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Defense Mechanism Quotes

Browse 33 quotes about Defense Mechanism.

Defense Mechanism Quotes

“La Vera em va dir: —Com és que sents que tot ho has de transformar en una història? Així que li vaig dir per què: Perquè si explico la història, en controlo la versió. Perquè si explico la història, us puc fer riure, i m'estimo més que us en rigueu de mi que no pas que sentiu pena. Perquè si explico la història, no fa tant de mal. Perquè si explico la història, puc tirar endavant.”

HeartbreakTraumaStorytellingTrauma HealingDefense Mechanism
Book:Heartburn
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“Attending a funeral would leave the average person insane, if they truly believed that sooner or later they are also going to die.”

LifeBelieveHumorFunnyDeathQuotesCrazyHumourJokesHumorousInsaneDenialImmortalityInsanityLife And DeathSatireImmortalSincereMortalitySinceritySanityFuneralAphorismSaneDeadDieQuotationsJokeHilariousRipMournAphorismsHereafterLife After DeathRest In PeaceAphoristAphoristsMortalFuneralsDefense MechanismsDefense MechanismDenial Of DeathGone Too SoonAttendThe Hereafter
Author:Mokokoma Mokhonoana
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“She's terrified that all these sensations and images are coming out of her — but I think she's even more terrified to find out why." Carla's description was typical of survivors of chronic childhood abuse. Almost always, they deny or minimize the abusive memories. They have to: it's too painful to believe that their parents would do such a thing.”

HealingAbuseDenialChild AbuseSubconsciousPtsdAvoidanceAbuse SurvivorsSurvivorsSubconscious MindIncestHealing InsightsTraumatic ExperiencesChildhood AbuseTraumatizedChild RapePost Traumatic Stress DisorderDissociative AmnesiaHealing From AbuseMinimizingFlashbackAbusive ParentsHealing AbusePosttraumatic Stress DisorderDefense MechanismFlashbacksParental AbuseMinimizationDenial Of AbuseTrauma MemoriesDenial Of Child AbuseTraumatic MemoriesIntrusiveSadistic AbuseDenial Of IncestReliving The PastPsychological DefenceAbusive ChildhoodMinimizing IssuesDissociated AmnesiaFear Of Truth
Author:David L. Calof
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“Being in a state of denial is a universally human response to situations which threaten to overwhelm. People who were abused as children sometimes carry their denial like precious cargo without a port of destination. It enabled us to survive our childhood experiences, and often we still live in survival mode decades beyond the actual abuse. We protect ourselves to excess because we learned abruptly and painfully that no one else would.”

SecretPsychologySurvivalVictimTraumaProtectionDefenseDenialSurvivorChild AbuseRepressionSelf ProtectionAbuse SurvivorDefense MechanismTraumatic StressTraumatic MemoriesSecret History
Book:Becoming One: A Story of Triumph Over Dissociative Identity Disorder
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“[He] bowed his head, crossing himself, and so fervently did he pray that he almost missed the sound of the footsteps crossing the courtyard. But a man who has watched through many a long night waiting for that slight intake of breath that in the assassin makes before he sticks the dagger your back or slices his knife across your throat, can never again give himself over to prayer or sleep or even love-making without his sixth sense remaining ever watchful.”

TrainingCiaAlertnessInstinctsDefense Mechanism
Book:The Gallows Curse
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“Like a lot of people with mental illness, I spend a lot of time fronting. It’s really important to me to not appear crazy, to fit in, to seem normal, to do the things “normal people” do, to blend in. As a defense mechanism, fronting makes a lot of sense, and you hone that mechanism after years of being crazy. Fronting is what allows you to hold down a job and maintain relationships with people, it’s the thing that sometimes keeps you from falling apart. It’s the thing that allows you to have a burst of tears in the shower or behind the front seat of your car and then coolly collect yourself and stroll into a social engagement… We are rewarded for hiding ourselves. We become the poster children for “productive” mentally ill people, because we are so organized and together. The fact that we can function, at great cost to ourselves, is used to beat up the people who cannot function. Because unlike the people who cannot front, or who fronted too hard and fell off the cliff, we are able to “keep it together,” whatever it takes.”

