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Childhood Abuse Quotes

Browse 108 quotes about Childhood Abuse.

Childhood Abuse Quotes

“Trust of others is in short supply for many adult survivors, as complex trauma generally involves major relational betrayal. It is, therefore, expectable (although paradoxical) that clients with these histories are predisposed to be mistrustful at the outset of therapy, precisely because of (and in proportion to) the actual trustworthiness of the therapist. When past experiences have thought hard lessons, namely, that one can least afford to trust the people who should be most trustworthy, it stands to reason that confusion about trust results. The therapist must understand and not take offense either personally or professionally and not react judgmentally or defensively. Practically speaking, this involves the therapist being prepared to patiently and empathically respond to active or passive tests or challenges to trustworthiness as legitimate and meaningful communication that deserves a respectful reply in action as well as in words.”

TrustAbuseBetrayalTherapyChildhood AbuseComplex PtsdComplex TraumaDevelopmental TraumaInterpersonal Trauma
Book:Treatment of Complex Trauma: A Sequenced, Relationship-Based Approach
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“The overarching principle of a therapeutic relationship is that therapists should be ever mindful of a variant of the Hippocratic oath and, to the degree possible, strive to "do no more harm" (Courtois, 2010). Complex trauma clients have already experienced considerable harm, much of it at the hands of other human beings. As a result of the ubiquitous processes of transference, attachment styles, and IWM [Internal working models], these clients often view the therapist's behavior and their relationship through the lens of their trauma-related negative interpersonal expectancies and unhealed emotional wounds and injuries. Therapists should not be surprised to be "guilty until proven innocent", not because clients with complex trauma histories are "unfair" or "unreasonable" but precisely the opposite - because the most realistic self-protective stance for them (given the fact that betrayal and harm have been more the rule than the exception) is to "distrust first and verify" (or to be hypervigilant) rather than to start with an expectation of safety and trustworthiness.”

TrustSafetyTherapyChildhood AbuseComplex PtsdTherapistComplex Trauma
Book:Treatment of Complex Trauma: A Sequenced, Relationship-Based Approach
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“If the therapist understands and does not take mistrust as personal affront, the therapeutic relationship can evolve gradually. The client can begin to recognize that the therapist actually "gets" why he or she is initially skeptical, self-protective, or "realistically paranoid" and does not pressure the client to be a "happy camper" but instead works to earn trust by being honorable, reliable, and consistent. This also implies a view of the client's initial mistrust as expectable in light of the client's history - that is, as a strength rather than as a deficiency or pathology.”

TrustTherapyChildhood AbuseComplex TraumaDevelopmental TraumaInterpersonal Trauma
Book:Treatment of Complex Trauma: A Sequenced, Relationship-Based Approach
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“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.”

SchoolStrongerRevengeBullyingBullySufferChildhood AbusePhysical AbuseBullying QuotesAnti BullyingChildhood MemorySuffering QuotesTwist Of FateAvengedGetting RevengeAnti Bullying QuotesSchool FightsGrowing Strong
Book:The White Man and the Pachinko Girl
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“I spent most of my life believing l was 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.)”

BeliefCrazySurvivalLiesSuicideInsaneDenialInsanitySurvivorChild AbuseSuicidalBelief QuotesSuicidal ThoughtsSelf DoubtChildhood AbusePsychological AbuseBelief SystemSuicidal Ideation
Book:Becoming One: A Story of Triumph Over Dissociative Identity Disorder
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“As we make the journey inward with our people, we will come to the next challenge to our compassion: those inner community members who have actively bought harm to the young ones inside. This is such tender territory, a place where we need to acknowledge the suffering our people have sustained without demonizing and alienating the ones who bought it, for they are now part of the ones in our care as well. This can be radical inclusiveness at its most healing, widening our joined windows of tolerance to truly accept every part.”

HopeHealingRelationshipChildhood AbuseRestorative JusticeRadical InclusivenessWindow Of ToleranceDomestic Violence Recovery
Book:The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships
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“A child s a special possession from God.”

