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Trauma Quotes

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Trauma Quotes

“Warm, buttery sunlight through the leaves, setting them glowing like rubies and citrines. The damp, earthen scent of rotting things beneath the leaves and roots she lay upon. Had been thrown and left upon. Everything hurt. Everything. She couldn't move. Couldn't do anything but watch the sun drift through the rich canopy far overhead, listen to the wind between the silvery trunks. And the centre of that pain, radiating outward like living fire with each uneven, rasping breath... Light, steady steps crunched on the leaves. Six sets. A border guard, a patrol. Help. Someone to help- A male voice, foreign and deep, swore. Then went silent. Went silent as a single pair of steps approached. She couldn't turn her head, couldn't bear the agony. Could do nothing but inhale each wet, shuddering breath. 'Don't touch her.' Those steps stopped. It was not a warning to protect her. Defend her. She knew the voice that spoke. Had dreaded hearing it. She felt him approach now. Felt each reverberation in the leaves, the moss, the roots. As if the very land shuddered before him. 'No one touches her,' he said. Eris. 'The moment we do, she's our responsibility.' Cold, unfeeling words. 'But- but they nailed a-' 'No one touches her.' Nailed. They had spiked nails into her. Had pinned her down as she screamed, pinned her down as she roared at them, then begged them. And then they had taken out those long, brutal iron nails. And the hammer. Three of them. Three strikes of the hammer, drowned out by her screaming, by the pain. She began shaking, hating it as much as she'd hated the begging. Her body bellowed in agony, those nails in her abdomen relentless. A pale, beautiful face appeared above her, blocking out the jewel-like leaves above. Unmoved. Impassive. 'I take it you do not wish to live here, Morrigan.' She would rather die here, bleed out here. She would rather die and return- return as something wicked and cruel, and shred them all apart. He must have read it in her eyes. A small smile curved her lips. 'I thought so.' Eris straightened, turning. Her fingers curled in the leaves and loamy soil. She wished she could grow claws- grow claws as Rhys could- and rip out that pale throat. But that was not her gift. Her gift... her gift had left her here. Broken and bleeding. Eris took a step away. Someone behind him blurted, 'We can't just leave her to-' 'We can, and we will,' Eris said simply, his pace unfaltering as he strode away. 'She chose to sully herself; her family chose to deal with her like garbage. I have already told them my decision in this matter.' A long pause, crueller than the rest. 'And I am not in the habit of fucking Illyrian leftovers.' She couldn't stop it, then. The tears that slid out, hot and burning. Alone. They would leave her alone here. Her friends did not know where she had gone. She barely knew where she was. 'But-' That dissenting voice cut in again. 'Move out.' There was no dissension after that. And when their steps faded away, then vanished, the silence returned. The sun and the wind and the leaves. The blood and the iron and the soil beneath her nails. The pain.”

AbuseTraumaSarah J MaasInjuredMorA Court Of Frost And StarlightAbuse SurvivorAbusedThe MorriganEris
Book:A Court of Frost and Starlight
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“My colleague Rachel Yehuda studied rates of PTSD in adult New Yorkers who had been assaulted or rapes. Those whose mothers were Holocaust survivors with PTSD had a significantly higher rate of developing serious psychological problems after these traumatic experiences. The most reasonable explanation is that their upbringing had left them with a vulnerable physiology, making it difficult for them to regain their equilibrium after being violated. Yehuda found a similar vulnerability in the children of pregnant women who were in the World Trade Center that fatal day in 2001. Similarly, the reactions of children to painful events are largely determined by how calm or stressed their parents are.”

TraumaEpigenetics
Book:The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
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“From the famed but ethically bankrupt experiments of Harry Harlow, to the excruciating testimonies of refugees and concentration camp survivors, science and history are replete with the mind-shattering and life-altering impacts of psychological trauma. For carnivores, the story is eerily similar. With drastic losses of habitat, a constant threat from hunters, high mortality, and unreliable food sources, life for the average carnivore has changed dramatically and rapidly from historic norms. Under highly stressful physical or emotional conditions (food deprivation, decreased habitat, loss of one's mother, social disruption), species-normative brain processes are compromised. What goes around on the outside, comes around on the inside. Each unusual change in the environment telegraphs directly into the brain and body, altering the organism's inner blueprint. These neuroepigenetic changes then are expressed as variations in personality, stress regulation, and immunological resilience. The result is a puma who is not quite a puma.”

