Jeanne McElvaney Quotes & Sayings

You invite a time in the near future when you are no longer building your life on the unknown influences of your childhood sexual abuse. — Jeanne McElvaney

Each survivor chooses how secrecy is going to fit into their healing. Some share with their immediate family, but not their childhood family and friends. — Jeanne McElvaney

: Their acts violated our trust. : The secrecy told us we were alone. : The shame swirling through our experience convinced us we didn't deserve the best for ourselves. : Our circumstances twisted our beliefs about what to expect out of life. : Surviving our unpredictable, disempowering childhood left little opportunity to explore our talents or creativity. It's been said, living through childhood sexual abuse is like living in a war zone. Each of us survived by doing the best we could. Now we have the opportunity to celebrate the child we were and all we did to reach this place in life when healing is possible. Now we get to update our information. And this will bring encouraging, empowering, joy-filled changes into our lives. Each time you go back into a memory, you have the opportunity to 'see' what you learned in that moment of trauma. When I was six-years old, playing with my doll with abandon that blocked out all other noise, I found — Jeanne McElvaney

I was survivor of childhood sexual abuse in therapy for dissociated trauma memories. — Jeanne McElvaney

Our experience taught us we were alone so we have to break through barriers of shame, fear, and habit to realize the time has come to find help. — Jeanne McElvaney

: Our life may seem consistently out of control or overwhelming because, in avoiding the truths of our childhood, we didn't develop the skills to effectively pilot our lives. — Jeanne McElvaney

With the help of your therapist or healing ally, you can identify who makes you feel uneasy, concerned, scared, or defensive. — Jeanne McElvaney

About half of us dissociated our abuse at the moment it happened. We lived our days not knowing it happened ... or could happen again. But every survivor has shadows of their experience following them. — Jeanne McElvaney

These memories are lost to our conscious and cannot be remembered like an ordinary memory. Sometimes they come to us as flashbacks. — Jeanne McElvaney

Dissociated trauma memories are not attached to other memories by association. These memories go directly to the unconscious as a biological response separates awareness from consciousness. It's a natural, protective occurrence and it happens without will. — Jeanne McElvaney

The moment you believe your experience is caused by other people, you are giving them your power. — Jeanne McElvaney

I think most survivors transfer the shame of their experience into their present-day healing and become ashamed of themselves for needing the time and support — Jeanne McElvaney

I believe forgiving supports us most profoundly when it comes toward the end of our journey, when we intimately know what we are forgiving ~ — Jeanne McElvaney

We learned to turn inward to a place where we were able to re-define what was happening to us. In this mental space, we were able to color our experience with childhood reasoning or bury it deeply — Jeanne McElvaney