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Trauma Survivors Quotes

Browse 71 quotes about Trauma Survivors.

Trauma Survivors Quotes

“Time after time, the amazing fact is uncovered that sons and daughters are unconsciously re-enacting their parents fate— all the more intensely the less precise their knowledge of it.”

Trauma SurvivorsUnresolved IssuesReenactmentMultigeneratational AbuseCompulsion RepetitionUnresolved Trauma
Book:For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence
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“Emotional abuse is designed to undermine another's sense of self. It is deliberate humiliation, with the intent to seize control of how others feel about themselves.”

Emotional AbuseEmotional PainChildhood TraumaNarcissistic AbuseWhy MeGaslightingTrauma SurvivorsBullying QuotesNarcissists
Book:Breaking Free From the Chains of Silence: A respectful exploration into the ramifications of Paedophilic abuse
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“In 2006, there is no army of recovered memory therapists, and Dr McNally’s assumptions about patients with PTSD and those working in this field are troubling. Owing to past debates, those working in the PTSD field are perhaps more knowledgeable than others about malingered, factitious, and iatrogenic variants. Why, then, does Dr McNally attack PTSD as a valid diagnosis, demean those working in the field, and suggest that sufferers are mostly malingered or iatrogenic, while giving little or no consideration is given to such variants of other psychiatric conditions? Perhaps the trauma field has been “so often embroiled in serious controversy” (4, p 816) for the same reason Dr McNally and others have trouble imagining the traumatization of a Vietnam War cook or clerk. One theory suggests that there is a conscious decision on the part of some individuals to deny trauma and its impact. Another suggests that some individuals may use dissociation or repression to block from consciousness what is quite obvious to those who listen to real-life patients." Cameron, C., & Heber, A. (2006). Re: Troubles in Traumatology, and Debunking Myths about Trauma and Memory/Reply: Troubles in Traumatology and Debunking Myths about Trauma and Memory. Canadian journal of psychiatry, 51(6), 402.”

DenialPtsdRepressionDissociationSociety DenialMental Health StigmaTraumatizedTrauma SurvivorsTrauma MemoryMental Illness DiscriminationIatrogenicMalingeringRecovered Memory Therapists
Author:Colin Cameron
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“Some survivors can be wary of most people, yet blinded by compassion toward fellow survivors or others who suffer — or who pretend to suffer, or exaggerate their sufferings, in order to take advantage of the survivor. Some survivors overidentify with other survivors, not realizing that even if someone was traumatized or suffers in a similar way, it doesn’t necessarily mean that person is honest. Being either overly suspicious or overly trusting can create problems with a partner who is able to judge the sincerity of others more realistically.”

SufferingCompassionTrustBoundariesMental IllnessSpousePtsdDistrustSuspiciousPartnerAbuse SurvivorsSurvivorsSurvivors Of AbuseTrauma SurvivorsHealthy RelationshipsOveridentification
Book:Loving Someone with PTSD: A Practical Guide to Understanding and Connecting with Your Partner after Trauma
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“She hadn’t always been obsessed with babies. There was a time she believed she would change the world, lead a movement, follow Dolores Huerta and Sylvia Mendez, Ellen Ochoa and Sonia Sotomayor. Where her bisabuela had picked pecans and oranges in the orchards, climbing the tallest trees with her small girlbody, dropping the fruit to the baskets below where her tías and tíos and primos stooped to pick those that had fallen on the ground, where her abuela had sewn in the garment district in downtown Los Angeles with her bisabuela, both women taking the bus each morning and evening, making the beautiful dresses to be sold in Beverly Hills and maybe worn by a movie star, and where her mother had cared for the ill, had gone to their crumbling homes, those diabetic elderly dying in the heat in the Valley—Bianca would grow and tend to the broken world, would find where it ached and heal it, would locate its source of ugliness and make it beautiful. Only, since she’d met Gabe and become La Llorona, she’d been growing the ugliness inside her. She could sense it warping the roots from within. The cactus flower had dropped from her when she should have been having a quinceañera, blooming across the dance floor in a bright, sequined dress, not spending the night at her boyfriend’s nana’s across town so that her mama wouldn’t know what she’d done, not taking a Tylenol for the cramping and eating the caldo de rez they’d made for her. They’d taken such good care of her. Had they done it for her? Or for their son’s chance at a football scholarship? She’d never know. What she did know: She was blessed with a safe procedure. She was blessed with women to check her for bleeding. She was blessed with choice. Only, she hadn’t chosen for herself. She hadn’t. Awareness must come. And it did. Too late. If she’d chosen for herself, she would have chosen the cactus spines. She would’ve chosen the one night a year the night-blooming cereus uncoils its moon-white skirt, opens its opalescent throat, and allows the bats who’ve flown hundreds of miles with their young clutching to their fur as they swim through the air, half-starved from waiting, to drink their fill and feed their next generation of creatures who can see through the dark. She’d have been a Queen of the Night and taught her daughter to give her body to no Gabe. She knew that, deep inside. Where Anzaldúa and Castillo dwelled, where she fed on the nectar of their toughest blossoms. These truths would moonstone in her palm and she would grasp her hand shut, hold it tight to her heart, and try to carry it with her toward the front door, out onto the walkway, into the world. Until Gabe would bend her over. And call her gordita or cochina. Chubby girl. Dirty girl. She’d open her palm, and the stone had turned to dust. She swept it away on her jeans. A daughter doesn’t solve anything; she needed her mama to tell her this. But she makes the world a lot less lonely. A lot less ugly.”

