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Abuse Quotes

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Abuse Quotes

“You pushed me down to the depths of my sorrow until I thought I wouldn’t see the light of day again. You expected me to drown, didn’t you? To be left there for an eternity, waiting for your hand to pull me out? What you didn’t stop to realize is that I live in the shadows, thrive even. When I pull myself from the darkness, I’ll be stronger for it and you’ll regret leaving me for dead.”

StrengthSorrowDepressionAbuseEscapeDrownBreaking Free
Book:When Night Falls: A Collection of Short Stories and Poems
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“...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.”

LoveMotherFightingFatherSilenceFamilyChildhoodCommunicationHeartbreakAbuseAngerScaredTerrorDivorceRageParentsSexismParenthoodFightHeartbrokenParents And ChildrenEmotional AbuseFuryMaliceChildhood MemoriesAbusiveMental AbuseFightsLove LostAbusive ParentsBroken Home
Book:Gone Girl
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“he put a veil over his wrongdoings that’s what he did it was tenderness and lust that’s what it was that’s what it looked like it should have been It should have been... but somewhere between the candied kisses and frigid disputes, came dead air and their love turned fictitious; misrepresented by Facebook posts and “cheerful” photographs his palms became like ice, his words like hail and he tore off the very mask that had fooled her But it was too late her body laid charred; tattered, weary and drawn her soul had vanquished the light was gone”

PoetryDarkHeartbreakAbuseTrigger WarningAmateur
Author:Alexis Bedard, The Stranger's Veil
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“I stood there, staring at the sleeping man snoring peacefully in my bed, unaware of the intrusion. I felt like a boy trying to steal the golden goose from under a giant’s nose. Any minute now, he would wake up and he would smell the scent of my fragrant flesh. I could kill him now, fuck the consequences. But it would mess everything up if I failed. Not just for me, but I felt in some ridiculous way, Ian's hopes were tied to me as well. Rho was already creating a life for himself. How much could he possibly care about the man he lost? Out of sight, out of mind. It was still the worst kind of betrayal, the one I got from Rho. My knight had stabbed my heart, left me to bleed out. And I was supposed to just act like nothing happened. Like it didn’t feel like dying, over and over. Like it wasn’t killing me. Just as I had nothing to hold me back, when I took this road with Rho, there was nothing holding me back now, without Rho, in this world so far away from him. Even if he didn't have a clue what was going on, it still hurt that he managed to find someone so quick. It wasn’t like him. But then again, maybe I put too much faith in the people who I loved so desperately.”

LoveHopeHeartbreakAbuseHeartacheTorture
Book:And then the Devil Cried: Episode Two
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“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.”

LoveNatureHeartbreakAbuseTraumaLustRecoveryMoving OnHuman ConditionMoving On And Letting GoAbusive RelationshipsAbusive RelationshipAbusive MenEnd Of A RelationshipDealing With Heartbreak
Book:calloused: a field journal
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“Over the years, the folly’s stones had collected enough tantrums, sobs, anger, and threats of vengeance to power a war. Every sister made wild statements at the folly, beat her chest, declared desires to murder, then went back home, exhausted and diminished. The circle never varied: the house, the folly, the house, the folly, as if they were trapped in an infinite, inescapable loop.”

WomenAbuseCyclesSisters
Book:When Mist and Brine Touch
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“There were little girls who would snuggle up to any grown man and try to guide his hand inside their underwear, and there were kids who compulsively bit their own arms. Kids who would suddenly start twitching and banging their heads against a wall, not even stopping when the blood ran down their faces. Kids who waddled around oblivious to the stinking load in their own pants. Watching children like this, it was all too easy to see why their parents beat them. It was only natural to hate such kids, to ignore them and shower only your other children with love. Who wouldn't? But of course that wasn't the way it really worked. Such behaviors weren't the reasons parents abused children, but the results of abuse. Children are powerless. No matter how viciously they're beaten, children were powerless to do anything about it. Even if Mother hit them with a shoehorn or the hose of a vacuum cleaner or the handle of a kitchen knife, or strangled them or poured boiling water on them, they couldn't escape her; they couldn't even truly despise her. Children would struggle desperately to feel love for their parents. Rather than hate a parent, in fact, they'd choose to hate themselves. Love and violence became so intertwined for them that when they grew up and got into relationships, only hysteria could set their hearts at ease. Kindness, gentleness - anything along those lines just caused tension, since there was no telling when it would turn to overt hostility.”

CompassionKindnessViolenceSadnessDepressionAbuseGirls
Author:Ryū Murakami
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“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 secrets of omission, desire, and denial. Of indulgence, hedonism, and exploration. Of peeves, passion, and deep-seated fear. Little secrets of despair and disrepair and prohibited thoroughfare.”

