“
The only person that deserves a special place in your life is someone that never made you feel like you were an option in theirs.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
The scars from mental cruelty can be as deep and long-lasting as wounds from punches or slaps but are often not as
obvious. In fact, even among women who have experienced violence from a partner, half or more report that the man’s emotional abuse is what is causing them the greatest harm.
”
”
Lundy Bancroft (Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men)
“
The central attitudes driving the Water Torturer are:
You are crazy. You fly off the handle over nothing.
I can easily convince other people that you’re the one who is messed up.
As long as I’m calm, you can’t call anything I do abusive, no matter how cruel.
I know exactly how to get under your skin.
”
”
Lundy Bancroft (Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men)
“
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.
”
”
Lundy Bancroft (Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men)
“
Here we will also see how verbal and emotional abuse alone can cause Cptsd, and how profound emotional abandonment is typically at the core of most Cptsd.
”
”
Pete Walker (Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving)
“
Unspeakable feelings need to find expression in words. However... verbalization of very intense feelings may be a difficult task.
”
”
James A. Chu (Rebuilding Shattered Lives: Treating Complex PTSD and Dissociative Disorders)
“
The ORDINARY RESPONSE TO ATROCITIES is to banish them from consciousness. Certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud: this is the meaning of the word unspeakable.
Atrocities, however, refuse to be buried. Equally as powerful as the desire to deny atrocities is the conviction that denial does not work. Folk wisdom is filled with ghosts who refuse to rest in their graves until their stories are told. Murder will out. Remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are prerequisites both for the restoration of the social order and for the healing of individual victims.
The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma. People who have survived atrocities often tell their stories in a highly emotional, contradictory, and fragmented manner that undermines their credibility and thereby serves the twin imperatives of truth-telling and secrecy. When the truth is finally recognized, survivors can begin their recovery. But far too often secrecy prevails, and the story of the traumatic event surfaces not as a verbal narrative but as a symptom.
The psychological distress symptoms of traumatized people simultaneously call attention to the existence of an unspeakable secret and deflect attention from it. This is most apparent in the way traumatized people alternate between feeling numb and reliving the event. The dialectic of trauma gives rise to complicated, sometimes uncanny alterations of consciousness, which George Orwell, one of the committed truth-tellers of our century, called "doublethink," and which mental health professionals, searching for calm, precise language, call "dissociation." It results in protean, dramatic, and often bizarre symptoms of hysteria which Freud recognized a century ago as disguised communications about sexual abuse in childhood. . . .
”
”
Judith Lewis Herman (Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror)
“
If a normally kind, agreeable person makes an enemy of you, you ought to ask yourself why.
”
”
Joyce Rachelle
“
The central attitudes driving Mr. Right are:
You should be in awe of my intelligence and should look up to me intellectually. I know better than you do, even about what’s good for you.
Your opinions aren’t worth listening to carefully or taking seriously.
The fact that you sometimes disagree with me shows how sloppy your thinking is.
If you would just accept that I know what’s right, our relationship would go much better. Your own life would go better, too.
When you disagree with me about something, no matter how respectfully or meekly, that’s mistreatment of me.
If I put you down for long enough, some day you’ll see.
”
”
Lundy Bancroft (Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men)
“
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.
”
”
Heyward Bruce Ewart III (AM I BAD? Recovering From Abuse)
“
In a verbally abusive relationship, the partner learns to tolerate abuse without realizing it and to lose self-esteem without realizing it. She is blamed by the abuser and becomes the scapegoat. The partner is then the victim.
”
”
Patricia Evans (The Verbally Abusive Relationship: How to Recognize It and How to Respond)
“
It's important that you don't continue to ignore or accept rages. Realize that extreme rage directed at you or your children is verbal and emotional abuse. Even if you think you can handle it, over time it can erode your self-esteem and poison the relationship. Seek support immediately.
