Writing An Abused Character

So I'm trying to write a character that as part of their backstory, they were raised by abusive parents. I'm trying to portray how this would affect somebody and what kind of personality this person would develop because of the abuse. At the moment I'm wondering what kind of relationship this person would have with children. For instance, would it be realistic to have them be protective of children, given the abuse that they suffered?

First important question: what sort of abuse are we talking about? Physical? Emotional? Any other sort of abuse?

I was thinking that there was some physical abuse, but mostly emotional. Stuff like making them think they weren't wanted or that they were a burden. Imagine Rorschach's backstory from Comic Book/Watchmen.

edited 15th Nov '16 3:37:02 PM by SharkToast

It depends on the type of person they are. Are they self-aware enough to realize that their parents mistreated them, or do they NOT know that they were abused "because they didn't hit me that much, just when I really messed up"?

Plus a lot of abused people genuinely don't realize they shouldn't degrade people or make them feel like shit, because 1) that's all they know about parenting, and 2) family matters can take FOREVER to come up naturally in most conversations. Mostly everyone assumes you have one, and things are going fine.

One of my newer friends didn't SPECIFICALLY know I had a sister until she came and saw one of our plays, and then we both realized siblings never came up in any of our conversations. And this wasn't a week or two, it was at least two or three months.

I would say that they're aware that the way their parents treated them was abuse. At least aware enough to be angry at their parents.

Well, if they're aware of their mistreatment, they would definitely not want to pass that on to their own children. They'd probably be good parents PRECISELY because they know how bad things can get with abusive ones.

They would also have to take time to heal from the emotional wounds and really work towards breaking bad habits and mindsets. It's possible there would be a lot more apologies and openness; or there might even be more closedness because "I don't want people to think I'm like my parents were to me".

I love the question and comments in this thread.

I think they may be afraid to have children in the first place, because of the common idea that victims of abuse have a tendency to become abusers themselves.