EnvironmentTraumaAnimalsWildlifeEpigenetics
Book:Carnivore Minds: Who These Fearsome Animals Really Are
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“The suffering was over; the killing and bloodshed had stopped. Mind you, the poverty—even there, in the richest neighborhood of Kabul—was shocking: the children barefoot, their wounds and scars evidence of deprivation and the brutal past. But while their faces showed their malnourishment, their eyes glimmered with hope for a better future”

HopePovertyTraumaAfghanistanBloodshed
Book:Outspoken: My Fight for Freedom and Human Rights in Afghanistan
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“I went into her nightmare,' Rhys peered up at Cassian. 'Why didn't you tell me you attempted a scrying today?' 'It didn't work.' And Nesta's fear and guilt had been so heavy in the room that his chest had ached. He'd left her alone afterward knowing she'd want privacy. Rhys let out a shuddering breath. 'The scrying was a trip wire. For the memories. I caught that as I went in.' His throat worked, as if he'd heave, but he held it odnw. 'She was dreaming of the Cauldron. Of... of when she went in.' Cassian had never seen Rhys at such a loss for words. 'I saw it,' Rhys whispered. 'Felt it. Everything that happened within the Cauldron. Saw her take its power with her teeth and claws and rage. And I saw... felt... what it took from her.' Rhys rubbed his face and slowly straightened. He met Cassian's stare unflinchingly, his eyes full of remorse and agony. 'Her trauma is...' Rhys's throat bobbed. 'I know,' Cassian whispered. 'I guessed,' Rhys breathed, 'but it was different to feel it.' 'What is her power?' Azriel asked. 'Death,' Rhys whispered, hands trembling again as he got to his feet and aimed toward the window, which was now repairing itself shard by shard, as if a careful, patient hand worked upon it. He gazed at the female sleeping in the bed, and fear clouded the face of the High Lord of the Night Court. 'Pure death.”

TraumaSarah J MaasRhysandRhysCassianNesta ArcheronNestaA Court Of Silver FlamesAzrielShaken Up
Book:A ​Court of Silver Flames
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“Trauma wounds are invisible. We cannot see visible bruises, cuts, or scars. Yet, if we don’t tend to them, we can carry them throughout our lives. We may relive our trauma over and over, again.”

Mental HealthTraumaSexual AbuseHealing JourneyDysfunctional FamilyPsychological AbuseEmotional SupportNormal Trauma Response
Book:Soul Rescue: How to Break Free From Narcissistic Abuse & Heal Trauma
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“We reach the final stage of healing from trauma when we integrate the past into who we are. It becomes a part of us that we acknowledge and provides understanding of our world. The past is not a ghost we want to banish or exorcise; it is something we want to internalize. Like at a wake, a wake as in a funeral, we speak of the dead for the dead. At this wake, we must defend the dead. Our memories must be longer than our lifetimes.”

MemoriesTraumaFuneralGhostsWakeLifetimes
Author:Rebecca Hall
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“While in principle groups for survivors are a good idea, in practice it soon becomes apparent that to organize a successful group is no simple matter. Groups that start out with hope and promise can dissolve acrimoniously, causing pain and disappointment to all involved. The destructive potential of groups is equal to their therapeutic promise. The role of the group leader carries with it a risk of the irresponsible exercise of authority. Conflicts that erupt among group members can all too easily re-create the dynamics of the traumatic event, with group members assuming the roles of perpetrator, accomplice, bystander, victim, and rescuer. Such conflicts can be hurtful to individual participants and can lead to the group’s demise. In order to be successful, a group must have a clear and focused understanding of its therapeutic task and a structure that protects all participants adequately against the dangers of traumatic reenactment. Though groups may vary widely in composition and structure, these basic conditions must be fulfilled without exception. Commonality with other people carries with it all the meanings of the word common. It means belonging to a society, having a public role, being part of that which is universal. It means having a feeling of familiarity, of being known, of communion. It means taking part in the customary, the commonplace, the ordinary, and the everyday. It also carries with it a feeling of smallness, or insignificance, a sense that one’s own troubles are ‘as a drop of rain in the sea.’ The survivor who has achieved commonality with others can rest from her labors. Her recovery is accomplished; all that remains before her is her life.”

