Childhood Abuse Quotes

Child abuse damages a person for life and that damage is in no way diminished by the ignorance of the perpetrator. It is only with the uncovering of the complete truth as it affects all those involved that a genuinely viable solution can be found to the dangers of child abuse.

Alice MIller

The rush I got from crime was better than that of glue, drink or hash. I loved playing cat and mouse with the local coppers. He Who Dares Wins, the SAS motto, was very applicable to my life then.

Stephen Richards

Gazing out of the window, the gravel path roared as it was crushed into submission under the wheels of the car that was taking me towards a menacing looking medieval castle with two huge and terrifying turrets that seemingly reached out towards me. I imagined that I was the gravel and the wheels of the car were the social care system.

Stephen Richards

If you could get anything at all off Santa, what would it be?’tI asked for a fire engine and sweets. Bunty exclaimed in delight, ‘Santa will get you that, but you and Scott will need to leave out a bowl of milk and some carrots for Rudolph.’t‘Who’s Rudolph?’ I asked.tBunty told me in confidence that Rudolph was Santa’s reindeer and that he helped pull all the children’s toys in the world over the snow. I couldn’t wait.tIn readiness for Rudolph, Scott, Martha, Bunty and I picked out four of the biggest carrots from a bag in the kitchen, which we then washed. We found a big bowl that we used to lick the cream out of, which we filled with milk. We put the bowl along with the carrots under the Christmas tree, with all the other children’s offerings. Then Bunty and Martha came in and washed us, put us to bed and read us a story, before kissing us good night. On their way out they said, ‘When you wake up, Santa will have been'.

Stephen Richards

Leading up to Christmas, there was talk of Santa. But I’d never even heard of Santa. Bunty, one of the workers who I grew to love, tried to explain, ‘He brings little angels like you, presents.

Stephen Richards

I'm still not sure if I was a victim or not... and if I was, who was my abuser?

Eskay Teel

The happy family is a myth for many.

Carolyn Spring

Denial is commonly found among persons with dissociative disorders. My favorite quotation from such a client is, "We are not multiple, we made it all up." I have heard this from several different clients. When I hear it, I politely inquire, "And who is we?

Alison Miller

A refusal on the part of psychiatrists and therapists to validate the horrors of their patients' tortured past implies a refusal to take seriously the unconscious psychological mechanisms that individuals need to use to protect themselves from the unspeakable. Such a denial is, however, no longer ethical, for it is in the human capacity to dissociate that lies part of the secret of both childhood abuse and the horrors of the Nazi genocide, both forms of human violence so often carried out by 'respectable' men and women.

Felicity De Zulueta

Much of the atrocities that are committed towards Arab women occur partly because the victim does not know that she has a basic right for her body to be hers, for her privacy to be respected and for her education to be a necessity not a privilege she receives if it is financially possible after her brother has been educated.

Aysha Taryam

Alcenith Crawford (a divorced ophthalmologist): "We women doctors have un-happy marriages because in our minds we are the superstars of our families. Having survived the hardship of medical school we expect to reap our rewards at home. We had to assert ourselves against all odds and when we finally graduate there are few shrinking violets amongst us. It takes a special man to be able to cope. Men like to feel important and be the undisputed head of the family. A man does not enjoy waiting for his wife while she performs life-saving operations. He expects her and their children to revolve around his needs, not the other way. But we have become accustomed to giving orders in hospitals and having them obeyed. Once home, it's difficult to adjust. Moreover, we often earn more than our husbands. It takes a generous and exceptional man to forgive all that.

Adeline Yen Mah

The initial trauma of a young child may go underground but it will return to haunt us.

James Garbarino

Those who were molested or beaten as children or teenagers might later be vulnerable to sexual abuse or violence, because their natural impulses to protect themselves and protest (physical and verbal) were extinguished. Expectation of hurtful treatment by others or one's own failed capabilities can stubbornly persist despite overwhelming evidence that such is no longer the case.

