“That man penetrated me with his shame. Shame, I realize now, is an infectious disease. Shame can be sexually transmitted.” — 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
