Quotes About Trauma

Nothing is better, no reward greater than our true connection with ourselves, and through that we can reach out and really touch another. Working through trauma pulls us from the surface of life into the wellspring from which we learn who we really are.

In working through the pain of a traumatic past, it is important to help clients to identify not only what hurt them, but what sustained them.

Along with mistrust, hyperreactivity, hyperarousal, depression, and aggression, the numbing response and emotional constriction that are part of the trauma response may lead to the loss of ability to accept caring and support from others. As mistrust grows, so does the ability to accept love and support (van der Kolk 1987).

People who have experienced trauma may have a tendency to isolate or to withdraw for safety into a lonely world of their own in order to avoid pain. Reaching out may make them feel too vulnerable or rejection sensitive, or they may be out of touch with their need for connection and support or not know how to bring it into their experience.

Learned helplessness can be part of the ACoA trauma syndrome. In disaster situations, the smallest form of involvement can allow victims to be less symptomatic.

The cumulative effect of childhood toxic stress is part of what gives the ACoA trauma syndrome teeth. And though toxic stressors are common throughout society, some are more devastating than others. When CoAs move into adulthood with a history of childhood trauma, they are more vulnerable to being traumatized as adults (Krystal 1968).

When someone was hitting me, or like sexually molesting me, it just seemed normal to continue to do that to myself.

I can't imagine having to it to walk into murder scenes, and then trying to let that go, at the end of the day, and going home to your own family to live a normal life.

In high school, I got smacked and kicked around. Two bloody noses. It was horrible.

My mother had a horrific life. At fourteen, she was in the Nazi concentration camps. Her sense about life now is, every day above ground is a good day.

My mother had a very difficult childhood, having seen her own mother kill herself. So she didn't always know how to be the nurturing mother that we all expect we should have.

My mom obviously had a problem.

So I'm not crazy?" "No. Your brain is doing exactly what you would expect it to do considering what you lived through.

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. It is not surprising that today's best practices in trauma treatment are basically versions of these four things

We need to understand that victims of trauma are more prone to all forms of addiction because their baseline of stress is different.

For me, there are actually two lenses through which to view 'what happened to you.' There is the science-based explanation of the effect early trauma has on the brain. And then there are the myriad daily actions each of us take throughout our lives that are the result of, and that reflect back on, such trauma. These are the actions that, on the surface, look like bad decisions, bad habits, self-sabotage, self-destruction-the actions that cause others to judge.

The point is that our body's core regulatory systems can be altered by traumatic experiences. A child exposed to unpredictable or extreme stress will become what we call dysregulated.

I think part of the problem is that many years ago, in Korea, Mike's brain adapted to continuous threat—his body and brain became oversensitive and overreactive to any threat-related signals from the world. Back then, to stay alive, his brain made a connection—basically a specialized form of memory—between the sounds of gunfire and shelling and the need to activate an extreme survival response." I paused. "Does that make sense?

Even as an adult, as I tried to sleep, my mind was conditioned to stay in a constant state of arousal, prepared for attack.

For example, when children have abusive fathers, their brains begin to connect men with threat, anger, and fear. And this worldview gets built in—men are dangerous, threatening, they will hurt you and the people you love. If that is your ingrained view of the world, imagine what happens when you have a male teacher or coach.

Each memory recalled must do some violence to its origins.

This country was filled with violent children orphaned by war.

She looks like her face caught fire and they beat it out with a rake

When the emotional soul receives a wounding shock, the soul seems to recover as the body recovers. But this is only in appearance. Slowly, slowly the wound to the soul begins to make itself felt, like a bruise, which only slowly deepens its terrible ache, till it fills all the psyche. And when we think we have recovered and forgotten, it is then that the terrible after-effects have to be encountered at their worst.