RomanceDesirePassionFearRelationshipsMarriageLonelinessBrokenSorrowDespairAbuseLustDenialInsecuritySecretsInfidelityIndulgenceDisclosureHedonismUnfaithfulnessDisrepair
Book:Years: a book of tiny poetry
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“The low-tone clarinet moans. The door upstairs opens again. Stella slips down the rickety stairs in her robe. Her eyes are glistening with tears and her hair loose about her throat and shoulders. They stare at each other. Then they come together with low, animal moans. He falls to his knees on the steps and presses his face to her belly, curving a little with maternity. Her eyes go blind with tenderness as she catches his head and raises him level with her. He snatches the screen door open and lifts her off her feet and bears her into the dark flat.”

DesirePassionAbuse
Book:A Streetcar Named Desire
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“You’re a survivor of emotional abuse—and you can escape this trap. Just remain calm, patient, and always kind to yourself. Someday you will be able to talk about this experience eloquently and believably.”

KindEmotionExperienceAbusePatientCalmEscapeEloquentTrapBelievably
Book:Psychopath Free: Recovering from Emotionally Abusive Relationships With Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Other Toxic People
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“Dr. Stern’s explanation of how to identify this kind of covert emotional control and abuse, and how to resist it, is a very important tool for young women in particular to use, if they wish to safeguard their emotional well-being, resist others’ efforts to control and manipulate them, and choose relationships that support and nurture their development.”

EmotionSupportRelationshipAbuseControlNurtureManipulateCovertSafeguard
Book:The Gaslight Effect: How to Spot and Survive the Hidden Manipulation Others Use to Control Your Life
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“I had a bizarre rapport with this mirror and spent a lot of time gazing into the glass to see who was there. Sometimes it looked like me. At other times, I could see someone similar but different in the reflection. A few times, I caught the switch in mid-stare, my expression re-forming like melting rubber, the creases and features of my face softening or hardening until the mutation was complete. Jekyll to Hyde, or Hyde to Jekyll. I felt my inner core change at the same time. I would feel more confident or less confident; mature or childlike; freezing cold or sticky hot, a state that would drive Mum mad as I escaped to the bathroom where I would remain for two hours scrubbing my skin until it was raw. The change was triggered by different emotions: on hearing a particular piece of music; the sight of my father, the smell of his brand of aftershave. I would pick up a book with the certainty that I had not read it before and hear the words as I read them like an echo inside my head. Like Alice in the Lewis Carroll story, I slipped into the depths of the looking glass and couldn’t be sure if it was me standing there or an impostor, a lookalike. I felt fully awake most of the time, but sometimes while I was awake it felt as if I were dreaming. In this dream state I didn’t feel like me, the real me. I felt numb. My fingers prickled. My eyes in the mirror’s reflection were glazed like the eyes of a mannequin in a shop window, my colour, my shape, but without light or focus. These changes were described by Dr Purvis as mood swings and by Mother as floods, but I knew better. All teenagers are moody when it suits them. My Switches could take place when I was alone, transforming me from a bright sixteen-year-old doing her homework into a sobbing child curled on the bed staring at the wall. The weeping fit would pass and I would drag myself back to the mirror expecting to see a child version of myself. ‘Who are you?’ I’d ask. I could hear the words; it sounded like me but it wasn’t me. I’d watch my lips moving and say it again, ‘Who are you?”

ChangeEmotionIdentityAbuseMental HealthTraumaSurvivorChildDreamingSexual AbuseDissociative Identity DisorderUnrealDissociationMirrorAmnesiaMultiple Personality DisorderIncestIdentity CrisisUnrealityMemory LossDissociativeSplit PersonalityTriggerIdentity ConfusionImpostorTriggeredDissociated StateDream LikeLookalikePersonality SwitchEmotionalsIdentity AlternationIdentity Switch
Book:Today I'm Alice: Nine Personalities, One Tortured Mind
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“If I was set an essay on Friday, I’d spend three hours on Saturday morning in the library. Was that normal? I didn’t know. What I did know was that I felt less prone to depression and more normal walking through Venice or staring out over the lake in Zurich. At home I wrestled continually with my moods. The black thing inside me gnawed like a rat at my self-esteem and self-confidence. I felt there was a happy person inside me too, who wanted to enjoy life, to be normal, but my feelings of self-loathing and the deep distrust I had towards my father wouldn’t allow that sunny person to come out. When the black thing had an iron grip on me, I couldn’t even look at my father: Did you do bad things to me when I was little? Like a line from a song stuck in your brain, the words ran through my head and never once came out of my mouth. Not that I needed to say what was in my mind. I was sure Father could read my thoughts in my moods, in the blank, dead stare of my eyes. It was hardly surprising that there was always an atmosphere of strain and awkwardness in the house, and the blame was always mine: Alice and her moods, Alice and her anorexia; Alice and her low self-esteem; Alice and her inescapable feelings of loss and emptiness.”

