Shannon Thomas Quotes

Becoming fully aware of the dynamics of psychological abuse is not an easy truth to absorb.

until victims know deep in their souls that it is a choice to be an abuser, they will continue to entertain pity for toxic people.

It is not about holding on to hurts but not allowing time or distance to distort the truth about the abuse.   If

Restoration is to take the actions that are within our power to restore what our abusers took from us.

The important thing to remember is that even if survivors stayed broken for the rest of their lives, the abusers do not. They are not experiencing the same devastation. They never did.

When we don’t honor ourselves, we are coming into agreement with the abuser’s toxic agenda. We end up abusing ourselves too.   While

I saw a post online where someone said, “An abuser doesn’t abuse every day.” That, my friend, is intermittent reinforcement in a nutshell.

Rarely does a toxic person give an authentic apology. To do so would be too much evidence that they are just like everyone else and flawed.

By the time survivors are compelled to leave their psychologically abusive relationships, they do not see any other viable option but to leave. They have tried anything and everything to keep their relationship going. No matter how hard they tried to fit the mold the abuser wanted, it was never enough.

When an abuser gaslights, he or she sets up situations to make the target doubt their own memories and assessments of situations. This is done in order that survivors will become so unsure of themselves they hand over reign of their lives to the abusers.

The abuser sees it as a huge victory to turn an independent survivor into a needy, dependent person who can no longer make decisions without the abusive person’s help.

An educated survivor can, and will, guard against future abuse.

Normal people have a hard time comprehending that abusers go to such lengths, but they do.

Living well does not mean the abuse never happened. It means the abuse did not damage you beyond repair.

If your definition of love is wanting to see another person authentically happy and living a fulfilled life, then the answer is no. Psychological abusers cannot feel love. They can only mimic what love looks like.

Normal people don’t play all the toxic games psychological abusers do, and yet, survivors end up initially blaming themselves.

Resist remaining in any level of denial. The truth is painful to see, but necessary.

Of all the offenses an abuser puts a target through, I am most deeply outraged by the stealing of goodness. It offends me at a core level.

Abusers like to target people who have something they do not or cannot possess themselves. Narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths are notorious for picking targets that initially boost their egos. It could be the target’s appearance, age, intellect, reputation, religious convictions, career success, family, friends, or something else.

It’s called hidden abuse for a reason. Abusers are out for emotional blood when they use gaslighting to undermine a target’s sense of self. They know exactly what they do. They want the survivors to look petty in the eyes of other people. They want them to question themselves and their grasp on reality. They want survivors to fall apart so they can better control or mock them.   Smear

Tenderness from empaths will be used against them time and time again by psychological abusers.   In

We are hardwired to need and want to be included.

A survivor who is isolated (whether in physical or emotional distance) from his or her family of origin will experience profound grieving.

Rather than being insecure, psychological abusers are easily offended, consumed with themselves, and want things just their way.   Each

To move into restoration does not mean the abusers never did anything wrong. Moving forward is also not an indicator that their actions never harmed you. What restoration does is provide the ability for survivors to bring hope back into their lives; maybe for the first time.

Survivors are wise to not fall into the trap of second guessing all of their actions because it is likely they could never show enough agreement to please a truly toxic person.

Unraveling the lies and replacing them with truth is at the heart of the recovery journey for survivors of psychological abuse.

Boundaries are the foundation for regulating a high degree of compassion for other people.

A Narcissist will run you over and scold you for being in their way. They will endlessly complain about how you damaged their car.   A

People should never underestimate a psychological abuser’s ability to hide the truth. They are not even honest with themselves and truly believe their own lies.   I

Psychological abusers are known for becoming jealous of any attention not being given to them.

Chronic selfishness and parenting do not go together.   Bonded

Most people have no clue hidden abuse is taking place right under their noses. It is being perpetrated by individuals who would never be suspected of being abusers. The concealed nature of this harm is what leaves its targets devastated.

Realizing toxic people are not actually insecure is one of the hardest concepts for survivors because thinking toxic people struggle with insecurities is a form of justification for their bad behaviors.

