My mom raised my twin sister and me without any support. She did the best she could with what she had. But her alcoholism and drug abuse, combined with her mood swings and stress, turned her into a volatile abuser. When we were 17 years old, she abandoned us, and we went into foster care.

My sister ran away from our foster home repeatedly. She signed herself out of care early and spiraled into alcoholism and drug abuse, leaving me alone and wondering if my loneliness was my fault.

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It is never easy surviving abuse because it never stops affecting us—even after the abuse stops. When you’re being abused, you have to find ways to cope. But it can be hard to stop using those coping mechanisms once you’re safe—and sometimes that can hold you back.

Often, those behaviors we’ve learned to protect us from the abuse are “maladaptive,” meaning they keep us from having healthy relationships. Abuse teaches people to be paranoid, to repress and dissociate, and to sabotage positive experiences because we are afraid of them going wrong. It changes how we respond to people because we generalize our knowledge of the abuser to all people.

Reflecting on the way we interact with others can give us insight into the coping mechanisms we have learned and how we still use them. Realizing that we’ve developed maladaptive behaviors from being abused is the first step to unlearning them.

Because of my mother’s inconsistency, I had trouble maintaining friendships. I was constantly afraid that my friends would turn on me or abandon me at any moment, because that’s what I learned from my mother.

So to compensate (make up for it), I began rushing into relationships. I’d want to hang out all the time, do everything all at once, and tell my new friend everything about me. But rushing into intimacy can make people overwhelmed and uncomfortable. I was scaring off new friends by trying to live a lifetime of friendship instantly.

My mother also taught me to expect the worst from everyone. Once a friend told me, “You’re always assuming I’m going to use you or hurt you. Get over yourself.” I realized I didn’t want to always be afraid that my friends would snap on me like my mother.

Learning to Trust

I had to learn to trust people. Without trust, I would always be afraid that my friends would disappear the second they saw something they didn’t like. I had to learn that people can care for each other consistently and that the people who love you are willing to take that slow, contented journey through friendship for years. I had to learn that not everyone is trying to use you. Therapy helped me learn to trust, and I realized I didn’t need to rush into friendships. I have years to build them.

This issue of Represent includes painful stories of betrayal by caretakers who did not take care of children they were supposed to protect. There’s no way such stories won’t be sad. But the important thing is that all these writers have found ways to trust others and to love themselves again, like I did. They healed through telling the truth, through friendship, through achievement, through educating themselves, and through pride in their own survival.

They also did it with help from therapy. This issue includes interviews with several therapists who specialize in helping people who’ve been abused. They use new techniques that involve the body in healing from both the abuse itself and the maladaptive behaviors like dissociation and self-sabotage that hold us back.

We hope this issue helps anyone who’s been abused or knows someone who has. Once we can examine the things we learn from abuse, we can begin to unlearn them and move forward to live rich, happy lives without fear of other human beings.