Best 358 quotes in «ptsd quotes» category

Trying to find the proper care in a civilization where only a small part of the population will ever understand what you are going through is a burden many first responders are saddled with. PTSI, injuries, and politics weigh heavily on the officer, yet we continue to turn a blind eye to them. We have made officers into robotic super heroes that aren’t allowed feelings, intellect, or human error. They have been ostracized by society and stripped of their basic human behaviors. We also have yet to admit there are husbands, wives, children, and parents actively involved in these officers’ lives hoping to help them cope with their trauma. Families who do more than make sure they get enough sleep, a hot meal and fresh uniforms in the closet. The faces of the families are yet to be seen.

Understanding trauma and that we each respond to it differently will help us be supportive and nonjudgmental toward each other.

Unhinging reason temporarily can sometimes be the only rational response to an insane world.

Unlike simple stress, trauma changes your view of your life and yourself. It shatters your most basic assumptions about yourself and your world — “Life is good,” “I’m safe,” “People are kind,” “I can trust others,” “The future is likely to be good” — and replaces them with feelings like “The world is dangerous,” “I can’t win,” “I can’t trust other people,” or “There’s no hope.

Veterans being sent into unjust wars for corporate profit is a perversion of trust, at best. I found the emotional manipulation of both sides, the propaganda at play so incredibly revolting that I couldn't stand to idly wave a flag or flaunt yellow ribbons without asking serious questions regarding motive.

Want to do something noble and courageous while you're on this Earth treat the mentally ill like they have some worth.

We are all just one event or trauma way from suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

We can’t deny our journey. We can’t pretend we’re fine when we’re not. All we can do is own it—own our suffering.

We don't go back to wallow, we go back to undo the lies that are back there that are holding its captive from living a wondrous and full life.

We’ve all seen the headlines implying that people with PTSD are dangerous. We must not resort to thinking, due to fear, that a person with PTSD equals a ticking time bomb. The stigma surrounding PTSD is so negative. It arouses concerns and provokes whispers and worried glances. People don’t understand it at all. They assume I’m a potential powder keg just waiting for a spark to set me off into a rage, and that’s just not true, about me or any person with PTSD. I have never physically assaulted anyone out of anger or rage. I'm suffering with it and people are afraid to ask me about it.

We live in the present, but our happiness relies heavily on the future. Our mood is as much expectation as experience. Just like in the army, where life in the trenches worked the same way. It was the quiet that jangled the nerves. It was the lead-up before the push more than the push itself. To this day, I grow more faint at the scent of gun oil than I do at the sight of blood.

Well? Get your suff. You're already late for the appointment or you want we should hug as well?" Marcus snorted appreciating his brother's attempts to lighten the situation. "Not even if you suddenly morphed into Miss World.

What happened?” Albert asked. Taylor looked at Sam. Sam said nothing. He stared. First at his own light, hovering in the air. Then at Taylor. He looked pale and almost frail. Like he was suddenly a much, much older person. “Kid was whipped,” Taylor said. “It looked like what happened to Sam.” Sam lowered his head and wrapped his hands behind his neck. He seemed to be trying to hold on to his head, pressing it hard like it might explode.

What if I lose what little control I have left? I may live in a prison now, but at least I know my way around it.

When you go through a traumatic event, there's a lot of shame that comes with that. A lot of loss of self-esteem. That can become debilitating.

What's different about you? Why does it make you a pussy if you get help, but not the rest of the team? Oh, I get it. You're the Cobra. You get within striking distance of the enemy, and it's over. But if it all goes sideways and the wrong men die, you don't need help like the rest of us mere mortals.

What we tell ourselves, will ourselves to believe, the circumstances we create, the decisions we make, are indicative, I believe, of our hearts.

When experiences or emotions become too overwhlming, the mind clevely encapsulates the material and stores it for safe-keeping. Many people respond this way in the face of trauma, but the additional step that occurs in this process, in the case of DID, is the formation of distinct ego states that carry the experience.

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 and seen the horrors of battle being diagnosed with PTSD. I am a Beverly Hills housewife, not a soldier. I can't have PTSD. Well, I was wrong. Housewives can get PTSD, too, and yours, truly did.

When I'm triggered, I think, "This will last forever" or "What if this lasts forever?" I get thoughts about how I should give up, run away, hide, protect myself. These thoughts, I cannot change. What I can change is how I respond to them. Will I unconditionally believe these ideas, or will I accept them as side effects of the temporary experience of pain? Will I act on each thought that arises in the burning fire, or will I hold myself gently and say, "It'll be okay. I know it hurts. I love you"? My power lies in these choices.

When it comes to mental illness most of the diagnoses are similar or the same yet they can never display how we individually go through our pain.

when I was a kid I use to put a puzzle together over and over until I got really good at it so one day I turned all the pieces upside down and built it, then I understood the true nature of the puzzle

When we deployed, in our heads, the towel we left hanging next to the shower to dry, would still be hanging there when we got back. Well, it won’t be. If it is, some important questions need to be asked.

When you have mental illness it's common to be shunned by your family or friends it wouldn't happen if they knew the pain you were in.

