“ I've felt as if I didn't exist, as if I were invisible, miles away from the world, miles away. You can't imagine how much alone I've been all my life. Iris Murdoch
“ Isolation of catastrophic experiences. Dissociation may function to seal off overwhelming trauma into a compartmentalized area of conscious until the person is better able to integrate it into mainstr… Marlene Steinberg
“ The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents... some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying v… H.P. Lovecraft
“ Triggers are like little psychic explosions that crash through avoidance and bring the dissociated, avoided trauma suddenly, unexpectedly, back into consciousness. Carolyn Spring
“ Dissociation is numbness and nothingness; it is a feeling of being lost; it is floating on a cloud that threatens to suffocate; it is automatic speech and action without awareness or control; it is lo… Noel Hunter
“ You may experience waves of disbelief after each memory you retrieve. Whether as a phase or waves, the disbelief is usually accompanied by massive self-hate and guilt. ‘How can I even think such a thi… Renee Fredrickson
“ The door suddenly jerks open. A wideeyedteenager bursts out. She stares at me in dazed horror. In a strangeway, I both know and don’t know what has just happened. As the fragmentsbegin to converge, th… Peter A. Levine
“ Dissociation gets you through a brutal experience, letting your basic survival skills operate unimpeded…Your ability to survive is enhanced as the ability to feel is diminished…All feeling are blocked… Renee Fredrickson
“ As I feel less overwhelmed, my fear softens and begins to subside. I feel a flicker of hope, then a rolling wave of fiery rage. My body continues to shake and tremble. It is alternately icy cold and f… Peter A. Levine
“ The unconscious mind always operates in the present tense, and when a memory is buried in the unconscious, the unconscious preserves it as an ongoing act of abuse in the present of the unconscious min… Renee Fredrickson
“ Dissociation, a form of hypnotic trance, helps children survive the abuse…The abuse takes on a dream-like, surreal quality and deadened feelings and altered perceptions add to the strangeness. The who… Renee Fredrickson
“ Fear and anxiety affect decision making in the direction of more caution and risk aversion... Traumatized individuals pay more attention to cues of threat than other experiences, and they interpret am… Suzette Boon
“ I was not descending in a plane, coming Home. I was watching an alien world as it ascended towards me - and one that I could never begin the process of readjusting to, because I knew that I would just… Jake Wood
“ You are no longer human, with all those depths and highs and nuances of emotion that define you as a person.There is no feeling any more, because to feel any emotion would also be to beckon the overwh… Jake Wood
“ Shamed and enraged, I sit by the side of the road and cry.Eclipsed by a sense of disgrace, my emotions feel momentarily stifled and disconnected. Instead of anger, I feel dishonored and exposed. I can… Holly A. Smith
“ We can think of dissociation as psychological disconnection from one or more of three major spheres of experience: (a) the here and now, i.e., orientation to time and place; (b) other people, i.e., in… Steven N. Gold
“ As survivors and procreators, we unravel stories that at their root are not dissimilar from the habitual behaviors seen in nature. But as beings who know they will die we digress into episodes and epi… Thomas Ligotti
“ A child who is being abused on an ongoing basis needs to be able to function despite the trauma that dominates his or her daily life. That becomes the job of at least one ANP [apparently normal part o… Alison Miller
