child-sexual-abuse

Link	Quote	Tags	Author
f0dfa86	To hold traumatic reality in consciousness requires a social context that affirms and protects the victim and that joins the victim and witness in a common alliance. For the individual victim, this social context is created by relationships with friends, lovers, and family. For the larger society, the social context is created by political movements that give voice to the disempowered.	abuse-survivors child-sexual-abuse perpetrator ptsd sexual-abuse society-denial survivors trauma victim witness	Judith Lewis Herman
92be70d	Power is confusing for us, perhaps even terrifying, because our relationship with it had an unfortunate beginning. Someone in a position of power over us used and abused us...It seems as if power were something to be wielded, always at someone's expense, usually our own.	abuse-of-authority abuse-of-power abuse-of-trust abuse-survivors abusive-parenting child-abuse child-sexual-abuse child-sexual-abuse-survivor healing misuse-of-power parental-authority power powerless powerlessness survivor survivor-of-abuse	Maureen Brady
ec52b84	When we are ready to let go of our old controls, we admit that we were powerless over the incest or abuse...We have often thought, 'If only I could have stopped it,' but we could not have stopped it. We let go of the 'if only' now and sit still with our stark powerlessness...In our surrender to powerlessness, we touch ourselves with the gift of truth.	abuse-recovery abuse-survivors child-abuse child-sexual-abuse child-sexual-abuse-survivor healing if-only incest letting-go powerless powerlessness survivor survivor-of-abuse survivors-of-abuse truth	Maureen Brady
ead270a	"Our need to be "greater than" or "less than" has been a defense against toxic shame. A shameful act was committed upon us. The perpetrator walked away, leaving us with the shame. We absorbed the notion that we are somehow defective. To cover for this we constructed a false self, a masked self. And it is this self that is the overachiever or the dunce, the tramp or the puritan, the powermonger or the pathetic loser."	ashamed child-sexual-abuse child-sexual-abuse-survivor coverup defective defective-humans dunce false-self feeling-bad healing healing-insights hidden-feelings hidden-pain hidden-self incest loser overachiever power-trip puritan recovery-from-abuse shame survivor toxic-shame true-self	Maureen Brady
bc01c37	"To take a specific example, a researcher in the Journal of Traumatic Stress interviewed 129 women with documented histories of child sexual abuse that occurred between the ages of 10 months and 12 years. Of those, 38 percent had forgotten the abuse. Of the remaining women who remembered, 16 percent reported that they had for a period of time forgotten but subsequently recovered their memories. [46] Thus, during that time a "false negative" recorded for those women. These are the sort of distinctions for which Elaine Showalter in Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Media fails to account."	child-sexual-abuse elaine-showalter epidemics false-memories false-negatives feminists hysterical hysterics incest incestuous misleading pseudo-science pseudoscience recovered-memory repressed-memories repressed-memory sexual-abuse survivors trauma traumatic-stress women-survivors	Janet Walker
ae23b74	When shame is met with compassion and not received as confirmation of our guilt, we can begin to see how slant a lens it has had us looking through. That awareness lets us step back far enough to see that if we can let it go, we will see ourselves as clean where we once thought we were dirty. We will remember our innocence. We will see how our shame supported a system in which the perpetrators were protected and we bore the brunt of their offense -- first in its actuality, then again in carrying their shame for it. If the method we chose to try to beat out shame was perfectionism, we can relax now, shake the burden off our shoulders, and give ourselves a chance to loosen up and make some errors. Hallelujah! Our freedom will not come from tireless effort and getting it all exactly right.	abuser abusers burdens-of-the-past child-rape child-sexual-abuse false-guilt freedom guilt healing healing-from-abuse healing-insights imperfect incest innocence innocence-lost offense peptrator perfectionism perfectly-imperfect perpetrators recovery recovery-from-abuse sexual-abuse shame survivors	Maureen Brady
fcbbbbd	"It was after a Frontline television documentary screened in the US in 1995 that the Freyds' public profile as aggrieved parents provoked another rupture within the Freyd family, when William Freyd made public his own discomfort. 'Peter Freyd is my brother, Pamela Freyd is both my stepsister and sister-in-law,' he explained. Peter and Pamela had grown up together as step-siblings. 'There is no doubt in my mind that there was severe abuse in the home of Peter and Pam, while they were raising their daughters,' he wrote. He challenged Peter Freyd's claims that he had been misunderstood, that he merely had a 'ribald' sense of humour. 'Those of us who had to endure it, remember it as abusive at best and viciously sadistic at worst.' He added that, in his view, 'The False memory Syndrome Foundation is designed to deny a reality that Peter and Pam have spent most of their lives trying to escape.' He felt that there is no such thing as a false memory syndrome.' Criticising the media for its uncritical embrace of the Freyds' campaign, he cautioned:	bias biased child-abuse child-rape child-sexual-abuse denial deny enabling-abuse fabrication false-memory false-memory-syndrome-foundation flawed fmsf freyd incest influence jennifer-freyd lies media objective paedophile pamela-freyd pedophile peter-freyd protecting-pedophiles psychology reality sadistic sex-abuse siblings story surprise truth underwager	Judith Jones Beatrix Campbell
9563645	The bridge out of shame is outrage. Suddenly the obvious becomes stunningly clear--we have been carrying shame for the crime of the offender...In a clear flash we may see ourselves standing in a fierce stance, grounded by our knowledge, ready to throw off any wrongdoer. Our outrage can be a fueling energy, capable of making us as steely as we need to be.	child-rape child-sexual-abuse crime healing healing-from-abuse healing-insights incest outrage rage rape recovery recovery-from-abuse shame	Maureen Brady
eb1894c	I look upon the gift of my life as a wondrous journey.	child-sexual-abuse healing-old-fears innocence integration psyche soul-journey survivor wondrous-journey	Maureen Brady