Babette Rothschild

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

I want to see her naked, " Mengele said pointing to Marlene. She cried and shock. My mother flung her body in front of Marlene's and said, "You can't have her. I love her, my daughter." My father said, "Take the younger one. She's smarter, " as he pushed me over forward.Marlene cried because father said I was smarter even though he was just trying to manipulate Mengele. The doctor's chest grew large.

Wendy Hoffman

Ritualised child sexual abuse is about abuse of power, control and secrecy. Ten years ago many people found it difficult to believe that fathers actually raped their children, yet survivors of such abuses spoke out and eventually began to be listened to and believed. Ritual abuse survivors, when they try to speak out about their experiences, face denial and disbelief from society and often fear for their lives from the abusers.

Laurie Matthew

Advances in biological knowledge have highlighted the potential chronicity of effects of childhood maltreatment, demonstrating particular life challenges in managing emotions, forming and maintaining healthy relationships, healthy coping, and holding a positive outlook of oneself.

Christine Wekerle

By the time Cheryl Hersha came to the facility, knowledge of multiple personality was so complete that doctors understood how the mind separated into distinct ego states, each unaware of the other. First, the person traumatized had to be both extremely intelligent and under the age of seven, two conditions not yet understood though remaining consistent as factors. The trauma was almost always of a sexual nature… (p52)

Cheryl Hersha

Like Jocelyn, Survivors often think: * That’s just the way I am * I’m not lovable, that’s why I keep having disastrous relationships * I’m not very clever, that’s why I didn’t do well at school * I’m a loner * I’m a weak person * I’m not very nice * I was a difficult childMany survivors find it difficult to accept that being sexually abused as a child can continue to affect them many years later. It may seem too fantastic, or too frightening an idea to believe. David Finkelhor, an American researcher, has tried to explain how sexual abuse affects a child and leads to long-term problems. He suggests four ways in which childhood sexual abuse causes problems:1 Traumatic Sexualization2 Stigmatization 3 Betrayal 4 Powerlessness

Carolyn Ainscough

In general, the more dysfunctional the family the more inappropriate their response to disclosure. Never expect a sane response from an insane system.

Renee Fredrickson

I have sometimes said to a client: “If you are so in touch with your feelings from your abusive childhood, then you should know what abuse feels like. You should be able to remember how miserable it was to be cut down to nothing, to be put in fear, to be told that the abuse is your own fault. You should be less likely to abuse a woman, not more so, from having been through it.” Once I make this point, he generally stops mentioning his terrible childhood; he only wants to draw attention to it if it’s an excuse to stay the same, not if it’s a reason to change.

Lundy Bancroft

Although the typical abusive man works to maintain a positive public image, it is true that some women have abusive partners who are nasty or intimidating to everyone. How about that man? Do his problems result from mistreatment by his parents? The answer is both yes and no; it depends on which problem we’re talking about. His hostility toward the human race may sprout from cruelty in his upbringing, but he abuses women because he has an abuse problem. The two problems are related but distinct.

Lundy Bancroft

Facing one’s past can be a perilous activity. For the client, joy must exceed misery. Personal successes must far outweigh losses. Pleasure must exceed pain. Always. Always. To do otherwise is a failure of the counselor.— André Chevalier

Nikki Sex

There is a slave trade still in this country—yes, the real and horrific sex and human trafficking trade run by organised criminal gangs, which is appalling and must be stopped. But there's the hidden slavery too of children exploited and used within their own families, within organised and ritual abuse.

Carolyn Spring

He felt as if he has heard similar stories before. The wimp at school had grown to become stronger than the bully. And by some devious twist of fate, he would pop back into your life years later and take his revenge in the most unimaginable ways, and make sure that you suffer as much, or more, than he ever did before.

Vann Chow

Only Yeong-hye, docile and naive, had been unable to deflect their father's temper or put up any form of resistance. Instead, she had merely absorbed all her suffering inside her, deep into the marrow of her bones. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, In-hye could see that the role that she had adopted back then of the hard-working, self-sacrificing eldest daughter had been a sign not of maturity but of cowardice. It had been a survival tactic.

