Beachreader

“When you have a persistent sense of heartbreak and gutwrench, the physical sensations become intolerable and we will do anything to make those feelings disappear. And that is really the origin of what happens in human pathology. People take drugs to make it disappear, and they cut themselves to make it disappear, and they starve themselves to make it disappear, and they have sex with anyone who comes along to make it disappear and once you have these horrible sensations in your body, you’ll do anything to make it go away.”
― Bessel A. van der Kolk

“When something reminds traumatized people of the past, their right brain reacts as if the traumatic event were happening in the present. But because their left brain is not working very well, they may not be aware that they are re-experiencing and reenacting the past - they are just furious, terrified, enraged, ashamed, or frozen.”
― Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

“The coolest most amazing people I have met in my life, I said, are the ones who are not very interested in power or money, but who are very interested in laughter and courage and grace under duress and holding hands against the darkness, and finding new ways to solve old problems, and being attentive and tender and kind to every sort of being, especially dogs and birds, and of course children.”
― Brian Doyle, Chicago

“Triggers are like little psychic explosions that crash through avoidance and bring the dissociated, avoided trauma suddenly, unexpectedly, back into consciousness.”
― Carolyn Spring