ChildhoodCreationBlessedGiftPregnancyChildCreative ProcessPrayer QuotesBlessingsParents And ChildrenTeenage LoveChildbirthChildren S BooksParenting QuotesParenting AdvicePrayer LifeBlessed LifeBlessings QuotesChildren S LiteratureChildhood AbuseAnswers To PrayersAnswered PrayerParental LoveParenting TeensBlessing Of The LordPrayerful HabitsGift Of LifeBirthdaysBirthday QuotesPrayers AnsweredPrayers Of The HeartTeenagers And ParentsTeen FantasyBirth MotherGift Of GodParenting HumorCreation Of GodSpecial Creation
Book:Think Great: Be Great!
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“Therapy must begin with empathy - not a patronizing sympathy, but instead one that is unflinching (Marotta, 2003). Empathy of this sort is highly attuned to the client, no matter the circumstance. The therapist strives to "travel in the client's shoes" or to "view the world from the client's perspective" in order to really understand his or her emotions, cognitions, and beliefs - in short, to understand from the perspective of the other (Wilson & Thomas, 2004). Treatment involves understanding that a client's defeatist and apparently helpless, disempowered, or "masochistic" perspectives can be a logical outgrowth of formative traumatic experiences and, further, may be highly creative means of self-protection. The therapist must not attempt to undo or "make up for" past abandonment or betrayals by their client's caregivers or in their close relationships, but instead first understand the client's perspective and approach to the world, while working to provide alternative perspectives on both past and present that promote change.”

EmpathyTherapyChildhood AbuseTherapistComplex TraumaDevelopmental Trauma
Book:Treatment of Complex Trauma: A Sequenced, Relationship-Based Approach
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“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.”

Moving OnChild AbuseFear Of DeathAbandonmentChild Sexual AbuseSurvivorsSelf SufficiencyIncestDysfunctional FamilyChildhood AbuseDysfunctional FamiliesAbusive ParentsChild Sexual Abuse SurvivorChild Abuse SurvivorChildhood Sexual AbuseChild Abuse SurvivorsFear Of RejectionControlling ParentsAbuse DeniersTelling Your StoryAbandonment IssuesRevealing The TruthAbused ChildFear Of AbandonmentAbusive FamilyFamily AbuseAccepting The PastEscaping AbuseJust TellConsequences Of CrueltyTruth About AbuseDisclosing Abuse
Book:The Rescued Soul: The Writing Journey for the Healing of Incest and Family Betrayal
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“The fetus is biochemically connected to the mother, and her external, internal, physical, and mental health affect the overall development of the fetus. Stress and depression during pregnancy have been proven to have long-term and even permanent effects on the offspring. Such effects include a vulnerability to chronic anxiety, elevated fear, propensity to addictions, and poor impulse control.”

ChildrenPsychologyChildhoodDevelopmentCryingChildhood TraumaDysfunctional FamilyChildhood Abuse
Book:Human Development and Trauma: How Childhood Shapes Us into Who We Are as Adults
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“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.”

ParentChildhoodMental HealthParentingTraumaMental IllnessParentsInnocenceParenthoodChildIntrospectionParents And ChildrenIntrospectiveChild Sexual AbuseParenting QuotesParenting AdviceTraumatic ExperiencesParenting ChildrenChildhood AbuseChild RapeParental LoveParenting TeensMental Illness DiscriminationIntrospective Quote
Book:Sex, Drugs, and Schizophrenia
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“She's terrified that all these sensations and images are coming out of her — but I think she's even more terrified to find out why." Carla's description was typical of survivors of chronic childhood abuse. Almost always, they deny or minimize the abusive memories. They have to: it's too painful to believe that their parents would do such a thing.”