”
”
Randi Kreger (Stop Walking on Eggshells: Taking Your Life Back When Someone You Care about Has Borderline Personality Disorder)
“
Our children begin to drift away because of the scars and burdens. The sharp tongue of the silent killer constantly creates a cloud of confusion and friction over our children’s heads due to the verbal, mental, emotional, and physical abuse.
”
”
Charlena E. Jackson
“
Screaming at children over their grades, especially to the point of the child's tears, is child abuse, pure and simple. It's not funny and it's not good parenting. It is a crushing, scarring, disastrous experience for the child. It isn't the least bit funny.
”
”
Ben Stein
“
The central attitudes driving Mr. Sensitive are:
I’m against the macho men, so I couldn’t be abusive.
As long as I use a lot of “psychobabble,” no one is going to believe that I am mistreating you.
I can control you by analyzing how your mind and emotions work, and what your issues are from childhood.
I can get inside your head whether you want me there or not.
Nothing in the world is more important than my feelings.
Women should be grateful to me for not being like those other men.
”
”
Lundy Bancroft (Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men)
“
An overwhelming majority of us come from dysfunctional families in which we were taught we were not okay, where we were shamed, verbally and/or physically abused, and emotionally neglected even as (we) were taught to believe that we were loved.
”
”
bell hooks (All About Love: New Visions)
“
When a man’s face contorts in bitterness and hatred, he looks a little insane. When his mood changes from elated to assaultive in the time it takes to turn around, his mental stability seems open to question. When he accuses his partner of plotting to harm him, he seems paranoid. It is no wonder that the partner of an abusive man would come to suspect that he was mentally ill.
Yet the great majority of my clients over the years have been psychologically “normal.” Their minds work logically; they understand cause and effect; they don’t hallucinate. Their perceptions of most life circumstances are reasonably accurate. They get good reports at work; they do well in school or training programs; and no one other than their partners—and children—thinks that there is anything wrong with them. Their value system is unhealthy, not their psychology.
”
”
Lundy Bancroft (Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men)
“
The fact of the matter is, if you haven’t been in an abusive relationship, you don’t really know what the experience is like. Furthermore, it’s quite hard to predict what you would do in the same situation. I find that the people most vocal about what they would’ve done in the same situation often have no clue what they are talking about – they have never been in the same situation themselves.
By invalidating the survivor’s experience, these people are defending an image of themselves that they identify with strength, not realizing that abuse survivors are often the strongest individuals out there. They’ve been belittled, criticized, demeaned, devalued, and yet they’ve still survived. The judgmental ones often have little to no life experience regarding these situations, yet they feel quite comfortable silencing the voices of people who’ve actually been there.
”
”
Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
“
From her dubious tone alone, I could see how Karin had no idea how terrifying words spoken quietly could be. How words chosen precisely to wreak maximum damage ticked like a bomb in your head, but exploded in your heart hours later, leaving you scarred and changed.
”
”
Justina Chen (North of Beautiful)
“
Worldview is often confused with perception; rather, it is our perception that influences our worldview.
”
”
Asa Don Brown (The Effects of Childhood Trauma on Adult Perception and Worldview)
“
When we understand love as the will to nurture our own and another's spiritual growth, it becomes clear that we cannot claim to love if we are hurtful and abusive. Love and abusive cannot coexist. Abuse and neglect are, by definition, the opposites of nurturance and care.... An overwhelming majority of us come from dysfunctional families in which we were taught that we were not okay, where we were shamed, verbally and/or physically abused, and emotionally neglected even as we were also taught to believe that we were loved. For most folks it is just too threatening to embrace a definition of love that would no longer enable us to see love as present in our families. Too many of us need to cling to a notion of love that either makes abuse acceptable or at least makes it seem that whatever happened was not that bad.
”
”
bell hooks (All About Love: New Visions)
“
There certainly are some women who treat their male partners badly, berating them, calling them names, attempting to control them. The negative impact on these men’s lives can be considerable. But do we see men whose self-esteem is gradually destroyed through this process? Do we see men whose progress in school or in their careers grinds to a halt because of the constant criticism and undermining? Where are the men whose partners are forcing them to have unwanted sex? Where are the men who are fleeing to shelters in fear for their lives? How about the ones who try to get to a phone to call for help, but the women block their way or cut the line? The reason we don’t generally see these men is simple: They’re rare.
