Quotes & Sayings About Emotional Pain

We're too often guilty of thinking that our parents arrived on this planet as fully functioning adults on the day that we were born. That they don't have pasts of their own prior to our birth. That the father is not also a son, that the mother is not also a child. My mother had a tough beginning, enduring things I know little about. And yet I more often discount her pain and overvalue mine. — Steven Rowley

I used self-injury as a coping mechanism to help me overcome the emotional stress that I was incapable of dealing with in any other way. Self-injury was a means of escape, a way to relieve the numbness, and an expression of the pain within me. Something that the police wouldn't care about. — Stephen Richards

Pain is always emotional. Fear and depression keep constant company with chronic hurting. — Siri Hustvedt

There is nothing spooky about mindfulness. It is simply a state of clear, nonjudgmental, and undistracted attention to the contents of consciousness, whether pleasant or unpleasant. Cultivating this quality of mind has been shown to reduce pain, anxiety, and depression; improve cognitive function; and even produce changes in gray matter density in regions of the brain related to learning and memory, emotional regulation, and self-awareness. — Sam Harris

Normal people are not always boring. On the contrary. Volatility and passion, although often more romantic and enticing, are not intrinsically preferable to a steadiness of experience and feeling about another person (nor are they incompatible). These are beliefs, of course, that one has intuitively about friendships and family; they become less obvious when caught up in a romantic life that mirrors, magnifies, and perpetuates one's own mercurial emotional life and temperament. It has been with my pleasure, and not-inconsiderable pain, that I have learned about the possibilities of love - its steadiness and its growth - from my husband, the man with whom I had lived for almost a decade. — Kay Redfield Jamison

I'm fearful and anxious for my family in ways that I've never been fearful or anxious for myself. I'm completely vulnerable to their pain, both physical and emotional. It's wild. And I wouldn't trade it for anything. — Mark Deklin

We do not want to comprehend that people may and do die of emotional pain, or to recognize the terror in ourselves when we cannot seem to help someone in despair
when our words are empty. — Jill Bialosky

I'm not convinced that the universe is balanced. Maybe for the universe to be balanced, first we need to be balanced, becauseit's only then can balance really be delivered. I'm pretty sure if I view the world as a bitter, twisted individual, all I will meet are other bitter, twisted people. When I acknowledge my emtions, but embrace awareness I find balance. When I fight my emotions I find imbalance. — Tony Curl

Every writer has to make an emotional journey from artist sitting in attic to being part of a business. The writer of a film is like Tinkerbell. You are only there because people believe in you. The moment they dont, because youre a pain the arse, youve lost. — Julian Fellowes

Today i want to talk to you, and you don't have time. Tomorrow you would desperately want to talk to me and I won't be around — Kunal Bhardwaj

Behind his eyes was emotional pain because I had hurt him. I was in pain because he had crossed me. "Boss, — Jessica N. Watkins

Stress happens when the mind resists what is. Most of us tend to either push or resist the river of our lives, to fight circumstance rather than make use of things as they are. Resistance creates turbulence, which you feel as physical, mental, and emotional tension. Tension is a subtle pain, which - like any pain - signals that something is amiss. When we are out of natural balance, we create tension; by listening to our body, we can take responsibility for releasing it. — Dan Millman

Everyone keeps telling me that time heals all wounds, but no one can tell me what I'm supposed to do right now. Right now I can't sleep. It's right now that I can't eat. Right now I still hear his voice and sense his presence even though I know he's not here. Right now all I seem to do is cry. I know all about time and wounds healing, but even if I had all the time in the world, I still don't know what to do with all this hurt right now. — Nina Guilbeau

The words I can't say are the holes I punch in the walls of my psyche ... — John Geddes

Addictions always originate in pain, whether felt openly or hidden in the unconscious. They are emotional anesthetics. Heroin and cocaine, both powerful physical painkillers, also ease psychological discomfort. — Gabor Mate

I made the choice to be vegan because I will not eat (or wear, or use) anything that could have an emotional response to its death or captivity. I can well imagine what that must feel like for our non-human friends - the fear, the terror, the pain - and I will not cause such suffering to a fellow living being. — Rai Aren

Curiously, just as much if not more mindless behavior can creep into our most momentous closures and life transitions, including our own aging and our own dying. Here, too, mindfulness can have healing effects. We may be so defended against feeling the full impact of our emotional pain - whether it be grief, sadness, shame, disappointment, anger, or for that matter, even joy or satisfaction - that we unconsciously escape into a cloud of numbness in which we do not permit ourselves to feel anything at all or know what we are feeling. — Jon Kabat-Zinn