HealingGroupsConflictAuthorityVictimTraumaRecoveryTherapyConnectionBelongingFamiliarityAbuse SurvivorsSurvivorsHealing The PastConflict ResolutionHealing InsightsCommonalityTraumatizedGroupSupporting OthersHealing From AbuseHealing TraumaRecovery From AbuseGroup DynamicsGroup TherapyTrauma TherapyAuthority And AttitudeBystanderPerpetratorGroup MentalitySupport GroupSupportivenessDrama TriangleRescuerAccompliceRe Enact TraumaGroup ConflictKarpman
Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
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“When preparing for Book One, I talked to a couple of psychiatrists about psychosomatic phenomena, neuroses and dissociative conditions, for example the so—called hysterical blindness suffered by many who saw the Killing Fields in Pol Pot’s Cambodia: their eyes objectively see, but they are not aware of it and are blind because they believe they can’t see. One specialist told me that among modern Western people, ’metaphorical’ symptoms such as Fredy or those Cambodians evince are much rarer now than earlier in the twentieth century or before. Nowadays most people are better equipped by education to verbalise their neuroses, and have lots of jargon in which to do so. For most of the dissociative dimension, I could draw on things I knew from within myself.”

TraumaMental IllnessBlindnessDissociationNeurosisHysteriaTraumatic ExperiencesMental DisorderTraumatizedDissociativeTrauma SurvivorsTraumatic StressPsychosomaticConversion DisorderHysterical DissociationNeuroticismPol PotNeuorosesPsychogenic
Book:Fredy Neptune
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“In the following pages I shall apply the term "poisonous pedagogy" to this very complex endeavor. It will be clear from the context in question which of its many facets I am emphasizing at the moment. The specific facets can be derived directly from the preceding quotations from child-rearing manuals. These passages teach us that: 1. Adults are the masters (not the servants!) of the dependent child. 2. They determine in godlike fashion what is right and what is wrong. 3. The child is held responsible for their anger. 4. The parents must always be shielded. 5. The child's life affirming feelings pose a threat to the autocratic adult. 6. The child's will must be "broken" as soon as possible. 7. All this must happen at a very early age, so the child "won't notice" and will therefore not be able to expose the adults. The methods that can be used to suppress vital spontaneity in the child are: laying traps, lying, duplicity, subterfuge, manipulation, "scare" tactics, withdrawal of love, isolation, distrust, humiliating and disgracing the child, scorn, ridicule, and coercion even to the point of torture.”

TraumaChild AbusePedagogyChild Rearing
Book:For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence
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“... when an experience is too strong for our current internal and external regulatory resource to manage ... [chemical changes activate to] tuck these pathways into our ... body. In this way, our ongoing lives are protected from the constant incursion of the raw pain and fear and the injured parts of ourselves are partly shielded from new injury. We might say they have been enwombed, awaiting the arrival of support. At the same time, the memories also remain malleable enough that they can be touched and awakened, which is essential for healing. However, we also remain vulnerable to them being brought into activity when support isn't available... a frowning face (man or woman), certain breathing patterns, and even sensory fragments (the color of a person's shirt or hair, the smell of alcohol on someone's breath) all have some probability of awakening the terror. The widely dispersed individual streams that make up these memories are all gathered into the neural net that formed at the time of the initial experience, and when our outer or inner world tugs on any strand, there is some probability that more of the neural net will open, bringing the rush of embodied feelings. Most often, the explicit memory does not arrive at the same time, so there is no context for the flood of sensations and emotions, which feels as if they are related to what is happening right now .... What can look like an out-of-proportion response to what is happening in the moment is exactly in proportion to what is unfolding internally. If we sense this so deeply that this knowing is viscerally available when our patients are having strong emotional experiences, we will be able to offer them acknowledgement of the validity of their experience rather than having to control or change it.”

HopeUnderstandingHealingTraumaImplicit MemoryEmbodied SafetyOut Of Proportion Reaction
Book:The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships
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“All abusive systems are facilitated by bystanders, whose awareness of what is disavowed is always partial, resulting in a state of knowing and not-knowing. As dynamics shift, bystanders may behave like victims—passive, helpless, frightened and frozen, or like perpetrators—taking vicarious and voyeuristic pleasure in abuse or actively aiding and abetting the abusers.”