HealingAbuseDenialChild AbuseSubconsciousPtsdAvoidanceAbuse SurvivorsSurvivorsSubconscious MindIncestHealing InsightsTraumatic ExperiencesChildhood AbuseTraumatizedChild RapePost Traumatic Stress DisorderDissociative AmnesiaHealing From AbuseMinimizingFlashbackAbusive ParentsHealing AbusePosttraumatic Stress DisorderDefense MechanismFlashbacksParental AbuseMinimizationDenial Of AbuseTrauma MemoriesDenial Of Child AbuseTraumatic MemoriesIntrusiveSadistic AbuseDenial Of IncestReliving The PastPsychological DefenceAbusive ChildhoodMinimizing IssuesDissociated AmnesiaFear Of Truth
Author:David L. Calof
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“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.”

BrainPsychologyTraumaNeglectChild AbusePtsdIncestPsycheChildhood AbuseChild RearingTraumatizedChild RapePosttraumatic Stress DisorderEffects Of Child AbuseChild NeglectCaretaker
Book:Trauma and the Soul: A Psycho-Spiritual Approach to Human Development and Its Interruption
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“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.”

CrimeBetrayalChild AbuseDissociative Identity DisorderMind ControlGovernment CorruptionCriminalNazi GermanyNazisChildhood AbuseGovernment AbuseMkultraHuman Rights AbuseSex SlaveMk UltraWar CriminalsHuman ExperimentationSex SlaveryHuman ExperimentsPsychological MindgamesJosef MengeleHuman Rights For JewsManchrian Candidate
Book:The Enslaved Queen: A Memoir About Electricity and Mind Control
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“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.”

BetrayalAttachmentManipulationChild AbuseChildhood TraumaChildhood AbuseChildhood Sexual AbuseWar CriminalsJosef Mengele
Book:The Enslaved Queen: A Memoir About Electricity and Mind Control
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“If a child’s emotional and intellectual freedom is restricted, their development and well-being suffer, which leads to complex problems in later life. Deprivation of thought and emotion results in an irrationality of cognition, feeling, and communication.”

ChildrenPsychologyChildhoodDevelopmentCryingChildhood TraumaDysfunctional FamilyChildhood Abuse
Book:Human Development and Trauma: How Childhood Shapes Us into Who We Are as Adults
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“Only when a child’s authenticity is threatened do they develop unhealthy behaviors, distorted reality perceptions, and emotional difficulties. When you force a child to do what they don’t want to do, feel what they don’t feel, and think what they don’t think, their authentic self becomes damaged.”

ChildrenPsychologyChildhoodDevelopmentCryingChildhood TraumaDysfunctional FamilyChildhood Abuse
Book:Human Development and Trauma: How Childhood Shapes Us into Who We Are as Adults
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“A controlled child also learns that the default human approach to interaction is forcing, threatening, or manipulating others. Alternatively, they may come to believe that they are “destined” to be a giver who never receives anything back.”

ChildrenPsychologyChildhoodDevelopmentCryingChildhood TraumaDysfunctional FamilyChildhood Abuse
Book:Human Development and Trauma: How Childhood Shapes Us into Who We Are as Adults
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“Furthermore, the controlling caregiver possesses poor boundaries, if they have any at all. These poor boundaries set the child up for numerous failures in adult life. The controlled child is like a chess piece or toy soldier who is constantly moved around, picked up, put down, ordered to do this, ordered not to do that, commanded to feel this, and commanded not to feel that.”

ChildrenPsychologyChildhoodDevelopmentCryingChildhood TraumaDysfunctional FamilyChildhood Abuse
Book:Human Development and Trauma: How Childhood Shapes Us into Who We Are as Adults
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“Meanwhile, infants and small children are exceptionally authentic beings because their emotional reactions and their thoughts are raw and honest. If they are happy, they smile, giggle, exclaim in pure joy, and feel excited, motivated, curious, and creative. If they are hurt, they cry, disengage, get angry, seek help and protection, and feel betrayed, sad, scared, lonely, and helpless. They don’t hide behind a mask.”

ChildrenPsychologyChildhoodDevelopmentCryingChildhood TraumaDysfunctional FamilyChildhood Abuse
Book:Human Development and Trauma: How Childhood Shapes Us into Who We Are as Adults
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“The child of a controlling caregiver believes that there are always winners and losers in life, and that the winners have all the power and the losers must neglect their own senses, needs, and wants. The result is that they gain a deformed and inaccurate picture of the world—the only world they know.”

