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The hardest part of being in an emotionally abusive relationship, it's actually admitting you're in one.
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Anna Akana (So Much I Want to Tell You: Letters to My Little Sister)
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You don't know what's right or wrong. You've been told 'you're crazy' 'you´re overreacting' so many times you started to believe that's the truth
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Anna Akana (So Much I Want to Tell You: Letters to My Little Sister)
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I was nervous when I approached him about certain topics (...) [I] felta misunderstood for most of our relationship. He made me doubt my sanity and my intelligence. I stayed for as longer as I did because I hoped he would change
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Anna Akana (So Much I Want to Tell You: Letters to My Little Sister)
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You, dear sister, may be the last bastion of sanity in a culture gone mad. In a world so toxic it cannot function, so numb it cannot even cry out for help, so disconnected it cannot heal. Except through the cells of our bodies.
Our sisters are dying right now to tell you,
Enough suffering, it is time to heal.
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Lucy H. Pearce (Medicine Woman: Reclaiming the Soul of Healing)
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I knew how dangerous that could be. Always thinking of the past. Counting regrets. Using pain as fuel for life. So toxic and deadly.
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M.L. Bullock (Seven Sisters Collection (Seven Sisters #1-3))
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We invited each other into our spaces when parents would allow – girls only in these altars of beauty. We were christened into girlhood, not by holy water or the consumption of Christ’s body and blood, but with these rituals – painting each other’s faces, playing with each other’s hair, making each other over, doing our worst because we were allowed and laughing until we lost all control of our limbs, collapsing in a heavy pile of happy tears. There was an intimacy that was so pure, as deep as if we were real sisters. Our lips frosted with sugar, giggling under duvets, talking about kisses and crushes and trying our hardest not to fall asleep – fighting to keep the night alive.
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Ellen Atlanta (Pixel Flesh: How Toxic Beauty Culture Harms Women)
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Once upon a time, there was a girl named Taryn and she had a faerie lover who came to her at night. He was generous and adoring, but visited only in the dark. He asked for two things: one, for her to keep their meetings secret, and two, never to look upon his face fully. And so, night after night she took delight in him but, after some time had passed, wondered what his secret could be.
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Holly Black (The Lost Sisters (The Folk of the Air, #1.5))
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In 2018, I publicly disclosed that I had experienced psychological abuse by my sisters. Prior to uploading my first YouTube video on this sensitive topic, I had no idea if anyone else would relate. Shortly after my video went live, I received hundreds of comments by strangers who shared similar stories of being bullied, manipulated, gaslit, and abused by their own siblings. Five years later, my videos now have over 163,234K views and thousands of comments.
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Dana Arcuri CTRC (Toxic Siblings: A Survival Guide to Rise Above Sibling Abuse & Heal Trauma)
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Few of us have killed another human in cold blood. But Jesus says this three decades after his birth: “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother or sister will be subject to judgment” (Matt. 5:21–22). Jesus places murder and anger in the same category because anger turns into hate, and hate into violence, and violence into murder. Accumulated or stored anger turns into rage. The older anger grows, the more toxic it becomes and the more likely it results in words and actions precipitating harm, pain, and death.
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Jan David Hettinga (Still Restless: Conversations That Open the Door to Peace)
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On the third day after all hell broke loose, I come upstairs to the apartment, finished with my shift and so looking forward to a hot shower. Well, lukewarm—but I’ll pretend it’s hot.
But when I pass Ellie’s room, I hear cursing—Linda Blair-Exorcist-head-spinning-around kind of cursing. I push open her door and spot my sister at her little desk, yelling at her laptop.
Even Bosco barks from the bed.
“What’s going on?” I ask. “I just came up but Marty’s down there on his own—he won’t last longer than ten minutes.”
“I know, I know.” She waves her hand. “I’m in a flame war with a toxic bitch on Twitter. Let me just huff and puff and burn her motherfucking house down…and then I’ll go sell some coffee.”
“What happened?” I ask sarcastically. “Did she insult your makeup video?”
Ellie sighs, long and tortured. “That’s Instagram, Liv—I seriously think you were born in the wrong century. And anyway, she didn’t insult me—she insulted you.”
Her words pour over me like the ice-bucket challenge.
“Me? I have like two followers on Twitter.”
Ellie finishes typing. “Boo-ya. Take that, skank-a-licious!” Then she turns slowly my way. “You haven’t been online lately, have you?”
This isn’t going to end well, I know it. My stomach knows it too—it whines and grumbles.
“Ah, no?”
Ellie nods and stands, gesturing to her computer. “You might want to check it out. Or not—ignorance is bliss, after all. If you do decide to take a peek, you might want to have some grain alcohol nearby.”
Then she pats my shoulder and heads downstairs, her blond ponytail swaying behind her.