Whether it’s an Iraqi widow mourning her dead loved ones standing helplessly in the rubble of her former home or a dying soldier in an Iraqi city street asking, “Why, God? Why is this happening? Where are you?” I can’t help but wonder the same. You realize that there is no justice, no karmic retribution swift enough, and that happy endings are a terrible, terrible lie. We are all subject to the same blind boot stomp and our luck is merely where we happen to be standing when death inevitably comes roaring down upon us.

What was it like? Hell if I know. But next time someone asks.... I'll answer crooked, and I'll answer long. And when they get confused or angry, I'll smile. Finally, I'll think. Someone who understands.

When death settles in, it evicts the soul and devours the flesh, and reduces a whole life to nothing but dry bones and a mere smudge of bio matter.

When I have flash backs from PTSD I wish my mind came with a delete key.

When I got out of prison, I was basically no longer human,' Miriam says.

While a psychiatric diagnosis can serve a purpose in treatment plans, it should not become a tool to discredit a person's disclosure of abuse.

Who supports the troops? The troops support the troops.

Why didn't I report it? Because when you are sexually assaulted by a relative, it's terribly complicated. Initially, I felt shock, numb, and powerless. Keep in mind, sexual assault is an act of violence; not sex. In addition, sexual assault is about power. It's common for victims to feel helpless.

Without trauma-informed treatment, traumatized clients may not respond optimally and they may even be re-traumatized by the mental health system if they are labeled as “treatment resistant” because the treatment does not address the core issue of trauma; some may be misunderstood as fabricating or exaggerating their trauma history or symptoms.

With even the slightest upset, detachment soon followed. I didn’t lose sleep over men, and I was too restless to be tied down. The grass didn’t even have time to grow around my feet before I was planning my next escape – whether it was to another state or out of someone’s life.

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.

Years ago I had realized I was blaming myself for it. People and doctors would tell me it wasn't my fault, but I couldn't “BELIEVE” it! Then I was talking to my friend Kieran and he explained to me in a way that I could PERCEIVE that I was not at fault. No one else could ever do that before, though many tried. Many, many people had tried to tell me it wasn't my fault, but I was convinced it was my fault because I was trying to cheer up my dad.

Years ago, I told myself that one day I would stop feeling this quiet but abiding rage about the things I have been through at the hands of others. I would wake up and there would be no flashbacks. I wouldn't wake up and think about my histories of violence. I wouldn't smell the yeasty aroma of beer and for a second, for several minutes, for hours, forget where I was. And on and on and on. That day never came, or it hasn't come, and I am no longer waiting for it. A different day has come, though. I flinch less and less when I am touched. I don't always see gentleness as the calm before the storm because, more often than not, I can trust that no storm is coming. I harbor less hatred toward myself. I try to forgive myself for my trespasses.

Yes, she fears the cuffs, the cross and the whip, but she will get past this. Such problems, even with time, do not go away on their own. They must be addressed. André Chevalier

Worry only about what you control. The rest is war.

You are not broken and in need of fixing. You are wounded and in need of healing.

You die a little inside every time you have joyless sex. Neurons prune back. The good in there withers. And some things never grow back.

Your first sign something may be amiss comes quickly, the moment you get off the plane at the airport in Baltimore. After months of deprivation, American excess is overwhelming. Crowds of self-important bustling businessmen. Shrill and impatient advertising that saturates your eyes and ears. Five choices of restaurant, with a hundred menu items each, only a half-minute walk away at all times. In the land you just left, dinners are uniformly brown and served on trays when served at all. I was disoriented by the choice, the lights, the infinite variety of gummy candy that filled an entire wall of the convenience store, a gluttonous buffet repeated every four gates. The simple pleasure of a cup of coffee after a good night’s sleep, sleep you haven’t had since you received your deployment orders, seems overly simple when reunited with such a vast volume of overindulgent options. But the shock wears off, more quickly for some, but eventually for most. Fast food and alcohol are seductive, and I didn’t fight too hard. Your old routine is easy to fall back into, preferences and tastes return. It’s not hard to be a fussy, overstuffed American. After a couple of months, home is no longer foreign, and you are free to resume your old life. I thought I did. Resume my old life, that is. I was wrong.

You know how cats are. They'll heal themselves if you keep them locked up. In a couple of months his bones mended. But the fear didn't; it stayed in that cat's bones. He wasn't cocky no more. Now he jumps when I go by him with the wheelbarrow. Fear like that stays inside you forever if you don't find a way to get rid of it.

you'll never see my books on Vanity Fair I'm not the type of author they would want there

You play those dimples like an exquisite orchestra, Mr. Boomer.

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.

You know, it set you at war with yourself.

I am also deeply concerned with the widespread, often undiagnosed, incidents of PTSD and the alarming suicide rates amongst our returning soldiers.

Abuse really is its own alphabet. Those who have not gone through it cannot understand it fully. The echos of violence hang in subconscious long after the threat is gone.

I had experience with PTSD myself; probably that's why I felt so close to the soldiers and the testimony. Also, because I had experienced this myself, I wanted to make a really physical and carnal film.