Thy's bleeding heart confides in the With one's thoughts and troubles Let the kiss thy's lips To ease thou's pain Thy am thou's comfort Lie thou's head on mine pillow Of soft consolation And let the drown Thou's sorrow Away — Solange Nicole

A lot of men not only fear emotional pain, they are afraid to be transparent and vulnerable. To let an outsider even glimpse their confusion or suffering is a taboo that starts in adolescence and becomes more entrenched with adulthood. — Michael R. French

To diminish the suffering of pain, we need to make a crucial distinction between the pain of pain, and the pain we create by our thoughts about the pain. Fear, anger, guilt, loneliness and helplessness are all mental and emotional responses that can intensify pain. — Howard Cutler

What good is wealth if one is spiritually, emotionally, and mentally bankrupt? — Carlos Wallace

Brianna! Is Sam okay?" Astrid cried.
"No. Drake tore him up." She wanted to sound tough, but the sobs came bubbling up and overtook her. "Oh, God, Astrid, he's hurt so bad."
Astrid gasped and covered her hand with her mouth. Brianna put her arms around Astrid and sobbed into her hair.
"Is he going to die?" Astrid asked, voice wobbly.
"No, I don't think so," Brianna said. She stood back and wiped her tears. "I gave him something for the pain. But he's messed up, Astrid. — Michael Grant

It has been an obsession of human beings to create a hierarchy that places the human species on top and lumps all the "other animals" together beneath us. The resulting "speciesism" allows us to look upon animals as less deserving of all manner of rights and considerations than humans. To support this lower status, humans have argued that animals act instinctually; don't have souls; don't feel physical pain like we do; and lack self-consciousness, cognitive intelligence, emotional feelings, morality, and ethics. — Sharon Gannon

I lose it when I can't write. I feel sad and confused and fucked off. — Carla H. Krueger

She looked at him like it physically hurt her not to speak, and yet she stayed silent. — Dennis Sharpe

My biggest emotional defeat and the greatest emotional pain I've had as an actor was when 'Wild Wild West' opened up to $52 million. The movie wasn't good. And it hurt so bad to be the No. 1 movie, to open at $52 million and to know the movie wasn't good. — Will Smith

You drink to escape the emotional pain you're in, and then the next day you do it all over again to get rid of the physical pain. So you drink more and your drink more often and pretty soon you're drunk all the time and it becomes just as bad, if not worse, than the reality you were attempting to escape from in the first place. Only now, you need an escape from the escape, so you find something even stronger than the alcohol. And maybe that's what turns alcoholics into addicts. — Colleen Hoover

Forgive and be happy. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Vampirism: (n) 1. The condition of being a vampire, marked by the need to ingest blood and extreme vulnerability to sunlight. 2. The act of preying upon others for financial or emotional gain. 3. A gigantic pain in the butt. — Molly Harper

Depression as Denial of the Self Depression consists of a denial of one's own emotional reactions. This denial begins in the service of an absolutely essential adaptation during childhood and indicates a very early injury. There are many children who have not been free, right from the beginning, to experience the very simplest of feelings, such as discontent, anger, rage, pain, even hunger - and, of course, enjoyment of their own bodies. — Alice Miller

Everybody has scars; some are more visible than others, that's all. But anyone without a scar is someone I don't want to know because it's someone who doesn't feel things deeply. You have to understand loss to recognize a gift when you see it."
He leaned over and kissed her again. "You are my gift. I want to be yours, if you'll let me. — Susannah Sandlin

I write songs to handle emotional pain. I guess what they say is true: with every heartache comes a great song. I also pray and have great friends. — Matt Sorum

Dramatically at first - that's how I handle emotional pain. If there were an award given for these moments, then I would have a mantle full of gold statuettes. Then I take stock and seek counsel from people I trust and talk myself into a state of reflection and remember that it won't last forever. — Danielle Cormack

Lost love belongs in a three-minute song, pullling back feelings from a time when they came unbidden, recalling the infatuation, the walking on sunshine that cannot last and the pain of its loss, whether through parting or the passage of time, reminding us that we are emotional beings — Graeme Simsion

We must also realize that nothing happens without a purpose. Nothing. Not even broken hearts. Not even pain. That broken heart and that pain are lessons and signs for us. They are warnings that something is wrong. They are warnings that we need to make a change. Just like the pain of being burned is what warns us to remove our hand from the fire, emotional pain warns us that we need to make an internal change. We need to detach. Pain is a form of forced detachment. Like the loved one who hurts you again and again and again, the more dunya hurts us, the more we inevitably detach from it. The more we inevitably stop loving it. — Yasmin Mogahed

