Abuse Quotes - Page 12

I saw the bruises, the burns, the cuts— I knew which ones had been done to you by someone you thought you could trust. Someone you thought loved you. I knew which ones you gave yourself.

This is for the kids who know that the worst kind of fear isn't the thing that makes you scream, but the one that steals your voice and keeps you silent.

That night, when the creature sleeps, when he sleeps, the mother escapes into her daughters’ room. She tells her daughter that the creature’s afraid of her having too much love, too much heart. She takes a tube of lipstick and drags it across her finger like a knife, marking it across her daughter’s cheeks, red, blood, war paint.

Elijah Noble El

I knew that I was the least-loved child because I was a girl and because my mother had died giving birth to me.

Adeline Yen Mah

In the early 1970s, racial and gender discrimination was still prevalent. The easy camaraderie prevailing in the operating room evaporated at the completion of surgical procedures. There was an unspoken pecking order of seating arrangements at lunch among my fellow physicians. At the top were the white male 'primary producers' in prestigious surgical specialties. They were followed by the internists. Next came the general practitioners. Last on the list were the hospital-based physicians: the radiologists, pathologists and anaesthesiologists - especially non-white, female ones like me. Apart from colour, we were shunned because we did not bring in patients ourselves but, like vultures, lived off the patients generated by other doctors. We were also resented because being hospital-based and not having to rent office space or hire nursing staff, we had low overheads. Since a physician's number of admissions to the hospital and referral pattern determined the degree of attention and regard accorded by colleagues, it was safe for our peers to ignore us and target those in position to send over income-producing referrals. This attitude was mirrored from the board of directors all the way down to the orderlies.

Adeline Yen Mah

No matter what else people may steal from you, they will never be able to take away your knowledge.

Adeline Yen Mah

The sickest part of this whole story is that I tried really hard to make up for what I thought I did to her, after she started talking to me again. I loaned her money whenever she needed it, I gave her rides whenever she called and needed to get somewhere, I did my best to pretend like David wasn't in the room with us when I was at her house, I did whatever I could that I thought might show her that I loved her and cared about her, and I never meant to hurt her. It took a while before I realized that would never happen. She'd never love me like a mom is supposed to. She would never be there for me like I tried to be for her. She would never apologize for anything or admit that she was wrong.

Ashly Lorenzana

Even though he had admitted to her that he used to watch me shower through a hole in the bathroom wall back when I was thirteen. She blamed us both for what we had "done" to her. But it sounds like she got over being mad at him pretty quick. She later told me that she had to go back and have sex with him one more time, just to make sure that there was nothing left between the two of them and to get some closure. That almost made me want to vomit. The only interaction between us after that was her showing up at the courthouse when I had to sit in front of a grand jury of twelve strangers and tell them what had happened. She came into the waiting room where I was sitting and started screaming that I was a whore and that I'd fucked her husband. She had to be escorted out of the court by two officers. That's what I got from her.

Ashly Lorenzana

But yeah, like everyone else in our family, they could go from zero to murderous in a fucking heartbeat.

However much he denied it, he always hoped that they'd be kinder to each other one day, like people who were grateful to survive something instead of people still fighting to survive. Wherever that small seed of hope resided, it no longer exists, and what they were to each other is what they will always be. Tethered somehow. Dawn together by a force that should've kept them close but repelled them instead.

Jung Yun

She always says I'm the best friend that she's ever had... how do you hang up on someone who needs you that bad? ~From 'Laura' on The Nylon Curtain

I'm not a victim. I'm not a survivor. I'm a fighter.

JenniferElizabeth Austin

stars are the scars of the universe

Sex outside of marriage is an abuse.

Please don´t drown into his fears, his concrete fists don´t let him again, break the bridge of your nose with his cruel born hits. Then disappear into that mask of misery.

Anthony Liccione

The secret tugs at my sleeve.A child looking for attention.It is not a big secret.But it is not the only one either.“Strength in numbers” they say.For they are many.Many little things that – together –weigh tonnes.And take up space.And are quite noisy.The way only a lot of whispers can make noise.And they follow me.Little secretsof omission, desire,and denial.Of indulgence, hedonism,and exploration.Of peeves, passion,and deep-seated fear.Little secretsof despairanddisrepairandprohibited thoroughfare.

Adelheid Manefeldt

We take the most difficult relationship of our childhood... and we MARRY it.

