“Denial helps the bystander. We don't want to know what the boys we send to Iraq have done to others out of terror, or what others have done to them. We would rather not know about terror or be confronted… — 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… — Jessica Stern Copy Share Image
“Here is what I think now, reading what I wrote down for the police at age fifteen, right after I was raped. I was… — Jessica Stern Copy Share Image
“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… — Jessica Stern Copy Share Image
“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
