Quotes & Sayings About Traumatic Experiences
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Top Traumatic Experiences Quotes
and now he knew what it was like to be on the inside, caught in a web woven from your sickest fears and most traumatic experiences. There was no way to retreat from it, and no way to cut through it, — Stephen King
Symptoms like anxiety, depression, aggression, alcohol or drug use, are responses to physical and emotional pain that has its roots in traumatic experiences from childhood and later in life. — Jed Diamond
Normal memory gradually fades into the past. Traumatic and repressed memories have a tendency to linger around. They are splintered into fragments during overwhelming events experienced as a child. Images, sensations, emotions, and beliefs are torn apart. These disconnected pieces can later erupt into consciousness as separate "memories." These fragments may surface in the form of explicit memories, which are frighteningly vivid snapshot or video-like images of traumatic experiences; or they may surface as implicit memories, which include physical sensations, emotions, or beliefs that were part of the original traumatic experiences. When implicit fragments emerge into the present without an accompanying visually explicit memory, it is very hard to discern that these feelings of anxiety, fear, shame, rage, numbness, and loneliness are related to prior trauma. — Connie A. Lofgreen
Combat and rape, the public and private forms of organized social violence, are primarily experiences of adolescent and early adult life. The United States Army enlists young men at seventeen; the average age of the Vietnam combat soldier was nineteen. In many other countries boys are conscripted for military service while barely in their teens. Similarly, the period of highest risk for rape is in late adolescence. Half of all victims are aged twenty or younger at the time they are raped; three-quarters are between the ages of thirteen and twenty-six. The period of greatest psychological vulnerability is also in reality the period of greatest traumatic exposure, for both young men and young women. Rape and combat might thus be considered complementary social rites of initiation into the coercive violence at the foundation of adult society. They are the paradigmatic forms of trauma for women and men. — Judith Lewis Herman
It's like that sometimes for people who have had traumatic experiences in their past life. It's hard to move on, to belong, in one place when you have unresolved business in another. — Amanda Gray
Several researchers demonstrate the ways people fail to label trauma as such or underreport traumatic experiences. In a sample of 1,526 university students, Rausch and Knutson (1991) found that although participants reported receiving punitive treatment similar to that of their siblings, they were more than twice as likely to identify their siblings' experiences as abusive as they were to label their own in this way. The authors reported that participants were likely to interpret parental treatment toward themselves but not parental treatment toward their siblings as deserved and therefore not abusive. Other studies similarly indicate that those reporting abuse experiences often do not demonstrate a metaconsciousness of having been abused (Goldsmith & Freyd, in press; Koss, 1998; Varia & Abidin, 1999; Weinbach & Curtiss, 1986).
KNOWING AND NOT KNOWING ABOUT TRAUMA: IMPLICATIONS FOR THERAPY (2004) — Jennifer J. Freyd
The heart is a muscle like any other. Tearing it down is the only way to make it stronger. — Sarah Skilton
It's kind of a mystery to me, as far as my own life experiences and what I've witnessed - why some people can just move on through traumatic experiences, in childhood particularly, and why other people are just paralyzed by it. I just don't know how and why that is. — Annette Bening
I warned myself against the danger of compassion in this case. How easy it would be to imagine the traumas of childhood that might have deformed her into the moral monster she had become, and then to convince myself that those traumas could be balanced - and their effects reversed - by sufficient acts of kindness. — Dean Koontz
Acceding to researchers in the field of epigenetics, traumatic experiences produce fearful memories that are passed to future generations. A study carried out on mice in 2013 found that they could produce offspring with an aversion to actions and events associated with their parents' negative experiences. Nature and nurture turn out to be interrelated. — Frank Schaeffer
The holes are slowly filling up, and despite itself the brain will work until the job is completed. — Danny Scheinmann
Was this how trauma worked? she wondered. Those closest to it remained dumbfounded by the fact that those who weren't present could derive meaning from it? — Kevin Wilson
When you're surrounded by friends and exes, there's a whole lot of stuff that starts crawling out. But however serious and traumatic those experiences may be to the participant, to the onlooker they're hilarious. — Steven Moffat
Traumatic experiences in early childhood may interfere with the child's ability to securely attach. — Asa Don Brown
Traumas produce their disintegrating effects in proportion to their intensity, duration and repetition. (1909) — Pierre Janet
PTSD will be the worlds greatest horror for those that survive an all out Nuclear War. — Stanley Victor Paskavich
It's often said that a traumatic experience early in life marks a person forever, pulls her out of line, saying, Stay there. Don't move. — Jeffrey Eugenides
Comedians don't have a monopoly on suffering. But creative people are sometimes fortunate enough to be able to incorporate their most traumatic experiences into their art. — Matt Lucas
