Not everyone who has survived child abuse suffers the same results. Many factors affect the outcome. The first factor is the severity of the abuse. Violent, cruel, frequent and long-lasting abuse obviously has more of an effect than milder abuse. The relationship with the perpetrator is also critically important. The greater the emotional dependence on the perpetrator and the closer the relationship, the greater the damage. Consequently, abusive mothers do the most damage, followed by abusive fathers, other relatives, friends, acquaintances, and then strangers.