“Imagine the infant who one day cries and gets fed, and the next day cries and goes hungry. One day smiles and is kissed and hugged. The next day smiles and is ignored. This is what psychologists called 'preoccupied or unresolved attachment' with the primary caregiver--usually the mother. There was love one minute and disdain the next. Affection that was given in abundance for no reason and then taken away without cause. The child has no ability to predict or influence the behavior of the parent. The narcissist loves a child only as an extension of herself at first, and then as a loyal subject. So she will tend to the child only when it makes her feel good.”
―
Wendy Walker,
Emma in the Night
“I think there are two types of people. Ones who have a scream inside them and ones who don’t.” ― Wendy Walker, Emma in the Night
“I think there are two types of people. Ones who have a scream inside them and ones who don’t. People who have a scream are too angry or too sad or laugh too hard, swear too much, use drugs or never sit still. Sometimes they sing at the top of their lungs with the windows rolled down. I don’t think people are born with it. I think other people put it inside you with the things they do to you, and say to you, or the things you see them do or say to other people. And I don’t think you can get rid of it. If you don’t have a scream, you can’t understand.” ― Wendy Walker, Emma in the Night
“Sitting on my bed with all these things I used to love but not loving them anymore, I just wanted to set them on fire. That's when I knew I was never going to be all right again.” ― Wendy Walker, All Is Not Forgotten
“The truth is, nothing really matters unless we decide it matters.” ― Wendy Walker, Emma in the Night
“We are small, inconsequential beings. It is only our place in the hearts of others that fills us up, that gives us our purpose, our pride, and our sense of self. We need our parents to love us without condition, without logic, and beyond reason. We need them to see us through lenses warped by this love and to tell us in every way that just having us walk this earth fills them with joy.” ― Wendy Walker, All Is Not Forgotten
“In spite of everything she did that she shouldn't have done, and everything she didn't do that she should have, something that felt like love was in her and she would take it out at times like this and show it to us and make us hunger for more. All of us, each in our own way.” ― Wendy Walker, Emma in the Night
“Sometimes you can win a war by leaving the battlefield before your army gets killed.” ― Wendy Walker, Emma in the Night
“I wanted to peel myself off of me.” ― Wendy Walker, All Is Not Forgotten
“He was that driven, that smart. But he could not sit still within himself.” ― Wendy Walker, All Is Not Forgotten
“According to the Greek myth, Narcissus was a hunter who was exceptionally beautiful and proud. He was so proud, in fact, that he rejected anyone who tried to love him. Nemesis, the goddess of revenge, decided to punish Narcissus. She lured him to a pool of water where he was able to see his own reflection. He fell madly in love with himself and stared at his reflection until he died.” ― Wendy Walker, Emma in the Night
“Sorry happens after something bad has happened, after people have let it happen. It had become contemptuous to me, all these I’m-so-sorries.” ― Wendy Walker, Emma in the Night
“Every brain is different. And so must be every course of therapy.” ― Wendy Walker, All Is Not Forgotten
“I tell my young patients, and my own children, that this is not their life. Not yet. What they are doing now is building a house. It is a house they will have to live in for the rest of their lives, so they’d better get it right. They will be able to remodel, redecorate, and repair. But they can never rebuild. Everything they put into this house, every emotional scar from a bad relationship, every sexual perversion they give in to, every opportunity they secure for themselves, every drug they allow to interrupt the maturing of their growing brains, will be forever in the foundation of that house.” ― Wendy Walker, All Is Not Forgotten
“With youth comes the inability to know what’s going to happen as a decision is played out. It is one of the greatest shames of the human experience that by the time we know how to conduct ourselves in an appropriate manner, there’s little conducting left to do.” ― Wendy Walker
“Una de las grandes vergüenzas de la experiencia humana es que solo sabemos adoptar la conducta adecuada cuando ya es muy tarde.” ― Wendy Walker, All Is Not Forgotten
“But sometimes it becomes more than that. Sometimes the weaker loves, the lust-driven loves, the filling holes, turn into more. And sometimes those momentary connections, the ones that catch us off guard like a cold wind coming around the corner of a building, sometimes those stay put and then become an anchor for a more permanent connection.” ― Wendy Walker, All Is Not Forgotten
“No matter where we are and what we are subjected to, we will eventually settle into the new reality and try to find pleasure, even if it is nothing more than a warm shower or food or even a glass of water.” ― Wendy Walker, Emma in the Night
“We are small, inconsequential beings. It is only our place in the hearts of others that fills us up, that gives us our purpose, our pride, and our sense of self. We need our parents to love us without condition, without logic, and beyond reason. We need them to see us through lenses warped by this love and to tell us in every way that just having us walk this earth fills them with joy. Yes, we will come to learn that our clay giraffes were not masterly. But when we pull them out of our attics, they should make us cry, knowing that when our parents saw these ugly pieces of plaster, they felt ridiculously misplaced pride, and they wanted to hug us until our bones hurt. This is what we need from our parents, more than the truth about how small we are. We will have more than enough people to remind us of that, to give us dispassionate evaluations of our mediocrity.” ― Wendy Walker, All Is Not Forgotten
