But if we're doing an AMA : mind writing a bit more about the recovery? You mentioned humor as a coping strategy, so that makes me think You've probably been through some kind of introspection / therapy. Mind writing a bit more on what worked / didn't in Your case?
I would say that recovery started when I got out of the house for university. I picked a university that was at least 6 hours of driving away.
It was absolutely terrible and laborious; yet necessary. Being not socialized and not able to leave home alone for a very long time made me basically afraid of going outside the campus; I had to learn most life lessons people go through from childhood to early adulthood from scratch. People don't forgive you when you're an adult. Abusers love dependent children, even if they lament all the time that "you cost too much".
One of the things that's hard is separating the actual good parenting lessons from the abuse. From basic hygiene to on how to behave socially. Everything was laced in some kind of humiliation. "I told you this would happen, you think you're smarter than me haha!" kind of routine all the time.
I've never had therapy nor did I seek professional help. The bad experiences I've had with psychologists and other "professionals" that sided believed my parents by default were enough for me. This is not what I recommend, but I just can't let myself be vulnerable by the same kind of people again. It's like asking a severe burns victim to go through a firefighting course with live exercises. I have the chance of being smart and deeply introspective, but this is not perfect and very slow and fraught with painful mistakes. Just like most people should not represent themselves in a court of law, even if they're lawyers, I would not recommend doing that.
I mainly relied on the podcasts, shows and books from mental health professionals and also public forums, although I didn't really participate. Writing this stuff used to hurt a lot with a lot of flashbacks. Basically I did my own research, haha. Putting words to emotions and situations helps a lot, because abusers love twisting words, concepts and using logical fallacies to justify themselves. Also learning that I am not alone and that was happened to me was not right nor justified really helped a lot and was very validating.
I'm not done healing and probably never will be healed, but there is resilience and confidence that comes with successfully surmounting adversity.
But if we're doing an AMA : mind writing a bit more about the recovery? You mentioned humor as a coping strategy, so that makes me think You've probably been through some kind of introspection / therapy. Mind writing a bit more on what worked / didn't in Your case?