155 Quotes About Childhood-trauma

Meanwhile, infants and small children are exceptionally authentic beings because their emotional reactions and their thoughts are raw and honest. If they are happy, they smile, giggle, exclaim in pure joy, and feel excited, motivated, curious, and creative. If they are hurt, they cry, disengage, get angry, seek help and protection, and feel betrayed, sad, scared, lonely, and helpless. They don’t hide behind a mask.

A child needs to feel safe and protected, which means that their body, psyche, and belongings are safe and secure from violation. Because a child is helpless and dependent on their caregiver, they need a guardian in this predominantly unknown and sometimes scary and dangerous world. A child’s caregiver is responsible to fit the roles of safe haven and protector.

Children need their caregiver’s presence, interaction, connection, and emotional availability. Not only are these fundamental elements closely related to feelings of safety and security, they are also vital for a child’s healthy development. Since the child’s well-being depends on the bond between themselves and their caregiver, it is their caregiver’s responsibility to be very attentive both to their own selves and to their child.

The child of a controlling caregiver believes that there are always winners and losers in life, and that the winners have all the power and the losers must neglect their own senses, needs, and wants. The result is that they gain a deformed and inaccurate picture of the world—the only world they know.

Crying is the primary way by which infants and small children convey their needs. Their cries can be from hunger, pain, fear, neglect, and many other things. It is the caregiver’s responsibility to correctly decipher these needs and then meet them. It is tragically common, however, that the child’s cries are so often ignored, misunderstood, and even taken as an "attack" on the caregiver, which may result in an active and brutal punishment of the child.

Ignoring a baby’s cries without addressing their needs can permanently harm them. All of these failures may lead a child to have post-traumatic stress disorder or any of the forms of panic disorder in their adulthood.

I am a divorced child, of divided, uncertain background. Within this division I - supposed fruit of their love - no longer exist. It happened nearly forty years ago, yet to me nothing is sadder than my parents' divorce.

Pleasure fades, gets old, gets thrown out with last year's fad. Fear, guilt, all that stuff stays fresh. Maybe that's why people get so enraged when someone does something to a kid. Hurt a kid and he hurts forever. Maybe an adult can shake it off. Maybe. But with a kid, you hurt them and it turns them, shapes them, becomes part of the deep, underlying software of their lives. No delete.

Sometimes you have to travel back in time, skirting the obstacles, in order to love someone.