“If you can truly flip the switch from surprised, overwhelmed, and terrified to the assault mindset, I can’t teach you much.”
Source: Meditations on Violence: A Comparison of Martial Arts Training & Real World Violence
“If someone says they feel like an experience of theirs was assault and that they feel violated, the response should be quite simple: believe them. Telling someone they weren't hurt won't make it so. It will only confuse and invalidate them, usually them in further mental distreess, deeper in the shame they've been told they should have. Another person saying that a painful experience didn't happen will never negate the fact that, for the survivor, it did.”
Source: The Way We Survive: Notes on Rape Culture
“The bail had barely been granted and a faction of the Republican Party of India organized a function in the same hall to felicitate and honour the assailants for having successfully attacked me – a fact that, being merely in the public domain, was obviously not something the court would take note of!”
Source: Courts and their Judgements: Premises, Prerequisites, Consequences
“Everyone's afraid that their daughters might be hurt. No one seems to be scared that their sons might be the ones to do it.”
Source: Boys Will Be Boys: Power, Patriarchy and the Toxic Bonds of Mateship
“Denial wrestled with knowledge and won. Panic ricocheted against numbness.”
Source: Shhh… Don’t Say It: A Memoir in Fragments on Trauma, Abuse, CPTSD, and Healing
“As the violent face of sexism, the threat of rape will continue to exist as long as the overall oppression of women remains an essential crutch of capitalism.”
Source: Women, Race & Class
“Just because you're insecure, doesn't mean every man you meet is an assaulter.”
“The whistle buried under my skin and became a permanent part of me. I had a radar for certain eyes afterward. It was a heightened awareness of the bad shit that could happen if I wasn't careful, and I could adjust the degree of it, but I would never be able to turn it off.”
Source: Girl, Unframed
“I became their punching bag- passed off from blow to blow, my bones screaming in agony. Maybe I was screaming in agony, too.”
Source: A Court of Thorns and Roses
“Abusers happily cheat, lie, verbally assault, manipulate, confuse, and ignore others, but survivors often find that when they try to react firmly and stand up to this abuse, they immediately end up feeling bad. Let go of this inner turmoil. Having boundaries is what makes you healthy.”
Source: Psychopath Free: Recovering from Emotionally Abusive Relationships With Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Other Toxic People