Betrayal Trauma Quotes & Sayings

Let's say someone has experienced a violent trauma or betrayal: a child has been raped by a parent or has witnessed the destruction of someone he loves or has been so traumatized by the possibility of beatings and punishments that he's afraid to act. If the trauma is great enough, that person's life may become frozen, emotionally frozen even though he still gets up in the morning, is busy all day, and goes to bed at night. But there's this empty space that begins to fill with rage, rage toward everyone - the perpetrator, the people in the world who haven't suffered, even toward himself. (174) — Stephen Dobyns

Changes in Relationship with others:
It is especially hard to trust other people if you have been repeatedly abused, abandoned or betrayed as a child. Mistrust makes it very difficult to make friends, and to be able to distinguish between good and bad intentions in other people. Some parts do not seem to trust anyone, while other parts may be so vulnerable and needy that they do not pay attention to clues that perhaps a person is not trustworthy. Some parts like to be close to others or feel a desperate need to be close and taken care of, while other parts fear being close or actively dislike people. Some parts are afraid of being in relationships while others are afraid of being rejected or criticized. This naturally sets up major internal as well as relational conflicts. — Suzette Boon

O what will she do, a soul bitten into with wrong? — Euripides

We're a sleepy nation right now. I want us to be a nation of innovation. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

By developing a contaminated, stigmatized identity, the child victim takes the evil of the abuser into herself and thereby preserves her primary attachments to her parents. Because the inner sense of badness preserves a relationship, it is not readily given up even after the abuse has stopped; rather, it becomes a stable part of the child's personality structure. — Judith Lewis Herman

Once you start pushing your standards up, demons come out and show themselves behind the mask. I don't oppose anyone by nature but if someone opposes me, they reveal themselves as my enemy and enemies of anyone that wishes to be by my side. Besides, as you improve your life and move forward, the ones that weren't honest with you will certainly disappear. The opposite of this truth has consequences and they commonly come in the form of betrayal, deception, shock, abandonment and trauma. Life does not forgive or sympathizes with the ignorant. It never did. Such fact comes in the form of what many see as bad luck. — Robin Sacredfire

Betrayal is a more subtle, twisted feeling than terror. It burns and eats, but terror stabs right through. — Wendy Hoffman

Survivors are damaged to different degrees by their experiences. This does not depend on what happened physically. A Survivor who has been raped will not necessarily be more damaged than a Survivor who has been touched. The degree of damage depend on the degree of traumatic sexualization, stigmatization, betrayal and powerlessness, the child has experienced. This in turn depends on a number of factors such as:
* who the abuser was;
* how many abusers were involved;
* if the abuser was same-sex or opposite sex;
* what took place;
* what was said;
* how long the abuse went on for;
* How the child felt and how she interpreted what was happening;
* if the child was otherwise happy and supported;
* how other people reacted to the disclosure or discovery of the abuse;
* how old the child was — Carolyn Ainscough

We are all damaged. We have all been hurt. We have all had to learn painful lessons. We are all recovering from some mistake, loss, betrayal, abuse, injustice or misfortune. All of life is a process of recovery that never ends. We each must find ways to accept and move through the pain and to pick ourselves back up. For each pang of grief, depression, doubt or despair there is an inverse toward renewal coming to you in time. Each tragedy is an announcement that some good will indeed come in time. Be patient with yourself. — Bryant McGill

Look, as a painted man is no man, and as painted fire is no fire, so a cold prayer is no prayer. — Thomas Brooks

Can't stop the signal — Joss Whedon

My indulgences are Skittles and rum raisin ice cream. — Sanya Richards-Ross

Father-daughter incest is not only the type of incest most frequently reported but also represents a paradigm of female sexual victimization. The relationship between father and daughter, adult male and female child, is one of the most unequal relationships imaginable. It is no accident that incest occurs most often precisely in the relationship where the female is most powerless. The actual sexual encounter may be brutal or tender, painful or pleasurable; but it is always, inevitably, destructive to the child. The father, in effect, forces the daughter to pay with her body for affection and care which should be freely given. p4 — Judith Lewis Herman

I don't have memories of Ethiopia as a child. I didn't learn about Ethiopian culture until after I moved to New York and started meeting people from the Ethiopian community. — Marcus Samuelsson

What breaks your heart is part of a divine design to bring change! — Andy Stanley