AbuseTraumaDenialNot KnowingPerpetratorsSociety DenialBystandersWitnessing
Author:Sylvia Solinski
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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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“When experiences or emotions become too overwhlming, the mind clevely encapsulates the material and stores it for safe-keeping. Many people respond this way in the face of trauma, but the additional step that occurs in this process, in the case of DID, is the formation of distinct ego states that carry the experience.”

TraumaPtsdDissociative Identity DisorderCopingDissociationTraumatic ExperiencesMultiple PersonalitiesTraumatizedAlter PersonalitiesDissociativeDissociative PartsCompartmentalizationMemory Fragmentation
Book:The Dissociative Identity Disorder Sourcebook
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“Narcissistic abuse is a form of psycho-emotional abuse that takes place when a pathological narcissist targets another individual and exposes them to trauma. It can also manifest as physical, financial, spiritual and sexual abuse.”

AbuseTraumaNarcissismNarcissistToxic PeopleNarcissistic AbuseNarcissism ExpertAbusive RelationshipPathological Narcissist
Book:Narcissistic Family Dynamics: Collected Essays
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“Working simultaneously, though seemingly without a conscience, was Dr. Ewen Cameron, whose base was a laboratory in Canada's McGill University, in Montreal. Since his death in 1967, the history of his work for both himself and the CIA has become known. He was interested in 'terminal' experiments and regularly received relatively small stipends (never more than $20,000) from the American CIA order to conduct his work. He explored electroshock in ways that offered such high risk of permanent brain damage that other researchers would not try them. He immersed subjects in sensory deprivation tanks for weeks at a time, though often claiming that they were immersed for only a matter of hours. He seemed to fancy himself a pure scientist, a man who would do anything to learn the outcome. The fact that some people died as a result of his research, while others went insane and still others, including the wife of a member of Canada's Parliament, had psychological problems for many years afterwards, was not a concern to the doctor or those who employed him. What mattered was that by the time Cheryl and Lynn Hersha were placed in the programme, the intelligence community had learned how to use electroshock techniques to control the mind. And so, like her sister, Lynn was strapped to a chair and wired for electric shock. The experience was different for Lynn, though the sexual component remained present to lesser degree...”

ConscienceAbuseMurderVictimMental HealthTraumaExperimentsMental IllnessPsychologicalTortureCanadaSurvivorChild AbuseSexual AbuseDissociative Identity DisorderDissociationChild Sexual AbuseMind ControlMultiple Personality DisorderIncestDissociativeSplit PersonalityMkultraElectric ShockExtreme AbuseBrain DamageHuman ExperimentsDoctors Who KillMcgillEwen CameronMedical ExperimentSexual TortureElectricutedMcgill UniversityWithout A Conscience
Book:Secret Weapons: How Two Sisters Were Brainwashed to Kill for Their Country
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“The family bully takes sibling rivalry to a whole new level; sibling abuse. While it’s common for families to have sibling rivalry, what stands out the most with the bully is their intent to hurt others badly, especially the family scapegoat. They can physically harm you. They will mentally torture you. In some cases, they will sexually violate you. They have evil motives to control their family members, manipulate them, and gaslight them.”

TraumaNarcissistic AbuseDysfunctional FamilyManipulativeGaslightingSibling RivalryScapegoatsSibling AbuseFamily Bully
Book:Soul Rescue: How to Break Free From Narcissistic Abuse & Heal Trauma
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“A Momentary Flicker by Stewart Stafford Keeper of pristine candlelight, In corrupted hourglass time, Chest-pumped at your "yield"— So why asset-strip mine? You claim we shed virginity together, A lecherous faux-naif purloins truth, My age will be the years you get— That collar shall be your noose. Your crimes are beyond absolution, Your extant sextant for baleful stars, Fevered pleas and penitent sighs, To a confessional's hidden bars. So why scalpel-slit a seeping scar? Karma totals defrocked degradation, A besmeared, hacked-up oil painting— Damnation's inferno predation. Your words, woven with deception, Vanish like smoke from a flame. From shaded rebirth, I set forth. I reclaim my dawn, my light, my name. © 2026, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”

TraumaSurvivorSexual AbuseDark PoetryFeminist PoetryConfessional PoetryClergy AbuseInstitutional FailureEpstein FilesJustice Poetry
Author:Stewart Stafford
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