Best 77 quotes in «mental abuse quotes» category

...my father, [was] a mid-level phonecompany manager who treated my mother at best like an incompetent employee. At worst? He never beat her, but his pure, inarticulate fury would fill the house for days, weeks, at a time, making the air humid, hard to breathe, my father stalking around with his lower jaw jutting out, giving him the look of a wounded, vengeful boxer, grinding his teeth so loud you could hear it across the room ... I'm sure he told himself: 'I never hit her'. I'm sure because of this technicality he never saw himself as an abuser. But he turned our family life into an endless road trip with bad directions and a rage-clenched driver, a vacation that never got a chance to be fun.

IN ONE IMPORTANT WAY, an abusive man works like a magician: His tricks largely rely on getting you to look off in the wrong direction, distracting your attention so that you won’t notice where the real action is. He draws you into focusing on the turbulent world of his feelings to keep your eyes turned away from the true cause of his abusiveness, which lies in how he thinks. He leads you into a convoluted maze, making your relationship with him a labyrinth of twists and turns. He wants you to puzzle over him, to try to figure him out, as though he were a wonderful but broken machine for which you need only to find and fix the malfunctioning parts to bring it roaring to its full potential. His desire, though he may not admit it even to himself, is that you wrack your brain in this way so that you won’t notice the patterns and logic of his behavior, the consciousness behind the craziness.

In the process of forgiveness, you can only control your own actions and decisions.

In an unforgiving world, chaos rules.

Offer yourself forgiveness as a gift. The word ‘give’ is the basic keyword in the word forgiveness, therefore it relays a meaning therein.

It is his actions that are causing me to consider leaving him. He is responsible for the hurt he feels as a result of his behavior. It is not selfish to protect myself from harm.

Overly playing the role of the victim can debar you from accepting responsibility for your actions and emotions.

Locking ourselves in the situation where we wish for sympathy and want to be looked at as the aggrieved party normally makes us powerless.

One way you can trace your way back to real and true happiness and joy is through forgiveness.

Other people may well not find it relevant that you have forgiven yourself, but you need to know that it is not for them anyway. Everything at the moment is wholly about you.

Pain can cause us to learn no end of lessons, but without resolution there can be no healing!

Staying in an unhealthy relationship that robs you of peace of mind, is not being loyal. It is choosing to hurt yourself mentally, emotionally and sometimes, physically.

Sometimes we are very convinced that what we went through needs to be re-lived so we end up going back and forth to the demons of the past and eventually we fail to get over them.

Take a walk through the garden of forgiveness and pick a flower of forgiveness for everything you have ever done.

The idea of always wanting to be the victim in circumstances where you have been offended is a common human trait. Each person wants to be viewed as the aggrieved party.

Remember, forgiveness is not a millstone but a milestone!

The abuser’s mood changes are especially perplexing. He can be a different person from day to day, or even from hour to hour. At times he is aggressive and intimidating, his tone harsh, insults spewing from his mouth, ridicule dripping from him like oil from a drum. When he’s in this mode, nothing she says seems to have any impact on him, except to make him even angrier. Her side of the argument counts for nothing in his eyes, and everything is her fault. He twists her words around so that she always ends up on the defensive. As so many partners of my clients have said to me, “I just can’t seem to do anything right.” At other moments, he sounds wounded and lost, hungering for love and for someone to take care of him. When this side of him emerges, he appears open and ready to heal. He seems to let down his guard, his hard exterior softens, and he may take on the quality of a hurt child, difficult and frustrating but lovable. Looking at him in this deflated state, his partner has trouble imagining that the abuser inside of him will ever be back. The beast that takes him over at other times looks completely unrelated to the tender person she now sees. Sooner or later, though, the shadow comes back over him, as if it had a life of its own. Weeks of peace may go by, but eventually she finds herself under assault once again. Then her head spins with the arduous effort of untangling the many threads of his character, until she begins to wonder whether she is the one whose head isn’t quite right.

The central attitudes driving Mr. Right are: You should be in awe of my intelligence and should look up to me intellectually. I know better than you do, even about what’s good for you. Your opinions aren’t worth listening to carefully or taking seriously. The fact that you sometimes disagree with me shows how sloppy your thinking is. If you would just accept that I know what’s right, our relationship would go much better. Your own life would go better, too. When you disagree with me about something, no matter how respectfully or meekly, that’s mistreatment of me. If I put you down for long enough, some day you’ll see.

The central attitudes driving the Terrorist are: You have no right to defy me or leave me. Your life is in my hands. Women are evil and have to be kept terrorized to prevent that evil from coming forth. I would rather die than accept your right to independence. The children are one of the best tools I can use to make you fearful. Seeing you terrified is exciting and satisfying.

The heart is where the journey of forgiveness begins.

