Tristan Stewart

“A child will twist his own mind into knots to protect his image of a parent as caring, loving, committed. It never occurs to a child that a parent doesn’t have his best interest in mind. Why won’t a child speak his mind to a neglectful parent? Easy: he fears losing his sacred bond. He knows, on some deep level, that the cost of rebelling is abandonment, and no child will take the risk of that loss.”
― Brad Wetzler, Into the Soul of the World: My Journey to Healing

“The internet is always on, interaction always available, but it could not guarantee I would be able to interact with someone I liked and understood, or who (I thought) liked and understood me. I’d gotten used to using people I’d never met, or met a few times, to muffle the sound of time passing without transcendence or joy or any of the good emotions I wanted to experience during my life, and I knew the feeling was mutual, and that was the comfort in it.”
― Lauren Oyler, Fake Accounts

“Healing childhood trauma is more difficult and complex because the child’s brain is not yet developed. And most children don’t have an adult nearby who is wise and supportive enough to help. On their own, a child will try to think his way out of the trauma, and that’s a task no child is up to. His mind can end up resembling a piece of twine that’s become hopelessly knotted and tangled. The child, and later the adult, will make twisted assumptions about himself, about the world, about life. He will blame himself for the events that caused the trauma. Ultimately, he will disconnect from himself and suffer from depression, dissociation, anxiety, insomnia, negative self-talk, and low self-esteem. Trauma specialists now believe that the experience doesn’t need to be a dramatic, life-endangering accident to cause post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD. Growing up in a dysfunctional family can cause relational or attachment trauma and lead to complex PTSD symptoms. In a dysfunctional family marked by emotional abuse or neglect, as I have come to view my family, a child is often scapegoated. The family, overtly and covertly, blames a child for their problems as a means of deflecting attention from the real problems. Instead of a single traumatic event, a child in this role might experience a continual barrage of subtle attacks on his worthiness, sense of belonging, and even his very identity. These attacks might come in the form of gaslighting, verbal abuse, and other obvious forms of manipulation. But they also can come in the form of thousands upon thousands of subtle negative facial expressions and sarcastic put-downs over years or decades.”
― Brad Wetzler, Into the Soul of the World: My Journey to Healing

“The family’s intent, whether conscious or unconscious, is to make the child feel like an Other, like he cannot be his authentic self and still remain a member of the family, like he is not part of the pack. After all, we are pack animals. Indeed, by adulthood, he feels toxic, broken, and like an outsider in his own family, in his own body, in his own life. This unease carries into adult relationships with partners, colleagues, and bosses. His fear of rejection and unconscious behavior may turn his new friend groups or places of employment into his old family of origin, where the cycle of scapegoating continues. Today, when I meet a teenager who seems obsessed with keeping adults happy, I cringe inside. I want to call 911.”
― Brad Wetzler, Into the Soul of the World: My Journey to Healing