Can you recover from child abuse without any help?

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Hopefully I'm not sticking this topic in the wrong place. But I would like some opinions on this. I have a younger sister who was a victim of childhood physical and emotional abuse. My family and I also have good reason to believe there was also sexual abuse though in that case the abuser was never caught in the act. Now fast forward a couple decades and I have a sister who denies all abuse and refuses any and all help, councilors, support groups, even self help workbooks. Based on my own life experience and seeing abuse effects in others I personally belief that to recover without any help is near impossible. Besides she does have the mental health effects that are getting worse. I just want to know if I am wrong to think this will end badly.

Sometimes, people are able to recover from abuse on their own. Most, however, would at least benefit from some psychotherapy.

Some people - me included - are immune to psychotherapy and in fact a therapy like this makes it worse. So we have no choice but to deal with the problems without anyone help. And it is possible to recover by ourself - I dealt with depression, social anxiety and some phobias without any help.

You have right worrying about her because the situation is heavy (especially since her symptoms are getting worse) but it doesn't mean she can't recover by herself. People who invented all the therapies also figured out the methods without anyone telling them what to do. It's all about finding a method to successfully counter the symptoms. Not everyone needs a mentor to do that. Some self awareness + intelligence can do the trick just fine.

Well said.

I think it depends on your definition of recover, experiences can change people. It is possible to to cope unassisted. Your sisters deteriorating health could be linked to many things, including maladaptive coping strategies developed in childhood; a support network, trained psychological assistance and self awareness can help with these.
Perhaps though, she is not yet ready to face these negative experiences.

Like Amity said, it depends on what you mean by recover. I'm not sure if anyone ever fully recovers from child abuse. People learn to cope one way or another. Denial is one way of coping, and it's very effective for some people. To other people it can look as if a person in denial is delusional or insane. But denial can actually preserve a person's sanity when nothing else will do so. Trying to force a person out of denial might do more harm than good. In any case, you can't help someone who doesn't want help, or at least doesn't want the kind of help you are offering.

It's also possible that she's not in denial as much as you think she is. Suspicions or allegations of sexual abuse often arise in families where there are other kinds of abuse going on. Sometimes it is unfounded, or just plain false. It can become a form of abuse in and of itself. It's a very serious thing to believe in without knowing for sure. Even if you never talk about it, it will have a HUGE impact on how you perceive those people and relate to them.

Whether your sister was sexually abused or not, just imagine how it must feel to her to have her family relate to her as if she was, without really knowing one way or the other.

I don't know if someone who's denying it happened is going to recover any time soon, honestly.

It depends, some people recover and deal with things on their own and they prefer it and feel more comfortable with it while some recover with the help of others which they prefer and feel more comfortable with.

I believe some people can recover on their own, but the issue is that she has to be willing, and especially ready to do so. This is most likely very sensitive and it can not be forced or come from anyone but her. The best you can do is to support her in whichever step she's at, if she allows it.

A very, very sensible post from Dianthus. She may or may not be coping with it well, but it's kinda her call. There is very little that you can do FOR her to help her except being supportive of her choices (as long as they're not silly, self-destructive choices) and she has to be ready to go for any therapeutic support in her own time and in her own way.

It's possible. I did it, but I wouldn't advise anyone to rely on it when it's as hard as it is and there are professionals out there who want to help and are capable of helping many people. Still, treatment isn't something you can usher someone into if they don't want to go. It's a private battle first and foremost, existing in someone's mind and heart.

As far as not talking about it goes, that never surprises me when I see it. Abuse is something that's incredibly hard for some people to even think about, because analyzing, revisiting, and reflecting on it threatens what might be a very fragile sense of functionality and safety. Talking about it comes when someone is ready and no sooner, for better or for worse, and not everyone is going to have the same post-abuse experiences.

I once talked to a woman who forgave her mother enough to be there when she passed away, and to try to repair the bonds over time. My mother refused to see her father on his deathbed and never introduced my siblings and I to him. Everyone copes differently and has to make their own choices about where to go once they're free.

Anything that can be done for someone in other areas of life, such as self-esteem, success, personal growth, and close connections, only helps people to make their own strides forward.

I don't know how anyone can claim their parents did them any kind of harm and still be deserving of the slightest bit of human respect. You owe your whole life to your parents.You were never entitled to it, so they had every right to treat you whatever way they chose to and still expect you to be really happy, and take great offence if you aren't.

A lot of abused people wish they were dead/never born while the abuse takes place. They don't consider their own life any value at that point. So they can't be grateful for being alive. They never asked for being born so why are they supposed owe anything to their abusing parents?
The baby being born was the parents fault because they were not careful and made a baby they didn't want and were not prepared to raise! It wasn't the kid's fault.

Giving life doesn't equal being worth of respect. Every idiot can make a baby.

And incorrectly raising a kid is not something the kid should be grateful for.

After a kid is born the parent can either raise it or put it in orphanage. If the parent is a junk any choice is a bad. The kid can't be grateful for not being put in orphanage because being abused wasn't any better than that.
The kid might be only grateful that the parents didn't kill it/throw it out after it was born but the parents did it for themselves anyway. Because they might end up in a jail if they killed/thrown out a baby.

You might assume just the fact of being born is a value in itself but there is nothing in it really. Even considering someone totally happy with their life If there was never a baby there would be no adult thinking "I'm glad for being alive" now so there would be noone to realize the waste of not being born so there would be no waste that the potential parents used a condom in the point of time that decided on the - currently happy adult - being born or not.

What if they made the baby on purpose because the did want one?



But not every idiot can raise it, or even make the money for doing so. If someone isn't grateful for having been born, because they don't value their life, why don't they simply commit suicide, raising strictly as little attention as possible and causing as little an inconvenience as possible to those who are left to deal with the mess?



Yes, they should, because their parents didn't even need to give them that upbringing. They could always have made it worse.



That's simply government meddling in private affairs. By the way, infanticide used to be socially acceptable, because people used to respect other people's right to do as they pleased with their bodies and whatever came from them, eapecially if they were feeding it.



But there is the living adult to realize they could never have achieved anything if their parents hadn't brought them into this world, so they owe it to them, no matter how mean they may have been.

@Spiderpig
I made my opinion clear. You seem to have totally opposite view.

I was abused kid so I identify with the kid. Although my life wasn't half as bad as the life of other abused kids - I had my mom and grandma to protect me from the abusive father.

You seem to identify with the abusive parent. I don't know if you were simply raised in a society that says parent must be respected unconditionally no matter how much of as*hole he is or you are totally lacking empathy for other living beings.

Personally I cannot understand how a mentally healthy human can beat up an innocent baby and if it dares to cry beat it even more. That's just cruel!
It may be his baby, "at thing" he made and is paying for. But it's also a living being that has its own feelings. I wouldn't be able to beat anyone/anything who has no way to protect itself and can feel pain because I could feel the pain by just looking at it's pain!
I can see excuses for killing living beings that cause huge trouble to someone if the death is related with just a short pain. But I really can't understand how someone can take satisfaction from repeatably causing pain to someone/something and watching it cry. If someone raises a baby for that reason he could as well kill the baby.

Nothing excuses pointless cruelty!


And you asked why people who don't value their own life don't commit suicide. A life of a human that spent some time living in society is no longer just it's own.
I survived because I had my mom and grandma who wanted me to be alive and I knew they would be in a huge pain if I were to die. So I kept standing the abuse for them, not myself.

He's trolling.