Trauma can be incredibly isolating. It’s hard to find someone who understands what you’re going through. That’s why it’s important to find quotes about trauma and share them with others. They can remind you that you’re not alone, and they can provide hope for the future. Here are some of our favorite trauma quotes. We hope they help you in your journey to healing.
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Trauma quotes
1.) “There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.”
2.) “Some are too much brutalized by slavery to feel the humiliation of their position; but many slaves feel it most acutely, and shrink from the memory of it.”
3.) “Although humans rarely die from trauma, if we do not resolve it, our lives can be severely diminished by its effects. Some people have even described this situation as a “living death.”
4.) “To live in the body of a survivor is to never be able to leave the scene of the crime. I cannot ignore the fact that I live here.”
5.) “Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different.”
6.) “There are all kinds of addicts, I guess. We all have pain. And we all look for ways to make the pain go away.”
7.) “The world he thought he knew no longer made sense to him, and he began to change.”
8.) “Trauma produces actual physiological changes, including a recalibration of the brain’s alarm system, an increase in stress hormone.”
9.) “There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.”
10.) “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.”
Healing trauma quotes
11.) “The man’s face and body told the story more eloquently than his words: pain-haunted eyes, shaking hands that could not forget.”
12.) “Emotional connection is crucial to healing. In fact, trauma experts overwhelmingly agree that the best predictor of the impact of any trauma is not the severity of the event, but whether we can seek and take comfort from others.”
13.) “When you activate your gut feelings and listen to your heartbreak—when you follow the interoceptive pathways to your innermost recesses—things begin to change.”
14.) “I wish my head could forget what my eyes have seen.”
15.) “God wants you to be delivered from what you have done and from what has been done to you – Both are equally important to Him.”
16.) “The personality formed in an environment of coercive control is not well adapted to adult life. The survivor is left with fundamental problems in basic trust, autonomy, and initiative.”
17.) “The greatest sources of our suffering are the lies we tell ourselves.”
18.) “After a traumatic experience, the human system of self-preservation seems to go onto permanent alert, as if the danger might return at any moment.”
19.) “After all, when a stone is dropped into a pond, the water continues quivering even after the stone has sunk to the bottom.”
20.) “Take avoidance to an extreme, and you have denial: a deep burial of the trauma.”
Quotes about trauma
21.) “I found that, if given appropriate guidance, human beings can and do shake off the effects of overwhelming events and return to their lives using exactly the same procedures that animals use.”
22.) “The great challenge is finding ways to reset their physiology, so that their survival mechanisms stop working against them.”
23.) “I’ve been searching for ways to heal myself, and I’ve found that kindness is the best way.”
24.) “It was only high school after all, definitely one of the most bizarre periods in a person’s life. How anyone can come through that time well adjusted on any level is an absolute miracle.”
25.) “Traumatic stress cuts to the heart of life, interfering with one’s capacity to love, create, and work – incapacity brought on not by poor lifestyle choices, moral weakness, or character flaws but by a complex interplay among biology, genes, and environment.”
26.) “Being traumatized is not just an issue of being stuck in the past; it is just as much a problem of not being fully alive in the present.”
27.) “Trauma creates change you don’t choose. Healing is about creating change you do choose.”
28.) “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.”
29.) “What seems to be clear is that we humans are an accumulation of our traumatic experiences, that each trauma contributes to our biology, and that this biology determines, to some extent, how we respond to further traumatic events as they emerge in our lives.”
30.) “The greatest hope for traumatized, abused, and neglected children is to receive a good education in schools where they are seen and known, where they learn to regulate themselves, and where they can develop a sense of agency.”
Healing from trauma quotes
31.) “What we don’t need in the midst of struggle is shame for being human.”
32.) “The only permission, the only validation, and the only opinion that matters in our quest for greatness is our own.”
33.) “Unlike other forms of psychological disorders, the core issue in trauma is reality.”
34.) “It is hard to break the cycle of victimization and reenactment if the survivor comes from a dysfunctional family not equipped to deal with her plight, if she does not have access to financial or educational resources that could empower her, or if she belongs to a culture that blames her.”
35.) “Feeling out of control, survivors of trauma often begin to fear that they are damaged to the core and beyond redemption.”
36.) “For someone who’s been traumatized, that feeling of balance and wholeness is such a surprise, it can cause an ‘identity crisis.’ We don’t recognize ourselves because we’re no longer filled with shame and fear and collapse.”
37.) “Trauma does not have to occur by abuse alone…”
38.) “A more realistic approach would be to accept that a significant trauma often leaves a survivor forever changed, and although there should always be hope, the notion that things will go back to ‘normal’ is misleading.”
39.) “What lingers from the parent’s individual past, unresolved or incomplete, often becomes part of her or his irrational parenting.”
40.) “There is no one way to recover and heal from any trauma. Each survivor chooses their own path or stumbles across it.”
41.) “The trauma said, ‘Don’t write these poems. Nobody wants to hear you cry about the grief inside your bones.”
42.) “Killers aren’t always assassins. Sometimes, they don’t even have blood on their hands.”
43.) “Traumatic stress can spread to anyone with whom the sufferers share their lives. Trauma begets trauma.”
44.) “I think it’s difficult to forget things that are unresolved.”
45.) “Sometimes, the people around you won’t understand your journey. They don’t need to, it’s not for them.”
46.) “‘We all bear scars, Dorian. Mine just happen to be more visible than most.’”
47.) “We don’t heal in isolation, but in community.”
48.) “The mental health burden of war that is placed upon civilian survivors is seldom granted the priority and resources it needs.”
49.) “Unresolved issues from childhood revisit us in adulthood.”
50.) “There is no timestamp on trauma. There isn’t a formula that you can insert yourself into to get from horror to healed. Be patient. Take up space. Let your journey be the balm.”
51.) “The symptoms of trauma can be stable, that is, ever-present. They can also be unstable, meaning that they can come and go and be triggered by stress.”
52.) “Parents who discipline their child by discussing the consequences of their actions produce children who have better moral development , compared to children whose parents use authoritarian methods and punishment.”
53.) “For the majority of people, once the immediate posttrauma period has passed, memories of the trauma are not much more intrusive or memorable than any other memories. Time really can heal.”
54.) “Unresolved dissonances between the characters and dispositions of the parents continue to reverberate in the nature of the child and make up the history of its inner sufferings.”
55.) “Healing trauma involves tears. The tears release our pain. The tears are part of our recovery. My friend, please let your tears flow.”
56.) “Trauma fractures comprehension as a pebble shatters a windshield. The wound at the site of impact spreads across the field of vision, obscuring reality and challenging belief.”
57.) “Most people have no imagination. If they could imagine the sufferings of others, they would not make them suffer so.”
58.) “Events such as retirement, a decline in health, and the death of loved ones are all major blows to one’s resilience in dealing with traumatic stress.”
59.) “An immature parent with unresolved issues and repressed shame can also transfer his or her shame to us. This interpersonal transference of shame is referred to as induced shame.”
60.) “This is a moment of suffering. Suffering is part of life. May I be kind to myself in this moment. May I give myself the compassion I need.”
Final thoughts
Trauma quotes can help us understand our pain and make meaning of it. They can also be a source of support for others who have experienced trauma. Sharing your trauma quote can offer connection, understanding, and hope to someone else who is struggling. What is your favorite trauma quote? Why does it speak to you?