Overwhelmed Quotes

“That's your solution? Have a cookie?' Astrid asked. 'No, my solution is to run down to the beach and hide out until this is all over,' Sam said. 'But a cookie never hurts.”
― Michael Grant, Gone

“He was swimming in a sea of other people’s expectations. Men had drowned in seas like that.”
― Robert Jordan, New Spring

“When you have a persistent sense of heartbreak and gutwrench, the physical sensations become intolerable and we will do anything to make those feelings disappear. And that is really the origin of what happens in human pathology. People take drugs to make it disappear, and they cut themselves to make it disappear, and they starve themselves to make it disappear, and they have sex with anyone who comes along to make it disappear and once you have these horrible sensations in your body, you’ll do anything to make it go away.”
― Bessel A. van der Kolk

“...repeated trauma in childhood forms and deforms the personality. The child trapped in an abusive environment is faced with formidable tasks of adaptation. She must find a way to preserve a sense of trust in people who are untrustworthy, safety in a situation that is unsafe, control in a situation that is terrifyingly unpredictable, power in a situation of helplessness. Unable to care for or protect herself, she must compensate for the failures of adult care and protection with the only means at her disposal, an immature system of psychological defenses.”
― Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“In response to threat and injury, animals, including humans, execute biologically based, non-conscious action patterns that prepare them to meet the threat and defend themselves. The very structure of trauma, including activation, dissociation and freezing are based on the evolution of survival behaviors. When threatened or injured, all animals draw from a "library" of possible responses. We orient, dodge, duck, stiffen, brace, retract, fight, flee, freeze, collapse, etc. All of these coordinated responses are somatically based- they are things that the body does to protect and defend itself. It is when these orienting and defending responses are overwhelmed that we see trauma.

The bodies of traumatized people portray "snapshots" of their unsuccessful attempts to defend themselves in the face of threat and injury. Trauma is a highly activated incomplete biological response to threat, frozen in time. For example, when we prepare to fight or to flee, muscles throughout our entire body are tensed in specific patterns of high energy readiness. When we are unable to complete the appropriate actions, we fail to discharge the tremendous energy generated by our survival preparations. This energy becomes fixed in specific patterns of neuromuscular readiness. The person then stays in a state of acute and then chronic arousal and dysfunction in the central nervous system. Traumatized people are not suffering from a disease in the normal sense of the word- they have become stuck in an aroused state. It is difficult if not impossible to function normally under these circumstances.”
― Peter A. Levine

“Let us drop our 'tin ear' and listen to the sounds of the 'real' world veiled beyond our inattention, and overwhelmed by the smoke and mirrors of superficiality. ("Like a frozen image")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“I cry even harder, thinking of how it could have been, of how I thought it would be. For the first time, I want to give up, to die, because suddenly everything is too much and there is no solution in sight.”
― B.A. Paris, Behind Closed Doors

“but there was nothing I could do to dim the supernovae exploding inside my brain, an endless chain of intra cranial firecrackers”
― John Green

“Laine slowly rolled out of bed. The queen size was one of the few new things in the house. But now, even the new bed felt tainted. It was an inner-spring monument to lies, a petri dish of mendacity she had shared with her faithless husband, and shared now with creeping dreams that flew from the light but left harsh scratches and diseased black feathers. Laine promised herself that, as soon as, she could, she would rid herself of this house, this bed, her clothes, her jewelry - everything but the flesh she lived in. She would scrub herself clean and flee to start a new life whose first and only commandment would be: Never let thyself be lied to again.”
― Stephen M. Irwin, The Dead Path

“Oh, sweet little boy, beloved little girl, you are so overwhelmed by life sometimes, I know, by the enormity of it all, by the vastness of the possibilities, by the myriad of perspectives available to you. You feel so pressed down sometimes, by all the unresolved questions, by all the information you are supposed to process and hold, by the urgency of things. You are overcome by powerful emotions, trying to make it all "work out" somehow, trying to get everything done "on time," trying to resolve things so fast, even trying not to try at all.
You are exhausted, sweet one, exhausted from all the trying and the not trying, and you are struggling to trust life again. It's all too much for the poor organism, isn't it? You are exhausted; you long to rest. And that is not a failing of yours, not a horrible mistake, but something wonderful to embrace!”
― Jeff Foster, Way of Rest

“I could no longer discern what was real and what was fake. Everything, including the present, seemed to be both too much and nothing at all.”
― Clemantine Wamariya, The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After

“I had some terrific experiences in the wilderness since I wrote you last - overpowering, overwhelming," he gushed to his friend Cornel Tengel. "But since then I am always being overwhelmed. I require it to sustain life.

Everett Ruess”
― Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

“The problem is that those of us who are lucky enough to do work that we love are sometimes cursed with too damn much of it.”
― Terry Gross, All I Did Was Ask: Conversations with Writers, Actors, Musicians, and Artists

“Her arms groped forward to guide her when her tears blocked her vision in darkness. Then she couldn't run any more. She sank to her knees and began to cry in her terror. She wanted Gary.
She suddenly felt strong arms around her. She bent her head to bury it in Gary's shoulder, trembling in the darkness.
Whimpering like a small animal in a trap, she pushed herself closer to him and said in a choked voice, "I'm so frightened!"
"I know, my love," the voice said. "I'm so sorry you were hurt."
She felt herself being pulled up to him, his grip around her tight. It was a strange feeling in this pitch-black hallway, where not even the light of the moon cast any illumination. The lips she touched were cold and yet they responded to her with an unusual warmth. His hands massaged her back. Something, Melanie thought, was wrong with that. The hands were too smooth, not like a plastered wrist would feel.
"Gary?" she asked, backing away. She didn't trust what she couldn't see.
"My love," the voice whispered, "there is no need to fear now. I shall protect you from those who mean you harm.”
― Clare McNally, Ghost House

