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

Chronic trauma (according to the meaning I propose) that occurs early in life has profound effects on personality development and can lead to the development of dissociative identity disorder (DID), other dissociative disorders personality disorders,...

The greater a child’s terror, and the earlier it is experienced, the harder it becomes to develop a strong and healthy sense of self.

My God, what have they done to you? This isn’t a man, it’s a broken kite.

If the sound of happy children is grating on your ears, I don’t think it’s the children who need to be adjusted.

Some dissociative parts of the personality, living in trauma time, may experience the same emotion no matter the situation, such as fear, rage, shame, sadness, yearning and even some positive ones just as joy.* Other...

An observant friend will recognize the signs of the rise of grief: eyes that easily well with tears, a smile that is difficult to sustain, a tendency to withdraw. And ultimately, perhaps we each need...

The scientific study of suffering inevitably raises questions of causation, and with these, issues of blame and responsibility. Historically, doctors have highlighted predisposing vulnerability factors for developing PTSD, at the expense of recognizing the reality...

There were other strange signals and signs. Another day, suddenly felt an almost overwhelming urge to travel to Balitmore. I wanted to ‘kidnap’ a helicoper fly it there if I didn’t drive the there’, she...

Over the years, I learned to smile or laugh when I was supposed to. I kept my true self hidden; I did not need to unleash my pain on the world around me. Instead, I...

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...

I knew that my trauma, no matter what it was, was not unique. I knew that pain was the universal driving force of so many people—I knew that only in the details was it specific,...

We already live on the planet of war, we already live on the red planet, and it’s a war against children. All the other wars are just the shadows of the war on children.

Fib!” Dr. Pedras feels for a pulse while another places gelled pads on her chest.

No matter how much you cry, the tears will dry. No matter how many nightmares, flashbacks, visions, or terrors you endure, they will pass. To weather these in order to find your true self and...

Our identities are tremendously warped and distorted by yesterday’s trauma and tomorrow’s expectations.

We are called at certain moments to comfort people who are enduring some trauma. Many of us don’t know how to react in such situations, but others do. In the first place, they just show...

Untraumatized people have a natural instinct to make healthy decisions in the best interest of their true selves. They are only limited by their immaturity and the brokenness of their external world.

Get acquainted with your shadow, or find yourself surprised when a crisis emerges.

Over time as most people fail the survivor’s exacting test of trustworthiness, she tends to withdraw from relationships. The isolation of the survivor thus persists even after she is free.

Okay? You wanted me to ask you if you were okay? Jessie, I saw you! How could I think for one second you were okay? Do you think it’s normal for me to watch a...

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...

You had nightmares every night for a long time and screamed in Korean words, but we didn’t know what they meant. I asked someone who knew Korean, and he said it was um-ma um-ma, the...

I have only known two men’s souls in my life, one the devil, the other the the bird’s wings which picked me up and carried me back to the freedom of being.

There are certain shocks which, if sufficiently strong, seem to have power to destroy the balance of life. Such a shock would seem to overthrow all the intricate, vital, slowly developed mechanism of mind, to...

Lacan wrote about two levels of speaking, one in which we know what we are saying (even when struggling with something difficult or contradictory) and another in which we have no idea of what we...

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...

Dissociation, in a general sense, refers to a rigid separation of parts of experiences, including somatic experiences, consciousness, affects, perception, identity, and memory. When there is a structural dissociation, each of the dissociated self-states has...

I don’t know when the boysbegan to walk away with parts of myselfin their sticky hands; when lovingbecame a process of subtraction. Or why,having given up what seems so much,I’m willing to lose even more...

Flashlight beams danced crazily

The vast majority of people are unthinking prejudice machines.

People with Complex PTSD suffer from more severe and frequent dissociation symptoms, as well as memory and attention problems, than those with simple PTSD. In addition to amnesia due to the activity of various parts...

Century after century, the belief that an individual’s physical health was independent of his or her emotional health has so dominated medical thought that there has even been open contempt for anyone who would dare...

Traumatized people chronically feel unsafe inside their bodies: The past is alive in the form of gnawing interior discomfort. Their bodies are constantly bombarded by visceral warning signs, and, in an attempt to control these...

By the time Cheryl Hersha came to the facility, knowledge of multiple personality was so complete that doctors understood how the mind separated into distinct ego states,each unaware of the other. First, the person traumatized...

The age of lost innocence varies for each person. Some lose it when they learn that their childhood fantasies are merely myth, while others lose theirs due to trauma. As adults, we often look down...

He asks, in a softer voice, “Does your arm still hurt?”You touch it with your hand. The big ache is gone, leaving only the little, underneath ache that will gather and swell against the bone....

Isolation of catastrophic experiences. Dissociation may function to seal off overwhelming trauma into a compartmentalized area of conscious until the person is better able to integrate it into mainstream consciousness. The function of dissociation is...

There’s no weakness as great as false strength.

Part of the process in healing from trauma, like recovering from addiction, is developing connection and support with others.

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