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
Because what if instead of a story told in consecutive order, life is a cacophony of moments we never leave? What if the most traumatic or the most beautiful experiences we have trap us in a kind of feedback loop, where at least some part of our minds remains obsessed, even as our bodies move on? — Noah Hawley
Yolanda Gampel utilizes an expanded concept of the "uncanny" to outline the results of violence:
Those who experience such traumas are faced with an unbelievable and unreal reality that is incompatible with anything they knew previously. As a result, they can no longer fully believe what they see with their own eyes; they have difficulty distinguishing between the unreal reality they have survived and the fears that spring from their own imagination. — Nicole Waller
no doubt, the early traumatic shocks that young hardy brown experienced had a permanent impact on his future development and capacity to deal with the real world.... the years with the mighty mites within the orphanage setting, a term that we seldom see in modern society, provided him with a safe and non-threatening enclave with which to develop. certainly, the competitive, action-oriented game of football, as meshed with positive team experiences, added to the supportive culture. — Jim Dent
As you may already know, post-traumatic stress disorder is extremely complex. Each client has a unique, perhaps virtually unbelievable, set of experiences, and an almost equally set of reactions to those experiences. — Aphrodite Matsakis
Betrayal is a more subtle, twisted feeling than terror. It burns and eats, but terror stabs right through. — Wendy Hoffman
I had built such a wall between my experiences and how I felt about those experiences that I was incapable of reliving both simultaneously. I could talk about my traumas, even walk through them, but I couldn't feel them. When I tried to bring it all together, when I tried to remember how I had felt, I disappeared in my own head. My to-do list took on grave importance. The book I read the night before filled my thoughts. Yesterday's article suddenly called out to be rewritten. I couldn't get inside myself. — Sarah Hackley
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
I went to a psychiatrist (NBC insisted we all go) and told her I had been through traumatic experiences before and understood that the kidnapping would leave "fingerprints" on me for a while. The key was knowing what to expect. If you get blind drunk, you know you're going to wake up with a hangover. By the same token, I expected post-traumatic stress symptoms - anger, irritability, a sense of isolation - and I experienced those feelings, off and on, for several months. It's like having the monkey on your back again, and being self-aware helps shake him off. — Richard Engel
When I first started to remember specific memories of abuse, I felt like I had a storm cloud over me for about two or three days beforehand. When the memory finally surfaced, I felt like I was alone in a dark cave. I stayed in bed just thinking and crying and eating chocolate. I wrote in my healing journal and talked it out with a friend. I examined what I thought and how I felt and cried some more. It was agonizing. The more issues I faced, the stronger I got. It wasn't a pleasant process, but I knew it would be over in a few days and I would feel alive again. With each memory, I recovered faster and I had longer and longer breaks in between them. Facing them made me stronger. I was able to see more and more of the truth without it overwhelming me. Even though the memories increased in intensity, it was easier to deal with them. — Christina Enevoldsen
Remember? Ohh, I wouldn't do that! Remembering's dangerous. I find the past such a worrying, anxious place.
"The past tense", I supposed you'd call it. Ha ha ha. — Alan Moore
all humans have an innate capacity to heal from traumatic experiences. We as a species are genetically encoded with the capacity to heal ourselves. If we did not possess this ability, our species would have become extinct shortly after we were born. Not only can we heal from traumatic experiences, but trauma itself has been part of the natural evolutionary process of our species, and all traumatized individuals have access to this natural healing method that is genetically encoded within them. — David Berceli
Often, I'm spending months with a person in a very intimate context, getting to know the ins and outs of what they ate for breakfast, not to mention dredging up the most traumatic experiences of their lives, digging through their documents and photographs from difficult times, all of that. And that process, I think, can be extraordinarily strange for subjects who've never been interviewed before, especially if you don't acquaint them from the get-go with what you're trying to do, what it entails, and why you care. — Sarah Stillman
The traumatic moment becomes encoded in an abnormal form of memory, which breaks spontaneously into consciouness, both as flashbacks during waking states and as traumatic nightmares during sleep. Small, seemingly insignificant reminders can also evoke these memories, which often return with all the vividness and emotional force of the original event. Thus, even normally safe environments may come to feel dangerous, for the survivor can never be assured that she will not encounter some reminder of the trauma. — Judith Lewis Herman
Just like there's always time for pain, there's always time for healing. — Jennifer Brown
You're not the same. You're not supposed to be the same. You're supposed to be different. This isn't something you will ever forget. — Daisy Whitney
Who made the law that men should die in meadows?
Who spake the word that blood should splash in lanes?
Who gave it forth that gardens should be boneyards?
Who spread the hills with flesh, and blood, and brains?
Who made the law?
Leslie Coulson — Michael Tappenden
Many deeply hidden memories have come flooding back. The important message here though is that it is possible to heal and survive. Everyone has survived their own kind of emotional or mental trauma. We all have our inner fears and misreplaced feelings of guilt. — Lynette Gould
My squad is my family, my gun is my provider, and protector, and my rule is to kill or be killed. — Ishmael Beah
The traumatized soul finds no rest in conditions of peace. It's forever questing for violence, for action, for the same combination of factors which gave rise to it in the first place. — Matthew S. Williams
They feel guilty for having survived so they pretend the bad things never happened
Exodus (1960) screenplay — Dalton Trumbo
There are few experiences in life as painful and brutal as the failure of a small business. For a small business conceived and nurtured by its owner is like a living, breathing child. Its loss is no less traumatic than losing a loved one. — William Manchee
likely to form a secure attachment. The less secure the relationship attachments in our first two years, the harder it is to have good relationships throughout our lives. Little or no response to a distressed child from a caregiver may result in the child developing an avoidant behavior pattern, and low self-esteem. When a caregiver is inconsistent in response to the child's needs, the child will likely form ambivalent relationship patterns, anxiously uncertain about whether they can trust people. Finally, frightening behavior, intrusiveness, withdrawal, negativity, role confusion, and maltreatment lead to a disorganized attachment, and cause a child to feel dazed and confused. This child dissociates and compartmentalizes the traumatic experiences as — Heather Hans
I guess by default we're all the ones shaking our heads at the stupidity of others until we're forced into traumatic experiences ourselves. — J.A. Redmerski
I think many writers really believe that being published is a traumatic experience. — Lynne Tillman
This book is dedicated to all who have been affected by sexual violence. — Robert Uttaro
Many people look at their past and bemoan their mistakes. Those errors in judgment, behavior, hurting others, and the wrong decisions may be what consumes them now. It does not have to be that way, for recovering from a traumatic situation is all a matter of how we think about what happened. It is not so much about what happened to us as what we make of the circumstance. — David W. Earle
Maybe it was our shared trauma, or maybe it was a combination of things, but I felt warmth emenate from my heart and spread throughout my chest. — Theresa Braun
But on Kwajalein, the guards sought to deprive them of something that had sustained them even as all else had been lost: dignity. This self-respect and sense of self-worth, the innermost armament of the soul, lies at the heart of humanness; to be deprived of it is to be dehumanized, to be cleaved from, and cast below, mankind. — Laura Hillenbrand
Traumatic events challenge an individual's view of the world as a just, safe and predictable place. Traumas that are caused by human behavior. . . commonly have more psychological impact than those caused by nature. — American Psychological Association
Public truth telling is a form of recovery, especially when combined with social action. Sharing traumatic experiences with others enables victims to reconstruct repressed memory, mourn loss, and master helplessness, which is trauma's essential insult. And, by facilitating reconnection to ordinary life, the public testimony helps survivors restore basic trust in a just world and overcome feelings of isolation. But the talking cure is predicated on the existence of a community willing to bear witness. 'Recovery can take place only within the context of relationships,' write Judith Herman. 'It cannot occur in isolation. — Lawrence N. Powell
When I got out of prison, I was basically no longer human,' Miriam says. — Anna Funder
It is always a mistake to underestimate how long it takes for mankind to understand the traumas it has suffered, especially the self-inflicted ones. — A.C. Grayling
Some of the experiences endured by human beings on this earth are virtually unbelievable. — Aphrodite Matsakis
People can have a variety of concerns at the same time. Even those undergoing grave or traumatic experiences will acknowledge the need for lightness or even entertainment. — Susan Minot
In the course of therapy, we often witness clients' capacities to report abuse stories with intellectualized, detached demeanors. And they are quick to add disclaimers that minimize their experiences such as "It wasn't so bad," "I probably deserved it anyway," "I know my parents did the best they could," "It didn't have any negative effect on me," or "That was a long time ago, and it can't be relevant to my life now." Many clients expend tremendous amounts of energy disavowing traumatic or abusive histories, believing that revisiting old feelings and thoughts will keep them stuck or are irrelevant to who they are today. — Lisa Ferentz
To take such a complex creature, on who was meant for God and is destroyed by sin, and attempt to understand how the development of that creature can be affected by hideous trauma is to attempt the impossible. — Diane Langberg
The traumatic event, although real, took place outside the parameters of "normal" reality, such as causality, sequence, place, and time. The trauma is thus an event that has no beginning, no ending, no before, no during and no after. This absence of categories that define it lends it to a quality of "otherness", a salience, a timelessness and a ubiquity that puts it outside the range of associatively linked experiences, outside the range of comprehension, of recounting and of mastery. Trauma survivors live not with memories of the past, but with an event that could not and did not proceed through to its completion, has no ending, attained no closure, and therefore, as far as its survivors are concerned, continues into the present and is current in every respect. — Dori Laub
For anyone who wonders what it's like to have a tragedy shatter your existence, this is what I would tell them: it's like going through the motions of everyday life in a zombified state. It's having outbursts of anger for what seems like no apparent reason, for even the smallest of offenses. It's forgetting how to be your once cheerful, perky self, and having to relearn basic social skills when mingling with new people (especially if those people are ignorant, or just plain terrible at showing sympathy). It takes a while to re-learn all those basic skills. Maybe...it's possible. Maybe you have to want your life back first, before it can start repairing itself But then you also have to accept that the mending process may take the rest of your life. I don't think there's a set time limit for it. — Sarahbeth Caplin
Coming to terms with incest is not easy. Learning to be a survivor, not a victim, gives new meaning to life — Lynette Gould
In order to believe clients' accounts of trauma, you need to suspend any pre-conceived notions that you have about what is possible and impossible in human experience. As simple as they may sound, it may be difficult to do so. — Aphrodite Matsakis
Traumatic memories are hallucinatory and involuntary experiences consisting of dissociated sensorimotor phenomena, including visual images, sensations, emotions, and/or motor acts pertaining to past traumatic experiences that may engross the entire perceptual field (e.g.,Van der Kolk & Fisler, 1995). — Kathy Steele
The symptomatology of PTSD.
In PTSD a traumatic event is not remembered and relegated to one's past in the same way as other life events. Trauma continues to intrude with visual, auditory, and/or other somatic reality on the lives of its victims. Again and again they relieve the life-threatening experiences they suffered, reacting in mind and body as though such events were still occurring. PTSD is a complex psychobiological condition. — Babette Rothschild
When I grew up in Ireland in the seventies there was no such thing as therapy ... I mean we didn't even have cappuccinos until 1998! So for me music was therapy, it was also the place where one could speak about himself, where he was allowed to speak about his traumatic experiences. — Sinead O'Connor
Trauma stories are no more valid or noble than stories of love and heroism. Trauma stories are like black holes in space. They suck up all the light available. — Annette Vaillancourt
Our work calls on us to confront, with our patients and within ourselves, extraordinary human experiences. This confrontation is profoundly humbling in that at all times these experiences challenge the limits of our humanity and our view of the world... — John P. Wilson
The power we discover inside ourselves as we survive a life-threatening experience can be utilized equally well outside of crisis, too. I am, in every moment, capable of mustering the strength to survive again - or of tapping that strength in other good, productive, healthy ways. — Michele Rosenthal
My traumatic experience was life changing — Asa Don Brown
The culture and heritage should stay intact and be maintained as it provides the individuals with some degree of resiliency. The effects of the trauma is what should be focused on and treated. Improving the quality of life for survivors is the focus of treatment. It is not to erase the past. — Thomas Hodge
Memories of traumatic experiences may not be primarily retrieved as narratives. Our own and others' research has suggested that PTSD traumatized people's difficulties with putting memories into words are reflected in actual changes in brain activity.
(van der Kolk, Hopper & Osterman, 2001)
Trauma and Cognitive Science, Chapter 1 — Bessel A. Van Der Kolk