Anger WorksAnger can be extremely rewarding in the short term. It can distract you from pain and threatening feelings. You may use anger to provoke fear and anxiety in others. Such anger makes others feel threatened, allowing you to gain control. But regularly directing anger at someone is likely to make him or her even less supportive. Ultimately, that person will withdraw completely- leaving you feeling even more isolated.

I look around at everybody laughing and joking together and struggle to understand my life has become a living hell that nobody present could even begin to imagine

As she breaks the silence, the upscale abused wife begins to feel affirmed and validated. The rationalizations she once relied on to sustain her within the marriage and to maintain the marital relationship begin to break down. Soon they become useless and obsolete. She slowly rejects them as she confronts the cognitive dissonance, the contradiction between her own knowledge and what she sees going on. It is remarkable yet not surprising that battered women have the highest tolerance for cognitive dissonance and can square two disparate realities that will never match – hatred and violence in a “loving marriage.” At this point the woman is relieved to step away from her self-deception.

When others witness or comment on abusive behaviors, the little voice that the upscale abused wife once heard inside her and ignored or muffled becomes amplified. Slowly she starts to recognize that she must stop enduring the abuse. . . . each woman comes to grips with her situation at her own pace. However, talking to others is key to her growing capacity to recognize and label her experiences, reclaim herself, target important turning points, and ultimately leave her tormentor.

But if he is angry at the world for doing him harm, why does he take it out on his loving partner? Couldn’t he just as readily express his rage by playing racquetball or pounding pillows. His ideas about her role seem paradoxical. On the one hand, the narcissistic husband has vested his wife with tremendous power. She is necessary for his self-repair, but instead of valuing her and seeking comfort in her arms, he beats and humiliates her. Because he sees her as available to meet any and all of his needs, he releases his rage and any self-hate at her; such an act helps him ultimately feel powerful again, making him realize he is not weak and shattered.When the narcissistic man eels the terror and rage associated with his own internal fragmentation, his outburst restores his sense of power and control. He turns the anger expanding within him away from himself, toward his wife. He insists that she’s the defective one, she’s to blame, because she has not met his needs. Such acts of externalization are key to the NPD batterer. His violent behavior restores his self-esteem. He believes that his actions are not his fault; he is just trying to take care of himself.

When a woman is convinced that she can stop the violence in her marriage, her stubborn determination feeds her sense of failure each time she sees that she can’t regulate her husband’s demands and abuses. In a perverse type of review, she may then ask herself how she could have been so stupid as to overlook the early warnings. This further diminishes her self-esteem.

Once this bubble of self-deception is burst and the mask that shielded her and others from what she wished to ignore is lifted, it is difficult for the woman to return to her life as it was. It has been said that “the discovery of a deceiving principle, a lying activity within us, can furnish an absolutely new view of all conscious life.” This reawakened awareness changes the upscale abused woman’s life forever. Suddenly, new choices stand before her. This can be a frightening and sad phase in therapy, a moment when the woman is grappling with a kaleidoscope of loss and potential future gain. Some women experience this period as the dark night of the soul. It can be sickening to face the truths one has chosen to ignore in hopes of maintaining the status quo. Even if the woman wishes to stay married, she will never perceive her life in the same way again.

Canadian researcher Donald Dutton . . has written that marital work with a man who has a history of relationship violence may be a “conflict-generator” and that individual work . . should come first for both husband and wife. …Marital therapy does not provide the battered woman the kind of safety she needs for rebuilding her strength and finding her identity. The consequences may be severe if she is truthful in a couple’s session. She may be too afraid. Moreover, many upscale batterers can be charming and persuasive and may convey a far different image of themselves to the therapist than the one that reflects the woman’s reality at home.

Their manipulation is psychological and emotionally devastating – and very dangerous, especially considering the brain circuitry for emotional and physical pain are one and the same (Kross, 2011). What a victim feels when they are punched in the stomach can be similar to the pain a victim feels when they are verbally and emotionally abused, and the effects of narcissistic abuse can be crippling and long-lasting, even resulting in symptoms of PTSD or Complex PTSD.

To any survivor who may be doubting whether what they’ve experienced is truly abuse, remember that emotional, verbal, and psychological abuse will never be, and should never be, considered part of the messy equation of a normal relationship. As both metal health professionals and survivors can attest to, the traumatic highs and lows of being with a narcissist, a sociopath, or a psychopath are not the natural highs and lows of regular relationships. That suggestion is quite damaging to society and to survivors all around the world.