Han Kang

Secret ceremonies in which malevolent men and women cloaked in hooded robes, hiding behind painted faces and chanting demonic incantations while inflicting sadistic wounds on innocent children lying on makeshift alters, or tied to inverted crosses, sounds like the stuff of which B-grade horror movies are made. Some think amoral religious cults only populate the world of Rosemary's Baby, but don't exist in real life. Or, do they? Ask Jenny Hill.

Judy Byington

Behind every person who’s committed an unimaginable crime is an adult who committed unimaginable violence against them as a child. All of them, as if it was plotted that way. Violence begets violence, and that violence begets even more violence.

Gong Jiyoung

It is acknowledged that father-daughter incest occurs on a large scale in the United States. Sexual abuse has now been included in child abuse legislation. A conservative estimate is that more than 1 million women have been sexually victimized by their fathers or other male relatives, but the true figure probably is much higher. Many victims still fear reporting incest, and families continued to collude to keep the situation secret. Issues of family privacy and autonomy remain troublesome even when incest is reported and must be resolved for treatment to be effective. " Mary de Chesnay J. Psychosoc. Nurs. Med. Health Sep. 22:9-16 Sept 1984 reprinted in Talbott's 1986 edition

John A. Talbott

What better weapon than the human brain? The human brain was Mrs Twartski's and Wiezenslowski's domain. The children who were used were the castaways of the United States government, like dogs abandoned and a vet's office. Mrs. Twartski read the letter out loud, slowly and carefully enunciating every word in her thick Polish accent. The German scientists were looking for children who could learn quickly, were between ages four and twelve, and could withstand being famished without dying. Deutschland were paying dollar $50,000 per subject. Everyone in living room exactly Mrs. Twartski and all my aunts let out a huge "Ahhh". My sister's and my eyes grew wide because we had no idea what this meant or why the adults were so excited. Then my sister's eyes narrowed as if she knew something that I didn't yet, as if she had just figured something out.

Wendy Hoffman

If you want to breed something, breed bravehearts, not soulless racehorses.

Abhijit Naskar

A child s a special possession from God.

Lailah Gifty Akita

On top of the abuse and neglect, denial heaps more hurt upon the child by requiring the child to alienate herself from reality and her own experience. In troubled families, abuse and neglect are permitted; it's the talking about them that is forbidden.

Marcia Sirota

Games where someone wants to touch your body where your swimsuit covers or they ask you to touch their body where their swimsuit covers. Those body parts are private. No one is allowed to touch you there, or ask you to touch them there.

Carolyn Byers Ruch

There is something about being loved and protected by a parent (or guardian) knowing that I can be loved for who I am, not what I can do, or might one day become. Unfortunately it’s not usually like this in every single situation. From time to time, my parents made mistakes during my childhood. Possibly I was the mistake, or unwanted. But I don’t know. I had every material thing that I could have ever wanted, but there was still something missing, as if I felt distanced from my parents, or misunderstood, in the ways that they treated me. At times, I had felt completely loved and accepted by my parents, but for one reason or another, they were unable to care for me, provide for me, in some ways that would have been very important. Sometimes I feel like I am trying to make up for the experiences in life that were absent when I was a child.

Jonathan Harnisch

I was increasingly both horrified and sceptical about these memories - I had no recall of these things at all, though I couldn't imagine why I'd want to make it all up either. It felt as though it had all happened to somebody else, I was not there - it wasn't me - when those people did nasty things.But then, of course, it didn't feel like me, that's the whole point of dissociation - to create distance between the victim and her experience of the abuse. The alters were created for just that purpose: so that I'd not be aware that it happened to me, but rather to "others". The trouble is, in reality it was my body that took the abuse. It was only my mind that was divided, and sooner or later the amnesic barriers were bound to come down.And that's exactly what had begun to happen as I heard their stories. They triggered a vague and growing sense in me that this really is my story.

Carolyn Bramhall

Many deeply hidden memories have come flooding back. The important message here though is that it is possible to heal and survive. Everyone has survived their own kind of emotional or mental trauma. We all have our inner fears and misreplaced feelings of guilt.