There is tremendous trauma in the betrayal caused by a perpetual liar as they repeatedly commit psychological abuse. — Cathy Burnham Martin

Since I moved six or seven times the first year I was in New York, I had to be able to roll up the work, and paper would just get destroyed. Once I looked at what I'd done, I realized I had made a painting, sort of by default. — David Salle

Abandonment is at the core of addictions. Abandonment causes deep shame. Abandonment by betrayal is worse than mindless neglect. Betrayal is purposeful and self-serving. If severe enough, it is traumatic. What moves betrayal into the realm of trauma is fear and terror. If the wound is deep enough, and the terror big enough, your bodily systems shift to an alarm state. You never feel safe. You're always on full-alert, just waiting for the hurt to begin again. In that state of readiness, you're unaware that part of you has died. You are grieving. Like everyone who has loss, you have shock and disbelief, fear, loneliness and sadness. Yet you are unaware of these feelings because your guard is up. In your readiness, you abandon yourself. Yes, another abandonment. — Patrick J. Carnes

For in other ways a woman is full of fear, defenseless, dreads the sight of cold steel; but, when once she is wronged in the matter of love, no other soul can hold so many thoughts of blood. — Euripides

When the sun shines in the morning," he croaked, "its first ray falls on the door. — Gertrude Landa

Stay calm and exercise restrain during your most desperate moment or you shall desperately say what when your desperation is over, you shall come to a later realization of what you shouldn't have say and notice how silence could have been the best option to mere words! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

I want to see her naked, " Mengele said pointing to Marlene. She cried and shock. My mother flung her body in front of Marlene's and said, "You can't have her. I love her, my daughter." My father said, "Take the younger one. She's smarter, " as he pushed me over forward.
Marlene cried because father said I was smarter even though he was just trying to manipulate Mengele. The doctor's chest grew large. — Wendy Hoffman

See it for what it is and own it, rather than rethink it so you don't have to deal with the trauma of the abuse. This is the only way to move on--through acceptance. — Shannon L. Alder

When trauma involves intentional harm, such as in a crime or abuse, trust can totally collapse. — Dena Rosenbloom

I can't hope to convey the full effect of the embraces and avowals, but I can perhaps offer a crumb of counsel. If there is anybody known to you who might benefit from a letter or a visit, do not on any account postpone the writing or the making of it. The difference made will almost certainly be more than you have calculated — Christopher Hitchens

I've discussed this with many doctors, and it is just so imperative that people learn how to properly cook food to get those vital nutrients out of them. — Wolfgang Puck

You will never let go of the past by ignoring the most painful thing the person you loved has done to you. When you begin to minimize it, second guess yourself and others, ignore it or even pretend it didn't happen you cheat yourself out of healing. Naturally, your mind would rather believe the lies you are telling it, rather than accept the truth. The soul has a way of protecting itself from trauma, but if left in denial there is no growth or change. Healing requires going to that place you avoid and asking yourself why you are so afraid to accept the reality of what happened to you? Why have you minimized it like this person has wanted you to? What is it about your self esteem that allows you to continue being a doormat? — Shannon L. Alder

A human being who trades away individuality for conformity is nothing but a slave. — Auliq Ice

When you see the political parties squabble, if a baby is not allowed to be born, all the other issues do not come into play. — Alveda King

Complex PTSD consists of of six symptom clusters, which also have been described in terms of dissociation of personality. Of course, people who receive this diagnosis often also suffer from other problems as well, and as noted earlier, diagnostic categories may overlap significantly. The symptom clusters are as follows:
Alterations in Regulation of Affect ( Emotion ) and Impulses
Changes in Relationship with others
Somatic Symptoms
Changes in Meaning
Changes in the perception of Self
Changes in Attention and Consciousness — Suzette Boon

Memories can be hard to forget and painful to remember that those who hate us now once loved us. — Auliq Ice

You and I were meant to be together, even if we weren't meant to be happy. — Stacey T. Hunt

Not yet do you feel it. Wait for the future. — Euripides

The vast majority of incest begins years before the earliest conceivable age of consent. p4 — Judith Lewis Herman

If I put myself on the side of those who see the world as warming up in a bad way, who see the general march of industrial culture as something undesirable, the one thing I must be beware of doing and which my colleagues on that side don't beware of doing, we must beware of saying we've got to stop changing the environment. There is no 'the' environment which we can change, the world is changing all the time. — Richard Lewontin