“I think there are two types of people. Ones who have a scream inside them and ones who don’t.” ― Wendy Walker, Emma in the Night
“I think there are two types of people. Ones who have a scream inside them and ones who don’t. People who have a scream are too angry or too sad or laugh too hard, swear too much, use drugs or never sit still. Sometimes they sing at the top of their lungs with the windows rolled down. I don’t think people are born with it. I think other people put it inside you with the things they do to you, and say to you, or the things you see them do or say to other people. And I don’t think you can get rid of it. If you don’t have a scream, you can’t understand.” ― Wendy Walker, Emma in the Night
“Sitting on my bed with all these things I used to love but not loving them anymore, I just wanted to set them on fire. That's when I knew I was never going to be all right again.” ― Wendy Walker, All Is Not Forgotten
“The truth is, nothing really matters unless we decide it matters.” ― Wendy Walker, Emma in the Night
“We are small, inconsequential beings. It is only our place in the hearts of others that fills us up, that gives us our purpose, our pride, and our sense of self. We need our parents to love us without condition, without logic, and beyond reason. We need them to see us through lenses warped by this love and to tell us in every way that just having us walk this earth fills them with joy.” ― Wendy Walker, All Is Not Forgotten
“In spite of everything she did that she shouldn't have done, and everything she didn't do that she should have, something that felt like love was in her and she would take it out at times like this and show it to us and make us hunger for more. All of us, each in our own way.” ― Wendy Walker, Emma in the Night
“Sometimes you can win a war by leaving the battlefield before your army gets killed.” ― Wendy Walker, Emma in the Night
“I wanted to peel myself off of me.” ― Wendy Walker, All Is Not Forgotten
“He was that driven, that smart. But he could not sit still within himself.” ― Wendy Walker, All Is Not Forgotten
“According to the Greek myth, Narcissus was a hunter who was exceptionally beautiful and proud. He was so proud, in fact, that he rejected anyone who tried to love him. Nemesis, the goddess of revenge, decided to punish Narcissus. She lured him to a pool of water where he was able to see his own reflection. He fell madly in love with himself and stared at his reflection until he died.” ― Wendy Walker, Emma in the Night
“Sorry happens after something bad has happened, after people have let it happen. It had become contemptuous to me, all these I’m-so-sorries.” ― Wendy Walker, Emma in the Night
“Every brain is different. And so must be every course of therapy.” ― Wendy Walker, All Is Not Forgotten
“I tell my young patients, and my own children, that this is not their life. Not yet. What they are doing now is building a house. It is a house they will have to live in for the rest of their lives, so they’d better get it right. They will be able to remodel, redecorate, and repair. But they can never rebuild. Everything they put into this house, every emotional scar from a bad relationship, every sexual perversion they give in to, every opportunity they secure for themselves, every drug they allow to interrupt the maturing of their growing brains, will be forever in the foundation of that house.” ― Wendy Walker, All Is Not Forgotten
“With youth comes the inability to know what’s going to happen as a decision is played out. It is one of the greatest shames of the human experience that by the time we know how to conduct ourselves in an appropriate manner, there’s little conducting left to do.” ― Wendy Walker
“Una de las grandes vergüenzas de la experiencia humana es que solo sabemos adoptar la conducta adecuada cuando ya es muy tarde.” ― Wendy Walker, All Is Not Forgotten
“But sometimes it becomes more than that. Sometimes the weaker loves, the lust-driven loves, the filling holes, turn into more. And sometimes those momentary connections, the ones that catch us off guard like a cold wind coming around the corner of a building, sometimes those stay put and then become an anchor for a more permanent connection.” ― Wendy Walker, All Is Not Forgotten
“No matter where we are and what we are subjected to, we will eventually settle into the new reality and try to find pleasure, even if it is nothing more than a warm shower or food or even a glass of water.” ― Wendy Walker, Emma in the Night
“We are small, inconsequential beings. It is only our place in the hearts of others that fills us up, that gives us our purpose, our pride, and our sense of self. We need our parents to love us without condition, without logic, and beyond reason. We need them to see us through lenses warped by this love and to tell us in every way that just having us walk this earth fills them with joy. Yes, we will come to learn that our clay giraffes were not masterly. But when we pull them out of our attics, they should make us cry, knowing that when our parents saw these ugly pieces of plaster, they felt ridiculously misplaced pride, and they wanted to hug us until our bones hurt. This is what we need from our parents, more than the truth about how small we are. We will have more than enough people to remind us of that, to give us dispassionate evaluations of our mediocrity.” ― Wendy Walker, All Is Not Forgotten
