35 Quotes by Laura Davis

Many survivors insist they’re not courageous: ‘If I were courageous I would have stopped the abuse.’ ‘If I were courageous, I wouldn't be scared’... Most of us have it mixed up. You don’t start with courage and then face fear. You become courageous because you face your fear.

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 situation where abuse might take place. So the survivor panics as her relationship gets closer, certain that something terrible is going to happen. She pulls away, rejects, or tests her partner all the time.

Often feelings of shame, powerlessness, and self-hate are bottled up with the memories, and as the memories come through, these feelings do, too.Yet healing isn't just about pain. It's about learning to love yourself.

Few of us have a healthy sense of boundaries. We either have rigid boundaries (“No one is ever going to get close to me”) or weak boundaries (“I’ll be anything anyone wants me to be”). Rigid boundaries lead to distance and isolation; weak boundaries, to over-dependency and sometimes, further abuse. The ideal is to develop flexible boundaries, boundaries which can vary depending on the circumstances.

If child sexual abuse was responsible for women becoming lesbians, then the lesbian population would be far greater than it is today.

We've seen water rushing down the arroyo, if we get another rain what's gonna happen to the cheap fill, is it gonna run into our backyard?

She's very good. I've played with her three or four times this year. She's very composed, hits a lot of good shots, never seems to miss a putt. That's good.

She's pretty tough to beat. She's very composed and never seems to miss a putt.

She's pretty tough to beat, but I missed too many putts, really. It's as simple as that.