You think maybe if you just work harder and faster, you can hold off the chaos, but then one day you’re changing a patio light bulb with a five-year life span and you realize how...

Survivors often develop an exaggerated need for control in their adult relationships. It’s the only way they feel safe. They also struggle with commitment—saying yes in a relationship means being trapped in yet another family...

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,...

During this hour in the waking streets I felt at ease, at peace; my body, which I despised, operated like a machine. I was spaced out, the catchphrase my friends at school used to describe...

One area where this misperception has hit hard has been research on child sexual abuse. Despite an explosion of research on the issue over recent decades, most research reported in the literature is focused on...

I want to be judged by who I am as a person, not by what happened to me. In fact, all the bad things have only contributed to my confidence and sense of self, because...

But if I’m it, the last of my kind, the last page of human history, like hell I’m going to let the story end this way. I may be the last one, but I am...

The Rochester group [of VOTF], however, was met with some concern as they found it hard to believe my account as it unfolded before them. I feel that some people have a hard time with...

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...

Coming to terms with incest is not easy. Learning to be a survivor, not a victim, gives new meaning to life

Miriam is upset. Her voice is stretched and I can’t look at her. Perhaps they beat something out of her she didn’t get back.

[…] [T]here was no quota on misery for people, no quantifiable threshold that once reached, got you miraculously taken out of the distress pool.

[…]It is as if after surviving so much, there was no longer reason to survive.

People with Complex PTSD suffer from more severe and frequent dissociation symptoms, as well as memory and attention problems, than those with simple PTSD. In addition to amnesia due to the activity of various parts...

Kamu tidak kalah. Ketika kamu memutuskan untuk hidup waktu itu, melawan rasa sakitmu sendiri ketika di gunung itu, kamu sudah menang.

What a beautiful woman. She moved with grace, she was entirely feminine, and yet, she possessed incredible inner strength. She’s a survivor.

Underlying the attack on psychotherapy, I believe, is a recognition of the potential power of any relationship of witnessing. The consulting room is a privileged space dedicated to memory. Within that space, survivors gain the...

I’m not an expert, I’m a survivor. I hope you can learn how to be one yourself.

The shame, embarrassment, feeling of low self-worth, and scores of “labels” we give ourselves are not fitting. I am beginning to see how I had no control over the situation. He was a big man,...

As in so many cases of sexual abuse within the family, it is much more complicated than had it been done by a stranger.

How can you make light of it? I says. What should I do? She says. Cry fer the rest of my life? Molly of the Many Sorrows?…You got battle scars. This is mine, she says....