Healing From Abuse Quotes

“In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure no one listens.”
― Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“In situations of captivity the perpetrator becomes the most powerful person in the life of the victim, and the psychology of the victim is shaped by the actions and beliefs of the perpetrator.”
― Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“She's terrified that all these sensations and images are coming out of her — but I think she's even more terrified to find out why." Carla's description was typical of survivors of chronic childhood abuse. Almost always, they deny or minimize the abusive memories. They have to: it's too painful to believe that their parents would do such a thing.”
― David L. Calof

“You’re too sensitive’ victims of sexual abuse are told over and over by those whose reality depends on being insensitive. Most adults who have been in the victim role cringe when anyone tells them they are sensitive. In fact, sensitivity is a lovely trait and one to be cherished in any human being.”
― Renee Fredrickson, Repressed Memories: A Journey to Recovery from Sexual Abuse

“Few of us have a healthy sense of boundaries. We either have rigid boundaries (“No one is ever going to get close to me”) or weak boundaries (“I’ll be anything anyone wants me to be”). Rigid boundaries lead to distance and isolation; weak boundaries, to over-dependency and sometimes, further abuse. The ideal is to develop flexible boundaries, boundaries which can vary depending on the circumstances.”
― Laura Davis, Allies in Healing: When the Person You Love Was Sexually Abused as a Child

“Abuse is never deserved, it is an exploitation of innocence and physical disadvantage, which is perceived as an opportunity by the abuser.”
― Lorraine Nilon, Breaking Free From the Chains of Silence: A respectful exploration into the ramifications of Paedophilic abuse

“Maybe I needed that somebody else could cry over my pain, to become able to cry over it myself. Nobody ever cried or was moved when I suffered as a child. (Lisa)”
― Giovanni Liotti

“no recovery from trauma is possible without attending to issues of safety, care for the self, reparative connections to other human beings, and a renewed faith in the universe. The therapist's job is not just to be a witness to this process but to teach the patient how.”
― Janina Fisher

“When we keep our stories locked up inside of us, darkness wins. We must share what we’ve lived, what we’ve learned, and how we have become stronger through our experiences, in hopes that it helps others find their voice, too.”
― Laura Gagnon, The Book Satan Doesn't Want You To Read

“As connection to the therapist is established, the therapeutic relationship offers an opportunity for the client to experience a present attachment, but it also brings up transferential tendencies associated with past attach ment relationships (Sable, 2000). Informed by the experience of interperesonal trauma and betrayal, posttraumatic transferential relationships can be exceptionally potent and volatile. In response to the therapist, clients experience fear, anger, mistrust, and suspicion, as well as hope, vulnerability, and yearning, and they are acutely attuned to subtle signals of disinterest or interest, compassion or judgment, abandonment or consistency (Herman 1992; Pearlman & Saakvitne, 1995).”
― Pat Ogden, Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy

“Stop trying to get validation from people who can't or won't acknowledge your feelings. This reflects their inability to empathize. It's a failure on their part and has nothing to do with you.”
― Jacqueline Simon Gunn

“Narcissists play a public game and a private game which makes it harder to understand. Expressing your concerns suddenly turns you into the ‘jealous one’ and they make you doubt yourself. He/she becomes cold and uncaring almost overnight, this is when the “mask falls” and you see the real person. They make excuses and if we don’t except these excuses then you are the ‘crazy’ one. They are managing down your expectations from constant contact to crickets this verbally and emotional abuse hurts.”
― Tracy Malone

“I opened my eyes and felt better, exhausted but relieved of a burden. The pressure to tell and the weight of the emotions had been with me for weeks. Now that I'd told what had happened, the burden lifted a bit.”
― Olga Trujillo, The Sum of My Parts: A Survivor's Story of Dissociative Identity Disorder

“I started crying. "When will it stop hurting?"
"I don't know. I wish I could tell you. I wish I could take the pain away. But it will get better and easier for you over time.”
― Olga Trujillo, The Sum of My Parts: A Survivor's Story of Dissociative Identity Disorder

“You know you left a toxic person when you're smiling more, laughing louder, opportunities come flooding in, looking great, feeling great and everything is in perfect balance even on the not so perfect days...
Because these are the very things a toxic person drains from you. Revoke their VIP access from your life.”
― Maria Lemmo

