Quotes About Hurtfulness

Beyond a certain point, gathering further evidence of the hurtfulness and shortcomings of one's family, employer, et cetera is like eating the same poisonous mushroom over and over and expecting that sooner or later it will be nutritious.

There are many perpetrators who seem to have a sixth sense for identifying people who have lost the ability to protest and blame unfairness. If we do not register a "negative" feeling response to hurtfulness, we cannot tell that we are being abused. Instead we tacitly "forgive" our abusers just as we were forced to tacitly forgive our parents, no matter how much ongoing abuse they dish out. This is why psychoanalyst Judith Viorst says: