Laura van den Berg Quotes

Shortly after I turned 13, Child Welfare took me into care. I was sent to a residential centre where girls with behavioural problems were 'evaluated'. My time there comes back to me now only in flashes of smells, images and sounds.

You never know what they're going through. Maybe they failed a test. Maybe they're going through a state of depression. Kids go through so much.

I always had a dissociative disorder. But I healed from it over the course of 14 years of big-time therapy. But, you know, I mean, everybody's kind of loony now. So I was kind of a pioneer in the mental illness thing, too.

I had a lot of depression as a kid.

What distresses me at times is that I meet a lot of people in their 40's, 50's, 60's, who still say they're a victim of child abuse.

The first time I went to therapy, I had to stop going because they were making me hate my parents.

When I was in desperate trouble for maybe eight or nine years, I went to a neuropsychiatrist.

I had a very complex childhood, and when I met my wife, because she has a master's in psychology, she promoted me into getting help. It really has helped. I'm not healed yet, but I'm working on some issues I had as a child.

I was made fun of by a lot of other kids in such a way that I didn't feel like I was human.

I had a really hard time when I was 16, 17, 18. I started with the eating disorder in high school.

I was bullied in elementary to middle school. It messed with my self esteem.

When I was in fifth grade, I got bullied really nastily about my appearance.

When I started talking to my therapist, we hit the source of my PTSD and the trauma that came from the things that occurred when I was younger - issues with my father and how that may have affected me.

I suffer from depression and anxiety, and having a show and having a character that portrays a young woman who is dealing with that and the consequences of it - how it affects her friendships and her relationships with her mom and her sister - it's beautiful to see that.

Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) cannot be medicated. It is treatable only through therapy. The problem is therapy is rarely sought by the afflicted. It cannot be cured.

I was in therapy as a child and definitely think that therapy is a very useful tool.

Grateful people may recover faster from trauma.

I had an attachment disorder.

It eats you up. It eats you up. And you have to - I had a lot of help. I had a lot of therapy. And I was able to - because it was hard, you know, to - you can't just lay it on friends and children.

I think my biggest focus for myself is learning how to continue to get through the trauma that my father has caused in my life.

After that I couldn't show my face outside. I lost my identity and balance. I was still living with my parents, and they were my only friends. For so many people, this thing with the nurse was confirmation that I must be mad or mentally ill.

As a unique person, I was bullied badly as a teen.

I've had a tremendous problem with depression in my life. I'd rather not talk about it, because it's over. But depression is real.

That is the real problem of depression - a condition which will affect an estimated one in five of the population at some point in their lives. It is completely unimaginable until you have been through it.

Most of me was glad when my mother died. She was a handful, but not in a cute, festive way. More in a life-threatening way, that had caused me a long time ago to give up all hope of ever feeling good about having had her as a mother.