She was in a terrible marriage and she couldn't talk to anyone. He used to hit her, and in the beginning she told him that if it ever happened again, she would leave him. He swore that it wouldn't and she believed him. But it only got worse after that, like when his dinner was cold, or when she mentioned that she'd visited with one of the neighbors who was walking by with his dog. She just chatted with him, but that night, her husband threw her into a mirror.

Nicholas Sparks

The true test of a warrior is how your 'stance' holds up after any 'circumstance'. Meaning, even after the stormiest weather, a true warrior will still reflect the brilliant rays of the magnificent sun through both his or her eyes. You may get hit by sudden lightning or take severe beatings from the cruel wind, but you will always get back up and stand strong on your feet again, soak in the sunlight, and be prepared to get hit by even the most merciless hail - time and time again.

Sure relationships include arguments, but pain is not a side-effect of love.

Her eyes bled from venomous anger...Her flower had been gruesomely deflowered...Her life had slowly turned into a blunder...There was no more thinking further....She would rather become a Foetus murderer Than end up a "hopeless" mother....Of course, she found peace in the formerUntil later years of emotional traumaOh, the foetus hunt was forever!The only thing you should abort is the thought of aborting your baby. Stop the hate and violence against innocent children.

Chinonye J. Chidolue

Getting in touch with the lovelessness within and letting that lovelessness speak its pain is one way to begin again on love's journey. In relationships, whether heterosexual or homosexual, the partner who is hurting often finds that their mate is unwilling to 'hear' the pain. Women often tell me that they feel emotionally beaten down when their partners refuse to listen or talk. When women communicate from a place of pain, it is often characterized as 'nagging.' Sometimes women hear repeatedly that their partners are 'sick of listening to this shit.' Both cases undermine self-esteem. Those of us who were wounded in childhood often were shamed and humiliated when we expressed hurt. It is emotionally devastating when the partners we have chosen will not listen. Usually, partners who are unable to respond compassionately when hearing us speak our pain, whether they understand it or not, are unable to listen because that expressed hurt triggers their own feelings of powerlessness and helplessness. Many men never want to feel helpless or vulnerable. They will, at times, choose to silence a partner with violence rather than witness emotional vulnerability. When a couple can identify this dynamic, they can work on the issue of caring, listening to each other's pain by engaging in short conversations at appropriate times (i.e., it's useless to try and speak your pain to someone who is bone weary, irritable, reoccupied, etc.). Setting a time when both individuals come together to engage in compassionate listening enhances communication and connection. When we are committed to doing the work of love we listen even when it hurts.

It took me years to stop feeling the guilt she made sure I kept feeling about what happened with him. He is a sick person that molests children, but I felt so bad about it for so long. I couldn't talk to a single person about any of this. No one. And she made me feel so bad about it all that I felt I shouldn't talk about it, even if there was someone. I felt ashamed and thought I was an awful person. Sometimes I still do. My mother abandoned me in the worst ways possible.

Ashly Lorenzana

Only the sufferers of injustice can realize its intensity - Iman Musa Al-Kazim

Abu Mohammed Al H Bin Shu'ba Al Harrani

I was unhappy there and going through a rough transition, so I was desperate for any friend I could find that I could talk to. I thought that's what he was. We had this secret from my mom, who I didn't like much at the time. It was a harmless secret, so I didn't feel bad about it. All we did was go to the movies and hang out doing fun things all day. It wasn't until much later that the warning signs began, but I was still too young and stupid to see them for what they were at the time. Basically, he was patient as he built up the trust between us. He became a close friend and convinced me that he was on my side somehow. He took total advantage of my ignorance and totally betrayed me a few years later, when he slept with me. After my mom found out, she went psychotic and all she gave a fuck about was what had been done to her. She didn't care about anything except for how hurt she was by what had happened. She blamed me and him equally, telling me that sixteen years old was old enough to know better. Even though I never initiated a goddamn thing with him, and never would have. Even though it happened in the apartment she and I had gotten together, that he was not supposed to be staying in.

Ashly Lorenzana

Sam groaned. A warmth on her face alerted her to the new morning. She opened one eye and peered at the fuzzy daylight streaming in through the window. Her head throbbed like a bitch. Her mouth felt like a carpet. She pushed herself off the couch and stood up shakily, kicking bottles as she stumbled to her small kitchen. Every movement was painful and slow. She was a sloth tight-roping through time. She held onto the basin for a moment to steady herself. She grabbed a plastic cup and opened the tap, letting it flow as she filled and refilled it, gulping down as much water as she could. She splashed her face, neck and chest with water, then refilled the cup and dumped the contents over her head. She stood there, unaware of the moments passing by, as the water dripped down her body. Willing herself to wake up and feel better. Willing the nausea into oblivion.

Adelheid Manefeldt

It had started to drizzle. The lamp poles cast a kaleidoscope of light dancing across the puddles in the road. The rain made Sam feel even more lost now, as if these shadowy events were invisible to the world. As if the night was cloaked in anonymity. This wasn’t a peaceful rain - it was a sad one. A drizzle, which wept for the inevitable. Sam knew even if she got Alison out of this alive, the cuts on their lives had already been made, pooling the blood of consequence beneath their feet as the night dragged on. Whichever way this went, they’d have scars from this night. Scars and scabs and things which could not be spoken. And that made her feel utterly hopeless.

Adelheid Manefeldt

Bullies do not just wake up and decide to be one. They are people who have or are experiencing emotional or verbal abuse. All you can do is not retaliate but show them love. Doing so, allows them see what they are missing and need. You can let them see the other side of life when you show love not hurt. After all, we are all products of love and we must choose to demonstrate that above all else.

The past does not define me, it ignites me. The past is not a piece of me, it has placed me

God whispered, "You endured a lot. For that I am truly sorry, but grateful. I needed you to struggle to help so many. Through that process you would grow into who you have now become. Didn't you know that I gave all my struggles to my favorite children? One only needs to look at the struggles given to your older brother Jesus to know how important you have been to me.

Shannon L. Alder

If someone suffers enough pain and abuse, his volitional capacities will diminish to nothing.

David L. Conroy

I guess it's the same way trees grow around the very vines that are killing them, so they're strangled and sustained all at once. After a long time, even pain can be a comfort.

Live BOLDLY! ......because no one ever told you healing is a life long process.

Kierra C.T. Banks

Betrayal is too kind a word to describe a situation in which a father says he loves his daughter but claims he must teach her about the horrors of the world in order to make her a stronger person; a situation in which he watches or participates in rituals that make her feel like she is going to die. She experiences pain that is so intense that she cannot think; her head spins so fast she can't remember who she is or how she got there.All she knows is pain. All she feels is desperation. She tries to cry out for help, but soon learns that no one will listen. No matter how loud she cries, she can't stop or change what is happening. No matter what she does, the pain will not stop. Her father orders her to be tortured and tells her it is for her own good. He tells her that she needs the discipline, or that she has asked for it by her misbehavior. Betrayal is too simple a word to describe the overwhelming pain, the overwhelming loneliness and isolation this child experiences.As if the abuse during the rituals were not enough, this child experiences similar abuse at home on a daily basis. When she tries to talk about her pain, she is told that she must be crazy. "Nothing bad has happened to you;' her family tells her Each day she begins to feel more and more like she doesn't know what is real. She stops trusting her own feelings because no one else acknowledges them or hears her agony. Soon the pain becomes too great. She learns not to feel at all. This strong, lonely, desperate child learns to give up the senses that make all people feel alive. She begins to feel dead.She wishes she were dead. For her there is no way out. She soon learns there is no hope.As she grows older she gets stronger. She learns to do what she is told with the utmost compliance. She forgets everything she has ever wanted. The pain still lurks, but it's easier to pretend it's not there than to acknowledge the horrors she has buried in the deepest parts of her mind. Her relationships are overwhelmed by the power of her emotions. She reaches out for help, but never seems to find what she is looking for The pain gets worse. The loneliness sets in. When the feelings return, she is overcome with panic, pain, and desperation.She is convinced she is going to die. Yet, when she looks around her she sees nothing that should make her feel so bad. Deep inside she knows something is very, very wrong, but she doesn't remember anything. She thinks, "Maybe I am crazy.

Of pain you could wish only one thing: that it should stop. Nothing in the world was so bad as physical pain. In the face of pain there are no heroes.

People can be animals. They will use you, take you for a ride, abuse you and take all your precious light away from you. Rise above their manipulation and egotistical bullshit because they are NOTHING without you. No one deserves your light but yourself.

Karen A. Baquiran

i dreamt i crawled on top of you and kissed your hips, one at a time, my lips a smolder. i straddled your waist and pressed both shaking hands against your torso. spongy, like an old tree on the forest floor. i push and your flesh sinks inwardly, collapsing with decay, a soft shushing sound. a yawning hole where your organs should be. maggots used to live here until your own poison killed them off. i laid my cheek into the loam and three little mushrooms brushed over my eyelid. peat, decomposing matter, all of it, whatever you wish to call it, rested in the cavity of your chest. and there i planted seeds in the hopes something good would come out of you.