“...No one ever told her it was okay to make mistakes. No one told her there was nothing wrong with needing help. No one told her it was normal to feel upset, or angry, or overwhelmed now and then. Everyone in her life took her perfectionism for granted and didn't realize how suffocating it was. And because no one gave the young woman permission to be human, she thought she was a failure for being one.”
― Chris Colfer, Worlds Collide

“She is in charge of everything, but no one knows. It is a tremendous burden, she says, to be responsible for every little thing, every infant born, every leaf falling from every tree, every wave that breaks onto the beach, every ant on its journey.”
― Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See

“I feel as if I have been piling things into my arms for the last twenty years, holding it all,
managing it all, doing it all, being it all and suddenly I am looking at the pile, realizing how much
of it doesn’t belong to me, and hungering to let it drop, to lay it all down, to walk away. I have
learned that when people see you carrying a lot and not dropping anything, that they often
think, “I guess she can hold this for me.” When they see you saying yes, they decide to also ask
you for things. When they see you doing something, they think, “She can do something for me
too.” And, eventually, the load becomes unbearable and you are driven into the ground by a
weight that you have opened your arms to accept.”
― Molly Remer, Walking with Persephone

“Because balance doesn't exist, you're either operating under or over your energetic equilibrium. In other words, you're in the realm of being either underwhelmed or overwhelmed. Perfectionists reliably choose to operate over their equilibriums. For perfectionists, the risk of being underwhelmed is much scarier than the risk of being overwhelmed.”
― Katherine Morgan Schafler, The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control: A Path to Peace and Power

“Rosy lifted her arm, tried to say something, then pointed at the cafe, held her head, covered her mouth and—humiliation of humiliations—she began to cry. Right there in the street. “I’m so confused,” she said but it came out as a great honking wail.
“Come here, you silly girl,” Phyllis said.
The woman put her arms around Rosy, patted her back, and for the first time in forever, Rosy allowed herself to just cry.
A young mother with twins in a pram passed them. The children’s eyes tracked Rosy for a second before their faces crumpled and they started to cry too.
“I’m sorry,” Rosy said, and flapped her arms. “I’m sorry.”
― R.G. Manse, Screw Friendship

“I was unprepared in a truly hilarious fashion, but I have learned this about endeavor— that we are never prepared. We are always overwhelmed at some point. And I have learned that the human spirit is fierce, that it enables us to do things that we set out to do, the things that cannot be prepared for, the things we would never have set out to do if we had known what it would’ve taken at the start.”
― Motsenbocker, Tyson

“I was unprepared in a truly hilarious fashion, but I have learned this about endeavor— that we are never prepared. We are always overwhelmed at some point. And I have learned that the human spirit is fierce, that it enables us to do things that we set out to do, the things that cannot be prepared for, the things we would never have set out to do if we had known what it would’ve taken at the start.”
― Tyson Motsenbocker, Where the Waves Turn Back: A Forty-Day Pilgrimage Along the California Coast

“Lucien rubbed his eyes. 'I've seen Rhysand do such... horrible things, seen him play the dark prince over and over. And yet you tell me it was all a lie. A mask. All to protect this place, these people. And I would have laughed at you for believing it, and yet... this city exists. Untouched- or until recently, I suppose. Even the Dawn Court's cities are nothing so lovely as this.'

'Lucien-'

'And you love him. And he- he truly does love you.' Lucien dragged a hand through his red hair. 'And all these people I have spent my centuries hating, even fearing... They are your family.'

'I think Amren would probably deny that she feels any affection for us-'

'Amren is a bedtime story they told us as younglings to make us behave. Amren was who would drink my blood and carry me to hell if I acted out of line. And yet there she was, acting more like a cranky old aunt than anything.'

'We don't- we don't enforce protocol and rank here.'

'Obviously. Rhys lives in a town house, by the Cauldron.' He waved an arm to encompass the city.

I didn't know what to say, so I kept silent.

'I hadn't realised I was a villain in your narrative,' Lucien breathed.

'You weren't.' Not entirely.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Wings and Ruin

“Elle aurait voulu s'en débarrasser, se débarrasser de cette pièce, du passé, de tout. Elle voulait être de retour dans son bureau, triant de la paperasse et remettant de l'ordre dans le chaos, faisant semblant de ne pas avoir de temps pour les sentiments, pour le chagrin, pour la culpabilité. Elle n'aspirait qu'à une liste interminable de tâches à accomplir pour chasser la cacophonie de ses pensées.”
― Kerrigan Byrne, The Highwayman

“Some police departments are overwhelmed by the massive number of complaints being filed against them.”
― Steven Magee

“We keep telling ourselves, you’ll be so much happier when you find something better. And then we do find something better but still aren’t any happier. We get the dream home only to be overwhelmed by the mortgage, the dream job only to find that we now have no time to have friends or a social life. We get so loaded we don’t need to worry about money anymore, only to find that people are using us for our wealth, and our family is looking more forward to our death and their inheritance than they are to family time and our wellbeing. We realize that even after accomplishing our goals, we still have to face ourselves at the end of the day.”
― Michael J Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“The historic Lahaina fire overwhelmed the emergency services.”
― Steven Magee

“Corn on the cob of despair, and in breakfast prayers / I am two breads of toast and toasted seeds / spread too thin.”
― Keri Stewart, Frolicking on Blackberry Lane

“Focusing on what is going well gives us energy and confidence to deal with what is wrong”
― Rosette WAMAMBE

“Where did it come from, this anger? I wasn't raised to be an angry person.”
― Kelly Barnhill, When Women Were Dragons

“Whenever we feel overwhelmed, it can help to reconnect with that soft, still voice.”
― Laurie E. Smith