Kushal Pratap

“other and often occur simultaneously.”
― Alan Downs, The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World

“The experience of psychological trauma, as is typically diagnosed (posttraumatic stress disorder [PTSD]), has at least some of the following symptoms: • Reliving the trauma: This can happen through nightmares, flashbacks, or reexperiencing as a result of being in the presence of stimuli reminiscent of the traumatic event. • Efforts to avoid thoughts or feelings that are associated with the trauma. • Efforts to avoid activities or situations that arouse memories of the trauma. • Inability to remember some important aspect of the trauma (psychogenic amnesia). • Marked reduced interest in important activities. • Feeling of a lack of interest or expulsion by others. • Limited affect; such as inability to cherish loving feelings. • A feeling of not having any future (foreshortened future); not expecting to have a career, get married, have children, or live a long life. • Hypervigilance (heightened sensitivity to possible traumatic stimuli).”
― Alan Downs, The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World

“The damaging part of learning to live your life in two parts , whether in reality or fantasy, cannot be underestimated. It is an infectious skill that you learned, one that would eventually spread beyond the bedroom of your life. Life wasn't ever what it seemed on the surface. Nothing could be trusted for what it appeared to be. After all, you weren't what you appeared to be. In learning to hide part of yourself, you lost the ability to trust anything or anyone fully. Without knowing it, you traded humane innocence for dry cynicism.”
― Alan Downs, The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World

“Always seek to allow others the space to be imperfect.”
― Alan Downs, The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World