Quotessence
Home / Topics / Emotional Abuse Quotes

Emotional Abuse Quotes

Browse 479 quotes about Emotional Abuse.

Emotional Abuse Quotes

“Miracles can be found in the most unlikely of places. I found the light not by swimming to the surface, but by letting myself drown in the seas of my deepest fears. Not by eradicating the dark, but by embracing it. I realized that there is no such a thing as darkness, only light and the absence of it. It is there in the light of unconditional love that I finally found the freedom I had been searching for so long.”

SpiritualitySelf LoveEmpowermentMental HealthTraumaAwakeningEmotional AbuseAbuse SurvivorsOvercoming Challenges QuotesEmotional Neglect
Book:Winter Magnolia
Create image

“He was important. That’s the complete definition of his being. But the truth is, I’m important too. We lose ourselves in people the moment we intertwine. We justify things they do wrong and fall in love with things they do right. We justify little jabs, little words, little white lies with thinking they’re normal. They’re not. When you fall in love with someone, you want them happy. Their happiness makes you happy. That’s love. And since I was in love, I thought I was actually wrong. I would reward him when he treated me horribly. I would love him harder when he threw toxicity. It was dangerous. Vile. Absolutely terrifying that someone could make you feel so immensely cold, but so crazy in love. That’s emotional abuse.”

TruthThoughtsAbuseToxicLovingEmotional AbuseToxicity
Author:Dominic Riccitello
Create image

“People don’t necessarily realize it when they contribute to the erosion of a child’s self-worth, but kids pay attention to how people treat them, and they get the message loud and clear. I wish I could say it didn’t distort their self-perception and make them more sensitive and insecure, but it does.”

ChildrenMental HealthBullyingEmotional AbuseMental Health AwarenessChildhood TraumaMental Health StigmaNeurodivergenceKindness Matters
Book:Grateful to Be Alive: My Road to Recovery from Addiction
Create image

“Because we were treated neglectfully and abusively in our young years—when we most needed self-love to be mirrored—it was difficult to hold onto…We take up the challenge of learning to love ourselves, through our highs & our lows, when we are finding acceptance from others and when we are being closed out and rejected.”

HealingSelf LoveNeglectSelf AcceptanceLove YourselfChild AbuseEmotional AbuseAbuse SurvivorsSelf Love QuotesHealing InsightsHealing From AbuseRecovery From AbuseChild Abuse SurvivorsEmotional NeglectChild Neglect
Book:Beyond Survival: A Writing Journey for Healing Childhood Sexual Abuse
Create image

“Emotionally stable parents share their children’s joy and quiet their fear. But caretaking roles are reversed for children of borderlines whose mothers are chronically upset. Children repress their fear in order to calm their mother. Situations that should frighten children may not because they have learned not to feel.”

MotherParentsChild AbuseEmotional AbuseBorderlineAbusive ParentsBpdAbusive MotherAbusive Women
Book:Understanding the Borderline Mother
Create image

“a single outburst does not produce a difficult relational environment. It is only when a parent [or anyone] repeatedly and regularly uses anger to close conversations, in the broadest sense of 'conversation,' that a dilemma is framed. When a parent [or partner] uses anger or the threat of anger to dominate the emotional atmosphere, then even potentially good conversations with them lose spontaneity, openness and honesty.”

RelationshipsAbuseAngerParentsDominationEmotional AbuseAttackSpouses
Book:Difficult Mothers: Understanding and Overcoming Their Power
Create image

“All people cross the line from childhood to adulthood with a secondhand opinion of who they are. Without any questioning, we take as truth whatever our parents and other influentials have said about us during our childhood, whether these messages are communicated verbally, physically, or silently.”

HealingInfluenceAbuseParentingParentsManipulationChild AbuseEmotional AbuseAbuse SurvivorsSurvivorsDysfunctional FamiliesBelief SystemCore BeliefsChild Abuse Survivors
Book:Am I Bad? Recovering from Abuse
Create image

“The damage and invisible scars of emotional abuse are very difficult to heal, because memories are imprinted on our minds and hearts and it takes time to be restored. Imprints of past traumas do not mean a person cannot change their future beliefs and behaviors. as people, we do not easily forget. However, as we heal, grieve, and let go, we become clear-minded and focused to live restore and emotionally healthy.”