CrazyMental IllnessStigmaEmotional PainFitting InDefense MechanismHiding FeelingsMental Illness StigmaPsychological DefenseFaking NormalPretending To Be OkFaking WellPutting On A Brave FaceKeeping It Together
Author:S.E. Smith
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“Carla's description was typical of survivors of chronic childhood abuse. Almost always, they deny or minimize the abusive memories. They have to: it's too painful to believe that their parents would do such a thing. So they fragment the memories into hundreds of shards, leaving only acceptable traces in their conscious minds. Rationalizations like "my childhood was rough," "he only did it to me once or twice," and "it wasn't so bad" are common, masking the fact that the abuse was devastating and chronic. But while the knowledge, body sensations, and feelings are shattered, they are not forgotten. They intrude in unexpected ways: through panic attacks and insomnia, through dreams and artwork, through seemingly inexplicable compulsions, and through the shadowy dread of the abusive parent. They live just outside of consciousness like noisy neighbors who bang on the pipes and occasionally show up at the door.”

HealingAbuseMental HealthAddictionMental IllnessDenialSurvivorChild AbuseDreadSubconsciousPtsdAlcoholismInsomniaAvoidanceDissociationAbuse SurvivorsNightmaresSurvivorsIncestHealing InsightsFragmentedTraumatic ExperiencesChildhood AbuseConscious AwarenessRationalizationMental DisorderTraumatizedPanic AttacksDissociative DisorderAlcohol AddictionSelf ProtectionChild RapeDissociative AmnesiaHealing From AbuseMinimizingFlashbackAbusive ParentsHealing AbuseTrauma MemoryDefense MechanismFlashbacksParental AbuseEffects Of Child AbuseMinimizationDenial Of AbuseTrauma MemoriesDenial Of Child AbuseTraumatic MemoriesAbusive ParentIntrusiveSadistic AbuseDenial Of IncestIncestuousPsychological DefenceBad ChildhoodIrrational FearsAbusive ChildhoodIntrusionsMinimizing IssuesDissociated AmnesiaCompulsionsCompulsive EatingFear Of TruthBody MemoriesCompulsive BehaviorCompulsive OvereatingSeemingly Inexplicable BehaviorSex Addition
Book:The Couple Who Became Each Other: Stories of Healing and Transformation from a Leading Hypnotherapist
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“Dissociative identity disorder is conceptualized as a childhood onset, posttraumatic developmental disorder in which the child is unable to consolidate a unified sense of self. Detachment from emotional and physical pain during trauma can result in alterations in memory encoding and storage. In turn, this leads to fragmentation and compartmentalization of memory and impairments in retrieving memory.2,4,19 Exposure to early, usually repeated trauma results in the creation of discrete behavioral states that can persist and, over later development, become elaborated, ultimately developing into the alternate identities of dissociative identity disorder.”

TraumaMental IllnessChild AbuseDissociative Identity DisorderSense Of SelfEmotional PainDissociationPersonality DevelopmentTraumatizedAlter PersonalitiesMemory LossDissociativeCoping MechanismAbused ChildrenAltersDefense MechanismAlter IdentitiesCompartmentalizationAlter PersonalityPosttraumaticPosttraumatic StressAlter Identity
Author:Bethany L. Brand
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“Perfectionism is the unparalleled defense for emotionally abandoned children. The existential unattainability of perfection saves the child from giving up, unless or until, scant success forces him to retreat into the depression of a dissociative disorder, or launches him hyperactively into an incipient conduct disorder. Perfectionism also provides a sense of meaning and direction for the powerless and unsupported child. In the guise of self-control, striving to be perfect offers a simulacrum of a sense of control. Self-control is also safer to pursue because abandoning parents typically reserve their severest punishment for children who are vocal about their negligence.”

Mental HealthPunishmentMental IllnessChild AbuseSelf ControlEmotional AbuseAbandonmentDissociative Identity DisorderPerfectionismDissociationSurvivorsPowerlessnessDissociative DisorderPsychological AbuseSurvivors Of AbuseAbusive ParentsDefense MechanismChild NeglectEmotionally UnavailableConduct Disorder
Author:Pete Walker
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“In the space of solitude, a writer attempts to remember how they became whom they are but nobody’s memory is up to this demanding task. No matter how much a person harrows the fertile lanes of memory, some memories are lost by the passage of time, psychological defense mechanisms screen other memories from detection, the ephemeral character of other memories are invariably to elusive to arrest with reciprocal language.”

