Quotes About Trauma

when poets go back by way of memory and imagination to past traumas to engage or re-engage them, then those poets are taking control—are shaping and ordering and asserting power over the hurtful events. In lyric poems, they're both telling the story from their point of view and also shaping the experience into an order (the poem) that shows they have power over what (in the past) overpowered them.

A lo lejos escuchó una vaca mugir con desesperación. En la balacera le habían matado a su becerro y ahora deambulaba por las calles mugiendo para encontrarlo. Los daños colaterales de la guerra del narco.

Ansiábamos tu aprobación. Sorprende la psique infantil, en hambre permanente de afecto a pesar del maltrato.

The effect of being violently driven from home, and that home being despoiled .... it can go on and on like sea-surf against rocks. On and on within a man or a woman, or within a child as it grows up somewhere else, never sat home, only away .

There are the medical dangers of football in general caused by head trauma over repetitive hits.

They tore the trousers of his track suit from his body and turned him over on to his back, grabbing and kicking at his exposed testicles.

VieÈ›ile noastre sunt modelate mai puÈ›in de experienÈ›a copil?riei propriu-zis?, cât de maniera în care am fost înv??aÈ›i s? ne-o imagin?m. Suntem mai puÈ›in traumatizaÈ›i (...) de întâmpl?rile copil?riei, cât de maniera traumatizant? în care ne amintim copil?ria.

No matter what we've experienced in life, no matter what kind of trauma we've been through, no matter what bad decisions we've made, we survive, believing there are better days waiting for us.

I think what a lot of people don't see, is a trauma survivor doesn't always have the words to express what's going on inside them. It's not from the lack of trying; it's from an impact of something that instantly changed us. Sometimes talking helps and sometimes silence heals us.

A wounded heart can have more pain than what the mind can imagine.

This search, this fantasy, is the chief fuel for our culture—the fantasy of romantic love, the fantasy that there is this other who will make our life work for us, heal us, protect us, nurture us, and spare us the world's trauma.

All drunks, particularly those who grew up in alcoholic homes, have that same sense of angst and trepidation, one that has no explainable origins. The fear is not necessarily self-centered, either. It's like watching someone point a revolver at his temple while he cocks and dry-fires the mechanism, over and over again, until the cylinder rotates a loaded chamber into firing position.

Prosecutors often wince when they have to take a child abuser to trial, because usually the only witnesses they can use are children who are terrified at the prospect of testifying against their parents.

soldiers who return from foreign battlefields with a syndrome that survivors of the Great War called the thousand-yard stare.

I wasn't a criminal, but I was genuinely insane. My greatest enemy is sleep. I see the men and boys I killed many years ago in a foreign land, and I'm filled with sorrow. Have you had those experiences, sir? Please tell me that is indeed the case and that you wish to get them out of your life. Can you do that for me, sir?

When a man molests a woman or girl, he steals her identity. You don't know who you are anymore. You don't have an address or a home. You're nothing. It's like a stain you can't wash out of your soul

Wilhuff had had ample time to grow accustomed to the sight, scent, and taste of blood, but he had never seen so much human blood spilled in one place.

White folks got insane after the Old Man done his bit, they went on a rampage and attacked coloreds for miles. They was scared outta their minds. I reckon in some fashion, they ain't been the same since.

People always remember the worst day of their lifes. It becomes a part of them forever.

Then the doctor broke my nose and I cried like a baby

Naomi "Scootchie" Cross is the daughter of my late brother Aaron. Years ago, when Naomi was in law school at Duke University, she was kidnapped by a murderer and sadist who called himself Casanova. I'd been blessed enough to find and rescue her, and the ordeal forged a bond between us that continues to this day.

It's hard to explain to people the incredible emotional burden officers carry after enduring these types of incidents, especially when children are involved.

Unlike more conventional talk therapy, where you constantly revisit and discuss a traumatic event, EMDR allows you to process the trauma in fewer sessions, gently move past it so the brain will no longer be reacting in a fight-or-flight response.

Look at PTSD as weight," she says. "If you're carrying, say, five pounds, you can fix that. If you're carrying five hundred pounds, you'll die.