Traumatic events destroy the sustaining bonds between individual and community. Those who have survived learn that their sense of self, of worth, of humanity, depends upon a feeling of connection with others. The solidarity of a group provides the strongest protection against terror and despair, and the strongest antidote to traumatic experience. Trauma isolates; the group re-creates a sense of belonging. Trauma shames and stigmatizes; the group bears witness and affirms. Trauma degrades the victim; the group exalts her. Trauma dehumanizes the victim; the group restores her humanity.Repeatedly in the testimony of survivors there comes a moment when a sense of connection is restored by another person’s unaffected display of generosity. Something in herself that the victim believes to be irretrievably destroyed---faith, decency, courage---is reawakened by an example of common altruism. Mirrored in the actions of others, the survivor recognizes and reclaims a lost part of herself. At that moment, the survivor begins to rejoin the human commonality...

Judith Lewis Herman

Soul work is the 'more' that we need to do to heal our souls.Soul retrieval is one more step toward balance and wholeness. The trauma of major illness, death, financial devastation, abuse, terror, and other stressors in our lives will not cease while we live and breathe. But, knowing they can rob us of our soul allows us to address those loses before or as they occur, so that we do not have to struggle to survive without that which makes us who we are.

Barbara Lieberman

Childhood should be carefree, playing in the sun; not living a nightmare in the darkness of the soul.

Change is inevitable. Progression is a choice. We all move, but are you going to move forward?

If you do not cultivate your life's environment, you will not captivate the worlds enlightenment.

Stop looking back when your future is ahead of you

Don’t ever forget you are beautiful, although your life, your past and your present situation may be ugly. You are beautiful.

I'm a buried kind of beautiful.Bring a shovel and a shooting starI may be a night's work.

Casey Renee Kiser

Neurotic suffering indicates inner conflict. Each side of the conflict is likely to be a composite of many partial forces, each one of which has been structured into behavior, attitude, perception, value. Each component asserts itself, claims priority, insists that something else yield, accommodates. The conflict therefore is fixed, stubborn, enduring. It may be impugned and dismissed without effect, imprecations and remorse are of no avail, strenuous acts of will may be futile; it causes - yet survives and continues to cause - the most intense suffering, humiliation, rending of flesh. Such a conflict is not to be uprooted or excised. It is not an ailment, it is the patient himself. The suffering will not disappear without a change in the conflict, and a change in the conflict amounts to a change in what one is and how one lives, feels, reacts.

The sequence is suffering, insight, will, action, change.

People may indeed be treated as objects and may be profoundly affected thereby. Kick a dog often enough and he will become cowardly or vicious. People who are kicked undergo similar changes; their view of the world and of themselves is transformed. . . People may indeed be brainwashed, for benign or exploitative reasons. . .If one's destiny is shaped by manipulation one has become more of an object, less of a subject, has lost freedom. . . If, however, one's destiny is shaped from within then one has become more of a creator, has gained freedom. This is self-transcendence, a process of change that originates in one's heart and expands outward. . . begins with a vision of freedom, with an "I want to become...", with a sense of the potentiality to become what one is not. One gropes toward this vision in the dark, with no guide, no map, and no guarantee. Here one acts as subject, author, creator.

When you’re a kid, you don’t think about big stuff that could change your life. You think about small things that might terrify you –like a bad report card or missing a goal in front of all your friends or your friends no longer wanting to play with you. Because that's the biggest stuff you know. The biggest disappointments are all tied to this small little universe of yours, because bigger things cannot fit into a small universe. If you wanted bigger things in there you needed to have more room –or make more room. Perhaps you thought about your parents or your pets dying, which was rare. But all you knew was you would be terribly sad and lonely. And on those occasions when people or pets actually died, someone usually came along and distracted you from feeling too much of your actual feelings. Grownups did that –they never left you alone to feel alone or think alone too much. They tended to think you are too small to know how to think and feel in big heaps, so they took parts of your heap onto themselves. To help – but in the long run –it doesn’t help at all. Because if you do not see, or feel or think, or taste the bitter things in life, you don’t know they exist. You have not seen enough of the world to know how terrible it could be. And unfortunately for Sam, this inability to process change persisted into adulthood.

Adelheid Manefeldt

Love and Hate are two of the most used, abused, and misused words of mankind.

Tiffany Winfree

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