Healing through your past trauma can be a long journey. In a process of recovery, it’s important to remember that we’re not alone. That’s why we have collected these 60 trauma quotes for you. These trauma quotes are selected to encourage your emotional healing, remind you that you are not alone, and support your journey.
60 Trauma Quotes
#1
“Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we are not alone.” ~ Fred Rogers
#2
“The mind replays what the heart can’t delete.”
#3
“Traumatized people chronically feel unsafe inside their bodies: The past is alive in the form of gnawing interior discomfort. Their bodies are constantly bombarded by visceral warning signs, and, in an attempt to control these processes, they often become expert at ignoring their gut feelings and in numbing awareness of what is played out inside. They learn to hide from their selves.” ~ Bessel A. van der Kolk
#4
“It isn’t about what’s wrong with you, it’s about what happened to you.”
#5
“There is no timestamp on trauma. There isn’t a formula that you can insert yourself into to get from horror to healed. Be patient. Take up space. Let your journey be the balm.” ~ Dawn Serra
#6
“I’m not lazy. I’m just exhausted from fighting my way through every single day.” ~ Mimi Love
#7
“We cannot have a world where everyone is a victim. “I’m this way because my father made me this way. I’m this way because my husband made me this way.” Yes, we are indeed formed by traumas that happen to us. But then you must take charge, you must take over, you are responsible.” ~ Camille Paglia
#8
“Wounds won’t heal the way you want them to, they heal the way they need to.” ~ Dele Olanubi
#9
“Trauma is personal. It does not disappear if it is not validated. When it is ignored or invalidated the silent screams continue internally heard only by the one held captive. When someone enters the pain and hears the screams healing can begin.” ~ Danielle Bernock
Trauma Quotes
#10
“Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health; safe connections are fundamental to meaningful and satisfying lives.” ~ Bessel van der Kolk
#11
“We are all damaged. We have all been hurt. We have all had to learn painful lessons. We are all recovering from some mistake, loss, betrayal, abuse, injustice or misfortune. All of life is a process of recovery that never ends. We each must find ways to accept and move through the pain and to pick ourselves back up. For each pang of grief, depression, doubt or despair there is an inverse toward renewal coming to you in time. Each tragedy is an announcement that some good will indeed come in time. Be patient with yourself.” ~ Bryant McGill
#12
“When you’re going through these difficult times of chaos and trauma, the most important thing is to keep those who are closest to you together.” ~ Michael Imperioli
#13
“Every day begins with an act of courage and hope: getting out of bed.” ~ Mason Cooley
#14
“Always remember, if you have been diagnosed with PTSD, it is not a sign of weakness; rather, it is proof of your strength, because you have survived!” ~ Michel Templet
#15
“You never know how strong you are, until being strong is the only choice you have.” ~ Bob Marley
#16
“Healing happens when you’re triggered and you’re able to move through the pain, the pattern, the story and walk your way to a different ending.” ~ Vienna Pharaon
#17
“People start to heal the moment they feel heard.” ~ Cheryl Richardson
#18
“Trauma is perhaps the most avoided, ignored, belittled, denied, misunderstood, and untreated cause of human suffering.” ~ Peter Levine
Trauma Quotes
#19
“One day you will tell your story of how you overcame what you went through and it will be someone else’s survival guide.”
#20
“Trauma is hell on earth. Trauma resolved is a gift from the gods.” ~ Peter A. Levine
#21
“As I often tell my students, the two most important phrases in therapy, as in yoga, are “Notice that” and “What happens next?” Once you start approaching your body with curiosity rather than with fear, everything shifts.” ~ Bessel van der Kolk
#22
“You don’t have to save me, you just have to hold my hand while I save myself.”
