Trauma Response Quotes & Sayings

How much of what we think of as an admirable response to trauma - the "stiff upper lip" - is actually dissociation, the mind's attempt to protect us from experiences that are too painful to digest? I can recall the facts, at least some of them. But I don't feel very much. At least, the feelings I have are not kind. They are not sympathetic toward my fifteen-year-old self. It happened. It happens to a lot of women. I survived. Most women do. I am "strong," but in those moments of strength, I don't feel. I will admit that I am very afraid of one thing. Not just afraid. Ashamed. I am afraid that I am incapable of love. (11) — Jessica Stern

It is true that many creative people fail to make mature personal relationships, and some are extremely isolated. It is also true that, in some instances, trauma, in the shape of early separation or bereavement, has steered the potentially creative person toward developing aspects of his personality which can find fulfillment in comparative isolation. But this does not mean that solitary, creative pursuits are themselves pathological ...
[A]voidance behavior is a response designed to protect the infant from behavioural disorganization. If we transfer this concept to adult life, we can see that an avoidant infant might very well develop into a person whose principal need was to find some kind of meaning and order in life which was not entirely, or even chiefly, dependent upon interpersonal relationships. — Anthony Storr

People want their 15 minutes and are willing to do anything to get it. — Joe Rogan

We must understand how we responded to formative trauma and how that response is perpetuated today. Otherwise, we will remain stuck in self-defeating attitudes and behaviors, all the while blaming them on someone else. — Russell Willingham

An intense desire for sex is a common response to trauma. The shrinks even coined a term for it - 'terror sex. — Victoria Vane

We lived only to dance. What was the true characteristic of a queen, I wondered later on; and you could argue that forever. "What do we all have in common in this group?" I once asked a friend seriously, when it occurred to me how slender, how immaterial, how ephemeral the bond was that joined us; and he responded, "We all have lips." Perhaps that is what we all had in common: no one was allowed to be serious, except about the importance of music, the glory of faces seen in the crowd. We had our songs, we had our faces! We had our web belts and painter's jeans, our dyed tank tops and haircuts, the plaid shirts, bomber jackets, jungle fatigues, the all-important shoes. — Andrew Holleran

Life was meant to be lived. That was God's ultimate plan for everyone: live life and give thanks to the Lord. Too many Englische people sacrificed their health - physical, psychological, and spiritual - to chase after material things. But at the end of the day, whatever had been acquired seemed insignificant in light of their desires for more. The — Sarah Price

There's a small group of people always watching me to make sure I'm still offending. — Peter Saul

Dr. Peter Levine, who has worked with trauma survivors for twenty-five years, says the single most important factor he has learned in uncovering the mystery of human trauma is what happens during and after the freezing response. He describes an impala being chased by a cheetah. The second the cheetah pounces on the young impala, the animal goes limp. The impala isn't playing dead, she has "instinctively entered an altered state of consciousness, shared by all mammals when death appears imminent." (Levine and Frederick, Waking the Tiger, p. 16) The impala becomes instantly immobile. However, if the impala escapes, what she does immediately thereafter is vitally important. She shakes and quivers every part of her body, clearing the traumatic energy she has accumulated. — Marilyn Van Derbur

Understanding comes from within, from knowing and trusting in the Lord. — Janette Oke

Both vitamin pills and vegetables are loaded with essential nutrients, but not in the same combinations. Spinach is a good source of both vitamin C and iron. As it happens, vitamin C boosts iron absorption, allowing the body to take in more of it than if the mineral were introduced alone. When I first started studying nutrition, I became fascinated with these coincidences, realizing of course they're not coincidences. Human bodies and their complex digestive chemistry evolved over millenia in response to all the different foods
mostly plants
they raised or gathered from the land surrounding them. They may have died young from snakebite or blunt trauma, but they did not have diet-related illnesses like heart disease and Type II diabetes that are prevalent in our society now, even in some young adults and children. [from an entry by Barbara Kingsolver's daughter Camille] — Barbara Kingsolver

When tragedy strikes, no one is fully prepared to deal effectively with all the responsibilitie s, emotional trauma, and grief that begin to impact people. Our Rapid Response Team exists so that people can find the care and comfort of Jesus Christ in the midst of tragedy. — Billy Graham