EmotionEmotionalDepressionEmptyAbuseMental HealthTraumaTeenagerEmptinessSurvivorSexual AbuseDissociative Identity DisorderDissociationChild Sexual AbuseAnorexiaEssayMultiple Personality DisorderIncestDissociative
Book:Today I'm Alice: Nine Personalities, One Tortured Mind
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“The concept of leadership is abused by people who think a person becomes a leader when he grows grey hair, put into a position and expected to function. Everyone has a leadership potential carried within in a specific area of his or purpose. Leadership is universal and built on trust.”

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Author:Israelmore Ayivor
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“Mrs. De Ropp would never, in her honestest moments, have confessed to herself that she disliked Conradin, though she might have been dimly aware that thwarting him "for his good" was a duty which she did not find particularly irksome. Conradin hated her with a desperate sincerity which he was perfectly able to mask. Such few pleasures as he could contrive for himself gained an added relish from the likelihood that they would be displeasing to his guardian, and from the realm of his imagination she was locked out--an unclean thing, which should find no entrance.”

ImaginationHonestyAbuseDislikeGuardianshipFamilial Relationships
Author:H. H. Munro, Saki
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“Causing any damage or harm to one party in order to help another party is not justice, and likewise, attacking all feminine conduct [in order to warn men away from individual women who are deceitful] is contrary to the truth, just as I will show you with a hypothetical case. Let us suppose they did this intending to draw fools away from foolishness. It would be as if I attacked fire -- a very good and necessary element nevertheless -- because some people burnt themselves, or water because someone drowned. The same can be said of all good things which can be used well or used badly. But one must not attack them if fools abuse them.”

MenTruthWomenWaterFireDangerMoralityArgumentAbusePrejudiceIndividualityGenderHarmDamageHypocrisyMisogynyFoolishnessStereotypesSocial NormsDouble StandardsConductPerceptionsMisrepresentationClichésGeneralizationsOne Sidedness
Book:The Book of the City of Ladies
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“The ... conditions of democracy in the public sphere ... bear very directly upon the democratisation of personal life. Violent and abusive relationships are common in the sexual domain and between adults and children. Most such violence comes from men and is directed towards beings weaker than themselves. As an emancipatory ideal of democracy, the prohibition of violence is of basic importance. Coercive influences in relationships, however, obviously can take forms other than physical violence. Individuals may be prone, for example, to engage in emotional or verbal abuse of one another; marriage, so the saying goes, is a poor substitute for respect. Avoidance of emotional abuse is perhaps the most difficult aspect of the equalising of power in relationship; but the guiding principle is clearly respect for the independent views and personal traits of the other.”

MarriageDemocracyRespectAbuseIndividualityIntimacyAutonomyPrivate Life
Book:The Transformation of Intimacy: Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in Modern Societies
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“They torture us but could not kill our spirit. We have greater divine power, guiding and protecting us.”

InspirationalWisdomSpiritHopeChallengesSelf HelpLife PhilosophyWise WordsPrayingDespairAbuseDisappointmentObstaclesChristian LifePhilosophy Of LifeGuidanceTortureHard TimesWarfareEducational PhilosophyFighting SpiritReligious FaithOvercomerOvercoming AdversityDetermined SpiritDeliveranceGod S GraceSpiritual InsightsSaved SoulsDivine GraceDivine InterventionUplifting ThoughtsSurviving SpiritSurviving Tragedy
Book:Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind
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“Over the years, I have sat with many very poor mothers and fathers as they have shared their stories of surviving genocide, slavery, murder, torture, humiliating rapes, and abuse. The pain they describe is unfathomable – and mental temptation is to imagine that the people who endure it are somehow fundamentally different from me. Maybe, somehow, they just don’t feel things like I do. Maybe they expect less, care less, hope for less, want less or need less. But painfully, over time, I have seen that they are exactly like me.”

SufferingCompassionPovertyEmpathyAbuse
Book:The Locust Effect: Why the End of Poverty Requires the End of Violence
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“For the hundreds of millions of the world’s poorest people who live outside the protection of the rule of law, they principal reason they suffer abuse is often not the absence of good laws, but the absence of a functioning public justice system to enforce those laws.”

LawJusticePovertyViolenceAbuseInjusticePoor PeopleDeveloping World
Book:The Locust Effect: Why the End of Poverty Requires the End of Violence
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