Falling apart is curling up into a fetal position and staying in bed for a week. What you were doing is having the emotional response an individual has to the loss of someone they love. We cry to give voice to our pain. — Anna Quindlen

There is such a thing as emotional rubbish; it is produced in the factories of the mind. It consists of pain that has long since passed and is no longer useful. It consists of precautions that were important in the past, but that serve no purpose in the present. — Paulo Coelho

At some point, a wave of repressed emotion broke through my armor, demanding expression and release. As I plumbed the depths of my despair, I shed one layer of pain after another. My inner world was like a series of reservoirs, each holding a different wave of emotional memory behind them. When one reservoir burst, another soon appeared. This phase went on for many months - the first of many essential release phases. — Jeff Brown

Pain isn't a lot of fun, at least not for most folks, but it is utterly unique to life. Pain - physical, emotional, and otherwise - is the shadow cast by everything you want out of life, the alternative to the result you were hoping for, and the inevitable creator of strength. From the pain of our failures we learn to be better, stronger, greater than what we were before. Pain is there to tell us when we've done something badly - it's a teacher, a guide, one that is always there to both warn us of our limitations and challenge us to overcome them.
For something no one likes, pain does us a whole hell of a lot of good. — Jim Butcher

Some scars don't hurt. Some scars are numb. Some scars rid you of the capacity to feel anything ever again. — Joyce Rachelle

We need to get home and put some ointments and ice on the stings. Vinegar will make it worse, so if you thought Giraffe Boy could pee on you, you're shit out of luck."
She agrees as if prepared for this - the punishment, the medication, the swelling, the pain that hurts her now and the pain that will hurt her later. She seems okay with my disapproval. She's gotten her story, after all, and she's beginning to see how much easier physical pain is to tolerate than emotional pain. I'm unhappy that she's learning this at such a young age.
"The hospital will have ointments and ice," she says. — Kaui Hart Hemmings

Perhaps depression can best be described as emotional pain that forces itself on us against our will, and then breaks free of its externals. — Andrew Solomon

Problems arise when people act as if their "boulders" are daily loads, and refuse help, or as if their "daily loads" are boulders they shouldn't have to carry. The results of these two instances are either perpetual pain or irresponsibility. — Henry Cloud

Crying is like a thundershower for the soul. The air feels so wonderful after the rain. Don't think too much. Breathe. Don't be harsh or demanding on yourself. Just experience your feelings and know that your tears are announcing change in your life. Change is coming; like a summer rain - to wash away your pain. Have faith that things are getting better. — Bryant McGill

Relief is a great feeling.
It's the emotional and physical reward we receive from our bodies upon alleviation of pain, pressure and struggle. A time to bask in the lack of the negative.
And yet, think about it - relief is really the status quo, a negation of the suffering, a nothing in itself. It is the way things were before the pressure and struggle began.
So, is it a step back? A regression?
Or is it an opportunity to regroup, start over, and move in a different direction?
Use your moment of relief well. — Vera Nazarian

You really need stitches," she tells me."Or you're going to have a scar." I try not to laugh. Stitches aren't going to help. They fix skin, cuts, wounds, heal stuff on the outside. Everything broken with me is on the inside. "I can handle scars, especially one's on the outside. — Jessica Sorensen

The true opposite of depression is neither gaiety nor absence of pain, but vitality - the freedom to experience spontaneous feelings. It is part of the kaleidoscope of life that these feelings are not only happy, beautiful, or good but can reflect the entire range of human experience, including envy, jealousy, rage, disgust, greed, despair, and grief. But this freedom cannot be achieved if its childhood roots are cut off. Our access to the true self is possible only when we no longer have to be afraid of the intense emotional world of early childhood. Once we have experienced and become familiar with this world, it is no longer strange and threatening. — Alice Miller

Someday those bruises inside you will heal. You can't know when someday will come, or what life will look like when it finally does. ... But in a way it doesn't even matter because someday isn't what we have. What we have is right now, this moment, when things aren't okay yet, but in a way they are already, because in the end they will be, and as long as that's true, it's enough. — Lauren Miller