Small empowering steps towards independence from a psychological abuser are incredibly important to the deprogramming process of recovery.

The problem is a survivor never knows when the next warm and fuzzy experience will happen, or when the next episode of abuse is coming through the door.

Toxic people are great actors. They will utilize whichever props are available to maintain control in the relationship.

Any personal growth that comes after abuse is a testimony to the strength of the survivor.   I

psychological abusers damage others – not out of impaired judgement – but because they enjoy the control they gain from abusing people.

The ability of the abuser to harm someone close to him or her fits perfectly into the lack of relational attachment that is present within all psychological abusers.   Even

Personality disordered people do not take too favorably to having their faults pointed out, regardless of how gently the topic is broached.   Intermittent

Survivors often get to a point in recovery where they can predict the responses of the toxic person.

Denial is a powerful human component that cannot be ignored in the context of psychological abuse.

Facing the truth about those we have loved (e.g., our parents, siblings, a treasured friend, or a spiritual leader) is unbelievably hard, but there is no glory in clinging to a lie because the truth is too painful to accept.   One

In a nutshell, the Despair stage is not pretty. It is the stage where the survivor realizes careers have been lost because of the chaos the abuser has brought into the survivor’s life.

Some are quietly deteriorating the person’s self-esteem through the emotional game of abandonment. Being present physically but checked out emotionally is not a marriage or a relationship.

Toxic people have an incredible ability to triangulate their helpers into abusing survivors. This is done on purpose so the toxic person’s hands stay clean from the abuse. It’s hard to pin responsibility on an abuser when he or she wasn’t even in the same room when the offense took place.

Psychologically abusive families can never be without a targeted victim. Otherwise, they would have to look at their own individual issues and deal with them. That is not likely to happen.   Psychologically

The survivor’s perfect romantic interest, mentor, or friend has abruptly turned on her or him. It’s a crushing season in life. How could someone who once professed love, or deep respect, now be the exact same person who is stealthily abusive? Welcome to the vile world of personality disordered people.   Narcissists,

If we have a high level of emotional capacity, it predisposes us to stay in abusive environments longer. That is not a great thing. On the other hand, a high level of emotional capacity helps survivors heal and truly recover. Our own strengths can be double-edged swords when dealing with abusive individuals.   Getting

When we decide that boundaries are needed, they can be hard to set – and maintain – if we doubt ourselves and our assessment of the situation. Survivors often wonder if they are overreacting or being too sensitive.

The grave problem with hidden abuse is the target is being manipulated. The feelings are being manufactured for the power and control of an abuser, but the target doesn’t know it yet. The target thinks she or he has met someone wonderful, possibly even “the one.”   In

They also highlight the fact that a psychologically abusive person has no moral compass and is more than willing to use innocent people as pawns to further the horrendous treatment of the scapegoated survivor.   The

Some people wonder if abusers can feel love or affection for their targets. The answer to that depends on your own definition of love. Abusers can have fleeting moments of acting like they care about others, because in those moments, the loving actions serve the abusers in some way.

SURVIVOR: To remain alive; to carry on despite hardships or trauma; persevere, to remain functional or usable, to live longer than; outlive, to persist or remain usable through, and to cope with a trauma or setback, to persevere after.

You are not alone in having witnessed some of the most bizarre human behaviors. It’s important for you to know that truth.   Many

I saw a quote that said, “When we know how to be happy, we won’t tolerate being around someone who makes us unhappy.” That is the truth.     How

Psychological abusers like people who make them look or feel good.

Learning to not be “all in” too soon in a relationship, but remain guarded, is usually an area of growth for many survivors.

Abusive church leadership must minimize God to a puppet that can be moved around at will, and it smells of blasphemy to me. It

Far too many churches are believing the notion that if it looks good, it must be good. Nowhere does fake billboard living work with more efficiency than in a church environment.

Abusers get one more opportunity to covertly insult the survivor when they say, “If only…”   Toxic

Through No Contact, survivors can find ever-increasing distance from the malice that almost permanently ruined their lives.

