Child Abuse Survivor Quotes

“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 the consequence for telling the truth is rejection from everyone I know, that’s not the same death threat that it was when I was a child. I’m a self-sufficient adult and abandonment no longer means the end of my life.”
― Christina Enevoldsen, The Rescued Soul: The Writing Journey for the Healing of Incest and Family Betrayal

“Bullshit," Salander said again. "Gottfried isn't the only kid who was ever mistreated. That doesn't give him the right to murder women. He made that choice himself. And the same is true of Martin.”
― Stieg Larsson, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

“Hypercritical, Shaming Parents
Hypercritical and shaming parents send the same message to their children as perfectionistic parents do - that they are never good enough. Parents often deliberately shame their children into minding them without realizing the disruptive impact shame can have on a child's sense of self. Statements such as "You should be ashamed of yourself" or "Shame on you" are obvious examples. Yet these types of overtly shaming statements are actually easier for the child to defend against than are more subtle forms of shaming, such as contempt, humiliation, and public shaming.
There are many ways that parents shame their children. These include belittling, blaming, contempt, humiliation, and disabling expectations.
-BELITTLING. Comments such as "You're too old to want to be held" or "You're just a cry-baby" are horribly humiliating to a child. When a parent makes a negative comparison between his or her child and another, such as "Why can't you act like Jenny? See how she sits quietly while her mother is talking," it is not only humiliating but teaches a child to always compare himself or herself with peers and find himself or herself deficient by comparison.
-BLAMING. When a child makes a mistake, such as breaking a vase while rough-housing, he or she needs to take responsibility. But many parents go way beyond teaching a lesson by blaming and berating the child: "You stupid idiot! Do you think money grows on trees? I don't have money to buy new vases!" The only thing this accomplishes is shaming the child to such an extent that he or she cannot find a way to walk away from the situation with his or her head held high.
-CONTEMPT. Expressions of disgust or contempt communicate absolute rejection. The look of contempt (often a sneer or a raised upper lip), especially from someone who is significant to a child, can make him or her feel disgusting or offensive. When I was a child, my mother had an extremely negative attitude toward me. Much of the time she either looked at me with the kind of expectant expression that said, "What are you up to now?" or with a look of disapproval or disgust over what I had already done. These looks were extremely shaming to me, causing me to feel that there was something terribly wrong with me.
-HUMILIATION. There are many ways a parent can humiliate a child, such as making him or her wear clothes that have become dirty. But as Gershen Kaufman stated in his book Shame: The Power of Caring, "There is no more humiliating experience than to have another person who is clearly the stronger and more powerful take advantage of that power and give us a beating." I can personally attest to this. In addition to shaming me with her contemptuous looks, my mother often punished me by hitting me with the branch of a tree, and she often did this outside, in front of the neighbors. The humiliation I felt was like a deep wound to my soul.
-DISABLING EXPECTATIONS. Parents who have an inordinate need to have their child excel at a particular activity or skill are likely to behave in ways that pressure the child to do more and more. According to Kaufman, when a child becomes aware of the real possibility of failing to meet parental expectations, he or she often experiences a binding self-consciousness. This self-consciousness - the painful watching of oneself - is very disabling. When something is expected of us in this way, attaining the goal is made harder, if not impossible.
Yet another way that parents induce shame in their children is by communicating to them that they are a disappointment to them. Such messages as "I can't believe you could do such a thing" or "I am deeply disappointed in you" accompanied by a disapproving tone of voice and facial expression can crush a child's spirit.”
― Beverly Engel, The Nice Girl Syndrome: Stop Being Manipulated and Abused -- And Start Standing Up for Yourself

“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.”
― Olga Trujillo, The Sum of My Parts: A Survivor's Story of Dissociative Identity Disorder

“My mother emotionally, physically and mentally abused me in ways that will forever impact me. She gave me breast and vaginal exams until I was seventeen years old. These "exams" made my body stiff with discomfort. I felt violated, yet I had no voice, no ability to express that.”
― Jennette McCurdy, I'm Glad My Mom Died

“I was so moved that she remembered my birthday that I cried harder than I had in years. When I returned her call, she told me her computer was broken and she couldn't afford to replace it. My heart fell. As I had done so many times before, I went to her rescue. Still on the phone, I went online and bought her a new laptop, top-of-the-line. That was what she had really called for, She thanked me and hung up. I went to Casey, sobbing. Soon afterward, I closed the bank account and asked my mom to not ask me for any more gifts or money. Now my relationship with my mom is very limited, and it's still very painful for me. She continues to occasionally send me bills she can't pay. I respond by telling her that I love her but I cannot pay her bills.”
― Olga Trujillo, The Sum of My Parts: A Survivor's Story of Dissociative Identity Disorder

“Recovering from family scapegoating requires recognizing that being the ‘identified patient’ is symptomatic of generations of systemic dysfunction within one’s family, fueled by unrecognized anxiety and even trauma. In a certain sense, members of a dysfunctional family are participating in a ‘consensual trance‘, i.e., a ‘survival trance’ supported by false narratives, toxic shame, anxiety, and egoic defense mechanisms, such as denial and projection.”
― Rebecca C. Mandeville, Rejected, Shamed, and Blamed: Understanding Family Scapegoating Abuse

“The confusion, that one so young - me it seems, because I remember - should be so damaged, that no one looked out for me or cared. And even now, I grin and mock myself out of fear. But I hold the truth aloft, a golden torch, sacred, because no one else dares to.”
― Billy Childish, My Fault

“What happens when you hit your daughter.

