Trauma Bond Quotes

“I've been doing this a long time- manipulating people to get my way. That's why you think you love me. Because I've broken you down and built you back up to believe it. It wasn't an accident. Once you leave this behind..... you'll see that. -Caleb”
― CJ Roberts, Seduced in the Dark

“Sometimes, you lose somebody
to find that love
is meant to return home.

And now,
as I gather the ashes,
I know
I will live and love again,
but this time,
it will be me
who stands in the center
of that flame.
This time,
that love will be mine.”
― Catherine Anne Castillo, In the Darkness of Shards: Poems from a Broken Place

“Once someone has been traumatized again and again by someone who claimed to love them, once an abuser has warped the victim's reality and caused him or her to mistrust their perceptions through gaslighting, once a victim has been made to believe he or she is worthless, they are already traumatically bonded to their abusers. It takes a great deal of professional support, validation and resources in order for victims to detach from their abusers and begin to heal.”
― Shahida Arabi, Power: Surviving and Thriving After Narcissistic Abuse

“I interpreted his heartbeat to be some sort of Morse code for his feelings, but maybe I was imagining substance where there was only air.”
― Megan Farison, Dissonance

“What about parents who traumatize their children and then tell them to get over it...”
― Niedria D. Kenny

“Evil is an incurable disease, and some people were just born with it - passed down through generations. It's in their DNA”
― Niedria D. Kenny

“I told Ian, "When I think of sexual assault, I think of a child lying in their bed and someone coming into their room at night."

Ian's voice hardened. "I think of a girl being locked in a band room by her teacher.”
― Megan Farison, Dissonance

“One woman reminded me of you. The day she testified, she woke up still wondering whose side she was going to be on.”
― Megan Farison, Dissonance

“Somewhere, buried under the trauma and grief, I must have known—the problem wasn't that Ian didn't love me. The problem was the lens through which I viewed love.”
― Megan Farison, Dissonance

“Memories of Chris were like songs I couldn't get out of my head, a greatest hits album that played in a never ending loop morning, afternoon, and night.”
― Megan Farison, Dissonance

“Something was wrong, and I didn't know how to explain it in a way anyone would understand. It was as if there was an invisible thread between me and Chris, connecting us, and it didn't matter that he was over a thousand miles away in Florida. He was with me everywhere I went, invading my mind and body, stealing the life I could have had.”
― Megan Farison, Dissonance

“Becca hesitated, as if contemplating a move on a chessboard. "Do you know what Stockholm syndrome is?”
― Megan Farison, Dissonance

“Chris's apartment was like a time capsule, and every time I stepped through the door I became one of its many preserved fixtures, reprising my role as the submissive starry-eyed girl, again and again and again.”
― Megan Farison, Dissonance

“We lived separate lives, but I believed wholeheartedly that we shared the same reality.”
― Megan Farison, Dissonance

“She wasn’t a person. She was the lullaby I hallucinated when the world became too real.”
― Jonathan Harnisch, Sex, Drugs, and Schizophrenia

“She was the soft voice telling me to lie down in traffic. And I wanted to. God, I wanted to.”
― Jonathan Harnisch, Sex, Drugs, and Schizophrenia

“The most powerful relationships are those that lift us up, not those that hold us captive.”
― Antonieta Contreras, How Deep Is the Wound?: A Guide to Investigating, Understanding, and Resolving Your Emotional Pain

“Repair doesn’t mean rushing into closeness. It means learning to feel safe enough to stay.”
― Antonieta Contreras, How Deep Is the Wound?: A Guide to Investigating, Understanding, and Resolving Your Emotional Pain

“Sometimes I wish I had no empathy, not so it would hurt others, but so it wouldn't hurt me.”
― Deanna L. Lawlis

“Distance becomes a gift when closeness becomes a wound.”
― Katerina Markadakis, Legacy of Letting Go: A Journal for Those Healing from Love That Could Not Stay