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22f78a9 "Remember that you own what happened to you. If your childhood was less than ideal, you may have been raised thinking that if you told the truth about what really went on in your family, a long bony white finger would emerge from a cloud and point to you, while a chilling voice thundered, "We *told* you not to tell." But that was then. Just put down on paper everything you can remember now about your parents and siblings and relatives and neighbors, and we will deal with libel later on." memories writing advice getting-started memoir remembering childhood incest memory Anne Lamott
f1f36fb She couldn't get any farther away inside from her skin. She couldn't get away. rape skin girl teen incest Cynthia Voigt
81b9cc8 She looked at her hand: Just some hand, holding a cheap pen. Some girls' hand. She had nothing to do with that hand. Let that hand do whatever it wanted to. rape freedom writing pen girl teen incest Cynthia Voigt
8c10915 And thank you for saying all of that, and for loving me, for you haven't gone unloved, or unadmired, yourself. love admired unadmired unloved loving thankfulness incest V.C. Andrews
aac8a24 I had a bizarre rapport with this mirror and spent a lot of time gazing into the glass to see who was there. Sometimes it looked like me. At other times, I could see someone similar but different in the reflection. A few times, I caught the switch in mid-stare, my expression re-forming like melting rubber, the creases and features of my face softening or hardening until the mutation was complete. Jekyll to Hyde, or Hyde to Jekyll. I felt my inner core change at the same time. I would feel more confident or less confident; mature or childlike; freezing cold or sticky hot, a state that would drive Mum mad as I escaped to the bathroom where I would remain for two hours scrubbing my skin until it was raw. The change was triggered by different emotions: on hearing a particular piece of music; the sight of my father, the smell of his brand of aftershave. I would pick up a book with the certainty that I had not read it before and hear the words as I read them like an echo inside my head. Like Alice in the Lewis Carroll story, I slipped into the depths of the looking glass and couldn't be sure if it was me standing there or an impostor, a lookalike. I felt fully awake most of the time, but sometimes while I was awake it felt as if I were dreaming. In this dream state I didn't feel like me, the real me. I felt numb. My fingers prickled. My eyes in the mirror's reflection were glazed like the eyes of a mannequin in a shop window, my colour, my shape, but without light or focus. These changes were described by Dr Purvis as mood swings and by Mother as floods, but I knew better. All teenagers are moody when it suits them. My Switches could take place when I was alone, transforming me from a bright sixteen-year-old doing her homework into a sobbing child curled on the bed staring at the wall. The weeping fit would pass and I would drag myself back to the mirror expecting to see a child version of myself. 'Who are you?' I'd ask. I could hear the words; it sounded like me but it wasn't me. I'd watch my lips moving and say it again, 'Who are you? emotion identity change amnesia dissociated-state emotionals identity-alternation identity-switch lookalike personality-switch trigger triggered impostor identity-confusion dissociative split-personality identity-crisis unreal survivor unreality dream-like dissociation dreaming child mirror memory-loss incest sexual-abuse dissociative-identity-disorder multiple-personality-disorder trauma mental-health Alice Jamieson
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-survivors letting-go truth survivor-of-abuse survivors-of-abuse child-sexual-abuse-survivor if-only child-abuse survivor healing abuse-recovery powerlessness powerless child-sexual-abuse incest 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 coverup defective defective-humans false-self feeling-bad hidden-feelings hidden-pain hidden-self overachiever power-trip toxic-shame child-sexual-abuse-survivor recovery-from-abuse dunce loser healing-insights survivor puritan healing true-self shame child-sexual-abuse incest Maureen Brady
41757b3 "All right, Chris, you've given me a breather. I'm prepared for anything. And thank you for saying all of that, and for loving me, for you haven't gone unloved, or unadmired, yourself." I kissed him quickly on the lips, and told him to go on, to hit me with his knockout blow. "Really, Chris, I know you must have something perfectly awful to tell me-so out with it. Keep holding me as you tell me, and I can stand anything you have to say." kissing kiss love awful breather stand stand-anything unadmired unloved loving thanks prepared telling-the-truth kisses incest V.C. Andrews
382a54d I had heard the wind from the mountains calling me last night, telling me it was my time to go, and I woke up, knowing what to do. loss hearbreak heartache incest V.C. Andrews
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 hysterics incest incestuous misleading pseudo-science pseudoscience recovered-memory repressed-memories repressed-memory sexual-abuse traumatic-stress women-survivors hysterical trauma survivors Janet Walker
9782f27 Once I was in the cold dim room, without furniture or carpet or rugs, only a dollhouse that wasn't as wonderful as the original, I opened the tall and narrow closet door and began my ascent up the steep and narrow stairs. On my way to the attic. On my way to where I'd find my Christopher, again... loss heartbreak heartache incest V.C. Andrews
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. freedom abusers perpetrators abuser burdens-of-the-past imperfect peptrator perfectly-imperfect false-guilt recovery-from-abuse healing-from-abuse innocence-lost offense child-rape healing-insights perfectionism healing innocence shame recovery guilt child-sexual-abuse incest sexual-abuse 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: lies story influence reality truth bias biased child-abuse child-rape enabling-abuse fabrication false-memory fmsf freyd jennifer-freyd objective paedophile pamela-freyd peter-freyd protecting-pedophiles sadistic sex-abuse underwager flawed pedophile denial deny siblings media surprise child-sexual-abuse incest false-memory-syndrome-foundation psychology 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. rape rage recovery-from-abuse healing-from-abuse outrage child-rape healing-insights healing shame crime recovery child-sexual-abuse incest Maureen Brady
8d58310 Only I had dry eyes, a dry heart. loss love heartache incest V.C. Andrews
493ab40 Anything with blood in it can probably go bad. Like meat. And it's the blood that makes me worry. It carries things you don't even know you got. genetics disease incest Tim Winton
491c703 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. child-sexual-abuse-survivors recovery-from-abuse healing-insights healing-abuse healing-the-emotional-self healing incest survivors Maureen Brady
282b299 The sun was hot and bright. A day for fishing, for swimming, for playing tennis and having fun, and they put my Christopher in the ground. loss heartbreak love incest V.C. Andrews
e1600d2 Few young men know the Oedipal torment of growing up with an insanely hot, perpetually single mom. ernest-cline wtf incest Ernest Cline