Best 925 quotes in «recovery quotes» category

If the abuse has taken place for a really long period of time, it becomes more and tougher and challenging as well.

If there is money to be made, those who have no moral backbone will surely take advantage of another.

If you feel pain, it means you're alive. If you cry tears it means you feel. If you fall down it means you stood up. Don't be afraid to live.

I get so god damn lonely and sad and filled with regrets some days. It overwhelms me as I’m sitting on the bus; watching the golden leaves from a window; a sudden burst of realisation in the middle of the night. I can’t help it and I can’t stop it. I’m alone as I’ve always been and sometimes it hurts…. but I’m learning to breathe deep through it and keep walking. I’m learning to make things nice for myself. To comfort my own heart when I wake up sad. To find small bits of friendship in a crowd full of strangers. To find a small moment of joy in a blue sky, in a trip somewhere not so far away, a long walk an early morning in December, or a handwritten letter to an old friend simply saying ”I thought of you. I hope you’re well.” No one will come and save you. No one will come riding on a white horse and take all your worries away. You have to save yourself, little by little, day by day. Build yourself a home. Take care of your body. Find something to work on. Something that makes you excited, something you want to learn. Get yourself some books and learn them by heart. Get to know the author, where he grew up, what books he read himself. Take yourself out for dinner. Dress up for no one but you and simply feel nice. it’s a lovely feeling, to feel pretty. You don’t need anyone to confirm it. I get so god damn lonely and sad and filled with regrets some days, but I’m learning to breathe deep through it and keep walking. I’m learning to make things nice for myself. Slowly building myself a home with things I like. Colors that calm me down, a plan to follow when things get dark, a few people I try to treat right. I don’t sometimes, but it’s my intent to do so. I’m learning.I’m learning to make things nice for myself. I’m learning to save myself. I’m trying, as I always will.

I have had the freedom and peace of forgiving my abuser, it helped me to stop resenting and no longer feeling hurt.

I have never heard of an electromagnetically hypersensitive person recovering from the condition using shielding and Faraday cages, they just seem to become social lepers due to their increasing reactivity to the city environment and addicts to their shielded environment.

I have suffered pains and torture of all natures. I have heard many say, "I am a survivor." I am not in a boat in a sea of torture awaiting to be rescued. I am a Conqueror, I am a Victor... I am one with myself. I AM FREE!

I have options, I can be whoever I want to be!

if you are always drinking, you should probably never drive

If you are sitting in the dark (due to depression) go turn the light on. If you can't find the light switch, seek the help of someone who can.

If you do not cultivate your life's environment, you will not captivate the worlds enlightenment.

If you have ever felt hopeless, if you have ever believed that all the bad things in your life were beyond redemption, if you have ever felt unworthy of being loved or accepted, if you have ever feared what would happen if people found out whatever it is that haunts you - I get it. I have been there, too.

I had victory and knew I was going to be fine, no matter what was adding up in my direction. This forever kind of freedom is amazing.

Karl Marx: "Religion is the opiate of the masses." Carrie Fisher: "I did masses of opiates religiously.

I have tried to communicate my ideas in a language that preserves connections, a language that is faithful both to the dispassionate, reasoned traditions of my profession and to the passionate claims of people who have been violated and outraged. I have tried to find a language that can withstand the imperatives of doublethink and allows all of us to come a little closer to facing the unspeakable.

I have the power to change my physical and emotional experience.

I learned that if I always performed a rescue, the woman never learned to lean on God…..I now realize that I shouldn’t work harder at a person’s recovery than she is willing to work.

I know you're in a world of pain, but that pain will lessen. At the beginning you can't see that. You can only see your pain and you think it will never go away. But the nature of pain is that it changes— it changes like a sunset. At first, it's this intense red-orange in the sky, and then it starts getting softer and soften. The texture of pain changes as you work through it. And then one day, you wake up and realize that life isn't just about working through your incest; it's about living, too. - survivor of child sexual abuse

I left myself out of humanity by focusing on differences. This isolation only strengthened Ed” (17)

I lost myself in the burden of trying to be your savior.

