Paula - Defend Survivors
@defendsurvivors.bsky.social
✨ Activist for abuse/trauma survivors Fierce advocate & proud mom | Adoptee | Blog https://open.substack.com/pub/defendsurvivors
🛍️ Worthy & Wonderful Shop https://worthywonderfulshop.etsy.com
🛍️ Worthy & Wonderful Shop https://worthywonderfulshop.etsy.com
Stop making survivor and victim bad words and start making perpetrator and abuser bad words.
December 7, 2025 at 3:36 PM
Stop making survivor and victim bad words and start making perpetrator and abuser bad words.
Domestic abuse victims don’t need charity- they need protection and restoration.
youtube.com/shorts/zw2eK...
youtube.com/shorts/zw2eK...
How to help domestic violence victims? #shorts
YouTube video by Defend Survivors
youtube.com
December 7, 2025 at 3:04 PM
Domestic abuse victims don’t need charity- they need protection and restoration.
youtube.com/shorts/zw2eK...
youtube.com/shorts/zw2eK...
Why are mothers in domestic abuse shelters relying on angel trees to give presents to their children? Because they were failed by every system that was supposed to protect them.
December 6, 2025 at 7:31 PM
Why are mothers in domestic abuse shelters relying on angel trees to give presents to their children? Because they were failed by every system that was supposed to protect them.
If people only knew and cared how much even the smallest amount of validation means to a survivor…
December 6, 2025 at 2:06 AM
If people only knew and cared how much even the smallest amount of validation means to a survivor…
The harder things get the less energy and mental capacity the person has to deal with it. Then people add to the trauma with hurtful ‘helping’ messages like “you’re the only one that can fix this” or “no one’s coming to save you.” Survivors need stress taken off not added on.
December 6, 2025 at 12:28 AM
The harder things get the less energy and mental capacity the person has to deal with it. Then people add to the trauma with hurtful ‘helping’ messages like “you’re the only one that can fix this” or “no one’s coming to save you.” Survivors need stress taken off not added on.
The problem isn’t that you’re eliminating toxic people from your life - the problem is there are toxic people in your life.
December 5, 2025 at 11:37 PM
The problem isn’t that you’re eliminating toxic people from your life - the problem is there are toxic people in your life.
“Too often, society shifts blame onto survivors. But the blame belongs squarely at the feet of the perpetrator. Survivors don’t need to "let go" of shame — they need a world that never put it on them in the first place.”
open.substack.com/pub/defendsu...
open.substack.com/pub/defendsu...
Defend Survivors Forgiveness Friday | “You Did Nothing Wrong” 💜
Quote Of The Day July 25th, 2025
open.substack.com
December 5, 2025 at 6:06 PM
“Too often, society shifts blame onto survivors. But the blame belongs squarely at the feet of the perpetrator. Survivors don’t need to "let go" of shame — they need a world that never put it on them in the first place.”
open.substack.com/pub/defendsu...
open.substack.com/pub/defendsu...
Shocking isn’t it, how many times people try to make the survivor the problem.
#stopvictimblaming
#stopvictimblaming
December 5, 2025 at 1:51 AM
Shocking isn’t it, how many times people try to make the survivor the problem.
#stopvictimblaming
#stopvictimblaming
The problem is not that it’s a ‘trend’ to not have contact with abusive people - the problem is that abusive people have never been held accountable and survivors supported. #nocontact
December 5, 2025 at 1:04 AM
The problem is not that it’s a ‘trend’ to not have contact with abusive people - the problem is that abusive people have never been held accountable and survivors supported. #nocontact
“So many people want to explain a survivor’s trauma back to them. They want to tell them what it means, how they should feel about it, and how they should heal. But the truth is absolutely no one understands that trauma more than the survivor themselves.”
open.substack.com/pub/defendsu...
open.substack.com/pub/defendsu...
Defend Survivors Therapy Thursday | Trauma-Informed Means Listening to Survivors
Quote Of The Day | August 14th, 2025
open.substack.com
December 4, 2025 at 11:50 PM
“So many people want to explain a survivor’s trauma back to them. They want to tell them what it means, how they should feel about it, and how they should heal. But the truth is absolutely no one understands that trauma more than the survivor themselves.”
open.substack.com/pub/defendsu...
open.substack.com/pub/defendsu...
One of the best things you can do for a survivor is to help them not accept the guilt, blame, shame, and responsibility that belongs others. Unfortunately too often ‘prevention’ messages do the exact opposite.
December 4, 2025 at 9:03 PM
One of the best things you can do for a survivor is to help them not accept the guilt, blame, shame, and responsibility that belongs others. Unfortunately too often ‘prevention’ messages do the exact opposite.
If someone responds with a personal attack that’s an immediate block. We’ve already lived through and survived abuse many of us multiple times. We certainly are not tolerating more abuse from strangers online.
December 4, 2025 at 8:56 PM
If someone responds with a personal attack that’s an immediate block. We’ve already lived through and survived abuse many of us multiple times. We certainly are not tolerating more abuse from strangers online.
It’s great to raise money to give abused children holiday presents but what they really need is to be defended and to get out of abuse. Protective parents need to be supported so THEY can provide for their child’s needs. #priorities #believeprotectdefend
December 4, 2025 at 5:12 AM
It’s great to raise money to give abused children holiday presents but what they really need is to be defended and to get out of abuse. Protective parents need to be supported so THEY can provide for their child’s needs. #priorities #believeprotectdefend
It took a DNA test and a phone call with a matched cousin to find out my mother was alive. That no one, the state or my adoptive family, thought I was worth knowing that or that my mother was worth knowing hurts so much. Adoption is trauma. #adopteevoices #reunion
December 3, 2025 at 2:17 PM
It took a DNA test and a phone call with a matched cousin to find out my mother was alive. That no one, the state or my adoptive family, thought I was worth knowing that or that my mother was worth knowing hurts so much. Adoption is trauma. #adopteevoices #reunion
Many people don’t realize how toxic something is until they’re out of it. You get to decide when it’s over for you. You don’t have to justify that to anyone else. You can just accept other people won’t understand it and feel like the hurt party but for you it’s freedom.