#23
“Traumatic events, by definition, overwhelm our ability to cope. When the mind becomes flooded with emotion, a circuit breaker is thrown that allows us to survive the experience fairly intact, that is, without becoming psychotic or frying out one of the brain centers. The cost of this blown circuit is emotion frozen within the body. In other words, we often unconsciously stop feeling our trauma partway into it, like a movie that is still going after the sound has been turned off. We cannot heal until we move fully through that trauma, including all the feelings of the event.” ~ Susan Pease Banitt
#24
“Trauma creates change you don’t choose. Healing is about creating change you do choose.” ~ Michelle Rosenthal
#25
“Triggers are like little psychic explosions that crash through avoidance and bring the dissociated, avoided trauma suddenly, unexpectedly, back into consciousness.” ~ Carolyn Spring
#26
“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.” ~ Carl Jung
#27
“You have to understand that PTSD has to be an event that you experience, a very traumatic event. And actually, there is evidence that brain chemistry changes during this event in certain individuals where it’s imprinted indelibly forever and there’s an emotion associated with this which triggers the condition.” ~ Dale Archer
Trauma Quotes
#28
“What we change inwardly will change outer reality.” ~ Plutarch
#29
“We have learned that trauma is not just an event that took place sometime in the past; it is also the imprint left by that experience on mind, brain, and body. This imprint has ongoing consequences for how the human organism manages to survive in the present. Trauma results in a fundamental reorganization of the way mind and brain manage perceptions. It changes not only how we think and what we think about, but also our very capacity to think.” ~ Bessel van der Kolk
#30
“Here is the test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: if you’re alive, it isn’t.” ~ Richard Bach
#31
“When you’re born a light is switched on, a light which shines up through your life. As you get older the light still reaches you, sparkling as it comes up through your memories. And if you’re lucky as you travel forward through time, you’ll bring the whole of yourself along with you, gathering your skirts and leaving nothing behind, nothing to obscure the light. But if a Bad Thing happens part of you is seared into place, and trapped forever at that time. The rest of you moves onward, dealing with all the todays and tomorrows, but something, some part of you, is left behind. That part blocks the light, colours the rest of your life, but worse than that, it’s alive. Trapped forever at that moment, and alone in the dark, that part of you is still alive.” ~ Michael Marshall Smith
#32
“Delusional pain hurts just as much as pain from actual trauma. So what if it’s all in your head?” ~ Tracy Morgan
#33
“Healing from trauma can also mean strength and joy. The goal of healing is not a papering-over of changes in an effort to preserve or present things as normal. It is to acknowledge and wear your new life – warts, wisdom, and all – with courage.” ~ Catherine Woodiwiss
#34
“Instead of saying ‘I’m damaged, I’m broken, I have trust issues.” I say “I’m healing, I’m rediscovering myself, I’m starting over.” ~ Horacio Jones
#35
“Triggers can happen when you least expect them. When you think all the emotional wounds are healed something can happen that reminds you there is still a scar.” ~ Alexandra Eva May
#36
“I believe our emotional traumas create triggers. Those triggers are actually a form of PTSD.” ~ Suzanne Wagner
Trauma Quotes
#37
“I survived because the fire that burned inside of me burned brighter than the fire around me.”
#38
“Beneath the surface of the protective parts of trauma survivors there exists an undamaged essence, a Self that is confident, curious, and calm, a Self that has been sheltered from destruction by the various protectors that have emerged in their efforts to ensure survival. Once those protectors trust that it is safe to separate, the Self will spontaneously emerge, and the parts can be enlisted in the healing process.” ~ Bessel van der Kolk
#39
“If someone else’s reaction seems out of proportion to the situation, it usually means that something else was triggered.” ~ Dr. Lauren Fogel
#40
“People are afraid to heal because their entire identity is centered around the trauma they’ve experienced. They have no idea who they are outside of trauma and that unknown is terrifying.” ~ Ebonee Davis
#41
“I won’t let pain, turn my heart into something ugly. I will show you that surviving can be beautiful.” ~ Christy Ann Martine
#42
“I have met many, many severely distressed people whose daily lives are filled with the agony of both remembered and unremembered trauma, who try so hard to heal and yet who are constantly being pushed down both by their symptoms and the oppressive circumstances of post-traumatic life around them.” ~ Carolyn Spring
#43
“There is nothing in this world that can trouble you as much as your own thoughts.”
#44
“A great loss brings up an emotional storm that opens up a hidden reservoir of childhood pain” ~ Pete Walker
#45
“You survived the abuse. Now, you’ll survive the recovery.”
Trauma Quotes
#46
“You are stronger than you think. You have gotten through every bad day in your life, and you are undefeated.”
#47
“Just like there’s always time for pain, there’s always time for healing.” ~ Jennifer Brown
#48
“Instead of being ashamed of what you’ve been through, be proud of what you have overcome.” ~ Dr. Phil
#49
“A trigger is the connection between the conscious mind and a buried painful memory.”
#50
“Being traumatized means continuing to organize your life as if the trauma were still going on—unchanged and immutable—as every new encounter or event is contaminated by the past.” ~ Bessel van der Kolk
#51
“When all you know is fight or flight, red flags and butterflies all feel the same.” ~ Cindy Cherie
#52
“If the wounds on her heart and the bruises on her soul were translated on her skin, you wouldn’t recognize her at all.” ~ Verona Q
#53
“Talking openly about your mental illness is not seeking attention, it’s seeking help.”
#54
“When you can tell your story and it doesn’t make you cry, you know you have healed.” ~ Karen Salmansohn
Trauma Quotes
#55
“Hold yourself back, or heal yourself back together. You decide.” ~ Brittany Burgunder
#56
“If storing memories is like putting away groceries, a traumatic event is stored by shoving a bunch of stuff in a cabinet and then any time it gets opened all the stuff falls on your head.”
#57
“People are not addicted to alcohol or drugs, they are addicted to escaping reality.”
#58
“The greatest sources of our suffering are the lies we tell ourselves.” ~ Bessel van der Kolk
#59
“We don’t yet know, above all, what the world might be like if children were to grow up without being subjected to humiliation, if parents would respect them and take them seriously as people.” ~ Alice Miller
#60
“In order to change, people need to become aware of their sensations and the way that their bodies interact with the world around them. Physical self-awareness is the first step in releasing the tyranny of the past.” ~ Bessel van der Kolk