I am passionate about the things that I believe in like equality, free will, justice and love.

In her heart she is a mourner for those who have not survived. In her soul she is a warrior for those who are now as she was then. In her life she is both...

abuse seminar” together some place, somehow? Was it taught in the seminary? In some dark corner? It goes beyond coincidence—the similarities in deeds and verbiage that these predators use on us. It truly chilled me...

Even in times of trauma, we try to maintain a sense of normality until we no longer can. That, my friends, is called surviving. Not healing. We never become whole again … we are survivors....

Every sea to scare the sailor, I have sailed.

It’s hard to feel supported when you can’t tell people everything. People haven’t really got a clue what it’s like. It’s hard to trust anyone. It’s hard to believe people won’t let you down. I’m...

There were other strange signals and signs. Another day, suddenly felt an almost overwhelming urge to travel to Balitmore. I wanted to ‘kidnap’ a helicoper fly it there if I didn’t drive the there’, she...

All emotions, even those that are suppressed and unexpressed, have physical effects. Unexpressed emotions tend to stay in the body like small ticking time bombs—they are illnesses in incubation.

Live for what you love, and die for what you’re unwilling to live without…

Do not be ashamed of your past. Learn from those experiences and move forward in your life. Teach others of the possibilities of change & living victoriously. You are a survivor.

A victim has the potential to transform into a survivor, but if that is forgotten, a true victim is what they become. A survivor must endure strife and persevere against those thoughts that would convince...

He loves me so he hurts meTo try and make me good.It doesn’t work. I’m just too badAnd don’t do what I should.My memory has so many different sections and, like all survivors, there are...

My hand-stitched wings itchto take flightto test the winds of changethat inevitably blow at the end of a cycle.

When faced with pain and evil, we have to make a choice.We can choose to be taken by the evil.Or we can try to embrace the good.

You are stronger than you know.

Someone once told me that survivors have to look out for one another.

Just as sometimes I wondered if Grandpa had ever existed, sometimes I wondered if I truly existed myself. As I was running, I could see myself from outside myself: a skinny girl with the flapping...

I think you’ve got to get out whatever’s hurting you through your art, so it doesn’t twist you up inside.

it’s very unlikely there could be survivors.

We search for happiness across every landscape, if only we knew that the seed in which it first grows, is planted within ourselves…

The enemy plotted against you and awaited your downfall. Look at you surviving. And your enemies can not figure out how. What you have inside is greater than any negative force.

Over the years, I learned to smile or laugh when I was supposed to. I kept my true self hidden; I did not need to unleash my pain on the world around me. Instead, I...

I have to find a place to hideAn island in the seaSurrounded by a racing tideWhere I can live with me

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...

I don’t think ‘Survivor’ really changed me.

Milena’s eyes seemed to go hot and heavy. Praise made her heartsick; she was so unused to it, and needed it so badly.

The power we discover inside ourselves as we survive a life-threatening experience can be utilized equally well outside of crisis, too. I am, in every moment, capable of mustering the strength to survive again—or of...

The odd sensation I had while cooking would often last through the meal, then dissolve as I climbed the stairs. I would enter my room and discover the homework books I had left on the...

I know you’re upset, I know you’re scared, but don’t walk away.

It was no coincidence, that fear could move a person to extremes, just as seamlessly as love. They were the conjoined twins of emotion: If you didn’t know what was at stake to lose, you...

I resolved to come right to the point. “Hello,” I said as coldly as possible, “we’ve got to talk.””Yes, Bob,” he said quietly, “what’s on your mind?” I shut my eyes for a moment, letting...

Forgiveness has nothing to do with absolving a criminal of his crime. It has everything to do with relieving oneself of the burden of being a victim–letting go of the pain and transforming oneself from...

Secrets are truths that show what we’ve been through—what we’ve survived.

I will never forget what you did to me. I will never forgive it. I will never stop mourning what you stole from me. But I realize now I can’t steal it back and I’m...

Survivors are damaged to different degrees by their experiences. This does not depend on what happened physically. A Survivor who has been raped will not necessarily be more damaged than a Survivor who has been...

So often survivors have had their experiences denied, trivialized, or distorted. Writing is an important avenue for healing because it gives you the opportunity to define your own reality. You can say: This did happen...

You have to fight the odds in life to be able to reach a greater height.

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...

I became skilled at covering my tracks, filling in the blanks. Sometimes the blanks were never filled. At other times, I would recall places where I had been or things I had done as if...

Baby, you’re not the one who’s broken. The assholes who mistreated you, they’re the broken ones. You did what you had to do to survive them.

It was a catch-22: If you didn’t put the trauma behind you, you couldn’t move on. But if you did put the trauma behind you, you willingly gave up your claim to the person you...

I remember the pain I felt, and wonder why a man who was such an accomplished liar had to tell the truth that day.

Hope starts as a promise made to yourself, the first drop of rain in a parched land, the first step onto dry earth for a shipwreck survivor. It is a listening crowd for a lonely...

The way surviving hard winters makes a tree grows stronger, the growth rings inside it tighter

I spent many years trying to make up reasons about why I had the flashbacks, memories, continuous nightmares. When I finally decided to quit trying to hide from truth, I began to heal.

I can’t get myself to say what happened next. I cannot cope with even thinking about this let alone living with it.””It is so degrading and I try to forget, it hurts so much because...

Surviving cancer is cool, but surviving old age is cooler.

Endurance of life problems, spirit of survival.

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...

There, there, best to bring it all up,’ she said. My memory was in shreds. Imagine a photograph cut into narrow strips then jumbled up. Everything is there, but you can’t see the whole picture...