Rape Survivor Quotes

“In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure no one listens.”
― Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near the frozen creek. That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.”
― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

“No amount of me trying to explain myself was doing any good. I didn't even know what was going on inside of me, so how could I have explained it to them?”
― Sierra D. Waters, Debbie.

“... in practice the standard for what constitutes rape is set not at the level of women's experience of violation but just above the level of coercion acceptable to men.”
― Judith Lewis Herman

“A while ago?” Anaxantis asked. “Yes, he raped me a while ago. Exactly nine months and two days ago. What's that? Nine months or nine minutes. It's the same. And it is in the past, you say? Then why is it still happening, every day, every time I close my eyes? Every time I hear someone behind me, and I don't know who it is? How is it that I get an almost irresistible urge to kill anyone who happens to touch me unexpectedly? Tell me, Hemarchidas, how do I forgive, let alone forget, something that is still happening, that keeps happening over and over? How? How do I do that?”
― Andrew Ashling, The Invisible Chains - Part 1: Bonds of Hate

“Here, from her ashes you lay. A broken girl so lost in despondency that you know that even if she does find her way out of this labyrinth in hell, that she will never see, feel, taste, or touch life the same again.”
― Amanda Steele, The Cliff

“Today I wore a pair of faded old jeans and a plain grey baggy shirt. I hadn't even taken a shower, and I did not put on an ounce of makeup. I grabbed a worn out black oversized jacket to cover myself with even though it is warm outside. I have made conscious decisions lately to look like less of what I felt a male would want to see. I want to disappear.”
― Sierra D. Waters, Debbie.

“If you think I'm going to apologize for being drugged and raped, you have another thing coming.”
― E.K. Johnston, Exit, Pursued by a Bear

“Intimidated, old traumas triggered, and fearing for my safety, I did what I felt I needed to do.”
― Sierra D. Waters, Debbie.

“Imagine the message that sent to my sister and me. A cousin violates us, confesses, and walks away with barely a slap on the wrist. I learned at a young age that if I was ever going to see justice for the wrongs done to me, I had to find it myself.”
― Erin Merryn, Living for Today: From Incest and Molestation to Fearlessness and Forgiveness

“The terror takes you. The cage is locked and the curtain drawn. Fingers dance along as blades, carving memories into your flesh that will leave scars long past being healed.”
― Amanda Steele, The Cliff

“She told me that my rape was not my fault, that I should feel no shame, that – simple as it may sound – I hadn’t caused it. No one causes rape but rapists. No one causes rape but rapists. No one causes rape but rapists. It was true. And it had not been obvious to me. And hearing it from someone else, a professional, someone who should know, helped me believe that soon I would believe it.”
― Aspen Matis, Girl in the Woods: A Memoir

“Because I questioned myself and my sanity and what I was doing wrong in this situation. Because of course I feared that I might be overreacting, overemotional, oversensitive, weak, playing victim, crying wolf, blowing things out of proportion, making things up. Because generations of women have heard that they're irrational, melodramatic, neurotic, hysterical, hormonal, psycho, fragile, and bossy. Because girls are coached out of he womb to be non-confrontational, agreeable, solicitous, deferential, demure, nurturing, to be tuned in to others, and to shrink and shut up.”
― Roxane Gay, Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture

“The child gives, because the body can, and the mind of the violator cannot.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“You f*#ked my v*g*na, you wanted to think that you f#*ked my mind, but unlike you, D*ck, my mind doesn't lie between my two legs.

~ Subhangi Tyagi”
― Kirtida Gautam, #iAm16iCan

“He told me that if I hung up, he'd do it. He would commit suicide. He told me that if I called the cops he would kill every single one of them and I knew that he had the potential and the means to do it”
― Sierra D. Waters, Debbie.

