Lori Johnstone

“If however, a person is also afflicted by ongoing family abuse or profound emotional abandonment, the trauma will manifest as a particularly severe emotional flashback because he already has Cptsd. This is particularly true when his parent is also a bully.”
― Pete Walker, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

“Many children appear to be hard-wired to adapt to this endangering abandonment with perfectionism. A prevailing climate of danger forces the child’s superego to over-cultivate the various programs of perfectionism and endangerment listed below. Once again, the superego is the part of the psyche that learns parental rules in order to gain their acceptance.”
― Pete Walker, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

“Many psychologists use the term existential to describe the fact that all human beings are subject to painful events. These are the normal recurring afflictions that everyone suffers from time to time. Horrible world events, difficult choices, illnesses and periodic feelings go abject loneliness are common examples of existential pain. Existential calamities can be especially triggering for survivors, because we typically have so much family-of-origin calamity for them to trigger us into reliving.”
― Pete Walker , Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

“I was terrified my father and Laurene might tell me at some point how insignificant I was, what a disappointment I was, sloppy and repulsive, breaking things like a baby. They already had a baby. How little I fit into the picture of family. I could see it and they'd made a mistake in allowing me to live here; I was unsure of my position in the house, and this anxiety—combined with a feeling of immense gratitude so overwhelming I thought I might burst—caused me to talk too much, to compliment too much, to say yes to whatever they asked, hoping my servile quality would ignite compassion, pity, or love.”
― Lisa Brennan-Jobs, Small Fry: A Memoir