Boundaries have nothing to do with forgiveness or resentment. They have everything to do with the quality of our interactions with the people in our lives.   Many

A Sociopath will run you over, scold you for being in their way, and have a smirk because secretly they get entertainment out of the chaos they’ve created.   A

The key is to not follow the toxic person into their vortex of lies.

The survivor delivers this message in a firm and clear tone of voice, not mad or screaming. Just stating the facts. Take it or leave it, toxic person. Survivors

Fantasies of what might be, what could have been, or what should have been are very counterproductive to recovery. The truths that are hard to look at are the exact things a weary soul must see in order to be driven to change current life situations.

Many survivors will work their way through the first stage of Despair, second stage of Education, third stage of Awakening, and find themselves paralyzed at the fourth stage of Boundaries.

I have been known to tell survivors, who are remaining in contact with intensely toxic people, that I cannot continue to work with them unless they implement and follow the No Contact rule.

Let me stop here and correct a very common misconception: personality disorders are not the same classification of mental health disorders, such as Bipolar Disorder or Major Depressive Disorder.

When survivors get to the point where the relationships are slowly killing them, we must talk about why they won’t choose their own lives over pleasing the abusers. Those are the most extreme situations. When they do occur, No Contact is the only option for a life of recovery.   One

What I am saying is that your hope of the person being better someday must come to an abrupt end. When that takes place, a power shift occurs in the relationship. The survivor is now free to see the abuser with clarity.

Survivors who repeatedly believe they are the problem, they are broken, and they are not good enough, are people who are never going to see the hidden abuse. Not because they don’t want to, but because they are looking in the wrong spot for answers. In therapy, we start to literally deprogram the conscious and subconscious lies the abusers have planted in the survivors.

At one point in my late twenties, I was granted a restraining order to keep myself safe from her. You know the wheels of the maternal cart have hurled off when your own adult daughter is granted a three-year stay away order.

One of the main allegations that narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths make against survivors is that they accuse survivors of being disrespectful. Why is this complaint so common for toxic people? It is because their grossly over-inflated egos make them believe that even the most minor correction, or disagreement, with the toxic person’s opinion is a huge sign of disrespect.

Survivors who try to get help to protect themselves and their children are often seen as “hysterical, crazy, and unstable.” This is because the covert nature of hidden abuse is very difficult to put into words. Without the correct language, survivors often sound obsessed. Those of us in the recovery community know that is not the issue at all. The general public still has much to learn about hidden psychological abuse.   In

Personality disordered individuals have over-inflated egos that cannot handle even the smallest of bruising.

Sadly, that is exactly what happened. You were fully being yourself and the abuser was a chameleon. The abuser morphed to fit your ideal role.   Within

I use the term survivor to describe what some might call a victim. I hope you can embrace the word survivor because it is meant as a compliment.

the first stage of recovery (Despair). The early period of recovery is lonely. It is the emotional equivalent of having dry, weary bones.

Research shows it takes people many attempts to leave unhealthy relationships.

Sometimes psychological abuse can become so life altering, survivors sink into serious depths of depression.

The subtle nuances of life situations require an individualized plan for boundaries. There is not one blanket statement that covers every single survivor in the entire world.

A psychological abuser will find a survivor’s emotional soft spots and exploit them for control and entertainment.

Denial is a powerful human component that cannot be ignored in the context of psychological abuse. Ironic, right? Denial is the exact action of ignoring the truth in front of us.

The most important point is that the girl’s moods are not changing because she’s moody. She is conditioning the boy to always be off balance. Off balance. Some toxic people will actually say out loud that they like keeping people off balance. If someone tells you that, run.

It is a source of power and entertainment for a toxic person to destroy an originally healthy and happy person. This point is often missed by survivors because in the middle of the abuse, they see themselves as broken. Since the abuser says such hateful things, the survivor assumes they were targeted because they are “weak.” That is the exact opposite of the truth.

