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Trauma Quotes

Browse 1903 quotes about Trauma.

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Trauma Quotes

“I feel empty finally and wonder why that's a good feeling. I drink water, and it's warm. It leaves my thirst unquenced. I can veer off this track any time I want to. I come across signposts to towns and hotels and could easily divert and seek comfort, but I don't. I'm forcing myself into this solitude and keep on walking. There's something about movement, the necessity of movement, to deal with trauma. Academic papers have been written about it, and I've read them, how animals shake to release fear in their muscles. I do that too. Under the sun, amidst the scrub, I shake, I shout, I scream. So I keep to the track, transfixed by the motion of walking. Trusting in an invisible remedy that will make me feel human once again.”

SolitudeTrauma
Book:Tin Man
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“Living in the wake of slavery is haunting, and to experience this haunting is to be nothing less than traumatized. Still, it is possible to heal from trauma, or come to terms with it. At first, we try to block out the horrors of the past - to ignore them, to pretend they are not there. The next step is to acknowledge the past and its harm, even as it triggers us. We try to avoid looking at it too closely. But the ghosts are everywhere; they have been waiting for us all along.”

HorrorTraumaGhostsHauntingTriggers
Author:Rebecca Hall
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“As a therapist, I have many avenues in which to learn about DID, but I hear exactly the opposite from clients and others who are struggling to understand their own existence. When I talk to them about the need to let supportive people into their lives, I always get a variation of the same answer. "It is not safe. They won't understand." My goal here is to provide a small piece of that gigantic puzzle of understanding. If this book helps someone with DID start a conversation with a supportive friend or family member, understanding will be increased.”

PainUnderstandingGoalSupportPsychologySafeNormalSafetyMental HealthTraumaMental IllnessDissociative Identity DisorderMultiplicityMultiple Personality DisorderUnsafePsychiatricPuzzleMpdPiece
Book:The Dissociative Identity Disorder Sourcebook
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“The memories seem to come in layers. For example, the first memory might be of incest; then they remember robes and candles; next they realize that their father or mother or both were present when they were being abused. Another layer will be the memory of seeing other people hurt and even killed. Then they remember having seen babies killed. Another layer is realizing that they participated in the sacrifices. One of the most painful memories may be that they even sacrificed their own baby. With each layer of memory comes another set of problems with which they must deal. — Glenn L. Pace; "Ritualistic Child Abuse," memo”

SacrificeAbuseMurderPoliceTraumaParentsChild AbuseLayersInvestigationSexual AbuseRapeBabiesIncestRitual AbuseUtahRitualistic Child AbuseMemo
Author:Glenn L. Pace
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“As I discussed in the previous chapter, attachment researchers have shown that our earliest caregivers don't only feed us, dress us, and comfort us when we are upset; they shape the way our rapidly growing brain perceives reality. Our interactions with our caregivers convey what is safe and what is dangerous: whom we can count on and who will let us down; what we need to do to get our needs met. This information is embodied in the warp and woof of our brain circuitry and forms the template of how we think of ourselves and the world around us. These inner maps are remarkably stable across time. This doesn‘t mean, however, that our maps can‘t be modified by experience. A deep love relationship, particularly during adolescence, when the brain once again goes through a period of exponential change, truly can transform us. So can the birth of a child, as our babies often teach us how to love. Adults who were abused or neglected as children can still learn the beauty of intimacy and mutual trust or have a deep spiritual experience that opens them to a larger universe. In contrast, previously uncontaminated childhood maps can become so distorted by an adult rape or assault that all roads are rerouted into terror or despair. These responses are not reasonable and therefore cannot be changed simply by reframing irrational beliefs.”

TraumaParentsChild AbuseRapeMind And BodyAbuse SurvivorsSurvivorsWorld ViewHealing InsightsSurvivors Of AbuseComplex PtsdMind Body ConnectionAbusive ParentsEffects Of Child AbuseRape SurvivorsCare Givers
Book:The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
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“I realized that the childish impression I had always had of my father, as Just Lawgiver, was entirely wrong. We were utterly dependent on this man, who was not only deluded and ignorant, but incompetent in every way. What was more, I knew that my mother was incapable of standing up to him. It was like walking into the cockpit of an airplane and finding the pilot and co-pilot passed out drunk in their seats. And standing outside the Lyceum, I was struck with a black, incredulous horror, which in fact was not at all unlike the horror I had felt at twelve, sitting on a bar stool in our sunny little kitchen in Plano. Who is in control here?> I thought, dismayed. Who is flying this plane?”