Women EmpowermentWomen S RightsMagical RealismFeminist QuotesTrauma HealingTrauma SurvivorsJubileeLatinx LiteratureTrauma TherapyLatina American
Book:Jubilee
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“Unspeakable feelings need to find expression in words. However... verbalization of very intense feelings may be a difficult task.”

CuttingTraumaOverwhelmedUnbearableEmotional PainUnspeakableSelf HarmTraumatizedSelf InjuryTrauma SurvivorsHealing From AbuseHealing TraumaSelf Destructive BehaviorEmotional RegulationSelf DestructivenessVerbalization
Book:Rebuilding Shattered Lives: Treating Complex PTSD and Dissociative Disorders
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“Trauma destroys the fabric of time. In normal time you move from one moment to the next, sunrise to sunset, birth to death. After trauma, you may move in circles, find yourself being sucked backwards into an eddy or bouncing like a rubber ball from now to then to back again. ... In the traumatic universe the basic laws of matter are suspended: ceiling fans can be helicopters, car exhaust can be mustard gas.”

TimeMental IllnessPtsdTraumatic ExperiencesMental DisorderTraumatizedVeteransTrauma SurvivorsPost Traumatic Stress DisorderMilitary QuoteTraumatic StressFlashbacksCombat PtsdMilitary PsychiatryMental Distress
Book:The Evil Hours: A Biography of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
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“Once the individual has learned to dissociate in the context of trauma, he or she may subsequently transfer this response to other situations and it may be repeated thereafter arbitrarily in a wide variety of circumstances. The dissociation therefore “destabilizes adaptation and becomes pathological.”[6] It is important for the psychiatrist to accurately diagnose DDs and also to place the symptoms in perspective with regard to trauma history.”

PsychiatryAbuse SurvivorsTraumatizedDissociative DisorderDissociativeTrauma SurvivorsDissociative DisordersMental Health Diagnosis
Author:Julie P. Gentile
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“Recovering from family scapegoating requires recognizing that being the ‘identified patient’ is symptomatic of generations of systemic dysfunction within one’s family, fueled by unrecognized anxiety and even trauma. In a certain sense, members of a dysfunctional family are participating in a ‘consensual trance‘, i.e., a ‘survival trance’ supported by false narratives, toxic shame, anxiety, and egoic defense mechanisms, such as denial and projection.”

ScapegoatDysfunctional FamiliesEmpathsTrauma SurvivorsChild Abuse SurvivorFamily ScapegoatScapegoat ChildNarcissistic FamiliesFamily RolesC Ptsd
Book:Rejected, Shamed, and Blamed: Understanding Family Scapegoating Abuse
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“Although Megan "knew" she was not in danger, her body told her that she was. If sensorimotor habits are firmly entrenched, accurate cognitive interpretations may not exert much influence on changing bodily orgamzation and arousal responses. Instead, the traumatized person may experience the reality of the body rather than that of the mind. To be most effective, the sensorimotor psychotherapist works on both the cognitive and sensorimotor levels. With Megan, a purely cognitive approach might foster some change in her integrative capacity, but the change would be only momentary if the cowering response were reactivated each time she received feedback at work... However, if she is encouraged to remember to "stand tall" in the face of criticism, her body and her thoughts will be congruent with each other and with current reality.”

PsychotherapyHealing The PastTrauma SurvivorsChild Abuse SurvivorsTrauma TherapySensorimotor TherapyEmotional Flashback
Book:Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: Interventions for Trauma and Attachment
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“So many memories come to mind—the child you were, the adult you’ve become—so much anguish for what happened all those years ago. You never wanted to let anyone down, I know. You feel everything so intensely. Just don’t tell me that you don’t deserve better. You do. Don’t tell me you’re a failure. You’re not. We learn from every mistake. That’s not failing; it’s growing. You are a beautiful, empathetic being of love and light. And don’t say hope will damn you. It won’t always, I promise.”

PainHurtHealingComfortTraumaBrokennessHealing The PastTraumatic ExperiencesTrauma Survivors
Book:Grateful to Be Alive: My Road to Recovery from Addiction
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“The stains of so many years of misery make the chair look like it’s a bleeding, rotting corpse all its own. The spot that stands out the most is where his head was when he ate lead the first time. I take another hit from the cigarette, wiping at my eyes. A laugh bubbles out. I thought stains were supposed to fade with age, just like the bad stuff that happens to you, but they don’t. Fifteen years isn’t enough to make blood blend into brown carpets with every other mess? Bullshit.”

PainHurtHealingAbuseTraumaDomestic AbuseTraumatic ExperiencesTrauma Survivors
Book:Plead More, Bodymore
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