I glance at the screen and my breath comes in quick, semi-panicked bursts and my blood rushes like a runaway train in my veins. I’ve never been in a fight, not in my whole life. The closest I came was sophomore year in high school, when Kimberly Willis told everyone she was going to kick the crap out of me. So I told my gym teacher, Coach Brewster—a giant lumberjack of a man—that I got my period unexpectedly and had to go home. He spent the rest of the school year avoiding eye contact with me. But it worked—by the next day, Kimberly found out Tara Hoffman was the one talking shit about her and kicked the crap out of her instead
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Emma Chase (Royally Screwed (Royally, #1))
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In the months since leaving my husband’s home, I asked this question of myself almost every day. So many of the labels that I had accepted over the years described relationships: daughter, sister, wife, daughter-in-law, mother. In the in-between phase of separation, was I still a wife? Could I check the box for “married” even though I didn’t (and did not want to) share a house with my estranged spouse? If I stripped off the labels that did not fit, who or what would I be? I was still a daughter, a sister, and a mother. Why then did I feel so bereft?
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Ranjani Rao (Rewriting My Happily Ever After - A Memoir of Divorce and Discovery)
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Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.6
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Jennie Allen (Get Out of Your Head: Stopping the Spiral of Toxic Thoughts)
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No love can surpass the love of a mother, no care can surpass a sister's care. Yet a society run by balls and bananas, makes a hooker out of our mothers and sisters.
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Abhijit Naskar (Handcrafted Humanity: 100 Sonnets For A Blunderful World)
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But when I heard my sister crying after the shooting because she had lost four friends that day, I didn’t know why I couldn’t stand to be in the house and it was because her crying made me so uncomfortable because I was feeling her pain.
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Liz Plank (For the Love of Men: From Toxic to a More Mindful Masculinity)
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You don’t ever have to feel guilty about removing toxic people from your life. It’s one thing if a person owns up to their behavior and makes an effort to change. But if a person disregards your feelings, ignores your boundaries, and continues to treat you in a harmful way, they need to go.” – Daniell Koepke
Hate is the complement of fear and narcissists like being feared. It imbues them with an intoxicating sensation of omnipotence.” – Sam Vaknin
The happy family is a myth for many - Carolyn spring
“You’re just like a penny, two-faced and worthless.” - unknown
Toxic people attach themselves like cinder blocks tied to your ankles, and then invite you for a swim in their poisoned waters. - John Mark Green
Some people play victims of crimes they committed - unknown
Just because someone gives you life doesn’t mean they will love you the right way - unknown
You can’t change someone that doesn’t see a problem with there actions - unknown
Let’s get out of the habit of telling people, “that’s still your mom, your dad, or your sister.” Toxic is toxic. You are allowed to walk away from people that constantly hurt you - unknown
Ask yourself, “will you do this to your family?” If not, why let them do this to yours? - unknown
Living well is the best revenge - unknown
Sharni, Nevera and Isaiah you are the best gift I’ve ever received no work is more important then my love for yourselves I made a wish on a star and got youse to god I am grateful.
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Rhys dean
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They’re haters. They have nothing good to say to you or about you. These are toxic people who need to be cut from your life without a backward glance. Maybe it’s your mother or your father. A sister or a brother. It doesn’t matter. If they’re not having a positive influence on your life, they don’t belong in it. Find a new sister, a new brother. Blood is not destiny. True connection arises out of mutual respect and benefit.
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Liv Constantine (The Wife Stalker)
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Max exemplifies another route taken by shame-based children in school. Max followed the lead of his shame-based brother and sister. He became a superachiever in school. He was a straight-A student. Superachievement and perfectionism are two of the leading cover-ups for toxic shame. As paradoxical as it may seem, the straight-A student and the F student may both be driven by toxic shame.
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John Bradshaw (Healing the Shame that Binds You)
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Forgive and move on. Forgiveness is not for him. It’s for her. She needs to release toxic feelings about him. You know they only serve to hurt the holder of the feelings, not the target. Never let anyone who’s not worthy of your priceless precious time on earth take up any room in your thoughts.
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A.M. King (Witch Happens (The Summer Sisters Witch Cozy Mystery, #1))
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What should scare all of us believers a little bit is that when we listen to Jesus, he seemed to show the most compassion toward sexual sinners and more judgment toward mean people: “But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire” (Matthew 5:22 NRSV).
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Gary L. Thomas (When to Walk Away: Finding Freedom from Toxic People)
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Guilt Trip Examples Ending Toxic Relationships Rob had an abusive father and felt he had to end his relationship with his dad. Even within his family, he was subject to social scrutiny. Both family members and friends disagreed with his desire to terminate the unhealthy relationship. His sister said, “He’s your father. You have to talk to him.” Underlying issue: Rob’s sister devalued the importance of setting boundaries when a relationship is unhealthy.
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Nedra Glover Tawwab (Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself)
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What else does 10 Things I Hate About You teach us?” “That the bad guy always gets the girl,” I tell her. “Patrick Verona is a duplicitous jerk to Kat Stratford for far too long. And we wonder why toxic masculinity thrives. We romanticize it!
