Trauma Exposure Quotes

When the Second World War finished, I was 23, and already I had seen enough horror to last me a lifetime. I'd seen dreadful, dreadful things, without saying a word. So seeing horror depicted on film doesn't affect me much.

De Niro was a hero of mine. And Sean Penn. But I've realized I can't operate at that level of intensity. That's okay for movies. On TV, when you live with horror day in and day out, you have to protect yourself.

Every murder turns on a bright hot light, and a lot of people... have to walk out of the shadows.

I've seen the worst. In my head, I've seen the worst. When I go into a fight, I'm all right. You know what I'm saying? I've already made it.

My capacity to feel fear has worn out, as if it's a muscle that can do no more.

It’s hard to absorb the horrors of the world on a daily basis.

Human sickness is so severe that few can bear to look at it...but those who do will become well.

It's one thing to see the suffering and dying on the television screen and quite another to be there and experience it. You cannot look into the eyes of a starving child and yourself remain the same.

I have to experience all the ghastly, bottomless depths for life for myself; it's for that reason that I went to war, and for that reason I volunteered.

The people that live in these districts, they don't want to watch it. They don't want to see their children die or killing other people. The only people that it is entertainment to are the people in the capital that have been brainwashed and are misguided and living in a completely unrealistic kind of world.

The first time I heard of Tuol Sleng, it was on the Voice of America. I listened twice.

People always ask me, 'I don't know how you could watch that, how that affects you,' and I just tell them, 'I went through it in real life, so it's like pilots watching a 'Top Gun' movie or cyclists watching a bicycle movie,' something like that.

Sometimes you must suffer through something to defeat your fear of it.

I have a tough stomach, and I've put myself through a lot. But when I first found out what happens to animals on modern factory farms and in today's slaughterhouses, I wanted to throw up - I literally couldn't believe it.

I saw why people died and how they died. I saw gunshot wounds and liver failure. It was a good learning experience, so I came regularly on weekends and holidays.

I have mentally overcome situations most of you would be terrified to ever attempt: heights, fire, needles, spiders, snakes, angry monkeys, being shot, being hit by a car, going blind - you name it, I have been in a situation where I have had to mentally overcome my inherent fears to do my job.

I have spent the past ten years in just about every war zone there was.

As a journalist, it is so easy to get hardened when you see so many stories that are disturbing. Sometimes it's just your survival mechanism that makes you hardened to some of it.

I never thought about being a cop. I'm kind of sensitive. I don't know if I could handle that job. It's hard to go home every day and be able to still live your own life because some of the stuff you see really affects you.

Our culture is bloodthirsty for stories about women in pain; we hunger for women to expose their traumas and to be rescued by the love of a good man.

I don't see how you could get used to people screaming in your face, and anyone who says different is lying.

It's' something I have gotten used to. I can't remember a time when my mother was not being attacked.

Some people watch comedy to relax. I watch '21 Grams.' I can recognize sadness and tragedy really easily because it's been with me forever.

I've always thought the best way to teach a kid not to be scared of the dark is to fill his daylight hours with as much horror as possible.