f0dfa86

To hold traumatic reality in consciousness requires a social context that affirms and protects the victim and that joins the victim and witness in a common alliance. For the individual victim, this social context is created by relationships with friends, lovers, and family. For the larger society, the social context is created by political movements that give voice to the disempowered.

abuse-survivors child-sexual-abuse perpetrator ptsd sexual-abuse society-denial survivors trauma victim witness

Judith Lewis Herman

92be70d

Power is confusing for us, perhaps even terrifying, because our relationship with it had an unfortunate beginning. Someone in a position of power over us used and abused us...It seems as if power were something to be wielded, always at someone's expense, usually our own.

abuse-of-authority abuse-of-power abuse-of-trust abuse-survivors abusive-parenting child-abuse child-sexual-abuse child-sexual-abuse-survivor healing misuse-of-power parental-authority power powerless powerlessness survivor survivor-of-abuse

Maureen Brady

ec52b84

When we are ready to let go of our old controls, we admit that we were powerless over the incest or abuse...We have often thought, 'If only I could have stopped it,' but we could not have stopped it. We let go of the 'if only' now and sit still with our stark powerlessness...In our surrender to powerlessness, we touch ourselves with the gift of truth.

abuse-recovery abuse-survivors child-abuse child-sexual-abuse child-sexual-abuse-survivor healing if-only incest letting-go powerless powerlessness survivor survivor-of-abuse survivors-of-abuse truth

Maureen Brady

ead270a

"Our need to be "greater than" or "less than" has been a defense against toxic shame. A shameful act was committed upon us. The perpetrator walked away, leaving us with the shame. We absorbed the notion that we are somehow defective. To cover for this we constructed a false self, a masked self. And it is this self that is the overachiever or the dunce, the tramp or the puritan, the powermonger or the pathetic loser."