Lynette Gould

Throughout our times with Christopher [therapist] we were encouraged to work together at communicating on the inside. He pointed out that it would be good for us all to listen-in when an alter was telling his/her story - that it's now safe, no harm will come to us from telling or from knowing. There was once a time when it was very important that we didn't know what had happened; that knowing meant danger or being so overwhelmed with pain and grief that we wouldn't survive. But now it was different. We're safe and strong, and our goal now are to uncover the grisly truth of what's happened to us, so that it's no longer a powerful secret. We can look at it and face the past for what it is - old memories of old events. Today is now,and we can choose to live a different way and believe different things. We were once powerless and vulnerable, but now we were in a position to make choices. We had control over our life.

Carolyn Bramhall

I opened my louvres and looked at Comfort, walking in the heavy rain, crying bitterly. I heard mom saying, Anywhere you want to go, you can, but don't come back again to this house. Comfort was beautiful, but her stealing attributes brought reproach on her and painted her beauty with dark impressions. I looked at her, walking barefooted on the muddy ground congested with rain water.

Michael Bassey Johnson

Mother said, haven't you seen older boys of your age, that you should take your rotten hands and play with my son's penis? I held my mouth, and i really stiffled a giggle. Now i understood the bloody vexation and the reckless act performed by our housegirl. She was fondling my infant part, and i knew she was horny and lost in the act.

Michael Bassey Johnson

In the dark, the little live Christmas tree, two feet tall, sparkled with tiny coloured lights, like the tears I saw glistening in my brother's eyes.

V.C. Andrews

A Colder breeze lifted a dead leaf to the roof and sent it scuttling merrily on its way to catch in my hair. It crackled dry and brittle when Chris plucked it out and held it, just staring down at a dead maple leaf as if his very life depended on reading its secret for knowing how to blow in the wind. No arms, no legs, no wings... bit it could fly when dead.

V.C. Andrews

I warned myself against the danger of compassion in this case. How easy it would be to imagine the traumas of childhood that might have deformed her into the moral monster she had become, and then to convince myself that those traumas could be balanced - and their effects reversed - by sufficient acts of kindness.

Dean Koontz

One year later the society claimed victory in another case which again did not fit within the parameters of the syndrome, nor did the court find on the issue. Fiona Reay, a 33 year old care assistant, accused her father of systematic sexual abuse during her childhood. The facts of her childhood were not in dispute: she had run away from home on a number of occasions and there was evidence that she had never been enrolled in secondary school. Her father said it was because she was ‘young and stupid’. He had physically assaulted Fiona on a number of occasions, one of which occurred when she was sixteen. The police had been called to the house by her boyfriend; after he had dropped her home, he heard her screaming as her father beat her with a dog chain.As before there was no evidence of repression of memory in this case. Fiona Reay had been telling the same story to different health professionals for years. Her medical records document her consistent reference to family problems from the age of 14. She finally made a clear statement in 1982 when she asked a gynaecologist if her need for a hysterectomy could be related to the fact that she had been sexually abused by her father. Five years later she was admitted to psychiatric hospital stating that one of the precipitant factors causing her breakdown had been an unexpected visit from her father. She found him stroking her daughter. There had been no therapy, no regression and no hypnosis prior to the allegations being made public.The jury took 27 minutes to find Fiona Reay’s father not guilty of rape and indecent assault. As before, the court did not hear evidence from expert witnesses stating that Fiona was suffering from false memory syndrome. The only suggestion of this was by the defence counsel, Toby Hedworth. In his closing remarks he referred to the ‘worrying phenomenon of people coming to believe in phantom memories’.The next case which was claimed as a triumph for false memory was heard in March 1995. A father was aquitted of raping his daughter. The claims of the BFMS followed the familiar pattern of not fitting within the parameters of false memory at all. The daughter made the allegations to staff members whom she had befriended during her stay in psychiatric hospital. As before there was no evidence of memory repression or recovery during therapy and again the case failed due to lack of corroborating evidence. Yet the society picked up on the defence solicitor’s statements that the daughter was a prone to ‘fantasise’ about sexual matters and had been sexually promiscuous with other patients in the hospital.~ Trouble and Strife, Issues 37-43

Trouble and Strife

I spent most of my life believing lwas crazy because all the crazy things I experienced in childhood were treated as nonexistent or normal. This belief colored every decision made, from something so basic as what to wear today, to the more esoteric boundaries of whether I should kill myself. I understood very well that killing myself under the wrong circumstances would establish my insanity forever. So I analyzed every word, every gesture, before committing myself. (Which probably accounts for why I am alive today.)

