I think it can be a lot harder if you were not supported and validated by family regarding the abuse, too.

I was heavily invalidated, ignored, gaslighted and so on when it came to my abuse, so by the time I was an older teenager it was pretty much game-over in my mind. I had been conditioned to deny my own reality, my own emotions, my cause-and-effect experiences.

I think that has and continues to play a big part in my difficulties when it comes to connecting my childhood experiences and my adulthood psychological ailments.