“All I know is
that somewhere.
Some time.
Somehow.
Something has to change.”
― Suzie Miller, Prima Facie

“What were you wearing? Why did you go to his empty house alone? Did you drink any alcohol or take any drugs before going to Samael's house? Do you have a boyfriend?
If so, are you serious with him? Are you sexually active?
What did you eat that day? Who cooked for you? Who dropped you off at Samael's house?
I was mentally prodded, poked and attacked with quickfire questions that made no sense to me. My mind couldn't begin to fathom why they needed to know those things about me. I was astounded by how different it was this time.
The worst question they asked me was: are you sure you didn't imagine it considering your past?
Like it was my fault. Like I had imagined the sexual assault I had undergone. Like I had just assumed that he was that kind of guy because of what the monster did to me. I was on the verge of throwing up throughout the entire trial. My mum and dad both sat silently watching, looking like they were ready to burst.
This was serious they kept on telling me. Sam was over eighteen. I could be ruining his life right now if I was wrong.”
― Danielle Dunn, What it's Like to Keep Living

“Justifiable homicide exists (for instance, if you’re killing someone to stop a rape), but justifiable rape? Do you ever need to rape someone to stop any other crime? The only people who openly justify rape are those who run blatantly woman-hating societies, where women are objects.”
― Sohaila Abdulali, What We Talk About When We Talk about Rape

“I can imagine murdering, but not raping. Murder is worse than rape, I know, but there are lots of reasons to do it. If I were in a state of out-of-control rage, if someone were threatening to harm me or someone else, if killing someone were the only way to avoid some terrible catastrophe …”
― Sohaila Abdulali, What We Talk About When We Talk about Rape

“If men felt empowered to talk about sex with their partner, especially before any sexual relationship has occurred, many harmful situations could perhaps be avoided. Many men see talking about sex as embarrassing, awkward or feminine. To avoid our boys becoming men who harm women, we need to encourage them to talk openly about sex and their feelings towards it. We need to encourage them to want to talk about sex with women, to see it as a part of the process of love and relationships, instead of leaving communication as solely the burden of the feminine partner to take on. Consent doesn't have to necessarily be sexy, but it should have to be talked about in an open and understanding way.”
― Catriona Morton, The Way We Survive: Notes on Rape Culture

“He was about to traipse through my body like an unwanted trespasser, but I wasn't going to lose my life because of it. His dirty footsteps through my temple would leave traces, but traces were better than bones.”
― Vanessa de Largie, Without My Consent

“With each thrust he was walking through my rooms, secret rooms -- so private. He had entered without a key or code. I was being raided. I was just a vagina.

He thrusted harder and faster, the doors to my rooms opening and closing, slamming and banging -- longing to shut him out.”
― Vanessa de Largie, Without My Consent

“If only I could dispel of him and shit the bastard out. Wipe my arse, flush the toilet and move forward. Rape couldn't be relieved through a bowel movement unfortunately. It was going to sit and stagnate in me.”
― Vanessa de Largie, Without My Consent

“I assumed I'd exercise my loud voice if ever attacked. Yet, on that morning, my voice abandoned me. I couldn't speak, let alone scream. All my energy was being channelled into staying alive at whatever cost.”
― Vanessa de Largie, Without My Consent

“Time can feel frozen in moments of terror, as if your entire life, past and present, is laid out before you. One sees their life with clarity for the first time.”
― Vanessa de Largie, Without My Consent

“I had grime pushing itself with entitlement between my legs, without permission, without consent - without conscience. Society would blame me, the victim; after all, I was a drunken woman in a short dress who had idiotically chosen to take a nap on a bench.”
― Vanessa de Largie, Without My Consent

“Fear can do weird things to a person. A perfectly sane being can kill because of fear and I was deeply aware of this fact. A firm tightening of his hands around my neck would be the end of me and only the beginning for him. I wasn't preparing for death, but, when you're faced with your own mortality, you see life in its true size - endless and magnificent. This chapter would end and I would go on. Decision made.”
― Vanessa de Largie, Without My Consent

“There is a relatively common narrative that rape victims transform their experience into literature or art. Becoming the heroic protagonist in a heartbreaking narrative – creating ‘something’ from their experience, that others can find value in.

The way that the #metoo campaign required women to share their stories for others comes from the same narrative: we’re expected to use this traumatic experience in ways that are productive for others.

Yet many women who have survived rape are unable to process what has happened to them, let alone, turn it into fodder for the masses. I was emotionally paralysed for 17 years after my rape. Unable to articulate my experience. Confined and consumed by a white space of nothingness.”
― Vanessa de Largie

“He had said of me, ‘You are fated to be life’s passive participant,’ but I wrestled fate to the ground and suffocated its’ fortune. And yet, his laughter still mocks me, for though the earth has been my stepping stone, only here at the oceans’ side do I feel at ease. Only in your stillness do I find rest.
I am a waning bird
encased in a glass sphere;
I cannot see my prison,
and my cries no one can hear.”
― Craig Froman, An owl on the moon: A journal from the edge of darkness