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Survivor Quotes

Browse 897 quotes about Survivor.

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Survivor Quotes

“Along with the trust issues, one of the hardest parts to deal with is the feeling of not being believed or supported, especially by your own grandparents and extended family. When I have been through so much pain and hurt and have to live with the scars every day, I get angry knowing that others think it is all made up or they brush it off because my cousin was a teenager. I was ten when I was first sexually abused by my cousin, and a majority of my relatives have taken the perpetrator's side. I have cried many times about everything and how my relatives gave no support or love to me as a kid when this all came out. Not one relative ever came up to that innocent little girl I was and said "I am sorry for what you went through" or "I am here for you." Instead they said hurtful things: "Oh he was young." "That is what kids do." "It is not like he was some older man you didn't know." Why does age make a difference? It is a sick way of thinking. Sexual abuse is sexual abuse. What is wrong with this picture? It brings tears to my eyes the way my relatives have reacted to this and cannot accept the truth. Denial is where they would rather stay.”

FamilyIssuesTrustDenialSurvivorSexual AbuseRapeTriggersDisbeliefCopingChild Sexual AbuseIncestDisclosureDysfunctional FamilySociety DenialDysfunctional FamiliesChild RapeChild Sexual Abuse SurvivorAbuse SurvivorMolestationMinimizationLack Of SupportPedophile ProtectorsMolestMolested
Book:Living for Today: From Incest and Molestation to Fearlessness and Forgiveness
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“As we move away from the old role in which we were helplessly entrapped as a victim, we make friends with the people who affirm us. Their enthusiasm about us mirrors the positive experience we are having.”

HealingFriendsEmpowermentVictimRecoveryMoving OnSurvivorFriendshipsAbuse SurvivorsSurvivorsAffirmingHealing From AbuseRecovery From AbuseVictim RoleThriver
Book:Beyond Survival: A Writing Journey for Healing Childhood Sexual Abuse
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“I’m still here. The doubt, the fear, the heartbreak, the depression, the anxiety, the insecurity: It didn’t win. The people who hurt me and let me down: They didn’t win. The disappointment and the failure, and the hopes and deferred dreams: Nope. They didn’t win either.”

DepressionAnxietyHeartbreakInsecuritySurvivorYou Are EnoughMandy Hale
Book:You Are Enough: Heartbreak, Healing, and Becoming Whole
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“Changes in Relationship with others: It is especially hard to trust other people if you have been repeatedly abused, abandoned or betrayed as a child. Mistrust makes it very difficult to make friends, and to be able to distinguish between good and bad intentions in other people. Some parts do not seem to trust anyone, while other parts may be so vulnerable and needy that they do not pay attention to clues that perhaps a person is not trustworthy. Some parts like to be close to others or feel a desperate need to be close and taken care of, while other parts fear being close or actively dislike people. Some parts are afraid of being in relationships while others are afraid of being rejected or criticized. This naturally sets up major internal as well as relational conflicts.”

FearRelationshipsEmotionEmotionalTrustPersonalityShameGuiltMemoryTraumaBetrayalSurvivorPtsdDissociative Identity DisorderMistrustBondDissociativeComplex Ptsd
Book:Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation: Skills Training for Patients and Therapists
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“Alterations in regulation of affect (emotion) and impulse: Almost all people who are seriously traumatized have problems in tolerating and regulating their emotions and surges or impulses. However, those with complex PTSD and dissociative disorders tend to have more difficulties than those with PTSD because disruptions in early development have inhibited their ability to regulate themselves. The fact that you have a dissociative organization of your personality makes you highly vulnerable to rapid and unexpected changes in emotions and sudden impulses. Various parts of the personality intrude on each other either through passive influence or switching when your under stress, resulting in dysregulation. Merely having an emotion, such as anger, may evoke other parts of you to feel fear or shame, and to engage in impulsive behaviors to stop avoid the feelings.”

FearEmotionAttentionEmotionalPersonalityBehaviorShameMemoryTraumaSurvivorPtsdDissociative Identity DisorderAvoidanceDissociationAmnesiaImpulsiveDissociativeComplex PtsdAffectDay DreamingAffect RegulationDisregulated
Book:Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation: Skills Training for Patients and Therapists
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“Changes in Meaning: Finally, chronically traumatized people lose faith that good things can happen and people can be kind and trustworthy. They feel hopeless, often believing that the future will be as bad as the past, or that they will not live long enough to experience a good future. People who have a dissociative disorder may have different meanings in various dissociative parts. Some parts may be relatively balanced in their worldview, others may be despairing, believing the world to be a completely negative, dangerous place, while other parts might maintain an unrealistic optimistic outlook on life”

