Rape Survivor Quotes

You're a survivor because every day you make a choice not to be governed by their harsh words or actions. No one has the right to take away your happiness

If we are taken all together, we might muster some courage, but from the previous evidence it is likely that we will be taken separately.

Rachel shook her head, even though she was lying. Of course it bothered her to be spilling her guts out to someone and watching them write it all down in front of her. It felt exposing and intrusive to her privacy. Like Dr. Kean was writing it down so she could show someone else, or remember the good parts so she could go back and reread them later.

Rachel rolled her eyes as she let out a breath, "I've been to support groups. I've done the "my name is" thing." Rachel’s leg fell off the couch as she glared at Dr. Kean. "That's what triggered the attempts. I don't want to know that there are people out there who suffer worst than I do. I don't want to listen to their stories so that I can be proud that my injuries were minor, and I don't want to feel guilty for hating someone because compared to what I went though, they got lucky." Rachel winced.

If you think I'm going to apologize for being drugged and raped, you have another thing coming.

The terror takes you. The cage is locked and the curtain drawn. Fingers dance along as blades, carving memories into your flesh that will leave scars long past being healed.

She told me that my rape was not my fault, that I should feel no shame, that – simple as it may sound – I hadn’t caused it. No one causes rape but rapists. No one causes rape but rapists. No one causes rape but rapists. It was true. And it had not been obvious to me. And hearing it from someone else, a professional, someone who should know, helped me believe that soon I would believe it.

People may not realize the damage that they are doing by placing the blame on the victim ~ but that doesn't lessen the damage that they cause by doing it.

Here, from her ashes you lay. A broken girl so lost in despondency that you know that even if she does find her way out of this labyrinth in hell, that she will never see, feel, taste, or touch life the same again.

I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near the frozen creek. That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.

Khaled Hosseini

Stephanie had been raped, beaten and left for dead on the Atlantic City Boardwalk several times. You'd think she would have hit rock bottom after those experiences. But no. None of that made her quit. It just made her want to use even more drugs, to forget her miserable life. As long as she could get high, she didn't care if she was being raped in a dark alley. At this point in her life, a lethal overdose probably would have felt like her salvation.

A nightmare has taken hold of my body. Lunacy has dug its way inside my mind.

Overcoming abuse doesn't just happen, It takes positive steps everyday. Let today be the day you start to move forward.

You're a survivor because everyday you make a choice not to be governed by their harsh words or actions. No one has the right to take away your happiness.

In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure no one listens.

Judith Lewis Herman

In each club we went the dancers had the same moves, none nearly as sensuous as mine on any dance floor, but because they are scantily clad and stripping off the men go nuts and throw money at them. In the largest club and the last we went to I watched one pretty girl with big boobs pull a handful of twenties in one set. I followed her to the ladies-room to learn she only danced a few rounds per night and averaged $250 every night and with my face and body she said I would bank much more.

Darwun St. James

I feel like there are fifty ways it's my fault. I fantasized. I took the big pill and the small pill, stuffed myself with substances to make being out in the world with people my own age a little easier. To lessen the space between me and everyone else. I was hungry to be seen. But I also know that at no moment did I consent to being handled that way.

Imagine the message that sent to my sister and me. A cousin violates us, confesses, and walks away with barely a slap on the wrist. I learned at a young age that if I was ever going to see justice for the wrongs done to me, I had to find it myself.

I felt like I needed to comfort both the little girl inside me and my mother, assuring them that neither of them could have prevented the rape. I didn't want my mother to blame herself and I didn't want to blame the little girl inside of me for not speaking up at the age of six.

A rape victim... a rape victim who fights...They've been violated, made helpless and afraid. It breaks their confidence in the safety of their little world. It makes them afraid." .... "If you don't fight, it's not quite the same. If they make you help, make you cooperate, then it's not clear to you anymore. Is it rape? You feel dirty, violated, and guilty. Most of all guilty because you should have fought. Especially if you're Mercy and you fight everything.

Patricia Briggs