TraumaParentsChildhood MemoriesChildhood TraumaAbusive Parent
Book:The Secret History
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“It is also a part of "poisonous pedagogy" to impart to the child from the beginning false information and beliefs that have been passed on from generation to generation and dutifully accepted by the young even though they are not only unproven but are demonstrably false. Examples of such beliefs are: 1. A feeling of duty produces love. 2. Hatred can be done away with by forbidding it. 3. Parents deserve respect simply because they are parents. 4. Children are undeserving of respect simply because they are children. 5. Obedience makes a child strong. 6. A high degree of self-esteem is harmful. 7. A low degree of self-esteem makes a person altruistic. 8. Tenderness (doting) is harmful. 9. Responding to a child's needs is wrong. 10. Severity and coldness are a good preparation for life. 11. A pretense of gratitude is better than honest ingratitude. 12. The way you behave is more important than the way you really are. 13. Neither parents nor God would survive being offended. 14. The body is something dirty and disgusting. 15. Strong feelings are harmful. 16. Parents are creatures free of drives and guilt. 17. Parents are always right.”

TraumaParentsChild Abuse
Book:For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence
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“Justified within ourselves that we have suffered more than others, we feel guiltless when we disregard those in front of us, be they our family, our co-workers, strangers we interact with during our daily business, or faceless masses in foreign lands. There are those who transcend the bitter acts done unto them, declaring that the pain shall end with them. And then there are those who use the crimes committed against them as a free pass to commit crimes against others. Wronged as we each have been, nothing gives us the right to disregard the fragility of another. We can and must halt the hate passing throughout this world. A hateful act done unto us can be absorbed and transcended or it can be re-projected, thus allowing its ill force to continue moving throughout the population. We must work to transcend those hateful things already carried out upon each of us and in doing so prevent new acts of hate from being done. We must work to heal from the wounds already received and connect to a sense of consideration, to ensure that we do not pass along any of our pain to the generations as yet unburdened. We must declare a general amnesty; we must forgive each other and in doing so find that we have been forgiven. We must put away our bitterness and extend an open hand.”

ChildrenHealingEmotionalForgivenessTraumaWoundsParentsTherapyNarcissism
Book:Seasons of Contemplation: A Book of Midnight Meditations
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“There is something about being loved and protected by a parent (or guardian) knowing that I can be loved for who I am, not what I can do, or might one day become. Unfortunately it’s not usually like this in every single situation. From time to time, my parents made mistakes during my childhood. Possibly I was the mistake, or unwanted. But I don’t know. I had every material thing that I could have ever wanted, but there was still something missing, as if I felt distanced from my parents, or misunderstood, in the ways that they treated me. At times, I had felt completely loved and accepted by my parents, but for one reason or another, they were unable to care for me, provide for me, in some ways that would have been very important. Sometimes I feel like I am trying to make up for the experiences in life that were absent when I was a child.”

ParentChildhoodMental HealthParentingTraumaMental IllnessParentsInnocenceParenthoodChildIntrospectionParents And ChildrenIntrospectiveChild Sexual AbuseParenting QuotesParenting AdviceTraumatic ExperiencesParenting ChildrenChildhood AbuseChild RapeParental LoveParenting TeensMental Illness DiscriminationIntrospective Quote
Book:Sex, Drugs, and Schizophrenia
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“Is Celie actually ugly? Asks the charismatic star playing her on Broadway. How many times over the years I have explained this. Celie and her “prettier” sister Nettie are practically identical. They might be twins. But Life has forced on Celie all the hardships Nettie mostly avoids.... Endless labor that would demean and soon obliterate the observable loveliness of the most queenly slave. I wanted us to think about how superficial is our understanding of beauty; but, also, how beauty is destroyed.”

PoetryBeautyPoemPerceptionTraumaUglinessHardships
Book:Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart
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“I’ve lived on both sides of the abuse. I wear bruises on both sides of my fist. I have wept “what am I doing” and I have cried “why did they do that”. The child of an alcoholic and the alcoholic of a child. It’s strange how broken spirits, broken hearts, and broken homes walk hand-in-hand. How they leave a clear trail of shattered to follow. We are all picking out sins of the father like shrapnel left over from the day we were born. Bang. Welcome to life. Try not to step on a landmine before you get to twenty. Here are your parents. They hate you. Sorry that you won the race. Me? I’ve got a piece of broken mirror lodged dangerously close to my heart. I never know which twist in the story will be the one to open up my insides and help me drown in my own soul. People asked me where I picked up the wisdom. I don’t know that any of this actually is made of wisdom. There’s just too much fluff and well-meaning for my taste. For me, the path was always made of pain. I haven’t found feel better or act right yet... not for myself. I’m not the best one to help anybody else find it... that’s for certain... but I know every road that leads to resentment. I’ve walked them more times than I can count. I can’t tell you how to get where you’re going, but I can give you a roadmap that highlights the places I wish I never went. The first place on the list sits pretty damn close to home. There’s a town called Grief & Regret just north of Salvation, USA. I’m putting do not enter signs on every road that goes there.”

