Unbroken Quotes

“Something is potentially traumatic when it overwhelms the nervous system enough to cause our emergency coping mechanisms to kick into gear. These mechanisms are designed to save our lives—and they do. But to do so, they pull energy and resources from some of our other systems, including those that help us orient ourselves in the world and organize our memories.”
― Marycatherine McDonald, Unbroken: The Trauma Response Is Never Wrong: And Other Things You Need to Know to Take Back Your Life

“The idea behind moral injury is that a key part of trauma is the experience of being haunted either by the sense that you have failed morally or that your moral structures have failed you.”
― Marycatherine McDonald, Unbroken: The Trauma Response Is Never Wrong: And Other Things You Need to Know to Take Back Your Life

“Joy is an anchor—heavy, solid, reliable. It sinks to the ocean floor and tethers us so we are not unmoored but can only wander so far. From the boat, all we can see is the anchor cable, which looks small and insignificant in comparison to the wide sea. But its scale doesn’t matter. It doesn’t need to be as wide as the sea to anchor us.”
― Marycatherine McDonald, Unbroken: The Trauma Response Is Never Wrong: And Other Things You Need to Know to Take Back Your Life

“The wound does not restrict itself to one spot. It reverberates through everything. It stamps our whole life with meaning. We are not just left dealing with the aftermath of the specific traumatic event but also with the echoing and terrifying truth that the event carries with it -- the truth that one vulnerability reveals all vulnerabilities. This truth is infectious, and it quickly spreads through our lives and colors everything with panic and terror.”
― Marycatherine McDonald, Unbroken: The Trauma Response Is Never Wrong: And Other Things You Need to Know to Take Back Your Life

“Trauma does not restrict itself to a moment. It is more powerful than that. It spills through portals into the present, reinforcing the lie that trauma tells us: That terror is the foundation of everything. That terror is the only thing that exists. That once we have seen this terror, we must never lose our focus on it. That this kind of hypervigilance is the only way to live.”
― Marycatherine McDonald, Unbroken: The Trauma Response Is Never Wrong: And Other Things You Need to Know to Take Back Your Life

“The idea behind moral injury is that a key part of trauma is the experience of being haunted either by the sense that you failed morally or that your moral structures have failed you.

This second meaning -- the iead that your moral structures have failed you -- applies to any kind of traumatic experience. In fact, this is a central part of trauma's wound. Think of it this way: Regardless of your spiritual life and beliefs, all of us have a set of assumptions about the way the world works. These assumptions stretch from the mundane to the meaningful, and they help us order and navigate the world so that it feels less chaotic. They are part of our map of the world.”
― Marycatherine McDonald, Unbroken: The Trauma Response Is Never Wrong: And Other Things You Need to Know to Take Back Your Life

“Her job was the tooth pain. The breakup was the heart attack. I started to talk to her about vulnerability. Not just the kind of vulnerability that is involved when we start dating someone new or when we tell someone a secret that we've never shared. The kind of vulnerability that runs like water underneath everything.”
― Marycatherine McDonald, Unbroken: The Trauma Response Is Never Wrong: And Other Things You Need to Know to Take Back Your Life