S.

“For emotionally immature people, all interactions boil down to the question of whether they’re good people or bad ones, which explains their extreme defensiveness if you try to talk to them about something they did. They often respond to even mild complaints about their behavior with an extreme statement, like “Well, then, I must be the worst mother ever!” or “Obviously I can’t do anything right!” They would rather shut down communication than hear something that could make them feel like bad people.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents

“Adults with Adverse Childhood Experiences are on alert. It’s a habit they learned in childhood, when they couldn’t be sure when they’d face the next high-tension situation. After her terrifying childhood illness, Michele never felt at peace, or whole, as an adult: “I was afraid I could be blindsided by any small medical crisis that could morph and change my entire life.”
― Donna Jackson Nakazawa, Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology, and How You Can Heal

“If I were to invent a sin to describe what that was—for how I lived—I would not say it was simply that I didn’t stop to smell the roses. It was the sin of arrogance, of becoming impervious to life itself. I failed to love what was present and decided to love what was possible instead.”
― Kate Bowler, Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved

“The mother instinct is something of which I am completely devoid. I explain it like this to myself: life is a vale of tears and all human beings are miserable creatures, so I cannot take the responsibility for bringing yet another unhappy creature into the world.”
― Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943; and Letters from Westerbork