Some people's lives seem to flow in a narrative; mine had many stops and starts. That's what trauma does. It interrupts the plot. You can't process it because it doesn't fit with what came before or what comes afterward. A… — Jessica Stern Copy Share Image
“How much of what we think of as an admirable response to trauma - the "stiff upper lip" - is actually dissociation, the mind's attempt to protect us from experiences that are too painful to digest? I can recall the facts, at least some of them. But I don't feel very much. At least, the feelings I have are not… — Jessica Stern Copy Share
“Here is what I think now, reading what I wrote down for the police at age fifteen, right after I was raped. I was a good girl. Always a good girl, even when I was bad. I did my homework. If I can only be good enough, someone will eventually notice that I am trying so hard, exhausting myself with… — Jessica Stern Copy Share
“I often feel like nobody," Skip says. "I ask myself: Why would you want to talk to me? Why would anyone want to talk… — Jessica Stern Copy Share Image
“When I asked my father whether he thought that it was possible that his mother was raped behind that closed door, he said, "She had washer-woman knees. No one could possibly think of her as a sexual object. Besides," he explained, "she would have told my sisters, and they would have told me." I am not so sure. Maybe someone… — Jessica Stern Copy Share
“My breathe would catch at the sight of violets-so common in the woods at home, so surprising in the mountains. The violet's message was… — Jessica Stern Copy Share Image
“What is courage?" I ask. "Bearing witness. That is a form of courage.” — Jessica Stern Copy Share Image
I have listened and I have been quiet all my life. But now I will speak. — Jessica Stern Copy Share Image
“Why does the threat of violent death alter some of us, even if subtly, forever? Why does it make us unusually numb or calm… — Jessica Stern Copy Share Image
I will roar argon into chlorine, xenon into fluorine, all the noble gases into reactive ones My lament will terrify even the stars. — Jessica Stern Copy Share Image
“After a series of traumas, one can lose the capacity to feel fear appropriately.” — Jessica Stern Copy Share Image
Some people's lives seem to flow in a narrative; mine had many stops and starts. That's what trauma does. It interrupts the plot. You… — Jessica Stern Copy Share Image