Sarah E. Olson

Political prisoners describe:- extreme physical and emotional torture- distortion of language, truth, meaning and reality- sham killings- begin repeatedly taken to the point of death or threatened with death- being forced to witness abusive acts on others- being forced to make impossible "choices"- boundaries smashed i.e. by the use of forced nakedness, shame, embarrassment- hoaxes, 'set ups', testing and tricks- being forced to hurt othersRitual abuse survivors often describe much the same things.

Laurie Matthew

I want everyone that has been abused by someone in their childhood to know that you can get past it. Having DID is not the end of the world; it's the beginning of your new life. DID allows the victim of exceptional abuse the ability to “forget” the abuse and continue living. Without it, I may have gone crazy as a teen and spent my life in a as a teen and spent my life in a psychiatric hospital.

Dauna Cole

Early relational trauma results from the fact that we are often given more to experience in this life than we can bear to experience consciously. This problem has been around since the beginning of time, but it is especially acute in early childhood where, because of the immaturity of the psyche and/or brain, we are ill-equipped to metabolize our experience. An infant or young child who is abused, violated or seriously neglected by a caretaking adult is overwhelmed by intolerable affects that are impossible for it to metabolize, much less understand or even think about.

Donald Kalsched

Narcissism: It's Primal. No Productive Control of Energy: Seeks constant fresh sources of stimulation and is highly energized running from human-object to human-object, activity to activity, but does not accomplish anything and never evolves or learns from activities and the many people recycled through.

Lynna Kivela

Survivors of trauma may have difficulty initiating relationships ...

Asa Don Brown

Trauma may be endured through a physiological or psychological threat to life or overall wellbeing.

Asa Don Brown

My traumatic experience was life changing

Asa Don Brown

Abuse may consist of physical maltreatment or language that is belittling, discriminatory...

Asa Don Brown

The second factor helping to bring the dissociative disorders back into the mainstream was the Vietnam War. For sociological reasons originating outside psychology and psychiatry, the Vietnam War and the posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that arose from it were not forgotten when the veterans returned home, as had been the case in the two world wars and the Korean War. The realization that real, severe trauma could have serious long-term psychopathological consequences was forced on society as a whole by Vietnam. Once this principle was accepted, it as a short leap to the conclusion that severe childhood trauma might have serious sequelae lasting into adulthood.

Colin A. Ross

Childhood trauma does not come in one single package.

Asa Don Brown

Candy. He spoke of candy. Was he still in the child's world where candy stood for something sweet enough to hold back tears? I had grown older, and had lost enthusiasm for childish delights. I wanted what every teenager wants -- freedom to develop into a woman, freedom to have full control over my life! Though I tried to tell him this, my voice had dried up along with my tears.

V.C. Andrews

A child's attachment process begins within the first year of life...

Asa Don Brown

Attachments that are not fostered may lend to the child's inability to properly attach or have no attachment at all.

Asa Don Brown

Take off your damned wrapper! The old buffer ordered, looking intensely at her lower part. Comfort was on her knees, rubbing the old man's dirty feet. All her plea and tears continually worsen the whole matter. I want to do you harder cos you gonna be fucked by other folks who needs a large hole, said the man, moving towards her. Comfort struggled with all her feminine might, but the old masculine but old man ripped her wrapper and slapped her on the face. Lie here, Lie here! I'm gonna do what your old man did to your mama and its gonna sweet you. She screamed as the man's organ prick her glory hole like a sharp needle.

Michael Bassey Johnson

Some of your childhood traumas may be remembered with incredible clarity, while others are so frightening or incomprehensible that your conscious mind buries the memory in your unconscious.

Renee Fredrickson

1 2 Next

Childhood Abuse Quotes

Related Topics