HopeFearEmotionAttentionEmotionalPersonalityBehaviorShameMemoryTraumaSurvivorMeaninglessPtsdDissociative Identity DisorderWorldviewAvoidanceDissociationAmnesiaImpulsiveDissociativeComplex PtsdAffectDay DreamingAffect RegulationDisregulatedFaith Belief
Book:Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation: Skills Training for Patients and Therapists
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“Complex PTSD consists of of six symptom clusters, which also have been described in terms of dissociation of personality. Of course, people who receive this diagnosis often also suffer from other problems as well, and as noted earlier, diagnostic categories may overlap significantly. The symptom clusters are as follows: Alterations in Regulation of Affect ( Emotion ) and Impulses Changes in Relationship with others Somatic Symptoms Changes in Meaning Changes in the perception of Self Changes in Attention and Consciousness”

FearRelationshipsEmotionEmotionalTrustPersonalityShameGuiltMemoryTraumaBetrayalSurvivorPtsdDissociative Identity DisorderMistrustBondDissociativeComplex Ptsd
Book:Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation: Skills Training for Patients and Therapists
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“Changes in the Perception of Self: People who have been traumatized in childhood are often troubled by guilt, shame, and negative feelings about themselves, such as the belief they are unlikable, unlovable, stupid, inept, dirty, worthless, lazy, and so forth. In Complex Dissociative disorders there are typically particular parts that contain these negative feelings about the self while other parts may evaluate themselves quite differently. Alterations among parts thus may result in rather rapid and distinct changes in self perception.”

FearEmotionEmotionalPersonalityShameGuiltMemoryTraumaSurvivorPtsdDissociative Identity DisorderAmnesiaDissociativeWorthlessnessComplex PtsdAffectAffect RegulationDisregulated
Book:Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation: Skills Training for Patients and Therapists
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“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?”

ChangeEmotionIdentityAbuseMental HealthTraumaSurvivorChildDreamingSexual AbuseDissociative Identity DisorderUnrealDissociationMirrorAmnesiaMultiple Personality DisorderIncestIdentity CrisisUnrealityMemory LossDissociativeSplit PersonalityTriggerIdentity ConfusionImpostorTriggeredDissociated StateDream LikeLookalikePersonality SwitchEmotionalsIdentity AlternationIdentity Switch
Book:Today I'm Alice: Nine Personalities, One Tortured Mind
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“If I was set an essay on Friday, I’d spend three hours on Saturday morning in the library. Was that normal? I didn’t know. What I did know was that I felt less prone to depression and more normal walking through Venice or staring out over the lake in Zurich. At home I wrestled continually with my moods. The black thing inside me gnawed like a rat at my self-esteem and self-confidence. I felt there was a happy person inside me too, who wanted to enjoy life, to be normal, but my feelings of self-loathing and the deep distrust I had towards my father wouldn’t allow that sunny person to come out. When the black thing had an iron grip on me, I couldn’t even look at my father: Did you do bad things to me when I was little? Like a line from a song stuck in your brain, the words ran through my head and never once came out of my mouth. Not that I needed to say what was in my mind. I was sure Father could read my thoughts in my moods, in the blank, dead stare of my eyes. It was hardly surprising that there was always an atmosphere of strain and awkwardness in the house, and the blame was always mine: Alice and her moods, Alice and her anorexia; Alice and her low self-esteem; Alice and her inescapable feelings of loss and emptiness.”

EmotionEmotionalDepressionEmptyAbuseMental HealthTraumaTeenagerEmptinessSurvivorSexual AbuseDissociative Identity DisorderDissociationChild Sexual AbuseAnorexiaEssayMultiple Personality DisorderIncestDissociative
Book:Today I'm Alice: Nine Personalities, One Tortured Mind
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“Many a survivor of a plane crash who is or was against cannibalism and had never eaten human flesh once found themselves in a situation where they had to either eat human flesh, or go the way of all flesh.”

HumorFunnyDeathQuotesCultureDyingHumourSurvivalStandardsHumorousDiedQuoteInstinctProfoundPhilosopherQuote Of The DayPlanesImmortalityJudgementThoughtfulSatireImmortalThought ProvokingMortalityDeepSurvivorInsightfulMoralsAphorismDeadSouth AfricaDieQuotationsAfricaImmoralMaximsSayingsAdagesProverbsEvaluateAphorismsMake You ThinkSurviveAxiomsJudgeAdageSurvivorsSelf PreservationProverbSatiricalEvaluationSayingEpigramsAfricanQuotationGnomeCannibalSatiristMaximEpigramGnomesProvoke ThoughtMade Me ThinkAxiomDictumDictumsMortalInstinctsAgainstSouth AfricanSatiristsPlaneEthnocentrismPlane CrashCultural ConditioningCrashesHuman FleshCannibalism CannibalsEthnocentric
Book:The Use and Misuse of Children
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“The survivor spoke to us though, or tried to. Mumbling through that matted brown beard of his, pale as death itself. I can’t say now if it was weakness from his wounds or what it was – but we struggled to understand him. In fact we got nothing intelligible from him at all then. He seemed afraid, like any dying man probably would be, but he did seem more terrified than any dying man I’ve seen before – and I’ve seen a few in my time. Let me tell you, Corsair or not, he grabbed whatever hand would hold his, and clenched it so tight his knuckles turned white! He kept fading out as we carried him on the stretcher board the medics brought with them. Looking back, I think he tried to warn us, poor bastard. He tried to tell us to leave him behind and go, but we wouldn’t listen. We thought we were better than the Corsairs, remember? We thought we would be all moral and upright and try to help him. ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’ were the last words he said before losing consciousness. At least, those that we could make out. At the end of it all, he was right – as it turned out, we couldn’t even help ourselves.”

