Healing Abuse Quotes

Why Is It So Important to Remember?

When you were abused, those around you acted as if it weren't happening. Since no one else acknowledged the abuse, you sometimes felt that it wasn't real. Because of this you felt confused. You couldn't trust your own experience and perceptions. Moreover, others' denial led you to suppress your memories, thus further obscuring the issue.

You can end your own denial by remembering. Allowing yourself to remember is a way of confirming in your own mind that you didn't just imagine it. Because the person who abused you did not acknowledge your pain, you may have also thought that perhaps it wasn't as bad as you felt it was. In order to acknowledge to yourself that it really was that bad, you need to remember as much detail as possible. Because by denying what happened to you, you are doing to yourself exactly what others have done to you in the past: You are negating and denying yourself. ~ Beverly Engel

Your heartbeat is so different from his," I whisper it; he has to ask me to repeat myself. I explain, "My father…his heartbeat was so fast. I could feel it, racing…it was like his heartbeat shook my whole body. Your heart…it's steady. It feels safe. It's calming me down." And so we stand, and I cry, and listen to his heart until I am calm again, and then we get back to cleaning. ~ Sana Lynn

One Decision Makes All the Difference ~ Kimesha Coleman

There is no one way to recover and heal from any trauma. Each survivor chooses their own path or stumbles across it. ~ Laurie Matthew

Healing isn't just about pain. It's about learning to love yourself. As you move from feeling like a victim to being a proud survivor, you will have glimmers of hope, pride and satisfaction. Those are natural by-products of healing. ~ Ellen Bass

As you recover, you will find yourself letting go of many of your negative beliefs. You will discover that many of the so-called truths you were raised with and forced to believe are not truths at all. With this perspective, you will come to see, for example, that the names you were called as a child are simply not true. You are not 'stupid,' 'lazy,' 'ugly,' or a 'liar'. You can discover just who you really are. You can let go of your pretenses and masks and discover who the real person is underneath. ~ Beverly Engel

At sixty one, I was at the top of my professional career, a wife, mother, and grandmother with many wonderful friends--and absolutely terrified....I was unaware of living as multiple identifies, but did spend my life running away from a 'me' I could neither understand nor tolerate....The first step to becoming one whole person happened to me the day in therapy when I became aware of the three adults who had been living in separate compartments in my brain. I saw them and they saw each other....A perfect three-point landing. ~ Janyne McConnaughey

Grieve out your betrayal, mourn over everything that went astray, this is an important beginning step towards your healing. ~ Patricia Dsouza

It is this honest connection behveen two human beings that, in the end, makes what we endured together understandable and meaningful. ~ Lynn I. Wilson

What victims need are not self-produced positive statements but God's statements about his response to their pain. How can you be rid of these dysfunctional emotions and their effects? How can you be rid of your disgrace? God's grace to you dismantles the beliefs that give disgrace life. Grace re-creates what violence destroyed. Martin Luther writes that "the love of God does not find, but creates, that which is pleasing to it." One-way love is the change agent you need. Grace transforms and heals; and healing comes by hearing God's statements to you, not speaking your own statements to yourself. ~ Justin S. Holcomb

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

your abuser tried to map your life for you. But he does not own you, and you have the freedom and the power to overcome and transcend the (negative) associations. You deserve to be happy, to be free of any feelings of shame or guilt or fear. You have the right to a completely satisfying sexual life. You are a righteous young woman. If you can get in touch with the feelings and consciously change the awful associations, you can re-map your life. ~ Patti Feuereisen

When healing from abuse, taking care of your physical body is wise:
* Get sunshine daily
* Exercise regularly
* Eat a healthy diet
* Get enough sleep
* Go to the doctor when needed. ~ Caroline Abbott

We can ill afford to wait until we have worked through all our memories & feelings about incest before learning to rest & play. While it may seem to be a natural impulse to get to the bottom of things & purge ourselves fully, we need to regularly examine the full picture of our lives for balance along the way…Learning to rest & play is an essential part of our healing. ~ Maureen Brady

If I were free, as a physician, to say what I pleased, I would tell every abused person I see that there is an entire world out there that is nothing like the one you're living. Go discover it. ~ C. Kennedy

If you were sexually abused & could not go to your family for support, you deserve to realize that your family failed you fundamentally. Your parents did not provide a safe atmosphere of support & protection for their children, which is a parent's first responsibility. It was not your fault. ~ Patti Feuereisen

He doesn't hurt us anymore."
Of course he doesn't hurt you anymore, I think. You're not defenseless anymore. ~ Melanie O'Shea

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

Whatever it is that you think you have discovered. You must forget it. ~ Diane Samuels