December 2, 2025 at 7:20 PM
Many people don’t realize how toxic something is until they’re out of it. You get to decide when it’s over for you. You don’t have to justify that to anyone else. You can just accept other people won’t understand it and feel like the hurt party but for you it’s freedom.
I grew up hearing the story of the wisdom of Solomon and how the real mother is the one that would sacrifice her baby so the baby would be okay. So why do we now glorify the woman that took the baby instead of the mother that made the sacrifice in adoption? #adopteevoices
December 1, 2025 at 9:05 PM
I grew up hearing the story of the wisdom of Solomon and how the real mother is the one that would sacrifice her baby so the baby would be okay. So why do we now glorify the woman that took the baby instead of the mother that made the sacrifice in adoption? #adopteevoices
Lying to a child about being adopted or about their identity creates a brain injury. Memories are created that aren’t true and connections made in the brain that aren’t accurate. Finding out everything you knew is a lie and trying to weed through the memories is devastating.
December 1, 2025 at 8:54 PM
Lying to a child about being adopted or about their identity creates a brain injury. Memories are created that aren’t true and connections made in the brain that aren’t accurate. Finding out everything you knew is a lie and trying to weed through the memories is devastating.
Abusers divide, isolate and manipulate the survivor to control who they have access to frequently through guilt. If an adoptive parent is doing this to an adult adoptee it’s abuse not love.
#adopteevoices
#adopteevoices
December 1, 2025 at 4:10 AM
Abusers divide, isolate and manipulate the survivor to control who they have access to frequently through guilt. If an adoptive parent is doing this to an adult adoptee it’s abuse not love.
#adopteevoices
#adopteevoices
People say it’s “not their secret to tell” but it’s also not your secret to keep if it’s something about a person they should know. Adoptees should always know they are adopted because lying is abuse.
#adopteevoices
#adopteevoices
December 1, 2025 at 3:59 AM
People say it’s “not their secret to tell” but it’s also not your secret to keep if it’s something about a person they should know. Adoptees should always know they are adopted because lying is abuse.
#adopteevoices
#adopteevoices
“It isn’t difficult for them to lie; it’s convenient. They avoid the hard conversations and the difficult emotions, and it lets them have the appearance of the ‘family’ they want. Plus, they get to, in their mind, be the savior and martyr.”
open.substack.com/pub/defendsu...
open.substack.com/pub/defendsu...
My Adoption Journey As A Late Discovery Adoptee
I can’t describe how devastating and traumatic it is to not only learn you are adopted, but also that you’ve been lied to your whole life.
open.substack.com
November 30, 2025 at 6:23 PM
“It isn’t difficult for them to lie; it’s convenient. They avoid the hard conversations and the difficult emotions, and it lets them have the appearance of the ‘family’ they want. Plus, they get to, in their mind, be the savior and martyr.”
open.substack.com/pub/defendsu...
open.substack.com/pub/defendsu...
The truth is that women are criticized for not leaving abuse, but when she does she frequently lives in poverty and alone while the abuser continues to live a beautiful life and stays friends with all the people that criticized her for not leaving.
November 29, 2025 at 5:54 PM
The truth is that women are criticized for not leaving abuse, but when she does she frequently lives in poverty and alone while the abuser continues to live a beautiful life and stays friends with all the people that criticized her for not leaving.
If adoptive parents gets upset when their adopted child talks about, spends time with, or looks for their biological family - that’s coercive control not love. #coercivecontrol #adopteevoices
November 29, 2025 at 5:40 AM
If adoptive parents gets upset when their adopted child talks about, spends time with, or looks for their biological family - that’s coercive control not love. #coercivecontrol #adopteevoices
We tell people that things change and it won’t always be this way but mothers in a crisis are told they have to decide at the moment of birth whether to or not to give their child away for life. #adoptionawareness
November 28, 2025 at 4:12 PM
We tell people that things change and it won’t always be this way but mothers in a crisis are told they have to decide at the moment of birth whether to or not to give their child away for life. #adoptionawareness
“What makes this even more infuriating is how often children are forced into contact with abusive family members under the false claim that “they love their children.” Love doesn’t look like abuse, control, or fear. Abuse is not love.”
#abuseisnotlove
open.substack.com/pub/defendsu...
#abuseisnotlove
open.substack.com/pub/defendsu...
November 28, 2025 at 3:59 PM
“What makes this even more infuriating is how often children are forced into contact with abusive family members under the false claim that “they love their children.” Love doesn’t look like abuse, control, or fear. Abuse is not love.”
#abuseisnotlove
open.substack.com/pub/defendsu...
#abuseisnotlove
open.substack.com/pub/defendsu...
No child should have to spend a holiday with an abuser. #childwelfare
open.substack.com/pub/defendsu...
open.substack.com/pub/defendsu...
Domestic Abuse IS Child Abuse
How do you torture someone? You make them watch or know that the person they love is being hurt. That’s what domestic abuse is for children.
open.substack.com
November 27, 2025 at 8:01 PM
No child should have to spend a holiday with an abuser. #childwelfare
open.substack.com/pub/defendsu...
open.substack.com/pub/defendsu...