Why?" I asked, confused. Why did he care?
"Why what?"
"Why was he having a panic attack?"
She stared at me with her eyes wide before she leaned in.
"Lila ... because he thought he'd lost you; he thought you were dead."
"He didn't have me to lose." My breathing picked up as the emotional pain tightened my chest. "He threw me away. — K.I. Lynn

Addiction might be redefined not as a character flaw but as a "biochemical deficit management." Our emotional habits will become an accepted factor of good health, along with slogans like "Heartache can be harmful to your unborn children." — Marni Jackson

My uncle said physically disciplining children fell into the same category as hitting an animal, neither has the emotional or intellectual capacity to understand the action on any level other than pain and fear. He said discipline is a concept that can only be understood by adults. — Fabian Black

We have unfinished personal business I do believe." He smiled. "And I do love to make you blush."
"It clashes with my hair. — Susannah Sandlin

Dear Lord, Please protect and guide Eve at her time of recovery. Life has given her a lot of emotional wounds, and now her physical body is mirroring this pain. Please take her hand and keep her safe. Let her live to lead a life that shows her the power of your love."
Together they added, "Amen."
Blake hated that it was all they could do right now. — Debra Anastasia

Sometimes people put walls up to see who is strong enough to break them down! — Stephen Richards

Focus attention on the feeling inside you. Know that it is the pain-body. Accept that it is there. Don't think about it - don't let the feeling turn into thinking. Don't judge or analyze. Don't make an identity for yourself out of it. Stay present, and continue to be the observer of what is happening inside you. Become aware not only of the emotional pain but also of "the one who observes," the silent watcher. This is the power of the Now, the power of your own conscious presence. Then see what happens. — Eckhart Tolle

It seems nobody really talks about what we do with our emotional pain. Only the ascendant perhaps, who have learned how to fully meditate or do yoga or whatever through their emotional pain. — India.Arie

If you love somebody deeply and you lose that relationship - whether through death, rejection or separation - you will feel pain. That pain is called grief. Grief is a normal emotional reaction to any significant loss, whether a loved one, a job or a limb. There's no way to avoid or get rid of it - it's just there. And, once accepted, it will pass in its own time.
Unfortunately, many of us refuse to accept grief. We will do anything rather than feel it. We may bury ourselves in work, drink heavily, throw ourselves into a new relationship 'on the rebound' or numb ourselves with prescribed medications. But no matter how hard we try to push grief away, deep down inside it's still there. And eventually it will be back.
It's like holding a football underwater. As long as you keep holding it down, it stays beneath the surface. But eventually your arm gets tired and the moment you release your grip, the ball leaps straight up out of the water. — Russ Harris

But what if the great secret insider-trading truth is that you don't ever get over the biggest losses in your life? Is that good news, bad news, or both? ... The pain does grow less acute, but the insidious palace lie that we will get over crushing losses means that our emotional GPS can never find true north, as it is based on maps that no longer mention the most important places we have been to. Pretending that things are nicely boxed up and put away robs us of great riches. — Anne Lamott

As long as you are unable to access the power of the Now, every emotional pain that you experience leaves behind a residue of pain that lives on in you. — Eckhart Tolle

True sorrows do not pass like clouds or inclement weather ... Sorrows are absorbed over time, and you reshape yourself around them. How you absorb them makes you what you are for good or ill. I think the only true and right way is to take our sorrows into us bravely and wholly, knowing they will hurt, and accepting that sometimes pain is unavoidable. It is when grief is suppressed or hidden that it does harm — Isobelle Carmody

I look for women I know are gonna bust me up good. Come on, man, who can resist that? Who can resist that emotional pain? Yeah, they all have the same line, they're so sweet: I'm not gonna hurt you like all the others. Really I'm not. I'm gonna introduce you to a whole new level of pain! — Sam Kinison

When our stoicism interferes with our humanity, we risk developing a wooden emotional life and an equally wooden personality. In contrast, the realization that our ability to work through pain makes us stronger than all of our efforts to exorcise it may in the long run alleviate its burden. It may enable us to take up our destiny as creatures whose very vulnerability renders us capable of inspired and truly awe-inspiring love. — Mari Ruti

Crossing the Ring of Fire is..moving from the emotional shutdown of numbness through the flames of fear and entering into the healing arms of change. — David W. Earle

For the vile human pigs in life; the sloppy, disheveled, uncaring dregs, the ungrateful, and especially for the vicious, negative emotional peasants - there will only continue to be the hard and painful lessons you so desperately need. The invisible hand will hold you in your wretched place until your last breath - unless you evolve. If you are cruel and ignorant the invisible fist will pound you into oblivion until you submit, humble yourself and soften your hard heart. — Bryant McGill