“You have come from the shadow of the heroin and the shadow of your brother, my friend. Come from the shadow of yourself, if you dare.”
― Stephen King, The Waste Lands

“Jake guessed Henry had been pulling shit like this on him so long that Eddie only noticed it when Henry pulled it on someone else – someone like the blonde ticket-seller.”
― Stephen King, The Waste Lands

“where do i find self love?'
you dig
dig until you find the gold”
― Jenai Charles, Unfolding

“You deserve freedom. You owe it to yourself. You are anything but selfish whenever you decide to stand up for yourself!”
― Myriam Ben Salem

“With your brain veritably defined by its dynamic neuroplasticity, the cage that holds you back is an illusion. Your brain potential is unlimited.”
― Jennifer Fraser, The Bullied Brain: Heal Your Scars and Restore Your Health

“Roland knew the story and said nothing. It was Eddie who didn’t know the story, an Eddie who was really clear-headed for the first time in maybe ten years or more. Eddie wasn’t telling the story to Roland; Eddie was finally telling the story to himself.”
― Stephen King, The Drawing of the Three

“Forgiveness is the meaning of grace. Grace to love yourself enough to be willing to put your trust in releasing the pain attached to whatever messed up stuff happened to you. This is for you, not them.”
― Tracy A Malone

“There are many times we think we aren’t able, don’t deserve, can’t imagine, wouldn’t dare, or couldn’t possibly make the choice for our Self. Keep trying. You grow stronger with each choice.”
― Jeanne McElvaney, Spirit Unbroken: Abby's Story

“as my understanding of and competence in treating the disorder have grown, multiple personality has come to seem, though still horrendous, less unique and incomprehensible, and thus more manageable”
― Lynn I. Wilson, The Flock: The Autobiography of a Multiple Personality

“Dr. Summer explained once again that he believed I was remembering real abuse that happened to me when I was growing up, that the thoughts were memories frozen in time by a dissociative process. We were piecing together a clear picture of what had happened to me so we could put my memories in their proper place: the past. He explained that the pain was my body remembering what had happened. He had explained the process many times before, just like this, but I still didn't understand. The words wouldn't connect. I asked, "How can I be a lawyer, be married? How can I be functioning if all this happened to me? I don't understand.”
― Olga Trujillo, The Sum of My Parts: A Survivor's Story of Dissociative Identity Disorder

“Pleasure fades, gets old, gets thrown out with last year's fad. Fear, guilt, all that stuff stays fresh.
Maybe that's why people get so enraged when someone does something to a kid. Hurt a kid and he hurts forever. Maybe an adult can shake it off. Maybe. But with a kid, you hurt them and it turns them, shapes them, becomes part of the deep, underlying software of their lives. No delete.”
― Katherine Applegate, Discover the Destroyer

“CHANGE IS POSSIBLE ONCE YOU MAKE A CONSCIOUS CHOICE TO CREATE A FUTURE POSITIVELY DIFFERENT TO A PAST YOU CAN NEVER CHANGE”
― Lee-Ann Suddick, Dancing with the Devil: Breaking chains of childhood sexual abuse

“I had to choose between getting burned by my father, the sun, relentlessly burning and leaving me burnt. Too hurt, too scorching & overbearing. Or, staying in the black hole of my mother, aborning everything its path. I chose the latter because I thought the last thing she would corrupt is her own daughter…Perhaps one day I will escape this madness and find a planet to sit on, and spin on its rings to watch the stars. I will be free in my own space and watch them, my parents, explode.”
― Isabel Villarreal, Brown Clay

“INK

Everything we know
The things that haunt us
in our sleep
The scars,
The joy,
The sweat,
The tears
Is just a bit of ink.”
― Trisha North, INK

“As to not bestir Joseph, who was fast asleep and snoring, Nellie softly said to him, “You know . . . their departure is rather bittersweet,” she whispered. “I left my siblings. Ma and pa left them. Then my siblings left to find us. Now they have left us so they may find themselves.” Nellie let out a soft chuckle. “Funny how life is.”
― LAURA LANGDON, Nobody's Bride: A Nellie Bishop Romance