This verges on IMHO, it may degenerate on The Pit. I want it noted I begin with a couple of honest questions.
“How screwed up is this poor girl likely to be?”
“How soon and how well can she recover?”
She has been through a terrible experience, but on the other hand, I have actually met people who escaped death camps. People are tough.
Still, she has had her childhood taken from her. Can she ever be ‘normal?’
I am not a Psychologist, Psychiatrist, etc. WAGs, etc.
In terms of mental development, it will somewhat matter how much her captor talked with her, but probably it’s best to assume that she’s been stuck as a ten year old for the last ten years of her life. But, as a ten year old that should mean that she can or could read and talk and do basic arithmetic.
How well she will integrate back into society…my guess would be poorly. Given that she was speaking, we can assume that she wasn’t kept in a state where she went feral, so probably there isn’t too much worry that she’ll be particularly dangerous (no knowing of course.) But, while as many people people may be raped, beaten, etc. daily for years, usually for that time period they’re still going out into the world and dealing with people. Or, as in your case of death camps, talking with other prisoners. She may have been talking with her captor for the last eight years, but still she will probably have a lot of issues when it comes to relating to people again. My best guess would be that she’ll become largely dependent on someone to take care of her again.
Eighteen isn’t all that old, and ten not all that young, so I imagine it would be possible for her to adapt a bit to normal life, but 1) I would put the likelihood of that down pretty low, and 2) I don’t think there are the same sorts of programs like Physical Therapy that work towards introducing people to society and forcing them to understand it again. Most likely that would come down to her caretaker trying to do that, and my personal guess would be that for the most part she’ll probably just be allowed to keep to herself so that won’t happen.
Overall, I actually wouldn’t be surprised if she has a fine life ahead of her in truth. It will be a bit solitary and very dull by our standards. Probably she won’t marry or make friends. But I would personally guess that for something this “complete,” the whole experience will be more of a section of her life than as some great trauma that she weaps over every night. Not that I would imagine she will be happy about it or particularly want to discuss it.
Just my personal guesses without knowing anything more than I’ve seen so far.
Maybe I’m dense as a brick but what is an Austran Slave Girl?
Google was NO help.
Austrian slave girl
Would that be Australian or Austrian? When I saw “Austran” the first possibility that suggested itself was a science-fiction planet with a landmass called Austra somewhere in the southern hemisphere.
Anyway, this sounds like a job for… Kaspar Hauser. If he were alive today he could set up a consulting business to handle cases like this.
:smack: Oh!" Austrian Slave Girl"
I hadn’t read the latest news. I too get the tangle fingers malady now and then.
Sage Rat from BBC reports I understood that “he” helped her with schoolwork type things and she was allowed access to the radio and, on a more restricted basis the television.
My guess is that she will initially regress and act younger than her age, her parents, who still think of her as a ten year old, will probably “collude” in this. However it should pass.
Think how much you have change and developed since you were 18 - let’s hoep it’s the same for her.
Incidently it’s interesting to me that both the BBC and broadsheet newspaper The Independent only say that she "may have been "or “is likely to have been” sexually abused where the Daily Mail is right in there with the headline “Sex Slave” - that’s helpful 
With proper intervention (psychological, social, etc), I don’t see why she wouldn’t be able to function normally or close to it. It will take plenty of time and hard work, of course, but lots of people who either started lower on the ladder or were traumatized down a few rungs have been able to (mostly) overcome their traumas.
I hope there are plenty of professionals lined up to help this poor girl.
He has been described as a sadistic perfectionist, and she had to address him in some archaic version of “master” – and then the fucker decided to commit suicide. Imagine to be locked up for eight years of her childhood by such a guy. Horrifying how it reminds me of the book “The Collector” by John Fowles.
He had to commit suicide- she had escaped, and everything was going to come out. Didn’t he throw himself under a train or something?
yep, he jumped in front of a train.
she won’t have to deal with him ever again. that may help a bit. hopefully there will be lots of help for her.
Wasn’t there a Japanese girl kept under similar circumstances? If memory serves, she went back to her family in the rice paddies and slowly adjusted.
Her friend who was with her when she was kidnapped said that two men abducted her into a van, so presumably one of them is still out there.
You don’t think so? Well, I don’t know anything except for the 30-second clip that I saw on CNN… but she was awfully good-looking, as far as I could see. In good shape, too. I would bet she’ll make tons of friends. She’s gonna be alright.
Wow, what a learned observation. Thank goodness good looking girls have it so easy… :rolleyes:
With time and the right consoling she might begin to approach being alright, but the deck is stacked against her. Most likely she’ll be an odd person with huge interpersonal dynamic issues for the rest of her days.
Well that’s good then. Adjust my outlook just a tad up then.
I would still say that it will depend a bit on how much she is pushed to get back into the world, though as Cluricaum says she’ll probably always be odd.
She might feel guilty about his death and have that to work through.
There was a clip of her on CNN ? I’d understood that the Austrian police where trying to keep her whereabouts and current appearance a secret.
Some quotes from Sunday’s Independent
Possible, I guess. Assuming she did escape, I would think it more likely that she would be supremely unemotional as concerns him. You don’t hate walls, they’re just an obstacle.