Davenport stood in the middle of it with her arms out from her sides, her fingers spread as the creek churned around her. She was crying now, long sobs that made her whole body shake.
I had always thought the world was good, that everyone could find the beauty in themselves. Everyone could honor, and forgive, and live a full and gorgeous life, even when the hands they'd been dealt weren't easy.
But what Davenport had been born into had taken so much from her, leaving her with just the wickedest and the worst. Her father had given her life, and then taken every scrap of joy or freedom, and even now that he was dead, all he had left her with was a deep, abiding hatred for what she was.
Her power was tremendous, working through her, but it had gone to rot, and without someone to help her and to love her, she did not know how to take it back.
"Yes," I said to the fiend, water spilling out of my mouth. "Yes - whatever she needs. Give her whatever she needs. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

Forgiveness doesn't make one person better, or the other guy smaller. Forgiving is just letting go. It's turning back toward being what we really are. ~ Edward Fahey

Uber drivers, summoned by phone, awaited them and drove them to the restaurant. This 'sleight of hand' was Father Jon's idea. Jennifer felt like an actress in a James Bond movie, but she appreciated the subterfuge. ~ Mark M. Bello

Smile. Smile until all that's left are the pieces of your broken heart that are slowly fixing itself. ~ Ammiel Josiah Osia Monterde

Protecting ourselves from loss rather than grieving and healing our losses is one of the major causes of burnout. Very few of the professionals I have treated for burnout actually came in saying that they were burned out. I don't think most of them knew. The most common thing I've been told is, 'There's something wrong with me. I don't care anymore. Terrible things happen in front of me and I feel nothing. ~ Rachel Naomi Remen

All freedoms provided by democracy are for those who believe in it. Can the rights and freedoms of millions of virtuous people who believe in democracy be safeguarded if those who seek to destroy it abuse rights and freedoms to achieve their goals? ~ Kenan Evren

Finally, the dirty little secret about sexual objectification is that it is an act that cannot be performed with any attention to its ethical meaning. Experientially - from the point of view of a man who is sexually objectifying - sexual objectification and ethical self awareness are mutually exclusive. A man cannot reflect on what he is doing and its real consequences for real people and at the same time fully accomplish the act of sexual objectifying. There's no way it can be done, because hos own subjective reality is too contingent upon the unreality of someone else. All that can be left "out there" in his field of awareness is the other person's sexedness - an abstract representation of a gender - in comparison with which his own sexedness may flourish and engorge. So it is that a man shuts off his capacity for ethical empathy - whatever capacity he may ever had - in order to commit an act of despersonalization that is "gratifying" essentially because it functions to fulfill his sense of an identity that is authentically male. ~ John Stoltenberg

Kyo: Of course, I'll beat YOU, too!
Yuki: Don't you ever get tired of saying that?
Kyo: Beating you is my vocation! It's my goal in life!
Yuki: It's so unfair that I keep having to take abuse just because you can't meet your goals.
Kyo: THAT CONDESCENDING ATTITUDE OF YOURS REALLY PISSES ME OFF!
Yuki: And that revolting thought process of yours pisses me off. ~ Natsuki Takaya

One's attitude towards oneself is the single most important factor in healing and staying well. ~ Bernie Siegel

Remember, Lucius, that everything you learn is already a part of you, even to the Godhead Itself. Study nothing except in the knowledge that you already knew it. Worship nothing except in adoration of your true self. And fear nothing"--there the Maestro stopped and shuddered, as though he had a presentiment--"fear nothing except in the certainty that you are your enemy's begetter and its only hope of healing. For everything that does evil is in pain. Will you remember those things? ~ Clive Barker

There is a view that jazz is 'evil' because it comes from evil people, but actually the greatest priests on 52nd Street and on the streets of New York City were the musicians. They were doing the greatest healing work. They knew how to punch through music that would cure and make people feel good. ~ Garth Hudson

So here is what I see when we reclaim the church ladies: a woman loved and free is beautiful. She is laughing with her sisters, and together they are telling their stories, revealing their scars and their wounds, the places where they don't have it figured out. They are nurturers, creating a haven where the young, the broken, the tenderhearted, and the at-risk can flourish. These women are dancing and worshiping, hands high, faces tipped toward heaven, tears streaming. They are celebrating all shapes and sizes, talking frankly and respectfully about sexuality and body image, promising to stop calling themselves fat. They are saving babies tossed in rubbish heaps, rescuing child soldiers, supporting mamas trying to make ends meet halfway around the world, thinking of justice when they buy their daily coffee. They are fighting sex trafficking. They are pastoring and counseling. They are choosing life consistently, building hope, doing the hard work of transformation in themselves. They are shaking off the silence of shame and throwing open the prison doors of physical and sexual abuse, addictions, eating disorders, and suicidal depression. Poverty and despair are being unlocked - these women know there are many hands helping turn that key. There isn't much complaining about husbands and chores, cattiness, or jealousy when a woman knows she is loved for her true self. She is lit up with something bigger than what the world offers, refusing to be intimidated into silence or despa ~ Sarah Bessey

