Calling on Child Psychology: Abuse Questions

This is not a thread where I ask about the best ways to abuse a child!!!

Lol.

No, it's a writing question. I'm trying to get into the mindset of somebody who, without going into details,

1.) Was a darling until age six.

2.) At the age of six, was discovered to have a defect.

3.) Parents hate her now. They do not want to see her, avoid almost all contact with her, and isolated instances of physical abuse happen.

4.) Parents have new child that does not have defect. All love goes to this child.

5.) Child grows up, mostly reading, always alone, prevented from having more than minimal contact.

What is she like at age sixteen?

Likely unable to form meaningful relationships, has low self-esteem, may or may not have compartmentalized massive amounts of rage, possibly suicidal and almost certifiably has a massive sibling rivalry.

Hmm... that delicious rage is exactly what I need.

Still... hm.

Other than a hate-on for her sister the size of a continent, what do you mean by "unable to form meaningful relationships?"

They don't connect with people at a deeper level than "acquaintance". "Acquaintance" is probably being generous, too.

Extremely withdrawn, that is pretty certain.

It would take a lot for her to be able to form a friendship, and I mean, a lot.

May have a low motivation to succeed.

What's the defect?

i had so much posted, but i timed out... lost it all

basically, many positive and negative reactions can occur, i listed a bunch, from losing the ability to feel other's pain to being empathetic to others in pain, and things like self-image issues and being determined to not be like her parents.

It's weird. I'd think a girl like that would be very different than what the other tropers are describing. But what would I know about abused and neglected kids?

If a kid has experienced love and attention for long enough, say, six years, then it all suddenly stops, then unless they really didn't like the attention or became a strong hipster at a young age, they're gonna be an attention-seeker. The kid will want friends. Want love. Attention. Since it was at such a young age, she'll have some good luck since she's in early school. As she grows older and encounters mean people, yeah, her desire for more and more friends will die down. But that can take a long time.

Since she's still so young when her parents stop caring for her, she'll blame herself for having the accursed defect. She won't consider herself 'worthy' of talking to her kind friends until she gains confidence.

Then we hit the iffy topic of abuse. A good explanation as to why parents would abuse her would be.. girl hits puberty! At this point, she starts to question her worth. "What if I am worthy of having nice friends, of having lots of love? What if it's just my parents?" She'll start to get mad at her parents. At her sibling. This is a good time for abuse to occur. Where she goes from here entirely depends on what level of abuse you write.

To cut this short, when she's sixteen, there are a lot of things she could be. It's very unlikely she'll show great amounts of hatred and rage, unless she hit puberty considerably late. It's more likely she'll be a very smart girl, well-versed in either literature (if she grew up reading books) or various things (the internet). Since she's smart, she most likely will control her emotions at a reasonable level. She might be empty inside, possibly a type 2 Stepford Smiler. She might be a ball of emotions fluctuating from happy to pissed within seconds. She might be a cynical piece of human that doesn't see any reason to go on, nor any reason to die. She might just want to be normal and have friends and end up doing crazy things 'cause of it.

...I hope this helped. I'm probably not very accurate, but that's mostly 'cause I don't know what her defect is, what level of abuse you're talking about, or even what kind of abuse you're talking about.

my original list I lost from the timeout had a lot of stuff, but yours is probably more accurate for an average girl than mine was.

The abuse I thought of was utter neglect emotionally and shaming her, and i put more positive and negative extremes, but one thing you may note is that she may become a shamer herself (and therefore become judgemental)

but again im tired and maybe not sure whati i am saying

If they completely ignore her as abuse, she may turn her anger back at herself, or whatever friends she has, or whatever schoolkids talk to her. She may withdraw, herelf. Or she may take this as a reason to talk to more people and get more love and attention outside of her home.

..just to throw that out there, in response to the above troper. There's also the possibility that, among the first times they completely ignore her, she'll go out of her way to get attention. She may do something outrageous. She may get arrested, or just plain in big trouble. This will cause her to think even more that she doesn't deserve happiness, attention, et cetera.

Another thing that all this depends on is how her parents raised her when she was loved. I won't ramble about that, though.

Thank you guys so much! This is already very helpful.