Psychologically abusive people can only maintain normalcy for short spurts of time. Being an authentically caring, decent person isn’t baseline for them. They must fake the behaviors that would show these positive character qualities. These fraudulent acts of kindness have brief shelf lives before they expire and the abusers return to their normal state of affairs.

Toxic people cannot sustain any length of relationship connection (i.e., the good days). As mentioned before, their lack of healthy attachments while growing up, and their refusal to deal with their flaws, creates the perfect storm for their inability to have stable relationships.

The level of impact on a target’s life will also be different depending on whether the abuse took place in a marriage or relationship, at work, among peers, in a family, or at church. The closer the abuser is to the center of a survivor’s daily life, the more damage that can be perpetrated.   The

Do you remember the fundraiser buffet for the senator at the Yacht Club?” ... “I’d forgotten something in my car so I was outside when you arrived. I saw you driving too fast with the top down and the music too loud. You were belting out the lyrics like you didn’t care who was listening. Then I watched you use the rearview mirror to fix yourself up so you’d look respectable, and when you were all spit-polished and perfect, you gave the mirror the finger.” She remembered. “You asked me out on our first date that night.

The stereotype is that only men are narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths. That is completely incorrect. There are many women who are the cause of a toxic relationship, family, workplace, or church setting.     Please

There is no way someone could ever convince me that narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths are clueless about their behaviors. The level at which they are able to recruit flying monkeys to the dark side with them is stunning.   Let’s

Some argue that there is a spectrum of what we should expect as normal human character flaws. Narcissism seems to be the gray area where most discord bubbles up. Common teachings on sociopaths and psychopaths center on their intense lack of empathy.

An overload on emotional capacity is the reason people get to the point where they feel they cannot continue to stay in a relationship, remain at the same place of employment, continue in a one-sided friendship, struggle with the pressures created by a harmful spouse, try to meet unrealistic toxic family obligations, or whatever else might be at the core of an "I can't do this anymore" statement.

What is common among all survivors is they will mentally replay conversations and situations concerning the abuser. They are looking for reasons why they were treated so badly. The confusion that comes with psychological abuse is one of the hardest to grasp. I often hear things like, “Something isn’t right with this person. I know I am not perfect, but I don’t treat people like this, and normal people don’t act this way.” That is correct. Normal people don’t play all the toxic games psychological abusers do, and yet, survivors end up initially blaming themselves. The ultimate of sad irony.

psychologically abusive people set out to take down the biggest challenge that presented itself at the time. The abuser sees it as a huge victory to turn an independent survivor into a needy, dependent person who can no longer make decisions without the abusive person’s help. The abuser often complains about how weak the survivor has become, but it is exactly the abuser’s actions that have made the changes. Blaming the survivor is the ultimate insult.

A Narcissist will run you over and scold you for being in their way. They will endlessly complain about how you damaged their car.   A Sociopath will run you over, scold you for being in their way, and have a smirk because secretly they get entertainment out of the chaos they’ve created.   A Psychopath will go to great lengths and take calculated steps to ensure they run you over, laugh while doing it, and back up to make sure the most damage is done.   Lovely

We cannot feel badly for those who intentionally harm us. If we do, we will not be free from their heavy chains. Pity gives way to excuses and excuses will soften the heart of anyone. It’s a part of the human condition. It is the double-edged sword of compassion. Those who have been targeted are often very empathetic people. They may identify with being sensitive spirited. In the recovery community, it is called being an Empath. The dance between an empath and an abuser is one of control, mind games, and mockery. This is why education is such a critical step in the healing process. Tenderness from empaths will be used against them time and time again by psychological abusers. In Healing from Hidden Abuse, we have a lot of material to cover. My desire is that you will not feel rushed to quickly get through it from cover to cover. I enjoy reading books slowly, and reflecting on the words I have read. I will often sit down with a pen in hand and underline key phrases or sentences that jump out at me. That way, I can later go back and quickly remind myself of the nuggets that originally were meaningful. I would encourage you to do the same here. If you do push through this material, maybe consider coming back around for a second read and taking time to reflect a little