Best 39 quotes in «abuse survivor quotes» category

Desire had never done anything good in her life, so she had divorced it years ago.

He beat me when you not here, I say. Who do, she say, Albert? Mr ____, I say. I can't believe it, she say. She sit down on the bench next to me real hard, like she drop. What he beat you for? she ast. For being me and not you.

I don’t want to wear this anymore,” I pleaded. “It’s a servant’s uniform.” “It’s a soilder’s uniform.

I am building a healthy support system and learning to use it readily.

Imagine the message that sent to my sister and me. A cousin violates us, confesses, and walks away with barely a slap on the wrist. I learned at a young age that if I was ever going to see justice for the wrongs done to me, I had to find it myself.

I am releasing my own demons of times gone by and seizing the opportunity to find my own corner, my own fortress, my own calm and peace. Life is not unfair... Life is good. In the end, you only have yourself to search for and find…

I'm here as a person who coped in a way that allowed me to be here today but made me vulnerable to abuse when I was a teenager and young adult...

Incest does not occur in a vacuum... Needless to say, incest is not a function of a healthy home. It is important to note that it is not known how much of the traumatic stress reaction or emotional disturbance is caused by the sexual act of incest and how much is caused by the unhealthy, emotionally deprived, neglect-filled home environment that fosters incestuous activity.

I see individuals whose lives have been so protected that they seem like pearls nestled in velvet jewelry cases. I cannot empathize.

It all I can do not to cry. I make myself wood I say to myself, Celie, you a tree. That's how I come to know trees fear man.

If all of human knowledge is like a library that we can borrow from or add to, then when men don't put these kinds of stories [(their abuse from others)] on the shelves, nobody can borrow them--we all miss out.

It was white. White and gold. It was livery. I told myself it meant nothing. It was just a color. But I was wrong. That color meant everything. It was a command to the Queen’s ladies that they shouldn’t greet me or acknowledge that I’d entered a room. It was an indelible line drawn between me and the other Grisha. It was a signal to the King that he could follow me into my chambers and press me up against the wall, that I was available for his use. That there was no point to crying out.

I was just thinking that I started off OK," Jo said. "There wasn't anything different or wrong with me when I was born. I wasn't inherently bad or freakish.

I lived through this horror, and no one can tell me I have to stay quiet. "I have been silenced long enough, and I will not allow that family to silence me again. I will continue to speak out and make sure my voice is heard.

I want to hold his hand, but I know he will shake it free. His eyes are too full of guilt to really see me, to see his reflection in my eyes, the reflection of my hero, the brother who tried always to protect me the best he could. He will never think that he did enough, and he will never understand that I do not think he should have done more.

She can’t move forward or backward. She is stuck in time. A constant.

It's like I'm carrying around this huge secret that I'm never supposed to tell. But since I don't remember just what I'm supposed to keep secret, I'm afraid I'll tell it by mistake.

I WILL NEVER LIVE LIKE THAT - A LIFE WONDERING WHEN AND WHERE THE NEXT FIST WILL FALL" l

Naw, I say. Mr ____, can tell you, I don't like it at all. What is it to like? He git up on you, heist your nightgown round your waist, plunge in. Most times I pretend I ain't there. He never know the difference. Never ast me how I feel, nothing. Just do his business, get off, go to sleep. She start to laugh. Do his business, she say. Do his business. Why, Miss Celie. You make it sound like he going to the toilet on you. That's what it feel like, I say. She stop laughing.

Never let your past define you.

Once, when I straighten up, I am beaten till I bleed. I no longer know where I am in the world.

She could do this. She was stronger now. This was her chance to prove it.

She's shocked any time her needs are accommodated in the slightest... she has been conditioned to put the needs of others above her own.

Steve's laugh was brittle. “Sarah, we all have our own wounds. We’re all broken in our own way. Mine might look different than yours, but they were deep enough to enlarge my heart.

Survivors often develop an exaggerated need for control in their adult relationships. It’s the only way they feel safe. They also struggle with commitment—saying yes in a relationship means being trapped in yet another family situation where abuse might take place. So the survivor panics as her relationship gets closer, certain that something terrible is going to happen. She pulls away, rejects, or tests her partner all the time.

