Something similar to your Steph situation happened to a family member: I'll be vague because I'm not on anon, but she had grown up in a seriously abusive situation, was always shy and quiet, and then when she went off to college, she ended up having a psychotic break and is now profoundly schizophrenic.

This was before there were truly effective antipsychotics, too, so she's worse off now than she would have been had she had access to good medication, since those can stop symptoms from worsening. But since she didn't, they did, and so today she is almost completely disconnected from collective reality, cannot do anything independently, and needs full-time care.

So hearing about your experience has honestly really touched me. What Steph went through was...awful. And what you went through because of that was awful. But...Steph would have been my family member's happy ending. I wish she could have had that. And I'm so grateful that someone did have that happy ending.

I know it's weird calling it a happy ending because it's still completely awful and should never have happened in the first place, but also I know very intimately the more extreme end of negative consequences, so the way Steph turned out, with the possibility of being independent(!), is truly astonishing. I'm so, so grateful that you were able to force that happy ending to happen. Thank you.