What I had was classic short-term PTSD. From an evolutionary perspective, it's exactly the response you want to have when your life is in danger: you want to be vigilant, you want to avoid situations where you are not in control, you want to react to strange noises, you want to sleep lightly and wake easily, you want to have flashbacks and nightmares that remind you of specific threats to your life, and you want to be, by turns, angry and depressed. Anger keeps you ready to fight, and depression keeps you from being too active and putting yourself in more danger. Flashbacks also serve to remind you of the danger that's out there - a "highly efficient single-event survival-learning mechanism," as one researcher termed it. All humans react to trauma in this way, and most mammals do as well. It may be unpleasant, but it's preferable to getting killed. Like — Sebastian Junger

Resiliency is the body's internal response to a stressful situation. — Asa Don Brown

The hostility and venomous response the topic of sexual trauma and rape in the military brings up, especially with men from my Era, is revealing. This opposition speaks to their guilt and toward the truth that stays hidden. — Diane Chamberlain

The FMSF achieved prominence partly as a response to increased possibilities for women to institute criminal or civil proceedings that relate to historical abuse, and women do not often take their abusers to court. The foundation's framing of abuse serves an ulterior strategic purpose of constructing a narrative position that isolates the incest survivor in an adversarial setting of interpreter distrust and challenged. — Sue Campbell

Dissociated trauma memories are not attached to other memories by association. These memories go directly to the unconscious as a biological response separates awareness from consciousness. It's a natural, protective occurrence and it happens without will. — Jeanne McElvaney

It is dangerous to use our own ability to access non-traumatic memories as a standard against which we judge a trauma victim's response. — David Yeung

He was not prepared to deal with my mistake, thought Jane, and he did not understand the suffering his response would cause me. He is innocent of wrong -doing, and so am I. We shall forgive each other and go on.
It was a good decision, and Jane was proud of it. The trouble was, she couldn't carry it out. Those few seconds in which parts of her mind came to a halt were not trivial in their effect on her. There was trauma, loss, change; she was not now the same being that she had been before. parts of her had died. Parts of her had become confused, out of order ...
She discovered, as many a living being had discovered, that rational decisions are far more easily made than carried out. — Orson Scott Card

That is a big question we all have: are we alone in the universe? And exoplanets confirm the suspicion that planets are not rare. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Then, as if overnight, the three of us grew into teenagers and those nights turned into skulking down to the lake with stolen beer, cigarettes and dates. Those were by far the happiest days of my life. I have never laughed, loved or cried harder than I did during those years; we were your normal, hormonal, reckless teenage disasters. — Ariarlyn918

DID is about survival! As more people begin to appreciate this concept, individuals with DID will start to feel less as though they have to hide in shame. DID develops as a response to extreme trauma that occurs at an early age and usually over an extended period of time. — Deborah Bray Haddock

Sometimes it's not always about what you can see or hear but what's under the hood of a game that's most impressive. Between those thousands and thousands of lines of code, magic happens. Sometimes the most amazing feats of gaming wizardry happen without you even noticing. — Rob Manuel

We have the tendency to judge others by their surface appearance, and to find only their negative qualities. But if we search beneath the surface we discover that a myriad of strains mix together to create a particular person's nature. The faults we perceive are likely to be the effect of circumstances, the psychological response to trauma, abuse, rejection, heartbreak, insecurity, pain, confusion, or disease. — Radhanath Swami

If there is a class war-and there is-it is important that it should be handled with subtlety and skill ... it is not freedom that Conservatives want; what they want is the sort of freedom that will maintain existing inequalities or restore lost ones. — Maurice Cowling

Could I tell them I was sorry their loved one was dead, when he'd tried to kill me? There was no rule of etiquette for this; even my grandmother would have been stymied. — Charlaine Harris

The tragedy of music is that it begins with perfection. — Morton Feldman

But Aiden sprang from the pool jacked on adrenaline. He screamed and pumped his fists as if he were trying to win first prize at the "Fuck Yeah Festival. — Matt K. Turner

Extreme versions of DID occasionally develop in response to particularly horrific ongoing trauma (e.g., children exploited through involvement in years of forced prostitution), with so-called poly-frgamentation, encompassing dozens or even hundreds of personality states. In general, the complexity of dissociative symptoms appears to be consistent with the severity of early traumatiation. That is, less severe abuse will result in fewer dissociative symptoms, and more severe abuse will result in more complex dissociative disorders. — James A. Chu

don't be a backseat driver. Instead, quietly recite mantras of protection. For example: "You're going to get us all killed. — David M. Bader

I draw a distinction between traditional Islam and Islamism. Islamism emerged in its modern form in the 1920s and is driven by a belief that Muslims can be strong and rich again if they follow the Islamic law severely and in its entirety. This is a response to the trauma of modern Islam. — Daniel Pipes