InspirationalPoetryPoemAbuseTraumaSurvivor
Author:Kalen Dion
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“Denial is our very real, personal response to our own trauma. But denial is the normative response to trauma—by everyone. Society may deny that anything bad ever happened to us. It may deny that DID exists. But that doesn't mean to say it's right. All it says is that like global warming, our histories and our stories are an "inconvenient truth".͏”

TraumaDenialGlobal WarmingDissociative Identity DisorderDissociationInconvenientInconvenient TruthChild Abuse SurvivorsAssociate DenialIt Wasn T That Bad
Book:Living with the Reality of Dissociative Identity Disorder: Campaigning Voices
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“It was only much later that I understood what had happened to them more thoroughly; and how the demoralising complications and compromises in their young lives ravaged their relationship. When they first left home, they do so together; they must have taken care of each other. Maybe they had an idea, halfway formed, that was going to make everything okay again; but it died, and now they had to carry it around and maybe it would be that way forever.”

RegretTraumaBroken DreamsLoss Of InnocenceEmotional Scars
Book:The Rider on the Bridge
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“I think I’ve found the worst feeling,” he mutters. “Helplessness,” says Spock promptly, like he’s thought about this before. “Being unable to do anything.” “Yeah, helplessness is pretty bad. But for me,” he says, looking at the picture they’ve put up of her, of Natalie and Sam posing together in front of the zoo, holding hands and smiling like the sun, “it’s knowing you could have done something. And you didn’t.”

RegretTraumaFanfiction
Book:You Don't Have To
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“The power of sharing our stories is a power that can change the world. Sharing our stories releases creative energy, which allows future possibilities to emerge rather than allowing untold and unexamined stories to quietly suck the life out of us by nursing unacknowledged wounds of the past.”

StoriesHealingTraumaWoundsVulnerableSharing
Book:The Mended Mirror: Reflections On Life: Wholeness In Brokenness
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“Fear and anxiety affect decision making in the direction of more caution and risk aversion... Traumatized individuals pay more attention to cues of threat than other experiences, and they interpret ambiguous stimuli and situations as threatening (Eyesenck, 1992), leading to more fear-driven decisions. In people with a dissociative disorder, certain parts are compelled to focus on the perception of danger. Living in trauma-time, these dissociative parts immediately perceive the present as being "just like" the past and "emergency" emotions such as fear, rage, or terror are immediately evoked, which compel impulsive decisions to engage in defensive behaviors (freeze, flight, fight, or collapse). When parts of you are triggered, more rational and grounded parts may be overwhelmed and unable to make effective decisions.”

FearDangerAnxietyTerrorTraumaRageFlightDecisionsFightAnxiousFearfulCollapsePanicTerrifiedThreatenedPtsdOverwhelmedTriggersDissociative Identity DisorderFreezeSelf DefenseDissociationHealing InsightsTraumatic ExperiencesGroundingMultiple PersonalitiesTraumatizedDissociative DisorderDdnosDissociatedEffects Of Child AbuseOsddDissociative IdentitiesRisk AversionHypervigilanceGroundednessTraumatizationTriggeredDissociative StatesRe Enact TraumaTriggeres Traumatized
Book:Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation: Skills Training for Patients and Therapists
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“All emotions, even those that are suppressed and unexpressed, have physical effects. Unexpressed emotions tend to stay in the body like small ticking time bombs—they are illnesses in incubation.”

EmotionsTraumaSurvivorIncestPhysical PainSurvivors Of AbuseChild Sexual Abuse SurvivorSomaticTrauma SurvivorRepressed EmotionsSomatic TherapySurvivor Of AbuseTrauma ExperiencesPhysical ProblemsTraumatied
Book:Miss America By Day: Lessons Learned From Ultimate Betrayals And Unconditional Love
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“Telling our personal stories, naming and acknowledging our experiences, it's fundamentally how human beings makes sense of our world... When we don't or can't tell us stories, they manifest in other ways. Emotions need a voice. Without it they seek out eventually.”

EmotionsTraumaRageRepressed EmotionsRepressed FeelingsOutbursts Of AngerProcessing Trauma
Book:The Dark Side of the Mind, The Prison Doctor Women Inside, The Prison Doctor, Quick Reads This Is Going To Hurt 4 Books Collection Set
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“Anger gets a bad rap. We have heard that anger is not acceptable for most of our lives. We hear that it is undignified and even crazy to be angry. It’s confusing because we often grow up in a household with a very angry person, but we are told we can never be angry. This continues in adulthood as oppressed people are villainized for expressing anger even though powerful people express it all the time. But there’s an ulterior motive for these messages. If we get angry, they lose their control. In reality, they are terrified of our anger. Why? Our anger is our self-love. It is telling us that something is wrong with how we are being treated. Let it say what it needs to say. Rage on the page. The more we can express our anger, the better our boundaries will become.”

EmotionsAbuseAngerTrauma
Author:Elisabeth Corey
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