I'm broken, but I have to learn how to live. I feel stuck together with scotch tape, like after any breath everything could come apart. If it does, if it all comes undone, I think I'll fall down and never rise again.

I lived to be forgotten because I'd forgotten how to live

I'm not crazy, I was abused. I'm not shy, I'm protecting myself. I'm not bitter, I'm speaking the truth. I'm not hanging onto the past, I've been damaged. I'm not delusional, I lived a nightmare. I'm not weak, I was trusting. I'm not giving up, I'm healing. I'm not incapable of love, I'm giving. I'm not alone. I see you all here. I'm fighting this.

I moonlight as the greatest actor. I smile. I choose the comedy mask every time. I tell those who worry that I am fine, that I always will be. There is nothing to gain from these lies. I win no awards, yet I bow. On that stage I tell my life story with the lightest of words, the heaviest of hearts. I bleed for the people who stay and watch. Behold: the comedy, the tragedy. They smile and cheer. They clap for this. And I bow, and I bow, and I bow.

I’m not bilingual, but I am fluent in therapists’ jargon.

...in addition to my many other recovery issues, I'm also a founding member of Overtalkers Anonymous

In addition to reaching out for help, you will also need to reach within yourself. Your biggest ally will be your emotions. Through them, you will learn more about what really happened to you, how the abuse affected you, and what you need to do in order to heal. Your emotions will enable you to reclaim the self you long ago hid away.

Individuals who put underground their grief stay trapped in it. You will forever have your breakthrough!

I hope that I get to see you love what you are. To know yourself as gift and worth and truth. That you see what a huge thing it is to have the courage to break your own heart. That you have chosen wholeness — even when it has shattered you. And that you will one day see that you can be whole and broken in the exact same spaces, that they nestle side by side — and that this is the way of things. Not your punishment for wrongdoing, or for not trying hard enough — but just the way of things. That you can stand and look at yourself in a mirror and see your goodness right there, see the worth of what you bring on the surface of your skin, just like I do. That you trust there is brilliance to come. That you own what is yours to own, both the bad and the good. That you do not insist on owning it all. It was never all yours to hold

In my personal recovery, mindfulness has helped me to become aware of my trauma responses and given me an anchor to stay present when I have been triggered. Being able to feel my triggers without reacting must be largely credited to learning to anchor myself in my body through mindful body scan meditation.

In a nutshell, the process they [abusers in a ritual abuse group] use on survivors is designed to: break the will and personality of the person until they become as nothing... with no will of their own...no identity...then they... rebuild the person & shape their will in order to...try and make the person one of them...thus gaining power If abusers hold all the power, becoming one of them can, for some, be the only means of survival. However, this doesn't always work, instead survivors often find ways of regaining their own power and fighting back.

I no longer look to my abusers with any expectation– of remorse, or apology or restitution or restoration or relationship. I’m at peace, accepting that they won’t and can’t help me out of the mess they created. But, I’m the best qualified for that job anyway and I’m happy with the job I’m doing.

In order to reach your destination, you first need to face thousands of deceptions. But it's worth it, because each grey cloud, each tear, each sweat are ingredients to get you there.

In some ways, com­ing to terms with my­self and work­ing to­ward re­cov­ery has been like say­ing “I love you” to some­one but keep­ing a loaded gun hid­den in your back pocket, just in case that per­son pisses you off enough.

In life when finding happiness I try to discover the true essence of gratitude and inner fulfillment.

In some counties, there is an actual named crime of ritual abuse and there too, there have been convictions.

In spite of the horror, in spite of the tragedy, in spite of the weeks of sleepless nights, I'm finally alive. I'm not pretending. I feel real. I'm not playing charades anymore. I wouldn't go back to the way I was for anything. I'm really like a different person. I'm where I am, and I'm making the most of it. I know I'm courageous now. I found out I had it in me to face this. — Barbara

In the end, Alice was surprised by how easily she could do something she was always told she should not. She just had to take a step. First one. Then another.

