"In 1977, at age ten, I was cast on the TV sitcom 'Good Times.' My character was Penny, an abused child in desperate need of love. I really didn't want to do the show. I didn't want to be away from my family."

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Many abused children cling to the hope that growing up will bring escape and freedom. But the personality formed in an environment of coercive control is not well adapted to adult life. The survivor is left with fundamental problems in basic trust, autonomy, and initiative. She approaches the tasks of early adulthood-establishing independence and intimacy-burdened by major impairments in self-care, in cognition and memory, in identity, and in the capacity to form stable relationships. She is still a prisoner of her childhood; attempting to create a new life, she reencounters the trauma.

— Judith Lewis Herman