Quotes About Recovery

Of our hurts we make monuments of survival. If we survive.

Some family's boad capsized at Lake Winnipesaukee the day before and now they were looking for the father's body.

Some people can't even breathe when they get polio," said Junior. "They have to lay in an iron lung with nothing but their head sticking out. It's like a big barrel that does the breathing for them.

Me sorprendió el poco esfuerzo que me costaba evocar esas palabras dichas, esas cosas vistas o escuchadas, esos dolores sufridos y ya superados; me sorprendió también con qué presteza y dedicación nos entregamos al dañino ejercicio de la memoria, que a fin de cuentas nada trae de bueno y sólo sirve para entorpecer nuestro normal funcionamiento.

Data can tell you that the people who took a medicine recovered faster than those who did not take it, but they can't tell you why. Maybe those who took the medicine did so because they could afford it and would have recovered just as fast without it.

I hope with this book to convince you that data are profoundly dumb. Data can tell you that the people who took a medicine recovered faster than those who did not take it, but they can't tell you why. Maybe those who took the medicine did so because they could afford it and would have recovered just as fast without it.

See? Haven't lost your sense of humor after all but your sense of identity is what seems to have been misplaced. No. Wrong. You can't lose what you never had.

Trauma robs the victim of a sense of power and control; the guiding principle of recovery is to restore power and control. The first task of recovery is to establish the survivor's safety. This task takes precedence over all others, for no therapeutic workman possibly succeed if safety has not been adequately secured…

In order to gain their freedom, survivors may have to give up almost everything else. Battered women may lose their homes, their friends, and their livelihood. Survivors of childhood abuse may lose their families. Political refugees may lose their homes and their homeland. Rarely are the dimensions of this sacrifice fully recognized.

People who have survived atrocities often tell their stories in a highly emotional, contradictory and fragmented manner.

Denying the reality of my experience—that was the most harmful. Not being able to trust anyone was the most serious effect. . . . I know I acted in ways that were despicable. But I wasn't crazy. Some people go around acting like that because they feel hopeless. Finally I found a few people along the way who have been able to feel OK about me even though I had severe problems. Good therapists were those who really validated my experience.

helplessness constitutes the essential insult of trauma, and that restitution requires the restoration of a sense of efficacy and power.

The fundamental stages of recovery are establishing safety, reconstructing the trauma story, and restoring the connection between survivors and their community

the suffering of traumatized people is a matter not only of individual psychology but also, always, of social justice.

If traumatic disorders are afflictions of the powerless, then empowerment must be a central principle of recovery.

Over time as most people fail the survivor's exacting test of trustworthiness, she tends to withdraw from relationships. The isolation of the survivor thus persists even after she is free.

After a traumatic experience, the human system of self-preservation seems to go onto permanent alert, as if the danger might return at any moment.

When trust is lost, traumatized people feel that they belong more to the dead than to the living.

Recovery can take place only within then context of relationships; it cannot occur in isolation.

Recovery unfolds in three stages. The central task of the first stage is the establishment of safety. The central task of the second stage is remembrance and mourning. The central focus of the third stage is reconnection with ordinary life.

The first principle of recovery is the empowerment of the survivor. She must be the author and arbiter of her own recovery. Others may offer advice, support, assistance, affection, and care, but not cure.

I had it together on Sunday. By Monday at noon it had cracked. On Tuesday debris Was descending on me. And by Wednesday no part was intact. On Thursday I picked up some pieces. On Friday I picked up the rest. By Saturday, late, It was almost set straight. And on Sunday the world was impressed With how well I had got it together.

Things happened and broke you, and you spent a lot of time putting yourself back together, and then it turned out you were the same old person, with sadness stitched in the seams.

For many centuries, suicides were treated like criminals by the society. That is part of the terrible legacy that has come down into society's method of handling suicide recovery. Now we have to fight off the demons that have been hanging around suicide for centuries.