How Did They Do It?

A couple of weeks ago I finished a 4-part superficial case study on the lives of some celebrities who lived through emotional abuse, survived, and went on to live better lives - even though life originally dealt them spoiled cards. Thanks for bearing with me through a long blog break! Now we can finally look at these cases and take them apart.

Antwone Fisher was abused by his foster family growing up, and by the time he was 18 he was living on the streets. Now he's a heralded African-American poet and screenplay writer.

Janice Dickinson was abused by her father growing up, ran away from home at age 15, and had nearly nothing going for her but her good looks. But she became one of the world's most recognizable supermodels, and today she's still a big name in the fashion industry from the veteran's side.

Christina Aguilera was also abused by her father, but her mother made their escape when she was a young girl. She went on to become an accomplished singer with several Grammy awards under her belt.

Finally, Drew Barrymore grew up with an abusive father in the wings and a negligent mother, but is now a model, a highly sought-after actress, and the founder of her own film production company.

And there are so many more famous survivors out there that I would have loved to give tribute to in full, but the list is just too long for me to fit here!

So what do all of these seemingly unrelated big names have in common? What is it that each of them did (or had going for them) that helped them to twist their fates around in their favor?

I'm no expert, but there are a few things that stuck out to me that I'll post here.

Awareness: Each one of the celebrities that we've looked at so far, I've noticed, were all very aware of their situations when they were being abused. To put it more clearly, they all recognized they were being abused. Not one of them internalized their experiences as normal behavior, or treatment of another human being, even though it was happening to them only and even though they had no other references for what good treatment was supposed to look and feel like.

Rejection: Another thing I noticed about these stories is that, all of the celebrities have at least one quote out there of themselves saying that they never accepted that what was done to them was normal or good, or their fault. I think that's huge, because I think one characteristic of most abuse victims is that they tend to believe that they deserved what happened or is happening to them - and that's entirely not true. But these people were brave enough to declare to themselves, at least, that "no, this isn't right - I don't deserve this in any way".

"Cocooning": This is just my own fancy term for what I think is simply, removing themselves from a bad situation. Each of the celebrities mentally, emotionally, and physically cut themselves off from their abuse, before it could rob them of their spirits. Some of them ran away and started lives on their own, pursuing their dreams far away from where their abusers could harm them. They all refused to engage with or contact their abusers while they were in the process of healing themselves by being away from the abuse ("cocooning", haha) - and some of them have vowed never to contact their abusers again. (Christina Aguilera and Janice Dickinson have both sworn off their fathers and won't even meet with them, even now that it's been several years since they were last mistreated). I think this is so important because the victims took the time to find out what the real world is like for themselves through different glasses. Then they could finally begin to learn that what happened to them was unique, and not characteristic of how the world works, so that they could learn to function.

Self-determination: Each of the celebrities figured out who they wanted to be, then went out and became that person - regardless of whether or not they would be liked, respected, or even good at what they became. They just pursued their dreams. Through trial and error, they also experimented with ways of expressing themselves. Some of them stumbled onto the typical victim's path of drug abuse and promiscuity, but they learned quick and bounced right back off that track when they realized those things were in the way of what they wanted out of life. None of these people apologize for who they've become in any way. They found that, since no one was going to teach them how to do things, they would have to make their own mould.

And each person met with great success!

From time to time, I'm going to be posting more pictures on my sidebar of famous people who have accomplished great things, even though they've lived through terrible abuse. But in the meantime, thank you for following the study! In future posts, we can go into more detail about what it means for us everyday people to be able to overcome emotional abuse.