress would set in , these words spoken by his father is what keep him going to fight for another day. The thought of there being some good in his life one day helped him from giving up the emotional abuse of abandonment. Being a cast away in society is the type emotional abuse Karl undergoes in Thornton’s SlingBlade. At the age of 12 was locked away for over 20 years in a

mental institution, causing him to naturally lack the social skills needed to interact with society. Yet as a child he was an outcast because of his disorder by his fellow school mates. “Given the significance of peer acceptance to children, it is unsurprising that peer rejection has long been associated with diverse indicators of internal distress, including anxiety, unhappiness, anger, loneliness, and depression” (Sandstrom & Zakriski, 2004).Lacking the opportunity to be able to interact with others as a child was only the start the rejection he faced as an adult. Though not to forget the emotional effects it had on Karl. He admitted that due to the treatment he received at school he skipped majority of the time to go sit alone out back in his family’s shed. Beah and Karl both share different experiences of emotional abuse yet to only suffer the same outcome. Social rejection as adults based on their childhood. Many people weren’t sure of how to initially accept Beah cause of him being a former child solider. Those who were uneducated felt because of his past that he was mentally unstable and wouldn’t be able to thrive in society. Yet with Karl, yet he was semi accepted even though her murders his mother and her lover. Many of the townspeople use his mental retardation as an excuse for what he did.
Through all the physical and emotional abuse drive it’s suffers to experience all types of psychological disorders. “A Long Way Gone” the biggest disorder faced in the book was PTSD. In west Africa a pilot study was done on 130 female and male former child solider who suffered from PTSD.
“Former child soldiers in Africa are at risk for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) based on their prolonged exposure as victims and as perpetrators of profound trauma. Of the 169 child soldiers from Congo and Uganda, 35% had Stress Disorder Reaction Index scores indicating clinically important PTSD symptoms. Children who showed more PTSD symptoms had significantly more feelings of revenge and were less open to reconciliation”(Gregory).
Many of the people who experienced the disorder struggled with treatment because they were basically trapped in their former life and couldn’t go through the day with re-experiencing events of being a child solider. Beah himself struggled from some form of PTSD “One of the unsettling things about my journey, mentally, physically, and emotionally, was that I wasn't sure when or where it was going to end. I didn't know what I was going to do with my life. I felt that I was starting over and over again.”(Beah 69). As for Karl in Slingblade he suffered from both a little PTSD and some psychiatric disorders. One specific ordeal Karl becomes fixated on is the pre mature birth of his baby brother. While he was only a boy Karl was given a bloody blanket and told “Here, take this and it throw away”(Thornton). Inside the blanket laid his premature yet living sibling. Out of sympathy he buries the baby in a box in the backyard to “…give him back to the good lord…”(Thornton). Twenty or more years after he’s become an adult Karl stills carries some burden and depression around about the death of his baby brother, wishing he could’ve done something better.
It’s easy to see how the mistreatment of a child can heavily impact their adulthood. Today child abuse is still a major issue that needs to be brought to an end. No child should have to undergo the stress physical or emotional abuse. Nor should they have to suffer from the effects of PTSD, or numerous psychiatric disorders. February 2016 a study was done to link the effects of abuse to bipolar disorder to each other. It was discovered that “bipolar patients who suffered from neglect or physical, sexual or emotional abuse as children were more likely to have severe manic. Depressive and psychotic symptoms compared to those who weren’t abused.” and “Those abused as children developed bipolar symptoms/were four times more likely to have post-traumatic stress disorder/nearly twice as likely to attempt suicide…”(Consumer Health News). This was study was conducted nearly two months. In this time and age abuse should not be as prominent as it. While conducting research the number of articles on current child abuse cases was outstanding. It’s time to finally put an end child to all abuse and neglect and take care of the children of the future.