grahamguitarman wrote:
Wow that took enormous courage! I'm Humbled - I never had the strength to stand up to my abusive father

I've thought about that some--why I managed it when others don't. I concluded that I probably had advantages most people didn't.
1. I was not abused until I was eight years old. That means that my personality had a chance to form in a relatively friendly environment. My mom is eccentric and overprotective, but she is not abusive.
2. I had people in my life who truly loved me and treated me as a valuable person. My grandparents, especially, never talked down to me and actually appreciated it when I helped them out, like helping my grandma in the garden.
3. I have kept diaries since I was a very young child. So, when I wrote about what my stepfathers did to me, I was able to look back at it and think about the facts of the situation. My fact-oriented outlook let me put aside the accusations that I was supposedly at fault.
4. My experiences with my stepfathers taught me how to live with fear. I learned how to distance myself emotionally from the situation I was in, so that I was free to act. I think it is a lot like how a soldier in a war zone learns to deal with the fact that he could be shot at any moment.
5. I was unusually intelligent for my age and had a habit of using that analytical ability to solve problems. In terms of academic ability (though not emotional maturity or executive control), I was probably a match for my parents by the time I was about ten years old. That meant that if I used my mind to analyze the facts of the situation, I could see through my stepfather's lies.
And you have to remember: I spent years
not standing up to my stepfathers. I was a scared child much of the time. In some situations, I deliberately provoked an explosion because that way I could predict when it was going to happen, but all the same, I was more focused on survival than anything else. On only one occasion did I manage to force myself to protect my sister when my stepfather targeted her (both of my stepfathers usually targeted me).
I have studied the psychology of abuse, and I think that I really was unusually lucky, as far as the unlucky population of abuse survivors goes. If I had been in a different situation, I might have been broken instead of just coming away with bad dreams and mental recordings of "stupid little kid" and similar insults. I had so much going for me. Many children don't. A child abused from an early age, abused by a more cunning adult, with no one to care for them, would have been hurt much more than I was. I learned how to disappear into books and daydreams. I learned about right and wrong, and I learned that it was possible for a child to be loved. All of that meant I had the weapons to fight harder than I otherwise would have.
But let's get back to accomplishments, shall we? I know a lot of us have completed some simply amazing special-interest-related projects... My little sister, for example, finished writing her first book at the age of fourteen.