RememberWhiteConsciousnessMoralDyingThoughtSurvivorFactEndListenAfraidFadingOutSayLookingOurselvesBastardThenLeastLetItselfWarnTriedBroughtStruggled
Book:Space Vacation
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“Age's sole purpose is to gift us more years in which to experience the minefield that is living. Along with that, it grants us the perspective to know that by the end of it all, it doesn't matter a damn whit that we no longer look like our younger selves. Because here's the thing we are no longer those supple, youthful, foolish people. We're that much older and infinitely wiser, war-weary and battle-scarred. We've become survivors and warriors, and as Ruby will tell you, you should always, always look the part.”

LooksWisdomAgeWomenWarriorSurvivor
Book:The Witches of Moonshyne Manor
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“Anyone who cannot come to terms with his life while he is alive needs one hand to ward off a little his despair over his fate –he has little success in this –but with his other hand he can note down what he sees among the ruins, for he sees different (and more) things than do the others; after all, dead as he is in his own lifetime, he is the real survivor. This assumes that he does not need both hands, or more hands than he has, in his struggle against despair.”

LifeFateDespairSurvivorDiary
Book:Diaries, 1910-1923
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“And when hope returns to us, it will be with a passion and power to match every ounce of this crushing despair and pain, every fiery shred of determination that carried us when hope failed. It will claim us with a courage that will make the goddess herself quake and doubt herself.”

LifePainPassionHopeFearLossGriefPowerCourageDoubtFireStrengthDespairSurvivalDeterminationOvercomingBraveryBraveCourageousSurvivorOvercome
Book:Forsaken Kingdom
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“The universe runs on the principle that one who can exert the most evil on other creatures runs the show.”

PoliticalUniverseEvilPoliticsPowerAmbitionDevilGoodCrueltyWickedGood And EvilSurvivorDictatorshipGood DeedsPoliticiansWickednessPolitical PhilosophyPolitical CorrectnessUniverse QuotesSurviveSurvival InstinctInhumanityEvil PeopleThe Great Pearl Of WisdomSurvival Of The FittestAmbitionsCruelUniverse QuotationsIniquityGood Vs EvilEvil ManBangambikiSurvival QuotesSurvival StoryEvil QuotesAmbition QuotesEvil ThoughtsCruel WorldSurviving LifeDevil QuotesLies PoliticsBarbarityLust For PowerAmbition And AttitudeEvil MenSurvivalistEvilnessGood And Evil QuotesSurvivalismMisuse Of PowerAmbition QuotePolitical AmbitionMachiavellianSurvival Is The Name Of The GameUniverse QuoteWicked PeopleCruel PeopleEvil SpiritEvilsAmbition Life AmbitionsLove Of PowerMacchiavelliEnormityEvil WordsGood Deeds QuotesPolitical Ambition QuotesPower AddictionCrueltiesGood And Evil QuoteWicked IntensionsIniquitious
Book:Pearls Of Eternity
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“When basic human needs are ignored, rejected, or invalidated by those in roles and positions to appropriately meet them; when the means by which these needs have been previously met are no longer available: and when prior abuse has already left one vulnerable for being exploited further, the stage is set for the possibility these needs will be prostituted. This situation places a survivor who has unmet needs in an incredible dilemma. She can either do without or seek the satisfaction of mobilized needs through some "illegitimate" source that leaves her increasingly divided from herself and ostracized from others. While meeting needs in this way resolves the immediate existential experience of deprivation and abandonment. it produces numerous other difficulties. These include experiencing oneself as “bad” or "weak" for having such strong needs; experiencing shame and guilt for relying on “illegitimate” sources of satisfaction: experiencing a loss of self-respect for indulging in activities contrary to personal moral standards of conduct; risking the displeasure and misunderstanding of others important to her; and opening oneself to the continued abuse and victimization of perpetrators who are all too willing to selfishly use others for their own pleasure and purposes under the guise of being 'helpful.”

