Quotes About Trauma

Social connection builds resilience, and resilience helps create post-traumatic wisdom, and that wisdom leads to hope. Hope for you and hope for others witnessing and participating in your healing, hope for your community.

Because in order to understand trauma we need to understand memory. In order to appreciate how children heal we need to understand how they learn to love, how they cope with challenge, how stress affects them. And by recognizing the destructive impact that violence and threat can have on the capacity to love and work, we can come to better understand ourselves and to nurture the people in our lives, especially the children.

One of the few things I knew for sure by then about traumatized children was that they need predictability, routine, a sense of control and stable relationships with supportive people.

The risks for heart disease, stroke, depression, diabetes, asthma, and even many cancers are all affected by trauma-related changes in the stress response system. Empathy and connection affect physical—not just mental—wellness and health.

What happened to you?" is so important in understanding what's going on with you now.

Adrenaline increases the sugar in your blood. Her stress response, overactivated by the recent trauma, increased her adrenaline—hence much more sugar in her blood. The dose of insulin that had worked in the past was no longer adequate. Furthermore, when she was exposed to any evocative cue, such as the sirens, her sensitized system had an overreaction, releasing very high levels of adrenaline and, in turn, leading to a huge release of sugar.

The pillars of traditional healing were 1) connection to clan and the natural world; 2) regulating rhythm through dance, drumming, and song; 3) a set of beliefs, values, and stories that brought meaning to even senseless, random trauma; and 4) on occasion, natural hallucinogens or other plant-derived substances used to facilitate healing with the guidance of a healer or elder.

In Sandy's case, milk, once associated with nurturing and nutrition, now became the stuff that spilled from her throat, that her mother "refused" as she lay dead. Silverware was now no longer something used to eat your food, but rather something that killed and maimed and horrified. And doorbells—well, that was what had started the whole thing: the ringing of the doorbell had announced the arrival of the killer.

I'm reminded of the M?ori elders and their belief that trauma, anxiety, depression, and substance abuse are "all the same thing"—and all related to our connectedness, our sense of belonging.

We have talked a lot about how the actions of caregivers influence the child, but it's important to remember that those caregivers were also children influenced by their caregivers. The effects of trauma stretch far and wide across generations and across communities, and it's important to always come back to our central question with compassion: What happened to you?

a system is overloaded—worked beyond capacity—the result can be profound deterioration, disorganization, and dysfunction whether you are overworking your back muscles at the gym or your brain's stress networks when confronted with traumatic stress.

The protective effects of social connection were present even for individuals who were at higher risk for depression as a result of genetic vulnerability or early life trauma.

The most traumatic aspects of all disasters involve the shattering of human connections.

until you heal the wounds of your past, you will continue to bleed.

Childhood experiences literally impact the biology of the brain.

There is a difference between thinking you deserve to be happy and knowing you are worthy of happiness. So often we block our blessings because we don't, at our core, feel that we're enough. Even if you've accumulated a house full of nice things and the picture of your life fits inside a beautiful frame, if you have experienced trauma but haven't excavated it, the wounded parts of you will affect everything you've managed to build.

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma Bessel van der Kolk, M.D.

la recuperación de un trauma requiere que la víctima regrese a una situación que le resulte predecible y segura.

done. Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different. But we cannot move forward if we're still holding on to the pain of that past. All of us who have been broken and scarred by trauma have the chance to turn those experiences into what Dr. Perry and I have been talking about: post-traumatic wisdom. Forgive yourself, forgive them. Step out of your history and into the path of your future.

The example of Mr. Roseman involves traumatic experiences that took place when he was twenty-four years old. If these experiences changed the brain of a twenty-four-year-old, imagine the impact of trauma on the brain of an infant or toddler—how much more pervasive the effects would be.

All of us who have been broken and scarred by trauma have the chance to turn those experiences into what Dr. Perry and I have been talking about: post-traumatic wisdom.

If you look carefully at our biology after a traumatic experience-all the way down to the way genes are expressed-trauma will change everyone in some way.

Adversity impacts the developing child. Period. What the impact will be, when it may manifest, how it may be "buffered"-we can't always say. But developmental trauma will always influence our body and brain.

evocative cues"—basically any sensory input, like a sight, sound, smell, taste, or touch—can activate a traumatic memory.