HealingRecoveryEmotional AbuseEmotional PainAbuse SurvivorsHealing The PastHealing JourneyEmotional HealthTraumatic ExperiencesHope For The FutureHealing The Emotional SelfTrauma SurvivorsHealing ProcessEmotional WoundsTrauma MemoriesScars Of The PastHearts And MindsRestoring HappinessInvisible Wounds
Book:Breaking Passive-Aggressive Cycles
Create image

“I cannot stress enough how good it is to know the future. If I didn’t come back with my memories intact, I would have probably clung to my father. I would have hated to see myself, unlovable, begging for attention, and finally turning into an ugly woman all over again. Yes, to live a good life… I just need to do nothing. The moment I tried to do something, I would attract people’s hatred and anger.”

HealingRejectionChild AbuseEmotional AbuseRegression
Book:폭군님은 착하게 살고 싶어 [Poggunnim'eun Chaghage Salgo Sip'eo]
Create image

“Sometimes, you lose somebody to find that love is meant to return home. And now, as I gather the ashes, I know I will live and love again, but this time, it will be me who stands in the center of that flame. This time, that love will be mine.”

LoveRelationshipsHealingReflectionTraumaManipulationEmotional AbuseNarcissistic AbuseTrauma BondBlame Shifting
Book:In the Darkness of Shards: Poems from a Broken Place
Create image

“The woman knows from living with the abusive man that there are no simple answers. Friends say: “He’s mean.” But she knows many ways in which he has been good to her. Friends say: “He treats you that way because he can get away with it. I would never let someone treat me that way.” But she knows that the times when she puts her foot down the most firmly, he responds by becoming his angriest and most intimidating. When she stands up to him, he makes her pay for it—sooner or later. Friends say: “Leave him.” But she knows it won’t be that easy. He will promise to change. He’ll get friends and relatives to feel sorry for him and pressure her to give him another chance. He’ll get severely depressed, causing her to worry whether he’ll be all right. And, depending on what style of abuser he is, she may know that he will become dangerous when she tries to leave him. She may even be concerned that he will try to take her children away from her, as some abusers do.”

PsychologyAbuseDomestic ViolenceEmotional AbuseDomestic AbuseMental AbusePhysical AbusePsychological AbuseAbusive RelationshipsAbusive RelationshipAbused WomenAbusive MenAbuserAbusive PartnersAbusive Partner
Book:Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men
Create image

“Invalidating someone else is not merely disagreeing with something that the other person said. It is a process in which individuals communicate to another that the opinions and emotions of the target are invalid, irrational, selfish, uncaring, stupid, most likely insane, and wrong, wrong, wrong. Invalidators let it be known directly or indirectly that their targets views and feelings do not count for anything to anybody at any time or in any way.”

PsychologyStupidSelfishInsaneDumbIrrationalEmotional AbuseAbuse SurvivorsPsychological AbuseAbusive RelationshipsAbusive ParentsAbusive PeopleCrazy MakingInvalidateIrrational ThinkingFeeling StupidInvalidating
Author:David M. Allen
Create image

“How do we find words for describing levels of betrayal and emotional, physical, sexual and spiritual torture that fragment and destroy a child or cast and case traumatic shadows over the whole of adult life? We might, as a society, slowly find it possible to accept that one in four citizens are likely to have experience some form of emotional, psychical, sexual or spiritual abuse (McQueen, Itzin, Kennedy, Sinason, & Maxted, 2008), in itself a figure unimaginable and hidden twenty years ago. However, accepting the way a hurt and hurting parent or stranger re-enacts their disturbance with a vulnerable child or children remains far easier to digest than to consider the intellectually planned, scientific, methodical, procedures of organized child-abusing perpetrators-in other words, torture.”

MindPsychologyAbuseTraumaBetrayalTherapyTortureChildChild AbuseSexual AbuseEmotional AbuseRapeDissociative Identity DisorderDissociationMind ControlMultiplicityUnimaginableRitual AbusePhysical AbusePsychological AbuseCultsTraumaticChild AbusersFragmentSpiritual AbusePsychotherapistSplinterMuliple Personality Disorder
Author:Valerie Sinason
Create image

“If unloving mothers were able to see their behavious as abusive, they either would stop behaving that way or they would get help for their dysfunction. But many cannot: instead, they deny it, to themselves, their families, and the world at large, in order to avoid a sense of guilt, to avoid having to make changes in their lives, or to avoid the bruising awareness that they, too, were unloved children.”