Domestic violence causes far more pain than the visible marks of bruises and scars. It is devastating to be abused by someone that you love and think loves you in return. It is estimated that approximately 3 million incidents of domestic violence are reported each year in the United States. — Dianne Feinstein

If you can get the other party to reveal their problems, pain, and unmet objectives - if you can get at what people are really buying - then you can sell them a vision of their problem that leaves your proposal as the perfect solution. Look at this from the most basic level. What does a good babysitter sell, really? It's not child care exactly, but a relaxed evening. A furnace salesperson? Cozy rooms for family time. A locksmith? A feeling of security. Know the emotional drivers and you can frame the benefits of any deal in language that will resonate. — Chris Voss

At 6:15 she was standing on her front porch watering gardenias and watching another line of thunderstorms split and go around her. The same thing happened almost every day. Some days they came so close all she could smell was the rain. The wind whipped up dust from the fields until it drove like buckshot into the shuddering mesquites, and Clara Nell started to pray. 'Jesus,' she whispered. 'Jesus, Jesus....' But the only thing that came out of the sky was her topsoil. Every day the wind took a little more, and it hadn't rained in almost a year. — Andrew Geyer

One of the heaviest load so many people are carrying today is neither thoughts about things they lack nor things they wish to have, nor how to manage what they already have, but toxic words that have taken a greater portion of their thoughts and such words not just occupying a great part of their hearts, but also draining their very joy in life! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Finally we are being told the truth: life isn't always easy and pleasant. We already know this to be true, but somehow we tend to go through life thinking that there is something wrong with us when we experience sadness, grief, and physical and emotional pain. The first truth points out that this is just the way it is. There is nothing wrong with you: you have just been born into a realm where pain is a given. — Noah Levine

Men do oppress women. People are hurt by rigid sexist role patterns. These two realities coexist. Male oppression of women cannot be excused by the recognition that there are ways men are hurt by rigid sexist roles. Feminist activists should acknowledge that hurt, and work to change it - it exists. It does not erase or lessen male responsibility for supporting and perpetuating their power under patriarchy to exploit and oppress women in a manner far more grievous than the serious psychological stress and emotional pain caused by male conformity to rigid sexist role patterns. — Bell Hooks

Intellectually, human beings and animals may be different, but it's pretty obvious that animals have a rich emotional life and that they feel joy and pain. It's easy to forget the connection between a hamburger and the cow it came from. But I forced myself to acknowledge the fact that every time I ate a hamburger, a cow had ceased to breathe — Moby

It's like he has emotional amnesia ... I think you have to accept that the person you knew isn't there at the moment. I was witness to how much he loved you. I have the photos. This isn't the person we knew. I don't recognize this person. He's shed his skin. Her heart is broken too. She has to say the thing that will give me back my life. She draws on every reserve. I see how much it hurts her and it hurts me too. I came from her joy and her pain, I lived in it and I live in it now. — Emma Forrest

On the ward there was hurt and pain so big and so deep that speech could not express it. I had been interested in philosophy, and suddenly philosophy came alive for me, for here the basic questions of human existence were not abstractions: they were embodied in human suffering — Frank X. Barron

You can experiment with directing metta toward a difficult aspect of yourself. There may be physical or emotional aspects of yourself you have struggled with, denied, avoided, been at war with. Sit quietly, sending yourself metta. After some time, turn your attention to the loneliness, anger, disability, addiction, or whatever aspect of your mind or body you feel most estranged from. Healing begins with the open, compassionate acknowledgment of these unpleasant aspects of our lives. Surround the painful element of your experience with the warmth and acceptance of metta. You can use phrases such as, ' May I accept this,' 'May I be filled with loving kindness toward this,' 'May I use the pain of this experience for the welfare of all. — Sharon Salzberg

There are other kinds of emotional pain that emerge from our own mistaken thinking. As we surrender that pain, we are inviting into our thought system a guide who will lead us to different thoughts. It's like the song "Amazing Grace": I was blind and now I see. — Marianne Williamson

He wanted to keep things in, and all I wanted to do was get out. — Kristin Halbrook

May the broken hearted be healed. — Lailah Gifty Akita

The very same brain centers that interpret and feel physical pain also become activated during experiences of emotional rejection. In brain scans, they light up in response to social ostracism, just as they would when triggered by physically harmful stimuli. When people speak of feeling hurt or of having emotional pain, they are not being abstract or poetic, but scientifically quite precise. — Gabor Mate

