My Father's House Quotes

“Imagine this: imagine you discover that for many years another person intimately shared your life without your knowing it. Oh, you had your suspicions – the indented pillow beside you, the toothpaste with a thumbprint that wasn’t yours. Now it all fits, you know it’s true, but during all that time you never actually saw this person. And so it is with me. She was my shadow-self, unknown to me. She knew passion where I knew only inhibition, then grief where I knew guilt, then terror where I knew anger. She monitored my every thought, manipulated my actions, aided my survival and sabotaged my dreams, for she was I and I was she. (228)”
― Sylvia Fraser, My Father's House : Memoir of Incest and Healing

“As a child, I survived by forgetting. Later, the amnesia became a problem as large as the one it was meant to conceal. However, I did not remember my past until the homemade bomb was defused, until the evil was contained, until I was stable enough and happy enough that sorrow or anger or regret or pain was overwhelmed by joy at my release. To reach this state, I needed the help of friends and healers. This I had in abundance. (252)”
― Sylvia Fraser, My Father's House : Memoir of Incest and Healing

“I wrap my mind around pain till it smothers in its own scream. (101)”
― Sylvia Fraser, My Father's House : Memoir of Incest and Healing