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Chloe Liese (Two Wrongs Make a Right (The Wilmot Sisters #1))
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Everything about his life that wasn’t about being an elite badass was imploding. There seemed to be only one sane option: get the hell away from other human beings. Amundson took a leave of absence from work, bought an Airstream trailer, and leased a parcel of land in the mountains near Santa Cruz. For two months, he lived in the woods and rolled back the tape on the last fourteen years of his life as a SWAT team cop, Army reservist, DEA gunslinger, and husband. He wrote an after-action review of his marriage, Your Wife Is Not Your Sister, a self-critique so detailed and unstinting that it could have been subtitled Confessions of a Knuckle-Dragger. The book, lovingly dedicated to his ex-wife, is filled with recollections of moments when he thought he was justified but later realized his behavior was thoughtless, myopic, toxic. At the end of each chapter are concrete “Action Steps” to prevent fellow knuckle-draggers from repeating his mistakes. It’s been well received in the law enforcement community.
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J.C. Herz (Learning to Breathe Fire: The Rise of CrossFit and the Primal Future of Fitness)
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Everything about his life that wasn’t about being an elite badass was imploding. There seemed to be only one sane option: get the hell away from other human beings. Amundson took a leave of absence from work, bought an Airstream trailer, and leased a parcel of land in the mountains near Santa Cruz. For two months, he lived in the woods and rolled back the tape on the last fourteen years of his life as a SWAT team cop, Army reservist, DEA gunslinger, and husband. He wrote an after-action review of his marriage, Your Wife Is Not Your Sister, a self-critique so detailed and unstinting that it could have been subtitled Confessions of a Knuckle-Dragger. The book, lovingly dedicated to his ex-wife, is filled with recollections of moments when he thought he was justified but later realized his behavior was thoughtless, myopic, toxic. At the end of each chapter are concrete “Action Steps” to prevent fellow knuckle-draggers from repeating his mistakes. It’s been well received in the law enforcement community. At the end of his two-month woodland retreat, Amundson realized two things. The first was that it doesn’t matter how much of a firebreather you are if you can’t cut any slack to the important people in your life. The second was that all his macho law-and-order jobs had defined him, and if he wanted to stop being That Guy, he couldn’t work that kind of job.
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J.C. Herz (Learning to Breathe Fire: The Rise of CrossFit and the Primal Future of Fitness)
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Sibling abuse is underreported. It’s common for it to go under the radar. Typically, in early childhood, sibling rivalry can start out with squabbles, disagreements, name-calling, and competition between brothers and sisters. The rivalry is reciprocal. The motive can be for parental attention. Or a dozen other reasons.
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Dana Arcuri CTRC (Toxic Siblings: A Survival Guide to Rise Above Sibling Abuse & Heal Trauma)
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After spending five decades of being beaten down, mistreated, and stabbed in the back, little Dana grew up. Little Dana fearlessly faced her trauma wounds. Little Dana cracked open that terrifying door to process and to address everything. And when I write everything, I mean ‘every rotten thing said and done to harm me.’ Everything from my early childhood sexual abuse, child neglect, psychological abuse, physical abuse, unfit parenting by my narcissistic mother, to my sister’s spouse who sexually assaulted me, to every imaginable covert scheme by my six toxic siblings (AKA Flying Monkeys) who sadistically enjoyed hurting me. They each took great pleasure in trying to destroy me, my life, my health, my relationships, my career, and my reputation.
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Dana Arcuri CTRC (Toxic Siblings: A Survival Guide to Rise Above Sibling Abuse & Heal Trauma)
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He’d never asked Perci how closely she was related to Martin; he just knew she was. Same hair, same eyes. Same toxic attitude. The Tylers of Tyler Township were hard to misidentify, that was for certain. He’d had personal run-ins with a good half dozen of them. Not a pleasant lot, that was for certain. “She’s my older sister, Phoebe.” Perci’s pretty
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Calle J. Brookes (The Masterson County Collection: Books 1-4 (Masterson County, #1-4))
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Here are the twin premises of the inner-child recovery movement:
• Bad events in childhood exert major influence on adulthood.
• Coming to grips with those events undoes their influence.
These premises are enshrined in film and theater. The biggest psychological hit of 1991 was the film version of Pat Conroy's lyrical novel The Prince of Tides, in which Tom Wingo (Nick Nolte), an alcoholic football coach, has been fired from his job, and is cold to his wife and little girls. He and his sister were raped twenty-five years before as kids.
He tearfully confesses this to Dr. Susan Lowenstein (Barbra Streisand), a New York psychoanalyst, and thereby recovers his ability to feel, to coach, and to control his drinking. His sister, presumably, would also recover from her suicidal schizophrenia if she could only relive the rape. The audience is in tears. The audience seems to have no doubt about the premises.
But I do.
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Martin E.P. Seligman (What You Can Change and What You Can't: The Complete Guide to Successful Self-Improvement)
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That’s what Christians do. We share arrows with our brothers and sisters when they’re in the line of fire.
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Allie Beth Stuckey (Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion)