The number seven is magical, they say. Seven years ’til our cells completely regenerate. Seven years ’til Jacob possesses Rachel, no, Leah, and seven more for Rachel. Seven days in a week. Post traumatic stress...

The initial trauma of a young child may go underground but it will return to haunt us.

There is clear evidence from internal investigations in the past that some raters actually see themselves as adversaries to veterans. If a claim can be minimized, then the government has saved money, regardless of the...

I’ve learned to lickmy own foul woundsand prize the taste of ache.

Don’t forget to deal with this!” As long as you experience fear or pain with a memory or flashback, there is a lie attached that needs to be confronted. In each healing step, there is...

Trauma is any stressor that occurs in a sudden and forceful way and is experienced as overwhelming.

The unrelenting grip of Soldier’s Syndrome slips finger by slow finger. The marrow’s been affected—emotional leukemia at the deepest level. Transplants of love and friendship aid healing, yet time is still key, and the clock...

The central mechanism of the avoidance mechanism of PTSD is the ego defense of denial

Trauma is hell on earth. Trauma resolved is a gift from the gods.

God, O God, where art thou? Thou art as distant to me as the lady combing rice in the Yunnan Province of China or a piece of floating space debris circling Pegasi. In this feeling-dead...

The victims of PTSD often feel morally tainted by their experiences, unable to recover confidence in their own goodness, trapped in a sort of spiritual solitary confinement, looking back at the rest of the world...

PTSD is a whole-body tragedy, an integral human event of enormous proportions with massive repercussions.

I am Frustration. I am Memory-Lost. Sometimes I read a line a dozen times before it sticks. My creative force has slipped. I type slower, speak slower, think at a snail’s pace. I’m Life shapeshifted...

People generally don’t suffer high rates of PTSD after natural disasters. Instead, people suffer from PTSD after moral atrocities. Soldiers who’ve endured the depraved world of combat experience their own symptoms. Trauma is an expulsive...

Don’t you seewhat’s going on in this house?” To this day, if somehow even in jest raises their hand to me, I will do this (raises hands to protect face andcowers) I cringe. Then they...

Love our veterans!” And when he neglects church, take him cookies anyway. Sing him a song. Pet his cat.

Many veterans feel guilty because they lived while others died. Some feel ashamed because they didn’t bring all their men home and wonder what they could have done differently to save them. When they get...

The no-booze rule is one of several shams perpetuated by certain religious groups, presumably to keep their flocks in line. After all, what’s a shepherd to do with drunk sheep? So take your medicine, but...

The unique stigma of PTSD. The stigma of PTSD remains one of the most formidable barriers to effective care.

Trauma destroys the fabric of time. In normal time you move from one moment to the next, sunrise to sunset, birth to death. After trauma, you may move in circles, find yourself being sucked backwards...

Dissociation is the common response of children to repetitive, overwhelming trauma and holds the untenable knowledge out of awareness. The losses and the emotions engendered by the assaults on soul and body cannot, however be...

Denial and minimizing is often seen in genuine PTSD and, hence, should be a target of detection and measurement.

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...

The most common emotional defense is avoidance (an ineffective coping skill for any stressor) as expressed through denial (e.g., “That wasn’t really bad, I barely remember it”).

In World War One, they called it shell shock. Second time around, they called it battle fatigue. After ‘Nam, it was post-traumatic stress disorder.

Dissociation can enable us to withstand pain and loss under which we would otherwise break. It enables us to survive and pull through. But, a habit of continual dissociation – especially after the trauma has...

Ninety-six per cent of juvenile prostitutes are fugitives from abusive domestic situations; 66 per cent began working before they turned 16. (Prostitution is their only perceived means of survival.) Millions of children work as prostitutes...

In 2011, actor Johnny Depp told the November issue of Vanity Fair that he felt participating in a photoshoot was akin to rape.”Well, you just feel like you’re being raped somehow. Raped . . ....

When he first said my diagnosis, I couldn’t believe it. There must be another PTSD than post-traumatic stress disorder, I thought. I have only heard of war veterans who have served on the front lines...