Pain - physical, emotional and spiritual pain - is more than just a condition that needs to be silenced, numbed or "fixed." Pain in all its forms is also a message, a kind of distress signal to our hearts and minds. There are times when it's really important to tune into that message and just listen to it. When we don't listen, our understanding of the world gets more and more distorted, and we become capable of doing things we very often regret. — Karyn Kusama

Time doesn't heal emotional pain, you need to learn how to let go. — Roy Bennett

Emotional pain of any kind is a reminder to stop and look inside. — Gary Zukav

Honest autoethnographic exploration generates a lot of fears and self-doubt and emotional pain. Just when you think you can't stand the pain anymore that's when the real work begins. Then there is the vulnerability of revealing yourself, not being able to take back what you 've written or having any control over how readers interpret your story. — Carolyn Ellis

Everything I think I can't say 'cause it'd come out fucking emo, like, if I were to say what I've been thinking all day, every day: I don't know if I can go on like this forever; or, I'm also always thinking, it shouldn't be this hard just to have a brain. Everyone has a brain. — Elissa Washuta

If someone really listens, acknowledges my emotional pain, and gives me the opportunity to talk more about it, I then "begin to feel less upset. — Adele Faber

Emotional fetters may hurt but they lead us to profound lessons of life. — Balroop Singh

I try to go through it [emotional pain]; understanding is going to take me to a better place. And I do hot yoga. — Patricia Velasquez

Emotional pain is sometimes what we make of it. We can always choose how we react. No matter what the pain, breathing always centers me. — Aleks Paunovic

What inflicts the mind, inflicts the body. What inflicts the soul inflicts the body. Physical wounds heal much quicker but spiritual, emotional and spiritual wounds takes much longer of healing. — Ann Marie Aguilar

When on an emotional roller-coaster, take the leap of faith ... — Stephen Richards

I know I need to face the facts, and remain strong to extricate myself from this hideous situation, but not yet. I figure I'm owed at least one day to indulge my self-pity. One day to wallow in despair. To give into the soul-crunching heart-stomping pain ripping me to shreds on the inside. — Siobhan Davis

The attainment of enlightenment makes you happy forever. It frees you from the mental and emotional pains that human beings experience every day. You live in a condition of ecstasy, brightness and joy all of the time. — Frederick Lenz

The ego is our pain, but it is what we know and we resist moving out of it. The effort it takes to grow out of painful patterns often feels more uncomfortable than remaining within them. Personal growth can be so painful because it can make us ashamed and humiliated to face our own darkness. But the goal of personal growth is the journey out of dark emotional patterns which cause us pain to those which cause us peace. — Marianne Williamson

I try to make sure I have a helpful perspective so when emotional pain comes up, it doesn't get out of hand. — Richard Brancatisano

...our family became a place where you screamed for help but no one heard, not ever. — Marceline Loridan-Ivens

A great part of what unmanned me was distress at the destruction of my own body. It was odd to realise that I had an emotional attachment to my own flesh. My deep desire to keep it functioning well surpassed simple avoidance of pain. A man takes pride in his body. When it is damaged, it is more than a physical thing. — Robin Hobb

Our most fundamental spiritual experiences consist on experiences of risk, fear and chances that make us jump from a cliff of emotional turmoil and into a chaos of excitement. It's precisely the potential for disappointment, pain and total annihilation that make them so spiritual. — Robin Sacredfire

The secret to writing is to get your own pain - shout it out till it hurts your throat - weep it into your pillow - then write it down ... — John Geddes

- Child is abused, perpetrator threatens to hurt mother. Child feels protective of mother.
- Struggle to escape perp reinforces feelings of mutual protection. It's Mom and I against the world.
- Something necessary at the time later creates "enmeshment." Child doesn't see her actions as separate from mother. Even during normal adolescent individuation. But
- Normal individuation doesn't happen in abuse survivors. They don't feel normal, so they
- Act out in unhealthy or self-destructive ways, which creates
- Fear and pain for mother, which creates
- Guilt for child who still feels responsible for mother's emotional health.
- Child seeks release from the guilt and from not feeling normal, which leads to
- Escape to the world of other not normal people, where mother can't see her child self-destruct, which leads to
"The bad news. — Claire Fontaine

when we're in emotional pain, we think it's a mistake, something that needs to be remedied. 'We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and fall apart. Then they come together and fall apart again. It's just like that. — Marian Keyes

This isn't how things were supposed to happen. I was supposed to be me.

Not this. — Aaron Dries