Quotes About Abuse

Abuse is rejection. It is painful and toxic.

Abusive statements are lies about you which are told to you. They violate your boundaries. The abuser in effect invades your mind, makes up a "story" about your motives, and then tells it to you. No human being has the right to do that to another.

In a verbally abusive relationship the partner may recognize some problems but may believe that they can be worked out. Over time, however, as the abuse intensifies or changes in kind, the partner may

Since name calling is outrageously abusive, it should be responded to with outrage.

deny the abuse, she may grow to fear his anger and his unpredictability. At the same time she may fear the loss of love and the security she believed she had in the relationship.

If you have been called names, it is very important that you realize that no one ever, for any reason, has a right to call you names. There is no justification for name calling. If you have become accustomed to being called names, it is also important to keep in mind that it is possible to live your life free from this kind of abuse: many people do.

By recognizing the abuse for what it is, the partner dispels the

You cannot respond appropriately to denial if you believe the abuser. Do not believe the abuser's denial, or you may be caught in the endless cycle of trying to explain to him how he hurts or frightens you and just how disturbing some of his behavior is.

illusion of security in the relationship. When the partner is in psychological or physical danger from the abuser, her fear is very real. By acting to protect herself, the partner protects her own spirit and regains the security

Anything achieved by the partner is seen as a threat by the abuser.

One way to identify a relationship of inequality is to determine whether or not the couple can set mutual goals and discuss them together. In an abusive relationship, the couple does not really plan together. Planning together requires mutuality and equality.

begin to fear the abuser and to realize that she is being abused. If she confronts the abuser, if he is unwilling to change, if he becomes angrier and more abusive or more manipulative and confusing, if she asks him to stop it and he refuses or continues to

The underlying premise of this book is that verbal abuse is an issue of control, a means of holding power over another. This abuse may be overt or covert, constant, controlling, and what Bach and Deutsch (1980) call "crazymaking.

Playing Dead is a compelling book—a true page-turner. Smart, strong, and protective of her children, Monique was barraged with snide comments and criticism, yet had no idea that this was verbal abuse and never suspected its extreme escalation. Every chapter compels the reader forward to what's next."—Patricia Evans, author of The Verbally Abusive Relationship, Controlling People, and more.

Interestingly, abusers who trivialize their partners often brag about them to others as they would brag about a possession.

Verbally abusive women often have psychological disorders. I have not known these abusive women to seek help even when they face divorce. Some, as if they were victims, even initiate divorce. They seem to believe their accusations. In other words, their accusations are automatic explanations (confabulations) that their mind forms that explain to them why they feel attacked by their spouse's personhood, his success, or even his happiness.

In a verbally abusive relationship, the partner's need to understand and to be understood is not met.

A man who doles out sweets, and slaps, with the same hand.

In the 1980s, research on post traumatic stress disorder in Vietnam veterans was regarded as important, noble, and useful. When the same researchers looked at the same problem in children who had been sexually abused, a tremendous controversy ensued a controversy that persists to this day. There were those who disputed the extent and severity of the sexual abuse that had been uncovered.

Jeffrey Dahmer's crimes against his victims were not about instilling fear, sadistic torture, or abuse. Dahmer killed because he had insatiable urges: lust, power, and complete sexual control over a passive male partner.

Roche offered a different interpretation: while it might be true that some patients appeared to be abusing Librium and Valium, these were people who were using the drug in a nontherapeutic manner. Some individuals just have addictive personalities and are prone to abuse any substance you make available to them. This attitude was typical in the pharmaceutical industry: it's not the drugs that are bad; it's the people who abuse them.

In some cases, these communities also happened to have long-standing problems with prescription drug abuse. In some parts of Appalachia, people would pair an OxyContin with a Valium—one of Richard Sackler's pills and one of his uncle Arthur's. They called this "the Cadillac high.

Some participants had said that "the only difference between heroin and OxyContin is that you can get OxyContin from a doctor.

Between 1994 and 2015, the quota of oxycodone that the DEA permitted to be legally manufactured was raised thirty-six times. A subsequent report by the inspector general of the Justice Department criticized the DEA for being "slow to respond to the dramatic increase in opioid abuse.