Black Box Quotes

“I felt as though everything inside me had been obliterated.
However much I tried, however much I wanted to go back to being who I was before, it was impossible--all that was left was an empty husk of my former self.”
― Shiori Itō, Black Box

“Those of you who are taking the time to read my book—I wonder what you may already know about me. Do you think of me as the woman who was raped, or the woman who has the courage to hold a press conference, or as the person who appeared with her shirt unbuttoned even when she was talking about rape?”
― Shiori Itō, Black Box

“If I were going to die, there would be time for that later--after doing everything I could and using all that I had to confront the systemic problems that I knew needed to change.”
― Shiori Itō, Black Box

“According to a survey from the rape center in Stockholm, 70 percent of rape victims report that, in the midst of the assault, they became unable to move or to resist, experiencing a dissociative state. This condition is called “tonic immobility,” an involuntary state of paralysis—like playing dead—that animals enter into when they sense danger.”
― Shiori Itō, Black Box

“I needed to communicate all of this in my own words, with my own voice. If I waited for someone else to speak out, things would never change.”
― Shiori Itō, Black Box

“Later, when I visited a psychiatrist, I was told that children who have been abused will often speak about their trauma as if they are describing something that happened to someone they know. I could relate to that.”
― Shiori Itō, Black Box