The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture

Ask not why the addiction, but why the pain

Trauma is not what happens to you but what happens inside you” is how I formulate it.

Just as I have never met anyone who chose to become addicted, neither have I met anyone whose addictions did not, at their onset at least, provide for some essential human need.

Children, especially highly sensitive children, can be wounded in multiple ways: by bad things happening, yes, but also by good things not happening, such as their emotional needs for attunement not being met.