Quotes About Trauma

Kenzo felt one of his sudden mood-swings coming on. He had first experienced this disturbing phenomenon while stranded in the depths of the mountains of the Philippines, resigned to imminent death. It had been diagnosed as a post-traumatic nervous disorder, and in certain situations it would flare up suddenly, without warning.

If only it were so easy. Real-world bad dreams are much worse.

My mother didn't try to stab my father until I was six.

You can't go through sustained cruelty and terror for a large swathe of your life and not talk about it and be okay.

The wound is the trauma caused by exposure to overwhelming shame at an age when you weren't equipped to cope with it. An emotional wound caused by toxic shame is a very serious and persistent disability that has the potential to literally destroy your life. It is much more than just a poor self-image. It is the internalized and deeply held belief that you are somehow unacceptable, unlovable, shameful, and in short, flawed.

The roots of our trauma with men come from two distinct sources: being a man in a hypermasculine culture and being a gay man in a decidedly straight world. The two of these combined turn the tables dramatically against us and make having a healthy relationship extremely difficult. We must relearn everything we know about relationships in order to make them work successfully.

According to the medical literature, I was a textbook case for posttraumatic stress disorder. During the day I can control my symptoms, at least to a degree, but not at night. That's when all hell breaks loose in my dreams.

You know things aren't right in your life when you look forward to going back to war," he said.

Forensics had taught her that scars left tissue much tougher than skin.

America's a very traumatized society.

Trauma happens in relationships, so it can only be healed in relationships. Art can't provide healing. It can be cathartic and therapeutic but a relationship is a three-part journey.

Being hurt personally triggered a curiosity about how such beliefs are formed.

'Family Life' is a blueprint of my life. It was horrible and physically gruesome in a way the book doesn't attempt to capture. It was emotionally very bleak.

I was physically abused and I retaliated.

People tend to throw up hands at Michael Jackson's multifarious bizarreness. But is it really so strange? The boy was forced to work by a cruel and physically abusive father starting at the age of 7.

When you're traumatized, you pick out one thing you remember more than anything else.

You can't just pill away injuries that go deep in someone. They don't just stop those feelings from existing.

I want pills called September 10. You take one and your mind feels like the 11th never happened.

My earliest memories are being pinned to a fence with a switchblade.

The brain is suspended in a kind of thick jelly inside the skull, and a helmet can't keep it from sloshing around. If you hit your head hard enough, the brain goes bashing against the walls of the skull.

A hospital alone shows what war is.

War is hell. You can't photograph a flying bullet, but you can capture genuine fear.

War destroys people's souls. Most people focus on physical injuries, but the invisible injuries can take a lifetime to heal and affects the lives of generations to come.

War is the epitome of hell for all involved. I know because I have been there and back.