If there was alcohol involved in the abuse, reading Adult Children of Alcoholics may be useful, even if she is still a teen.
In addition to the good advice given so far (I especially second the artistic outlet idea), remember that you will have constantly have to remind and assure her:
that you will not abuse her,
that your love is not dependent on her following constantly-shifting “rules,”
that she is worth it, and
that her previous life is not her future.
This reassurance will have to come in multiple forms, through both words and actions, at all times.
Thanks for all the excellent advice and tips, y’all. This is what I meant, some of these things I haven’t thought about! I really, really appreciate everyone taking time to respond.
I am going to write more later but I’m packing to go out of town. Hopefully I can find time tomorrow night.
AMEN!!! Teach her about healthy loving relationships…and I second the therapy…she really needs it. You don’t want her to end up with borderline personality disorder or something.
QFT. I’m sniffling right now. What you are doing is so kind and so loving. Your niece is a very lucky young woman, after having dealt with such a terrible situation.
This thread has restored a good 18% of my faith in the ultimate goodness of humanity.
While not specially about battered children, the following books I’d recommend for good child-raising
Rudolf Dreikurs. His philosophy is “logical consequences, not punishment, because punishment means revenge”.
A.S. Neill on Summerhill. There are several books, in German it’s combined into big book, so I don’t know the individual english titles. He tells lots of anecdotes with difficult children at Summerhill, and explains the very important difference between no rules (which he finds terrible) and repression-free or no authoritarian system.
Hunt is an American teacher (can’t remember his first name) who has written several books about his observations in classroom, about what makes children learn and what doesn’t and how adults use fear too often to make children obedient (it works so easy), but stops them from exploring the world.
One guy - don’t have the name right now, Thomas something - wrote a series of books about conferences, one named Family conference. This idea also appears in other approaches. Basically, you sit down once a week or a month to lay down the general rules and appoint the duties and pleasures of the upcoming week. Everybody gets to discuss fair and has one vote.
The ladies in our school office here mentioned that the ladies from the old school had “included a note” with the paperwork. They said this with a certain air of … it’s hard to explain, but it seemed to me that the note must have mentioned the suspicions of abuse that the old school administration had. So I think they have been clued in; I don’t really want to call too much attention to it, because I don’t want her to become the subject of too much gossip. It’s a hard line to walk.
Yes, I feel fairly strongly about this. I have been able to relate to her my recovery from being in an abusive relationship, and show her that she’s not the strange one - the abuser is; that she’s a good kid and an interesting person. She said something the other day which makes me think she’s already coming back - she said “You know, I am cute. And a cool person. Boo-yah!” with a little punch of her fist in the air.
I wondered about this. Right now she’s so angry that it’s covering up everything else. I expect her to eventually feel some grief over her daddy choosing the stepmom over her, as well as being interrupted in her life there, so to speak.
I think that, from her friends, she already knew that her home life wasn’t normal and that most kids don’t live that way. I am trying to be "hands off* as much as I can about her getting used to our ways - for example, I didn’t fuss when she opened a can and started eating out of it with a spoon, except to ask her nicely would she rather have a bowl. When she declined, I dropped it.
Thanks for your offer re: PMs - I may just take you up on that.
Definitely. She’s already expressed an interest in cooking; I’m hoping to get her more involved with eating better.
I like these suggestions! I will see about getting her both a hardbound blank journal, and a sketchbook.
garygnu: I have been through the ACOA program and have shared with her some of the things I’ve learned. That’s a good idea about their book. I’ve no idea if her family’s problem was alcohol-related, but there are parallels regardless.
constanze: Thanks for the book recommendations.
And a big THANK YOU for all the well wishes in this thread. I know it’s not going to be all teddy bears and rainbows but I have faith that we will make it. I appreciate everyone who took the time to post in the thread.
