I could have been that daughter. They always said I was a difficult child, different, eccentric, defiant, etc. It never occurred to them that I was autistic. Or that I was suffering from C-PTSD from my father's violent rages. They tried all kinds of punishments. Nothing worked because I didn't need to be punished, I need to be seen, heard and loved.

I was the scapegoat of the family so by the time I was 12 I had shut everyone out and withdrew into my own world. My father kept talking about having me institutionalized. This was his go-to threat when nothing else worked. The laws back then were different from what they are now. He could have easily had me locked up for life and medicated into a ghost. All he would have had to do was have his brother-in-law, a doctor, write up an order and I could have been put away for life.

With a threat like this hanging over my head, I left town at age 18 without telling anyone goodbye and went no contact for several years.

Did this hurt my parents? Sure it did. Hurt people hurt people. No one cared that my parents were hurting me, for years. What else could I have done?