To take such a complex creature, on who was meant for God and is destroyed by sin, and attempt to understand how the development of that creature can be affected by hideous trauma is to attempt the impossible.

~ Diane Mandt Langberg

Diane Mandt Langberg Counseling Healing Traumatic Experiences

The experience of chronic abuse carries within it the gross mislabeling of things. Perpetrators are really nice daddies. Victims are evil and seductive (at the age of three!). Nonprotecting parents are tired and busy. The survivor makes a giant leap forward when [he or ]she can call abuse by its right name and grasp the concept that what was done was a manifestation of the heart of the perpetrator, not the heart of the victim.

~ Diane Mandt Langberg

Diane Mandt Langberg Abuse Abuse Survivors Abusive Family Child Abuse Survivors Denial Of Abuse Minimization Mislabelling Nonprotecting Perpetrators Rrecovery From Abuse Survivors Survivors Of Abuse Therapy Therapy For Rape Victims

One of the reasons a survivor finds it so difficult to see herself as a victim is that she has been blamed repeatedly for the abuse: If you weren't such a whore, this wouldn't have to happen. Each time she is used and trashed, she becomes further convinced of her innate badness. She sees herself participating in forbidden sexual activity and may often get some sense of gratification from it even if she doesn't want to (it is, after all, a form of touch, and our bodies respond without the consent of our wills). This is seen as further proof that the abuse is her fault and well deserved. In her mind, she has become responsible for the actions of her abusers. She believes she is not a victim; she is a loathsome, despicable, worthless human being—if indeed she even qualifies as human. When the abuse has been sadistic in nature...these beliefs are futher entrenched.

~ Diane Mandt Langberg

Diane Mandt Langberg Abuse Survivors Child Abuse Child Sexual Abuse Child Sexual Abuse Survivor Child Sexual Abuse Survivors Complex Ptsd Complex Trauma Dehumanization Incest No Longer Human Self Blame Victim Blaming