As someone who went through some trauma earlier in my life I suggest you watch out for people who will use her past as an excuse to look for “defects” in her. Much like, because my older sister killed herself, there are people in my life constantly asking me if I’m depressed, telling me there is help for depression, talking about anti-depressants, looking for signs of depression in me…
It is really very wearisome, as I am not and never have been anywhere close to “depressed” in the sense of a mental illness. Cripes, people, it’s been twenty years. If I was going to fall into clinical depression like she did I think it would have happened by now, ya know? Of course, any statement of that sort these same folks view as denial. :rolleyes:
Certainly, all sorts of things may be possibilities. Certainly counseling is a good idea. Just because she had a problematic past does not mean she is doomed to be “damaged” - but there are people who will try to fit her into that pigeonhole. She is at higher risk, but it’s risk only, not a certainty.
Letting her have some control over her life, I think, is a good thing, letting her make her own choices and having some actual space that’s hers. Talking about sex, and getting her birth control IF that seems appropriate (I’ll assume the adults in her life are better able to judge that than I am here on the internet) as sex is a not uncommon means of acting out - and on the flip side, some people will avoid human contact as a reaction.
When she expresses anger or grief or whatever allow her to do so - she needs to get it out, though of course not all times and places are appropriate. But it’s important she be able to express herself.
I am not convinced she absolutely needs therapy. If she has clear behavioral or emotional issues then by all means, get her therapy, but people in general tend to be pretty resilient. In some cases it can actually be harmful to push people to view their circumstances in a certain way without allowing them to define their own experience. This may particularly be the case when it comes to trauma, because what a person tells herself after experiencing a trauma is a significant predictor of whether or not she will go on to develop PTSD. If she is made to feel that she was a helpless victim, she may begin to perceive herself as a helpless victim, think helpless victim thoughts and do helpless victim things. What you’re describing seems horrific to all of us, I’m sure, but what matters isn’t how we perceive her experience, it’s how she perceives it and what she makes of it. It’s your job to be supportive in whatever way she needs, but not to decide how she should react emotionally to the events in her life.
I say this not only because the research on trauma supports it, but because I feel like I would have done a lot better with my own hellish childhood if people hadn’t been pushing a single paradigm onto me on what that was supposed to mean for my life. I have had even recent therapists assert that I suffer from Stockholm Syndrome when the simple matter of fact is that I love my mother, I understand why she did what she did, and I forgive her. But because I’m not constantly seething with rage and resentment, I must be repressing my real feelings. :rolleyes:
I really must caution you if you seek treatment for her trauma to do your research on what’s known to work. The standard treatment for trauma is talk therapy, which at best has the same effect as placebo, and at worst could exacerbate her condition. Please go the cognitive-behavioral route, or even EMDR or exposure therapy, but if, and only if, she is showing clear signs of psychological distress and wants help.
It sounds to me like you are doing everything right, especially keeping clear expectations in place regarding her behavior (such as requiring her to work.) I can’t thank you enough for what you’re doing here.
NinetyWt, your response in Zsofia’s thread made me reread this thread from 2009, and I would really like to know how it worked out for your familiy and your niece. How is everyone doing, over a year later ?
My niece is doing much, much better these days. She managed to pass her junior year last spring, barely but she made it.
This fall her grades improved drastically. I think she is ranked 26th in her class, which is in the top 1/4th.
She’s had some ups and downs emotionally. I think she suffers from Complex PTSD. I am in the process of trying to help her learn some social skills (such as empathy, and reciprocity) this semester.
She will turn 18 in June, and she is planning to move to her own place and go to college in the fall. She has re-connected with her father’s parents, and they are helping her with getting a car. I think she plans to get a job after the car arrives, and with her grandparents’ help she should be fine.
I’m really glad to hear that she’s been doing pretty well, all things considered. I remember reading this thread way back in the day, but believe you me it has a whole new significance suddenly!
Thanks. You are always welcome to PM me about situations that you think I may have already encountered. Even if I don’t have any answers, I can commiserate.
I’m starting to think our former sins are revisited upon us in a much more direct form of karma than one would imagine from Eastern philosophy - I’m pretty sure I’m going to spend this week learning algebra again. Probably much better than I ever learned it the first time around. In fact, I think I’m just about to start a thread asking for suggestions on that.
Mentioning this just in case she hasn’t outgrown this quirk…
As a teen I used to eat spaghettios and the like straight from the can, and I didn’t come from an abusive background. We were quite normal. I might still do this from time to time if I still liked stuff that came from cans.