The journey of the mind always has longer to travel than the heart because dreams carry weight, while love makes you float. ~ Shannon L. Alder

I will check the internet for at least an hour every morning scanning worldwide news to do with child abuse. So if you're constantly putting yourself in an environment where you're checking up on social economics or homelessness problems, if you keep yourself aware of it, you don't really have a day off. ~ Samantha Morton

During this hour in the waking streets I felt at ease, at peace; my body, which I despised, operated like a machine. I was spaced out, the catchphrase my friends at school used to describe their first experiments with marijuana and booze. This buzzword perfectly described a picture in my mind of me, Alice, hovering just below the ceiling like a balloon and looking down at my own small bed where a big man lay heavily on a little girl I couldn't quite see or recognize. It wasn't me. I was spaced out on the ceiling.
I had that same spacey feeling when I cooked for my father, which I still did, though less often. I made omelettes, of course. I cracked a couple of eggs into a bowl, and as I reached for the butter dish, I always had an odd sensation in my hands and arms. My fingers prickled; it didn't feel like me but someone else cutting off a great chunk of greasy butter and putting it into the pan.
I'd add a large amount of salt - I knew what it did to your blood pressure, and I mumbled curses as I whisked the brew. When I poured the slop into the hot butter and shuffled the frying pan over the burner, it didn't look like my hand holding the frying-pan handle and I am sure it was someone else's eyes that watched the eggs bubble and brown. As I dropped two slices of wholemeal bread in the toaster, I would observe myself as if from across the room and, with tingling hands gripping the spatula, folded the omelette so it looked like an apple envelope. My alien hands wo ~ Alice Jamieson

When I first became recognizable from appearing on television, I abused my notoriety as much as I possibly could, at the expense of both my health and personal relationships. ~ Steve-O

Creativity healed me. I don't know that I could think of any word that I get more inspired by than the word healing. ~ SARK

I've been collecting crystals for many, many years for healing purposes and decoration. I guess since my name is Crystal, I have no choice. ~ Crystal Renn

A few told snippets of her stories or described the healing touch of her hand, but none knew anything about the girl herself. How amazing, how humble, was this girl who broke herself into a million pieces and distributed them to anyone who had need. ~ Joanna Davidson Politano

With every book I write, I give the Hera Leick Promise. I will never weave into my stories: cheating; sex outside the main characters; sexual abuse; cliffhangars; years of separation; man whores; and lastly my worst pet peeve, insta-love. If one sneaks in, I give you permission to shoot me. Please make note, however, guns are not legal in England. Neither is murder. I hope. ~ Hera Leick

What they wanted to establish was a system of "People's Law," where the government is kept under the control of the people and political power is maintained at the balanced center with enough government to maintain security, justice, and good order, but not enough government to abuse the people. The ~ W. Cleon Skousen

A true Master is not a man, or in some cases a woman, that likes to fuck hard or control. People like that are asses. It's also illegal and called abuse. A proper Dom is a person that, no matter what will be there for you. Not just sexually, but emotionally and physically. He's not a sub's abuser, but her ultimate comforter. Likewise, with a sub, she has an inner need to please her Master. No matter where they are or what they are doing, the simple tone of his voice makes her body alert and willing to obey his every wish. ~ Tiffany Danielle

His blood poured out on the cross was to bring about your healing. Every bruise inflicted upon his body was tolerated because of His overwhelming love for you. He knew every sin you'd commit, yet He still chose to bear your punishment. ~ Tessa Emily Hall

Understanding why we are afraid to grieve is a prelude to transforming our lives. Getting in touch with our deepest fears and airing them in a safe space can be incredibly liberating. ~ Christopher Dines

I was right outside the NSA [on 9/11], so I remember the tension on that day. I remember hearing on the radio, 'the plane's hitting,' and I remember thinking my grandfather, who worked for the FBI at the time, was in the Pentagon when the plane hit it ... I take the threat of terrorism seriously, and I think we all do. And I think it's really disingenuous for the government to invoke and sort-of scandalize our memories to sort-of exploit the national trauma that we all suffered together and worked so hard to come through
and to justify programs that have never been shown to keep us safe, but cost us liberties and freedoms that we don't need to give up, and that our Constitution says we should not give up. ~ Edward Snowden

