Can you recover from child abuse without any help?

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I grew up much too isolated to know what the society around us thought. My parents did an excellent job of protecting me from peer pressure. They did teach me children don't insult parents, as calling them as*holes would be the case. Judging them unfavorably in your head is also unacceptable. If you're such a bad, unappreciative child you're not entirely and blissfully happy with them, you have to go away from their home immediately if you're old enough, and not ask anything from them ever again, no matter your chances to survive; if you're not old enough yet, your defiance is to be forcefully suppressed. Honor thy father and thy mother.

A very small price to pay to stop being the property of some self-righteous megalomaniac who expects eternal gratitude in return of abuse just for deigning to have reproduced themselves. By your "logic", Baby P's parents should have gotten a medal (for those unfamiliar with the case: Baby P). Fortunately, the whole world and the justice system do not follow the sick views of such individuals.



At first I thought he was being sarcastic but you're probably right. Getting your kicks out of telling victims of abuse they don't deserve the slightest bit of human respect and should be grateful to their tormentors... it takes all kind I guess.


@Kiriae: Excellent posts, I hope you find your peace with the past and rebuilt your life. I have two children and I can assure you the only respect and gratitude you deserve as a parent are the ones you have earned, just like in any other relationship.

Then you ain't known the type of parents I've known.

Thanks. I hope so too.
For now I still experience quite a lot of the abuse effects.
For example I am afraid of getting in relationship with a guy because I think all guys are the same and will abuse me as soon as I become dependent of them (even loving them counts as dependence, not to mention living together).
And I developed not healthy copy mechanism of dissociating when I am stressed by a situation. I make my mind and emotions frozen and focus only on moving my body the way I am told, without any questioning. It gets stuff done but I don't learn anything from the overwhelming situation because I do what I do without any thinking, like a robot.

For the record, I know you people have started talking about me in the third person, which means the exchange is no longer my business even though I am the one being judged, but, anyway ...

I'm sorry. My point was not to insult abuse victims. There are a lot of things in the world I don't understand and I like following logic, wherever it leads. Feeling forced to believe something self-contradictory causes me great anguish, as I feel my thoughts are being smothered and I'm about to lose any grip on reality. I'd expect this to be familiar to many aspies.

I didn't have the courage to run away from my parents in time. I can't say I've been abused in any way, and I owe absolutely everything to them, so I'll never have any business judging them.  I did get used over time to accepting, out of respect for them, all manner of ideas which increasingly clouded my never-quite-developed worldview and greatly restricted my ambitions in life. I'm still very ignorant about the perils and opportunities that may be in store in the wide world, and definitely far too old to be still taking my first baby steps.

Healing and finding balance can take a long time and it's never easy. Do you have access to any professional help or support from people who can understand the situation?

The problems you mention are a fairly "normal" consequence of the conditions you lived in. It's very hard to establish healthy relationships and behaviours before fully accepting and dealing with what happened to you, and "starting over" to some extent. Here's an article (I know the title sounds cheesy but that doesn't apply to the content) that addresses some of these issues, including the risk of being targeted by other abusers: http://outofthefog.net/forum/index.php?topic=13369.0 I'm not sure how active the forum is, but I think it's a good resource of information and support from people who will understand your struggles very well.

I don't, because I don't believe in therapy. I was never able to understand what psychologies want from me when they say "What happend? And how do you feel about it?" and that's the most common sentence they say when they try to "help" me.

I am actually feeling worse when I think about painful situations and try to figure out what emotions they make me feel. I have alexithymia(I cannot identify my own feelings) so questions about feelings make me lose my self confidence because I am forced to answer questions that I don't know the answer for. It's as if I was taking an exam that I didn't study for!

I believe the way for me to heal is getting some good experiences and focusing on what is good in my life. When I have more confidence less situations will stress me out so I won't have to dissociate so often.

And I already work on the relationships issue. I am aware that my stereotype of guys cannot be right for all guys so I try to give them a chance. It's a huge progress because till a while ago I dealt with it by only aiming at girls.

Last edited by Kiriae on 16 Jul 2015, 3:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I have also addressed you directly, and so did tombo. I think the hostility and doubting your honesty came from the fact that you used very strong terms seemingly condemning victims and justifying abusers without explaining that that's not actually your position. One of the things abused children often have to deal with as adults is invalidation of their pain, pressure to "understand" and "forgive" their abuser, and accept blame for what has been done to them in the name of the "sanctity" of life, family etc. It's crippling for those who try to break free from toxic situations.




I really appreciate you explaining your position, now I can understand better where you're coming from. The problem with pushing logic to its last consequence is that it usually leads to insanity (Camus has a very interesting play called Caligula that illustrates this point very well). I'm not sure what you're referring to when you say you feel forced to believe something self-contradictory when others say that people have no obligation/duty towards parents who abused them. Maybe you're saying parents doing more harm then good doesn't reflect your personal experience? If you don't feel too offended by our exchange, I would be interested in your thoughts.




Maybe the whole misunderstanding stems from you projecting your own situation? You don't have any obligation to judge or condemn your parents, we all make mistakes, but saying that you weren't abused and that they did well by you in many ways illustrates my point that they actually earned your respect, not that you owe them respect by default.

Over-protective attitudes, even the best-intentioned ones can be crippling to some extent, and you might be surprised how many people find their own identity and independence of thought and action later in life. I was forced to find mine way too early and there's a price for that too. I don't know how old you are, but it's usually never really too late to find your own way.

I never found a good fit with psychologists either, and I hear you on the "how does that make you feel" question

Best of luck to you, with so many negative stories around I wanted to let you know some of us do manage to find peace and a make a good life for ourselves

I hate psychologists with a passion, the same guilty passion I have no right to feel I hate my parents with. I hate them because I seem unable to live without them and become a free man, two words that seem far too big to be uttered by me. I begged my parents for what I thought I needed to stop letting my life slip away miserably, wasting it, and they, after lots of contradictory arguments in which they let me believe they were going to grant me what I asked them for, exercised their undeniable right to refuse to. I feel completely unprepared for anything in life, and too old to start learning now, let alone to deserve the chance.

My parents have made it very clear I have no right to judge them or have bad feelings towards them in any way, and that, if I have them, I must go away and fend for myself. I think I didn't have any real chance to prepare myself before being thrown to the lions, but they disagree and this is one of those thoughts I'm not really allowed to have.

I wish I could survive without them, no matter what it took. The farther away from them, the better.

Wow that's a really good question but one which I dont think can be answered except on a case by case basis. It really depends on so many things. Sometimes friends will be enough and sometimes therapy is required. The problem is that abuse victims often self medicate and seek stopgap measures. They function in fight or flight mode. With this in mind it is inadvisable for anyone to try and treat themselves. There is also the problem of seemingly unrelated mental health issues which are a result of the abuse. It needs an external mind to process and observe this