NeedsHumanityEvilWeaknessAbuseShameVictimGuiltVulnerabilityManipulationNeglectSurvivorAbandonedChild AbuseExploitationEmotional AbuseDeprivedAbandonmentProstitutionDeprivationAbuse Of PowerBasic NeedsGuilty ConscienceVictimizationOstracismEmotional NeglectExploitInvalidationAbuse Of Authority
Author:J. Jeffrey Means
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“Being Scared-off by Evil Lastly, we deny the presence of evil because we are terrified by the horrendously hurtful, cruel, and bloody kinds of evil people tell us about—if we are willing to listen. This was poignantly brought home during an interdisciplinary case conference involving a resident who was counseling for the first time a woman who had been sexually abused. As we worked with him, it became clear that he was resisting entering what he called the 'psychic cave" of her sealed—off experience from which she was shouting for assistance. Because of his resistance, he was not providing her the support and guidance she so desperately needed, and he was not facilitating her working through the abuse and hurt that were continuing to impact her life. As he was confronted about this at one point in the conference, he stated tearfully: "I'm afraid if I help her move into her memories. I will have to go with her, and if I go with her, my view of the world as a basically good and safe place will be shattered. I'm not sure I can handle that for myself, or be able to think about the fact that my wife and kids may be more vulnerable living in this world than I can be comfortable believing" (Means 1995, 299).”

EvilFearAbuseVictimMental IllnessVulnerabilitySurvivorChild AbusePtsdSexual AbuseWorldviewChild Sexual AbusePsychotherapyCounselingRapidJust WorldNature Of The WorldJust World Beliefs
Book:Trauma and Evil: Healing the Wounded Soul
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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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“Healing is your right, your responsibility and the risk you can't afford not to take.”

LifeInspirationalMotivationalPastInspirational QuotesLife LessonsPoetryMotivationStrongLife QuotesGrowthInspiringHealingStrengthPositivePositive ThinkingInspireInspirational LifeLivingLife And LivingOptimismInspirational AttitudePerseveranceResilienceWoundsOptimisticSpiritual GrowthSurvivorPositive LifePositive AffirmationScarsHealing The PastPast And PresentSpiritual PoetryHurtsWoundedness
Book:Honey peppered tongue
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“For every spirit who is learning: you heal yourself.”

LifeInspirationalMotivationalPastInspirational QuotesLife LessonsPoetryMotivationStrongLife QuotesGrowthInspiringHealingStrengthPositivePositive ThinkingInspireInspirational LifeLivingLife And LivingOptimismInspirational AttitudePerseveranceResilienceWoundsOptimisticSpiritual GrowthSurvivorPositive LifePositive AffirmationScarsHealing The PastPast And PresentSpiritual PoetryHurtsWoundedness
Book:Honey peppered tongue
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“You must have thought more times than you realized "it will hurt". You should know it may. Okay. It may hurt immensely to open you up in your safe, dark space, sporadic light and chaotic air hitting you unlike anything you have known. Sometimes it will feel impossible to swallow. Because finding your way back to you involves telling the truth about oneself while pushing through a field of trees that are all whispering different tones of you.”

LifeInspirationalMotivationalPastInspirational QuotesLife LessonsPoetryMotivationStrongLife QuotesGrowthInspiringHealingStrengthPositivePositive ThinkingInspireInspirational LifeLivingLife And LivingOptimismInspirational AttitudePerseveranceResilienceWoundsOptimisticSpiritual GrowthSurvivorPositive LifePositive AffirmationScarsHealing The PastPast And PresentSpiritual PoetryHurtsWoundedness
Book:Honey peppered tongue
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“Don't ever allow the disharmony of others to become your own a mindful practice of discernment (and the dislike for wearing bullshit) builds the eye, heart and spiritual muscles.”

LifeInspirationalMotivationalPastInspirational QuotesLife LessonsPoetryMotivationStrongLife QuotesGrowthInspiringHealingStrengthPositivePositive ThinkingInspireInspirational LifeLivingLife And LivingOptimismInspirational AttitudePerseveranceResilienceWoundsOptimisticSpiritual GrowthSurvivorPositive LifePositive AffirmationScarsHealing The PastPast And PresentSpiritual PoetryHurtsWoundedness
Author:Thaiia Senquetta
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“Kiss your scars. Fall in love with them. They ought to serve as life-affirming reminders—a lingering trace of hope. The only reason we have these scars is because we survived and are still here.”

LoveLifeReasonBodyTruthPastBeautifulHopeNaturalBeautyAlivePureLivingHumanAppreciateMarkQuoteFaultsPerseveranceAppreciationAppearanceInspirational QuoteKissManWomanEnduranceSurvivorLove YourselfScarNever Give UpAdoreAdorationKamandKojouriKamand KojouriLikeSurviveLingeringPhysicalWoundLife AffirmingFlawAffirmSpotLife AffirmationBlemish
Author:Kamand Kojouri
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