I have often heard the advice, "When you're feeling bad, go out into the night and look at the stars." Why it is so healing is a mystery, but it has something to do with remembering my actual position in it all. At a deeper level, knowing that we are made of the same elements grounds me; sensing that the same process forms us from those elements moves me to my core. ~ Katherine Robertson-Pilling

She shrugs. She knows a confrontation is coming now, and she can do nothing to stop it. It's moving towards her already from every direction, and there's no special move she can make, no evasive gesture, that can help her escape it. ~ Sally Rooney

A man in chains need not be a slave. If he has pride and self-respect he is a free man though a prisoner, and a constant danger to his jailers. Conversely, a slave who escapes is not a free man, but a runaway slave who may be caught and returned to servitude. A slave is one who accepts the identity ascribed to him by a master: You are an inferior and unworthy person and so will remain, and therefore must serve me with obedience and humility. ~ Allen Wheelis

Time may restore us in his course Goethe's sage mind and Byron's force: But where will Europe's latter hour Again find Wordsworth's healing power? ~ Matthew Arnold

She looked into his eyes, hoping he could give her something to hang on to. His response saddened her.
"No. I wish I could give you a better answer, but I don't have it all planned out. I just try to be best I can today. Things like being happy, having a good time, have different definitions for me than they used to. Before you start trying to have a good time or figure out where you're going, first find out who you are. If you don't like yourself, that's the starting point, not the end point. ~ E. M. Youman

Unlike television, nature does not steal time; it amplifies it. Nature offers healing for a child living in a destructive family or neighborhood. ~ Richard Louv

The physical world, including our bodies, is a response of the observer. We create our bodies as we create the experience of our world. ~ Deepak Chopra

We continue to see undeniable evidence that abuse and torture has been widespread and systematic, yet high-level government officials have not been held accountable for creating the policies that led to these atrocities. ~ Anthony Romero

Are you going to hand your children over to Big Food, Big Med and Big Pharma? That journey begins with the choice to bottle feed, then it's all down hill from there. ~ Nancy S. Mure

Civic charity is easy to talk about but tremendously difficult to practice - mainly because a lot of people don't reciprocate. Some people will be rude and obnoxious and will laugh at us when we try to engage with them charitably. They will see our generosity as a sign of weakness and take advantage of our good nature to abuse us further. We will forgive them the requisite seventy times seven times, and they will keep on offending us. Charity always works this way, both the civic kind and the 'love-other-people-like-God-loves-you' kind.

We need not think, however, that we are shirking our duties or abandoning our causes when we decline to angrily denounce those on the other side or to treat them like subhuman imbeciles. Charitable engagement does not always change people's hearts and minds, but the number of times it has done so is not zero - which gives charity a better track record than anger, contempt, and derision. Ultimately, though, mature and thoughtful people do not allow the way other people treat them to determine how they treat other people; when we do this, we surrender an enormous amount of power to people who do not wish us well. ~ Michael Austin

The wound is the place where the Light enters you. ~ Rumi

Love and mercy heals;where nothing works, love does.. ~ Henrietta Newton Martin

Something has fallen asleep there, that's all, but it's warm, and it's hers, it's the pain imprinted on her, and his healing powers rise up. It's her with everything she now is. ~ David Grossman

Because who you were is just the stories you tell yourself about yourself, and the intersection of all the hurts you've ever had and how you survived them. ~ Alexandra Rowland

And no matter what anybody says about grief and about time healing all wounds, the truth is, there are certain sorrows that never fade away until the heart stops beating and the last breath is taken. ~ Tiffanie DeBartolo

As survivors, we've been conditioned to be victims sexually. Many of us have never learned to say no or to set limits on our sexual activities ... To heal, it's important that we take control, that we make active choices concerning if, when, and how we want to explore sexuality. Especially in the beginning, you need to put your own needs about sex ahead of anyone else's. ~ Ellen Bass

I wanted to write something from a child's viewpoint ... Five of the characters I have played in movies have either been abused or became abusers, themselves, and I just kind of felt like there was a need. ~ Meg Tilly

Healing is simply attempting to do more of those things that bring joy and fewer of those things that bring pain ~ O. Carl Simonton

During an abusive episode, pets often react by shivering or shaking, cowering, hiding, or urinating - similar physical manifestations of stress that are displayed by humans. Therefore, it is important to understand that both women and animals are victimized by the abuse of the other. A man's violence toward an animal also hurts his partner (and children), just as his violence toward her also hurts the animal. ~ Clif Flynn