The idea of forgiveness is a journey that requires patience. If the journey of forgiveness is well travelled, there is a chance that we are bound to change in a very helpful way.

The moment we become forgivers, then we are in line to enjoy the benefits of forgiveness.

The minute we put aside our self-righteousness and move away from being the aggrieved, then we are on a healing process.

The moment we see beyond our personal desires to be felt sympathy for, that is the time we can actually start the journey to that final destination of true forgiveness.

The most basic method one can use to let go of the past is by looking at it as a learning experience.

The pain you have gone through will give you the strength of character to come through it all, so long as you learn from what you have suffered then it was not suffering at all.

The purpose of forgiveness is not to make sure that someone ends up changing into what you expect them to be, as this is dominance. The purpose is actually to make your own life better, more worthy and less stressful. Forgiveness reduces the hold that the wrongdoer has over you and empowers you.

The same zeal and guts with which you were persistent not to forgive is the same zeal and enthusiasm with which you should be able to open up a new relationship with your partner, loved one or friend, one that is founded on commitment and dedication.

The symptoms of abuse are there, and the woman usually sees them: the escalating frequency of put-downs. Early generosity turning more and more to selfishness. Verbal explosions when he is irritated or when he doesn’t get his way. Her grievances constantly turned around on her, so that everything is her own fault. His growing attitude that he knows what is good for her better than she does. And, in many relationships, a mounting sense of fear or intimidation. But the woman also sees that her partner is a human being who can be caring and affectionate at times, and she loves him. She wants to figure out why he gets so upset, so that she can help him break his pattern of ups and downs. She gets drawn into the complexities of his inner world, trying to uncover clues, moving pieces around in an attempt to solve an elaborate puzzle.

The only thing that will make us remain glued to being the victim is our failure to handle the emotions that we go through and the pain that overcomes us.

The pain you feel is simply because you do not yet have the strength to forgive. But you will grow strong again, that is for sure.

The practice of forgiving is a sequential practice that begins with excusing someone.

The truth is, forgiving is a rather simple concept to grasp. It is often imagined that when you forgive, you have to reconcile with someone and yet this is a larger team in which forgiveness is just a player.

To make matters worse, everyone she talks to has a different opinion about the nature of his problem and what she should do about it. Her clergyperson may tell her, “Love heals all difficulties. Give him your heart fully, and he will find the spirit of God.” Her therapist speaks a different language, saying, “He triggers strong reactions in you because he reminds you of your father, and you set things off in him because of his relationship with his mother. You each need to work on not pushing each other’s buttons.” A recovering alcoholic friend tells her, “He’s a rage addict. He controls you because he is terrified of his own fears. You need to get him into a twelve-step program.” Her brother may say to her, “He’s a good guy. I know he loses his temper with you sometimes—he does have a short fuse—but you’re no prize yourself with that mouth of yours. You two need to work it out, for the good of the children.” And then, to crown her increasing confusion, she may hear from her mother, or her child’s schoolteacher, or her best friend: “He’s mean and crazy, and he’ll never change. All he wants is to hurt you. Leave him now before he does something even worse.” All of these people are trying to help, and they are all talking about the same abuser. But he looks different from each angle of view.

We are often so convinced that we are so hurt and in pain, so much so that we opt not to forgive. Yet, as a consequence, that is what will make you weak!

The world is full of victims; don’t add to the growing culture of “I’ve a story to tell”, well not unless it’s a story to help others overcome situations or as a warning.

This pain you are avoiding is a very necessary pain that will make you strong again.

We invent what we need to get us by, but in doing so we are really continuing to hold on to the pain of yesterday.

When you forgive, it does not mean that you have submitted, it simply means that you have made a choice to stop bearing any grudge.

When you forgive, you are freed from some of the feelings of disapproval and it can contribute to lessening your negative thoughts.

When you forgive, you immerse yourself in healing waters.

When you make up your mind to forgive, your happiness will almost automatically follow.

You are simply naturally inclined to make mistakes just as everyone else is, whether male or female, black or white, young or old. These mistakes are your school of learning, therefore forgiveness is your greatest teacher in this school of learning.

When I ask you who you are, you'd better say my fucking name.

Your forgiveness or failure to forgive simply takes you nearer or further away from your ultimate goal. There are no two ways to deal with it, there is only one.

What you have suffered after you have healed will make perfect sense.

You are not, though, forgiving so as to let others off with things. You are forgiving so that you can empower yourself to get over it and become strong.

You are the custodian of your own happiness. What other people say, do or think does not create a basis for your happiness. It is you who decides your own happiness, just like forgiveness.

You can learn to heal yourself, learn to understand that the pain you feel today is the strength you feel tomorrow!

All the resentment that lies in your heart is simply causing damage to you mostly.