ChildhoodAbuseEmotional AbuseChildhood TraumaMother Daughter RelationshipEngulfing MotherNarcissistic Parent
Book:When You and Your Mother Can't Be Friends: Resolving the Most Complicated Relationship of Your Life
Create image

“If you are told from the time you are one month that you're no good and you're not smart and you can't do it and you don't have an opinion of your own and you pick the wrong friends and you don't study the right way and you don't wear the right clothes and you don't look nice, at some point you're going to start believing it. And if you believe it, you're going to need a mommy to tell you what to do. And that's abuse. Not to let your child grow up to be an independent, respected human being.”

ChildhoodAbuseEmotional AbuseChildhood TraumaMother Daughter RelationshipEngulfing MotherNarcissistic Parent
Book:When You and Your Mother Can't Be Friends: Resolving the Most Complicated Relationship of Your Life
Create image

“Another step is that daughters can learn to monitor their own feelings and instincts by saying, "I feel uncomfortable (angry, dominated, usurped, inadequate, guilty, furious) with my mother more often than I do not. I have to pay attention to that, because it shows in how I treat my friends (lover, spouse, kids, colleagues). There is validity here. I don't have to blame or excuse my mother-I just have to see her so I can see myself.”

ChildhoodAbuseEmotional AbuseChildhood TraumaMother Daughter RelationshipEngulfing MotherNarcissistic Parent
Book:When You and Your Mother Can't Be Friends: Resolving the Most Complicated Relationship of Your Life
Create image

“When a mother attempts to bind a grown daughter to her, whether by fear or neediness or illness or rage, the consequences can be devastating. To continue trying to please an unpleasable mother threatens an adult daughter's mental health and all of her relationships. And yet such daughters keep coming back to their mothers, without the daughters' altering that relationship and their bitter or anguished reactions to it.”

ChildhoodAbuseEmotional AbuseChildhood TraumaMother Daughter RelationshipEngulfing MotherNarcissistic Parent
Book:When You and Your Mother Can't Be Friends: Resolving the Most Complicated Relationship of Your Life
Create image

“Emotional incest is yet another form of emotional abuse. Emotional incest commonly involves the reversal of the parent/child roles. When this occurs, the mother or father "parentifies" the child who is then manipulated to gratify the unmet childhood needs of the parent. This typically manifests as the parent pumping the child for the unconditional love that she should herself be giving.”

LoveHealingChildhoodAbuseParentingEmotional Abuse
Book:The Tao of Fully Feeling: Harvesting Forgiveness Out of Blame
Create image

“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.”

PsychologyAbuseDomestic ViolenceEmotional AbuseAbuse SurvivorsDomestic AbuseAbusersMental AbusePhysical AbusePsychological AbuseAbusive RelationshipsAbusive RelationshipAbused WomenAbusive MenAbuserAbusive Partners
Book:Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men
Create image

“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.”

AbuseDomestic ViolenceEmotional AbuseDomestic AbuseAbusersMental AbusePhysical AbusePsychological AbuseAbusive RelationshipsAbusive RelationshipAbused WomenAbusive MenAbuserAbusive PartnersAbusive Partner
Book:Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men
Create image

“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.”

AbuseEmotional AbuseIntimidationMental AbusePhysical AbuseAbusive RelationshipVerbal AbuseAbused WomenAbusive MenAbuserAbusive Partners
Book:Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men
Create image

“Domestic violence is just as much a quality-of-life and liberty for community, social, and legal attention to support mental, emotional, health, wellness & physical safety as any other epidemic outbreak; only this illness has an anger managed, self-controlled, personal boundary-respecting, and accountability-subjective cure!”

Mental HealthChild AbuseDomestic ViolenceSexual AbuseEmotional AbusePhysical AbuseAbuserCure Diseases Without MedicinesElder Abuse
Author:Tracey Bond
Create image

“Therapists sometimes warn family members not to depend on the person with BPD to validate their self-worth, yet young children have no choice. They can and will do anything to hold onto the good mother (the loving, caring person) who unpredictably turns into the Witch mother (the terrifying, raging beast).”

Child AbuseEmotional AbuseBorderline Personality DisorderBpdAbusive MotherBorderline Mother
Book:Understanding the Borderline Mother
Create image

“The way of the world is full of judgmental people. People size me up and down with their eyes. I am told that my hair is too curly to be white and too straight to be black. People ask me questions as if I owe them an answer—what does my race have anything to do with you—and why do you care. The fact is, race shouldn’t exist—it is not real. It is made up, but race does matter.” Race shouldn’t matter, but it does. In society's eyes, race is stubbornly real.”

EqualityDiscriminationMotivational InspirationalEmotional AbuseMental Health QuotesRace And Racism In AmericaBiracialMultiracial
Book:Why Are You Obsessed with My Race?
Create image