ashamed child-sexual-abuse child-sexual-abuse-survivor coverup defective defective-humans dunce false-self feeling-bad healing healing-insights hidden-feelings hidden-pain hidden-self incest loser overachiever power-trip puritan recovery-from-abuse shame survivor toxic-shame true-self

Maureen Brady

bc01c37

"To take a specific example, a researcher in the Journal of Traumatic Stress interviewed 129 women with documented histories of child sexual abuse that occurred between the ages of 10 months and 12 years. Of those, 38 percent had forgotten the abuse. Of the remaining women who remembered, 16 percent reported that they had for a period of time forgotten but subsequently recovered their memories. [46] Thus, during that time a "false negative" recorded for those women. These are the sort of distinctions for which Elaine Showalter in Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Media fails to account."

child-sexual-abuse elaine-showalter epidemics false-memories false-negatives feminists hysterical hysterics incest incestuous misleading pseudo-science pseudoscience recovered-memory repressed-memories repressed-memory sexual-abuse survivors trauma traumatic-stress women-survivors

Janet Walker

ae23b74

When shame is met with compassion and not received as confirmation of our guilt, we can begin to see how slant a lens it has had us looking through. That awareness lets us step back far enough to see that if we can let it go, we will see ourselves as clean where we once thought we were dirty. We will remember our innocence. We will see how our shame supported a system in which the perpetrators were protected and we bore the brunt of their offense -- first in its actuality, then again in carrying their shame for it. If the method we chose to try to beat out shame was perfectionism, we can relax now, shake the burden off our shoulders, and give ourselves a chance to loosen up and make some errors. Hallelujah! Our freedom will not come from tireless effort and getting it all exactly right.

abuser abusers burdens-of-the-past child-rape child-sexual-abuse false-guilt freedom guilt healing healing-from-abuse healing-insights imperfect incest innocence innocence-lost offense peptrator perfectionism perfectly-imperfect perpetrators recovery recovery-from-abuse sexual-abuse shame survivors

Maureen Brady

fcbbbbd

"It was after a Frontline television documentary screened in the US in 1995 that the Freyds' public profile as aggrieved parents provoked another rupture within the Freyd family, when William Freyd made public his own discomfort. 'Peter Freyd is my brother, Pamela Freyd is both my stepsister and sister-in-law,' he explained. Peter and Pamela had grown up together as step-siblings. 'There is no doubt in my mind that there was severe abuse in the home of Peter and Pam, while they were raising their daughters,' he wrote. He challenged Peter Freyd's claims that he had been misunderstood, that he merely had a 'ribald' sense of humour. 'Those of us who had to endure it, remember it as abusive at best and viciously sadistic at worst.' He added that, in his view, 'The False memory Syndrome Foundation is designed to deny a reality that Peter and Pam have spent most of their lives trying to escape.' He felt that there is no such thing as a false memory syndrome.' Criticising the media for its uncritical embrace of the Freyds' campaign, he cautioned:

bias biased child-abuse child-rape child-sexual-abuse denial deny enabling-abuse fabrication false-memory false-memory-syndrome-foundation flawed fmsf freyd incest influence jennifer-freyd lies media objective paedophile pamela-freyd pedophile peter-freyd protecting-pedophiles psychology reality sadistic sex-abuse siblings story surprise truth underwager

Judith Jones Beatrix Campbell

9563645

The bridge out of shame is outrage. Suddenly the obvious becomes stunningly clear--we have been carrying shame for the crime of the offender...In a clear flash we may see ourselves standing in a fierce stance, grounded by our knowledge, ready to throw off any wrongdoer. Our outrage can be a fueling energy, capable of making us as steely as we need to be.

child-rape child-sexual-abuse crime healing healing-from-abuse healing-insights incest outrage rage rape recovery recovery-from-abuse shame

Maureen Brady

eb1894c

I look upon the gift of my life as a wondrous journey.

child-sexual-abuse healing-old-fears innocence integration psyche soul-journey survivor wondrous-journey

Maureen Brady