“ Because we were treated neglectfully and abusively in our young years—when we most needed self-love to be mirrored—it was difficult to hold onto…We take up the challenge of learning to love ourselves,… Maureen Brady
“ The capacity for dissociation enables the young child to exercise their innate life-sustaining need for attachment in spite of the fact that principal attachment figures are also principal abusers. Warwick Middleton
“ All people cross the line from childhood to adulthood with a secondhand opinion of who they are. Without any questioning, we take as truth whatever our parents and other influentials have said about u… Heyward Bruce Ewart III
“ Denial is our very real, personal response to our own trauma. But denial is the normative response to trauma—by everyone. Society may deny that anything bad ever happened to us. It may deny that DID e… Carolyn Spring
“ The experience of chronic abuse carries within it the gross mislabeling of things. Perpetrators are really "nice daddies." Victims are "evil and seductive" (at the age of three!). Nonprotecting parent… Diane Mandt Langberg
“ Attitudes and ignorance” about (any type of) abuse can be passed down through the generations. It is important to our healing that we sort out the belief systems we adopt; belief systems that were tau… Darlene Ouimet
“ As a child you received messages from your family to keep your mouth shut and remain invisible. You also learned to become invisible in order to protect yourself. You no longer need to be invisible to… Beverly Engel
“ Because children take everything personally, they believe that if they are being mistreated, it's because they haven't been “good enough.” Being good as an adult makes them believe, incorrectly, that… Marcia Sirota
“ The fear of abandonment forced me to comply as a child, but I’m not forced to comply anymore. The key people in my life did reject me for telling the truth about my abuse, but I’m not alone. Even if t… Christina Enevoldsen
“ One must consider that small children are virtually incapable of making much impact on their world. No matter what path taken as achild, survivors grow up believing they should have done something dif… Sarah E. Olson
“ Eighty two percent of the traumatized children seen in the National Child Traumatic Stress Network do not meet diagnostic criteria for PTSD.15 Because they often are shut down, suspicious, or aggressi… Bessel A. van der Kolk
“ We must know something about malevolence, about how to recognize it, and about how not to make excuses for it. We must know that we cannot expect fair play.That is, perhaps, most crucial of all. Those… Anna C. Salter
“ The witch-hunt narrative is a really popular story that goes like this: Lots of people were falsely convicted of child sexual abuse in the 1980s and early 1990s. And they were all victims of a witch-h… Ross Cheit
“ As you heal, you see yourself more realistically. You accept that you are a person with strengths and weaknesses. You make the changes you can in your life and let go of the things that aren’t in your… Ellen Bass
“ As you recover, you will feel more conscious of your surroundings. Freed from the ‘fog’ of your pain, fear, and confusion, you will awaken and see the world revealed as never before. You will begin to… Beverly Engel
“ 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… Ellen Bass
“ Anyone who shames survivors of trauma and abuse for not healing, is a person who has no compassion for life's suffering Alice Little
“ When faced with choosing between attributing their pain to “being crazy” and having had abusive parents, clients will choose “crazy” most of the time. Dora, a 38-year-old, was profoundly abused by mul… Lisa Ferentz