In the past, my brain could only compute perfection or failure—nothing in between. So words like competent, acceptable, satisfactory, and good enough fell into the failure category. Even above average meant failure if I received an 88 out of 100 percent on an exam, I felt that I failed. The fact is most things in life are not absolutes and have components of both good and bad. I used to think in absolute terms a lot: all, every, or never. I would all of the food (that is, binge), and then I would restrict every meal and to never eat again. This type of thinking extended outside of the food arena as well: I had to get all of the answers right on a test; I had to be in every extracurricular activity […] The ‘if it’s not perfect, I quit’ approach to life is a treacherous way to live. […] I hadn’t established a baseline of competence: What gets the job done? What is good enough? Finding good enough takes trial and error. For those of us who are perfectionists, the error part of trial and error can stop us dead in our tracks. We would rather keep chasing perfection than risk possibly making a mistake. I was able to change my behavior only when the pain of perfectionism became greater than the pain of making an error. […] Today good enough means that I’m okay just the way I am. I play my position in the world. I catch the ball when it is thrown my way. I don’t always have to make the crowd go wild or get a standing ovation. It’s good enough to just catch the ball or even to do my best to catch it. Good enough means that I finally enjoy playing the game.

In THE ART OF SPIRITUAL HEALING, the great mystic Joel Goldsmith said, “Healing is finding an inner communion with something greater, far greater, than anything in the world; it is finding ourselves in God, finding ourselves in a spiritual peace, an inner peace, an inner glow, all of which comes to us with the realization of God with us, the presence and power of God felt.

In this week I see such a picture of life, hard and joyful pressed up together and sleeping in the same bed. They come knit together. The lines of pain run through the joy and remind us to go all in, because life is short. The joy edges the pain and gives us a reason to rise.

In truth, Serenus, I have for a long time been silently asking myself to what I should liken such a condition of mind, and I can find nothing that so closely approaches it as the state of those who, after being released from a long and serious illness, are sometimes touched with fits of fever and slight disorders, and, freed from the last traces of them, are nevertheless disquieted with mistrust, and, though now quite well, stretch out their wrist to a physician and complain unjustly of any trace of heat in their body. It is not, Serenus, that these are not quite well in body, but that they are not quite used to being well; just as even a tranquil sea will show some ripple, particularly when it has just subsided after a storm. What you need, therefore, is not any of those harsher measures which we have already left behind, the necessity of opposing yourself at this point, of being angry with yourself at that, of sternly urging yourself on at another, but that which comes last -confidence in yourself and the belief that you are on the right path, and have not been led astray by the many cross- tracks of those who are roaming in every direction, some of whom are wandering very near the path itself. But what you desire is something great and supreme and very near to being a god - to be unshaken.

I realized that I was okay with myself. I was quirky and withdrawn and loud, but I liked that. I smiled at strangers without thinking they were going to attack me and drag me into their cars. I went to doctors’ offices and touched magazines that had been touched by sick people.

I recall as a child when I got so hostile that I didn’t know whom to trust anymore, and then I would still act as if everything was alright. I would put that brilliant smile; which people love about me still right away. I am told to have the very beautiful smile, that smile became my signature throughout my life.

Is a few hours of hell-raising, or respite from life's toil worth this every morning?

I say to my sister, "I thought you were doing the things in our Dream Book. I was sure of it." "Why would I do that stuff without you?" "Because you could." "Well, you were wrong.

Is it bad to like the way the scars look on my skin? Oh, the way they feel under my hands. My body’s protecting itself, saying, “No, this barrier of scar tissue is to keep you out.

Instead of seeing the life you want to live in the distant future, just start living the life you want today. It is really that simple, and that challenging. The only one standing in your way is you.

I pawned the remote to my misery, trading it in for liquor that was cheap; screwdrivers for my vitamin c, and a little bloodstream to my IV, helping to soothe my lunacy

I sense that in my golden age of transparency I have become less timid and more at ease. I am beginning to let this feeling go, I feel the discomfort slide from my shoulders and wither away. I want you to understand me, to know that my heart is elastic and my mind expansive. I want you to know that I need you because I see God in you – not in myself.