First, she will bond to you out of fear, mistakenly thinking she has done something wrong, and if she can just manage to not do it again or somehow please you, you might not hit her or anyone else anymore. She will even think you will love her properly if she can earn your approval. She won't realize this is impossible. Then she will either do that with every man she comes within 100 feet of for the rest of her life or until she learns not to - this will take much doing - or she will despise them with such vehemence that she can barely stomach one around. Sometimes she will do a combination of both of those things, working herself into a pattern of push and pull - I love you, I hate you, I need you, I don't need anyone - that will drive her a little crazy. She won't understand at first, if ever, why she only attracts other masochists.

Whatever numbing agent she's picked for herself - she will probably try drugs, drink too much alcohol, starve herself or binge and purge, maybe cut herself, act out sexually - in fact, she may do all of those things - that continues to help kill her spirit and dulls her enough to keep her participating in living like a maniac will be consumed to varying degrees depending on need.

She will be more likely to commit suicide than if you hadn't abused her.

She will give herself away and will mistake admiration and infatuation and sometimes even abuse for love.”
― Allison Moorer, Blood: A Memoir

“I wanted to go to a few therapy sessions and be back to normal. As I saw it, the panic attacks were the problem. What I really wanted was to stop having them. I genuinely thought I could do that. I didn't want to think about the past.”
― Olga Trujillo, The Sum of My Parts: A Survivor's Story of Dissociative Identity Disorder

“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

“We don’t widely accept the idea that bad things happen for uncontrollable reasons because of fear. How could that be? If that is true, we can’t make sense of it with our cognitive brains. And that is scary. If that is true, there is no way for us to control those things while in human form. And that is scary. So we search for meaning, a less scary understanding. And we usually end up assuming the victim is to blame.”
― Elisabeth Corey

“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."
That's right, Jo," Lynn said.
"Other people—my mother and father—did things to me that made me feel all wrong about myself," Jo said, another warm wave of new, sure knowledge washing over her.”
― Joan Frances Casey, The Flock: The Autobiography of a Multiple Personality

“I finally had the courage to start talking about how I developed dissociation as a coping mechanism as a child and carried that through my life, I talked about being trained to initiate and accommodate abuse and about how these coping mechanisms carried over for me as a teenager and young adult.”
― Olga Trujillo, The Sum of My Parts: A Survivor's Story of Dissociative Identity Disorder

“My childhood ended around the time of my ninth birthday, shamed into sex, obedience and fear.”
― Billy Childish, My Fault

“I was conditioned to believe any boundary I had was a betrayal of her, so I stayed silent, cooperative.”
― Jennette McCurdy

“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.”
― Joan Frances Casey, The Flock: The Autobiography of a Multiple Personality

“Our scars make us who we are: let's wear them proudly and throw this shame aside because it was never ours to bear'

"Tell me you're sorry, Daddy" (P:187)”
― caryn walker, Tell Me You're Sorry, Daddy

“I’ll never ask you to pity him,’ she said. ‘Only to understand him.’
We sat as we often did, in deadlock, each of us waiting for the other person to speak.
‘I ask you,’ she said, ‘because I think that it might help you.”
― Abigail Dean, Girl A

“Sometimes a stare comes from too much anxiety or stress. Your system can become overwhelmed." I didn't know it then. but parts inside were scared because he was looking at us so closely. He's getting too close. He's going to find out about us. I didn't make the effort to try to catch any of these thoughts.”
― Olga Trujillo, The Sum of My Parts: A Survivor's Story of Dissociative Identity Disorder

“dissociating put me at higher risk for attacks in my neighborhood and at school, making me more easily identified by sexual predators”
― Olga Trujillo, The Sum of My Parts: A Survivor's Story of Dissociative Identity Disorder

“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...”
― Olga Trujillo, The Sum of My Parts: A Survivor's Story of Dissociative Identity Disorder

“I've been working with alcoholics since I was 10 minutes old. Nurse says Here's your Mom, kid. Good luck.”
― John A. Macdougall

“When my men touched you, it gave me the power to see you such susceptible. It made me forget myself. It separated you from me, from the shame of having you. From the unbreakable cycle of repetition.”
― Neda Aria, Rythm of Missing Pieces

“Those who persecute others are warding off knowledge of their own fate as victims.”
― Alice Miller

“Sense such humiliation, combined with prohibiting a child's verbal expression, is a constant and universally encountered factor in child-rearing, the influence of this factor in the child's later development is easily overlooked.”
― Alice Miller, For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence

“To know why the hammer is swung does not remove the pain of its impact."- a reviewer's comment on the abuse described by Christina Crawford in her book, Mommie Dearest when it came out.”
― Book of Times

“I can no longer deny that bad things happened to me. I can’t be absolutely sure what happened to me, or who did them to me: I can’t ‘prove’ that 100%. But I have enough evidence to be able to state unequivocally that a lot of bad things happened to me from a very young age for a very long time.”
― Carolyn Spring

“Religion is for people that don’t want to go to hell spirituality is for people that have already been there.”
― Patrick Harrington, Recreating Patrick: An Inside Job