ChildrenPsychologyChildhoodDevelopmentCryingChildhood TraumaDysfunctional FamilyChildhood Abuse
Book:Human Development and Trauma: How Childhood Shapes Us into Who We Are as Adults
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“One of the most common corruptions of childrearing remains the controlling caregiver’s propensity to shape the child into an object aligned with the caregiver’s own unprocessed trauma. Controlling caregivers have a variety of methods at their disposal to accomplish this, including such “civilized” approaches as manipulating, conditionally loving, withdrawing attention, threatening, isolating, shaming, guilt-tripping, humiliating, and withdrawing resources.”

ChildrenPsychologyChildhoodDevelopmentCryingChildhood TraumaDysfunctional FamilyChildhood Abuse
Book:Human Development and Trauma: How Childhood Shapes Us into Who We Are as Adults
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“A child needs to feel safe and protected, which means that their body, psyche, and belongings are safe and secure from violation. Because a child is helpless and dependent on their caregiver, they need a guardian in this predominantly unknown and sometimes scary and dangerous world. A child’s caregiver is responsible to fit the roles of safe haven and protector.”

ChildrenPsychologyChildhoodDevelopmentCryingChildhood TraumaDysfunctional FamilyChildhood Abuse
Book:Human Development and Trauma: How Childhood Shapes Us into Who We Are as Adults
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“...the child cries because they need something. If the child had the ability to take care of the problem themselves, they wouldn’t cry. And if their crying is ignored, they start to feel helpless and frustrated because they can’t get what they need. They may even fear abandonment—or feel that their life is in danger because no one is coming to help them. Failing to meet a crying child’s needs also teaches the child that their needs and feelings are unimportant and even dangerous, and that they are bad and unworthy of love.”

ChildrenPsychologyChildhoodDevelopmentCryingChildhood TraumaDysfunctional FamilyChildhood Abuse
Author:Darius Cikanavicius
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“Crying is the primary way by which infants and small children convey their needs. Their cries can be from hunger, pain, fear, neglect, and many other things. It is the caregiver’s responsibility to correctly decipher these needs and then meet them. It is tragically common, however, that the child’s cries are so often ignored, misunderstood, and even taken as an "attack" on the caregiver, which may result in an active and brutal punishment of the child.”

ChildrenPsychologyChildhoodDevelopmentCryingChildhood TraumaDysfunctional FamilyChildhood Abuse
Book:Human Development and Trauma: How Childhood Shapes Us into Who We Are as Adults
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“Children need their caregiver’s presence, interaction, connection, and emotional availability. Not only are these fundamental elements closely related to feelings of safety and security, they are also vital for a child’s healthy development. Since the child’s well-being depends on the bond between themselves and their caregiver, it is their caregiver’s responsibility to be very attentive both to their own selves and to their child.”

