#secrets

Children who are victimized through sexual abuse often begin to develop deeply held tenets that shape their sense of self: 'My worth is my sexuality. I'm dirty and shameful. I have no right to my own physical boundaries.' That shapes their ideas about the world around them: 'No one will believe me. Telling the truth results in bad consequences. People can't be trusted.' It doesn't take long for children to being to act in accordance with these belief systems. For girls who have experienced incest, sexual abuse, or rape, the boundaries between love, sex, and pain become blurred. Secrets are normal, and shame is a constant. ↗

— Rachel Lloyd

#children #incest #love #pain #rape

No matter how grave the secret, how imperative absolute silence, someone would always feel the urge to confess, and an unleashed secret is a terrible force. ↗

— Téa Obreht

#secrets #life

Ritualised child sexual abuse is about abuse of power, control and secrecy. Ten years ago many people found it difficult to believe that fathers actually raped their children, yet survivors of such abuses spoke out and eventually began to be listened to and believed. Ritual abuse survivors, when they try to speak out about their experiences, face denial and disbelief from society and often fear for their lives from the abusers. ↗

— Laurie Matthew

#child-abuse #childabuse #childhood-abuse #mental-health-professionals #rape

There is nothing in this world that never takes a step outside a person's heart. ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#honesty #intent #internal-self #love #secrets

What are we going to do, Ayden?" she whispered, glaring up at me. "I don't know," I confessed. "But how about we burn that bridge when we get there?" "I thought it was 'cross' that bridge?" I lightly poked her in the eye and she laughed. "No. We're burning bridges. Crossing is so overrated." I smiled and touched the corner of her eyes, captivated by the iridescent blues. "I think I like the sound of that," she whispered. "Yeah?" "Yeah. ↗

— Nadège Richards

#love #regrets #secrets #love

The man who can keep a secret may be wise, but he is not half as wise as the man with no secrets to keep ↗

— Edgar Watson Howe

#secrets #wisdom #inspirational

Reading is a private pursuit; one that takes place behind closed doors. ↗

— Siri Hustvedt

#privacy #reading-secrets #men

Listen to the trees as they sway in the wind. Their leaves are telling secrets. Their bark sings songs of olden days as it grows around the trunks. And their roots give names to all things. Their language has been lost. But not the gestures. ↗

— Vera Nazarian

#bark #gestures #hear #hearing #listen

Jews have been the most successful and productive nation in history. ↗

— H.W. Charles

#money #secrets #success #wealth #wealth-creation

It is a fundamental principle of American democracy that laws should not be public only when it is convenient for government officials to make them public. They should be public all the time, open to review by adversarial courts, and subject to change by an accountable legislature guided by an informed public. If Americans are not able to learn how their government is interpreting and executing the law then we have effectively eliminated the most important bulwark of our democracy. That’s why, even at the height of the Cold War, when the argument for absolute secrecy was at its zenith, Congress chose to make US surveillance laws public. Without public laws, and public court rulings interpreting those laws, it is impossible to have informed public debate. And when the American people are in the dark, they can’t make fully informed decisions about who should represent them, or protest policies that they disagree with. These are fundamentals. It’s Civics 101. And secret law violates those basic principles. It has no place in America. ↗

— Ron Wyden

#law #national-security #secrets #surveillance #change