So is that a yes,' the sheriff asked. Daniel held his breath. The lawsuit, the cost of bail, these were enough to push Clyde into the zone. The world stopped on Rita's next breath. A single assertion could end this mess--protective custody; the sheriff would shield Daniel from Clyde's wrath. 'No,' Rita said in a steady strong voice. 'My husband does not abuse us.' The lie kicked Daniel as hard as Clyde's boot.

Sounds of depression remembering rejection Hope turns to despair black roses everywhere Keep hearing echoes voices in my mind repeating endless lies evil in disguise

The bottom line was that I was in an abusive relationship.

While a psychiatric diagnosis can serve a purpose in treatment plans, it should not become a tool to discredit a person's disclosure of abuse.

When I deny the seriousness of my abuse I agree with my abuser and those who wouldn't acknowledge it. When I am in denial, I have the tendency to minimize my abuse, believe the lies others have said, as well as deny it ever happened. It is important for me to remember as much detail as I can so I can trust my own perceptions of what really happened and not depend on the validations from others.

There is so much that is still silent between Jaja and me. Perhaps we will talk more with time, or perhaps we never will be able to say it all, to clothe things in words, things that have long been naked.

This book is dedicated to those who have died as a result of mind control and/or ritual abuse, and those who have lived when they would rather have died.

Victims”, by definition, are those that have just experienced a trauma of some sort. They are going through an entire array of emotions and circumstances that are happening to them internally and/or externally. They are trying to wrap their mind around what just happened to them. They are trying to regain some sort of balance in their mind. They feel violated, cheated, confused, scared, insecure, ashamed, guilty, impotent and at a loss for words/actions/thoughts. Many times, they even feel numb and in shock. Their mind is in a state of crisis and chaos. They are in the “victim stage”. They are truly a “victim” by definition.

When I first started to remember specific memories of abuse, I felt like I had a storm cloud over me for about two or three days beforehand. When the memory finally surfaced, I felt like I was alone in a dark cave. I stayed in bed just thinking and crying and eating chocolate. I wrote in my healing journal and talked it out with a friend. I examined what I thought and how I felt and cried some more. It was agonizing. The more issues I faced, the stronger I got. It wasn’t a pleasant process, but I knew it would be over in a few days and I would feel alive again. With each memory, I recovered faster and I had longer and longer breaks in between them. Facing them made me stronger. I was able to see more and more of the truth without it overwhelming me. Even though the memories increased in intensity, it was easier to deal with them.

While my sister and I were reminded we did not cause this pain, it was knowing that because we broke our silence about what had been done to us, our parents were hurting. That knowledge was hard on us.

At times I am flabbergasted that my memory is considered false and my alcoholic father's memory is considered rational and sane. Am I not believed because I am a woman? If Peter Freyd were a man who lived in my neighborhood during my childhood instead of my father, would he and his wife be so believable? If not, what is it about his status as my father that makes him more credible?

Being in a state of denial is a universally human response to situations which threaten to overwhelm. People who were abused as children sometimes carry their denial like precious cargo without a port of destination. It enabled us to survive our childhood experiences, and often we still live in survival mode decades beyond the actual abuse. We protect ourselves to excess because we learned abruptly and painfully that no one else would.

Along with the trust issues, one of the hardest parts to deal with is the feeling of not being believed or supported, especially by your own grandparents and extended family. When I have been through so much pain and hurt and have to live with the scars every day, I get angry knowing that others think it is all made up or they brush it off because my cousin was a teenager. I was ten when I was first sexually abused by my cousin, and a majority of my relatives have taken the perpetrator's side. I have cried many times about everything and how my relatives gave no support or love to me as a kid when this all came out. Not one relative ever came up to that innocent little girl I was and said "I am sorry for what you went through" or "I am here for you." Instead they said hurtful things: "Oh he was young." "That is what kids do." "It is not like he was some older man you didn't know." Why does age make a difference? It is a sick way of thinking. Sexual abuse is sexual abuse. What is wrong with this picture? It brings tears to my eyes the way my relatives have reacted to this and cannot accept the truth. Denial is where they would rather stay.

Controlling my environment was still a compelling need for me. I did everything I could to not be surprised by anything... Looking back, I think that my need to predict how my day was going to unfold was a direct response to the amount of chaos in my childhood.