Hmm... if you're really curious research "trauma bonding". "Complex PTSD: From surviving to thriving" by Pete Walker is a pretty good book to read for people who want to understand the mindset of child abuse victims. Also, speaking as someone who was abused by both parents I thought it was normal for kids to be afraid of their parents. I thought all adults were secretly this way. After all, my own parents acted completely different in public, so it made sense others would do this as well. This was exacerbated by adults who witnessed abuse and ignored it, as well as by the fact that people just don't talk about child abuse. I didn't know it wasn't okay or normal. Therefore I thought I was defective for being unable to behave the same as other kids. By the time I was old enough to notice what dysfunctional human beings they are I was so deeply dissociated that it became impossilbe to feel or think about anything, really. And I think that's a huge part of the problem for abuse survivors, that they dissociate from their pain so much that connecting to anything, even their own self, becomes impossible. So they just kinda go through life somewhat numbly and let others decide what they should do. And society says "always love and respect your parents, for your parents always love you" (complete bullshit but there it is)...