WritingMemoriesMemoryMemoirWriting ProcessRecollectionMemoir WritingDefense MechanismLanuage
Book:Dead Toad Scrolls
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“Thinking is a defense mechanism. Not all the time, of course, but when in situations where strong emotions are involved, throwing yourself into your head is a way to keep yourself out of your feelings and out of your body. Your feelings need to pass through your body, you need to feel them run through your body in order to let go of anything. But that's an excruciating experience and we keep on trying to protect ourselves from it by running into our heads, being analytical, being logical, and doing everything to stay in our brains. This has been my own number one defense mechanism, the wall that I know I need to tear down a little more each day.”

Mental HealthMental Health QuotesGuidance QuotesDefense MechanismsUnderstanding Oneself And OthersDefense MechanismMental Health RecoveryGuidance For Life
Author:C. JoyBell C.
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“Unable to face the paltriness of our lives, it is simpler to bask in a fleeting pleasure dome than labor endlessly to create worthy secular testimonies demonstrating that a life well lived does in fact have intrinsic value. Regardless of what providence has in store, dense men such as me fritter away their lives hoping to capture eroticism’s delights. It is less taxing to rummage through the garbage dump picking amidst the trash heap of life’s inglorious scandals than it is to delve into penetrating our defensive shells.”

MemoirDenialMeaning Of LifeJourney Of LifeMemoir WritingStory Of My LifePleasures Of LifeDefensivenessSelf ExaminationDefense Mechanism
Book:Dead Toad Scrolls
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“Denial of one's need for others is the most common type of defense against bonding. If people come from a situation, whether growing up or later in life, where good, safe relationships were not available to them, they learn to deny that they even want them. Why want what you can't have? They slowly get rid of their awareness of the need.”

NeedsSelf AwarenessDenialBondingHealthy RelationshipsLEmotional NeedsDefense Mechanism
Book:Changes That Heal: How to Understand the Past to Ensure a Healthier Future
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“She never would admit it, but she felt utterly exposed at El Redentor, all those pale eyes gnawing at her duskiness like locusts––and she didn't know how to handle such vulnerability. Did what had always saved her in the past. Was defensive and aggressive and mad overreactive. You said something slightly off-color about her shoes and she brought up the fact that you had a slow eye and danced like a goat with a rock stuck in its ass. Ouch. You would just be playing and homegirl would be coming down on you off the top rope.”

RetaliationDefense MechanismConfrontational
Book:The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
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“...repeated trauma in childhood forms and deforms the personality. The child trapped in an abusive environment is faced with formidable tasks of adaptation. She must find a way to preserve a sense of trust in people who are untrustworthy, safety in a situation that is unsafe, control in a situation that is terrifyingly unpredictable, power in a situation of helplessness. Unable to care for or protect herself, she must compensate for the failures of adult care and protection with the only means at her disposal, an immature system of psychological defenses.”

TrustPersonalityTraumaBetrayalOverwhelmingChild AbusePtsdOverwhelmedCopingAbuse SurvivorsPowerlessnessTraumatic ExperiencesUnsafeTraumatizedOut Of ControlPost Traumatic Stress DisorderComplex PtsdUntrustworthyAbusive ParentsPosttraumatic Stress DisorderPersonality DisordersBetrayal TraumaDefense MechanismTerrifyingParental AbuseAbused ChildPsychological DefenceHelpelessness
Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
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“While one might laugh at the meaningless boredom of people a decade or two ago, the emptiness has for many now moved from the state of boredom to a state of futility and despair which holds promise of dangers. The human being cannot live in a condition of emptiness for very long: if he is not growing toward something, he does not merely stagnate; the pent-up potentialities turn into morbidity and despair, and eventually into destructive activities. The feeling of emptiness or vacuity generally comes from people's feeling that they are powerless to do anything effective about their lives or the world they live in. Inner vacuousness is the long-term, accumulated result of a person's particular conviction about himself, namely his conviction that he cannot act as an entity in directing his own life... And soon, since what he wants and what he feels can make no real difference, he gives up wanting and feeling. Apathy and lack of feeling are also defenses against anxiety. When a person continually faces danger he is powerless to overcome, his final line of defense is at last to avoid even feeling the dangers.”

PsychologyDespairMental HealthMeaning Of LifeEmptinessExistentialismApathySelf GrowthPowerlessnessDefense Mechanism
Book:Love and will
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