ChildrenPsychologyChildhoodDevelopmentCryingChildhood TraumaDysfunctional FamilyChildhood Abuse
Book:Human Development and Trauma: How Childhood Shapes Us into Who We Are as Adults
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“Kaffman (2009) described childhood victimization as a "silent epidemic", and Finkelhor, Turner, Ormrod, and Hamby (2010) reported that children are the most traumatized class of humans around the globe. The findings of these researchers are at odds with the view that children have protected status in most families, societies, and cultures. Instead, Finkelhor reports that children are prime targets and highly vulnerable, due principally to their small size, their physical and emotional immaturity with its associated lack of control, power and resources; and their related dependency on caregivers. They are subjected to many forms of exploitation on an ongoing basis, imposed on them by individuals with greater power, strength, knowledge, and resources, many of whom are, paradoxically and tragically, responsible for their care and welfare. These traumas are interpersonal in nature and involve personal transgression, violation and exploitation of the child by those who rely on the child's lesser physical abilities, innocence, and immaturity to intimidate, bully, confuse, blackmail, exploit, or otherwise coerce. In the worst-case scenario, a parent or other significant caregiver directly and repeatedly abuses a child or does not respond to or protect a child or other vulnerable individual who is being abused and mistreated and isolates the child from others through threats or with direct violence. Consequently, such an abusive, nonprotective, or malevolently exploitative circumstance (Chefetz has coined the term "attack-ment" to describe these dynamics) has a profound impact on victim's ability to trust others. It also affects the victim's identity and self-concept, usually in negative ways that include self-hatred, low self-worth, and lack of self-confidence. As a result, both relationships, and the individual's sense of self and internal states (feelings, thoughts, and perceptions) can become sources of fear, despair, rage, or other extreme dysphoria or numbed and dissociated reactions. This state of alienation from self and others is further exacerbated when the occurrence of abuse or other victimization involves betrayal and is repeated and becomes chronic, in the process leading the victim to remain in a state of either hyperarousal/anticipation/hypervigilance or hypoarousal/numbing (or to alternate between these two states) and to develop strong protective mechanisms, such as dissociation, in order to endure recurrences. When these additional victimizations recur, they unfortunately tend to escalate in severity and intrusiveness over time, causing additional traumatization (Duckworth & Follette, 2011). In many cases of child maltreatment, emotional or psychological coercion and the use of the adult's authority and dominant power rather than physical force or violence is the fulcrum and weapon used against the child; however, force and violence are common in some settings and in some forms of abuse (sometimes in conjunction with extreme isolation and drugging of the child), as they are used to further control or terrorize the victim into submission. The use of force and violence is more commonplace and prevalent in some families, communities, religions, cultural/ethnic groups, and societies based on the views and values about adult prerogatives with children that are espoused. They may also be based on the sociopathy of the perpetrators.”

ChildhoodTraumaChildhood AbuseVictimizationDevelopmental Trauma
Book:Treatment of Complex Trauma: A Sequenced, Relationship-Based Approach
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“The circumstances surrounding your birth are not as important as the opportunity to live life.”

Inspirational QuotesMotherLife LessonsOpportunityMotivational QuotesChildhoodLife PhilosophyWise WordsBirthCircumstancesLife And LivingParentingWise QuotesLife ChangingBirthdayLife And DeathDaily LifePregnancyParenthoodWise SayingsParents And ChildrenLiving LifeDaily QuotesChallenges QuotesChildren S BooksMothers And DaughtersFearless QuotesParenting AdviceHopeful And EncouragingLiving WellHope And DespairParenting ChildrenLiving Your Best LifeOptimism QuotesChildhood AbuseDaily LivingLiving In The PresentPregnant WomenLive Life So WellFear QuoteOpportunities In LifeBirthday QuotesHope And HealingSurrender To GodMothers Day QuotesPregnancy QuotesChallenge And AttitudeSituational QuoteOpportunity LifeLiving NowCircumstances And AttitudeBirth MotherPregnancy HumorPregnant WomanBirth RightsBirthday Present
Book:Think Great: Be Great!
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“There is a moment in our healing journey when our denial crumbles; we realize our experience and it's continued effects on us won't "just go away". That's our breakthrough moment. It's the sun coming out to warm the seeds of hope so they can grow our personal garden of empowerment.”

HopeGrowthHealingDenialAbuse SurvivorsSurvivorsHealing JourneyHealing InsightsChildhood AbuseSurvivors Of AbuseAbuse RecoveryJeanne McelvaneyHealing AbuseChildhood Sexual AbuseEffects Of Child AbuseDenial Of Child AbuseHarrietta S HappenstanceSpirit Unbroken Abby S StoryPost Traumatic Growth
Book:Healing Insights: Effects of Abuse for Adults Abused as Children
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“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.”

AbuseDomestic AbuseChildhood AbuseAbusive RelationshipsAbusive MenAbuserAbusive Partners
Author:Lundy Bancroft
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“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.”

AbuseDomestic ViolenceDomestic AbuseChildhood AbuseAbusive RelationshipsAbusive MenAbuserAbusive Partners
Book:Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men
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