But let me explain more to help give you guys a sense of what exactly has happened to her:

1.) The defect is of a fantastical nature; this is a fantasy world I'm trying to do, an Urban Fantasy that basically takes the idea of a Standard Fantasy Setting and removes Medieval Stasis. No Internet, but there are books.

The character's particular defect is in her eyes; they render her unable to use Light magic. She has average vision; the defect is entirely a magically-related defect. As her parents are very ambitious and respectable people in a Magocratic society, this is worse than merely problematic, it's embarrassing politically, which is why her parents hate her so much.

2.) After her defect was discovered, she was thrown into the back rooms of their palatial home and... ignored. Servants to give her the order not to disturb her parents. Servants who did what they could to make her life better.

3.) She was homeschooled. School is one of her few happy memories- the only praise she ever got. She is not allowed outside the home.

4.) Sister is born when she is eight.

5.) Sister is forced to become a Mage at the too-young age of four, as her parents are paranoid about another failure. Sister is a Mage.

6.) Sister fails a test of magic when she turns six. The main character is savagely beaten by her father, who in a drunken rage blames her for her sister's failure. Her sister eventually passes the test. Her father never apologizes.

7.) These patterns continue until she is sixteen.

Protagonist will form strong bond with servants, anyone who's not her family. Clingy, if you will. Sister will grow to fear the concept of being a failure, to the point of possibly stopping at nothing to succeed.

Protagonist will be well-versed in literature, knows how to control emotions well enough not to get in unnecessary trouble. May have private discussions with servants a lot.

Ultimately, protagonist would logically be lonely. Terribly lonely. Afraid of disappointing people, so shy around people, but ultimately craving that feeling, that lovely feeling of love and attention. Praise. If some stranger were to praise her, she'd be interested in being the stranger's friend.

Am I making any sense? o: Helping at all? I hope you can at least believe that I know a great deal of what I am talking about.

You're helping a lot! I can already see this taking shape. Mmm-hm!

Out of curiosity, any more on the sister's logical development?

With such parents, sister will be constantly pushed to succeed. If she tries asking why they want her to succeed so much, they may make up excuses. If she finds out about her big sister, parents may flip a shit. Parents may possibly abuse sister in very subtle, usually unintentional ways. They will usually push her to be the best, to not be a disappointment.

Either way, by the time protagonist is sixteen, sister may be a generally dominant figure, always struggling to not just succeed but be the best. May get violent when her superiority is questioned by peers or servants. Deep down, sister would be terrified of disappointing her parents, but she expresses it in rage. *

I'd wager, just from personal experience, that the sister would also be highly self destructive in her methods to reach perfection, she'd take a lot of dangerous short cuts to become The Best

I also wouldn't be surprised if she reacts very poorly to even extremely mild criticism, worrying and obsessing over them in an attempt to root all her flaws.

These are really just based of anecdotal evidence, maybe someone with a little more experience can verify/shoot down either of those.

I like this, though it does end up with a Sister v. Sister rivalry that was not intentional. When the story starts, main character is going to be twenty three, little sis fifteen. I might have a Cain and Abel dynamic.

But the more abused sister? She's the Abel...

given the context now, i'd say she would probably (and i think some1 mentioned this already) have self control and be VERY literate perhaps much more than her parents if they are more political than magical, but that depends how much knowledge is needed to use magic in your world I guess.

I wouldn't say that this protagnoist would be lonely per say as someone suggested, as she may well become independent enough to not need people as much as others.

As for her younger sister being destructive when trying to perfect herself that seems like a very likely scenario in this context.

But I think in a lot of situations, this one in paticular, her basic personality traits that she developed early on in life would be the greatest thing that determines how she reacts. A more aggresive person is more likely to be prone to hating her sister, and a more passive character is more prone to not be as independent, ect ect (just a couple off hand examples)

Read A Brother's Journey by Richard Peltzer. His brother David (who wrote A Child Called It) was the victim of very severe abuse, meanwhile Richard and his other brothers were treated mostly OK (until David went to foster care, at which point Richard took his place as family scapegoat). The first half of the book, prior to David leaving, gives a good idea of how a bystander to a sibling's abuse would feel.