I don’t question how embarrassing it would be for a man to come forward and admit that a woman is abusing him. But don’t underestimate how humiliated a woman feels when she reveals abuse; women crave dignity just as much as men do. If shame stopped people from coming forward, no one would tell.
”
”
Lundy Bancroft (Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men)
“
Often, to keep the family together, the woman will accept repeated beatings and rapes, emotional battering and verbal degredation; she will be debased and ashamed but she will stick it out, or when she runs he will kill her. Ask the politicians who exude delight when they advocate for the so-called traditional family how many women are beaten and children raped when there is no man in the family. Zero is such a perfect and encouraging number, but who, among politicians in male-supremacist cultures, can count that high?
”
”
Andrea Dworkin (Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel, and Women's Liberation)
“
Domestic violence is any behavior involving physical, psychological, emotional, sexual or verbal abuse. It is any form of aggression intended to hurt, damage, or kill an intimate person.
”
”
Asa Don Brown
“
Outside of my professional life, I have known many couples over the years who had passion and electricity between them and who treated each other well. But unfortunately there is wide acceptance in our society of the unhealthy notion that passion and aggression are interwoven and that cruel verbal exchanges and bomblike explosions are the price you pay for a relationship that is exciting, deep, and sexy. Popular romantic movies and soap operas sometimes reinforce this image.
”
”
Lundy Bancroft (Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men)
“
To any survivor who may be doubting whether what they’ve experienced is truly abuse, remember that emotional, verbal, and psychological abuse will never be, and should never be, considered part of the messy equation of a normal relationship. As both metal health professionals and survivors can attest to, the traumatic highs and lows of being with a narcissist, a sociopath, or a psychopath are not the natural highs and lows of regular relationships. That suggestion is quite damaging to society and to survivors all around the world.
”
”
Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
“
Origins Of Cptsd How do traumatically abused and/or abandoned children develop Cptsd? While the origin of Cptsd is most often associated with extended periods of physical and/or sexual abuse in childhood, my observations convince me that ongoing verbal and emotional abuse also causes it. Many dysfunctional parents react contemptuously to a baby or toddler’s plaintive call for connection and attachment. Contempt is extremely traumatizing to a child, and at best, extremely noxious to an adult. Contempt is a toxic cocktail of verbal and emotional abuse, a deadly amalgam of denigration, rage and disgust. Rage creates fear, and disgust creates shame in the child in a way that soon teaches her to refrain from crying out, from ever asking for attention. Before long, the child gives up on seeking any kind of help or connection at all. The child’s bid for bonding and acceptance is thwarted, and she is left to suffer in the frightened despair of abandonment. Particularly abusive parents deepen the abandonment trauma by linking corporal punishment with contempt. Slaveholders and prison guards typically use contempt and scorn to destroy their victims’ self-esteem. Slaves, prisoners, and children, who are made to feel worthless and powerless devolve into learned helplessness and can be controlled with far less energy and attention. Cult leaders also use contempt to shrink their followers into absolute submission after luring them in with brief phases of fake unconditional love.
”
”
Pete Walker (Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving)
“
Their manipulation is psychological and emotionally devastating – and very dangerous, especially considering the brain circuitry for emotional and physical pain are one and the same (Kross, 2011). What a victim feels when they are punched in the stomach can be similar to the pain a victim feels when they are verbally and emotionally abused, and the effects of narcissistic abuse can be crippling and long-lasting, even resulting in symptoms of PTSD or Complex PTSD.
”
”
Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
“
emotional abuse is much more than verbal abuse. Emotional abuse can be defined as any nonphysical behavior that is designed to control,
intimidate, subjugate, demean, punish, or isolate another person through the use of degradation, humiliation, or fear.
”
”
Beverly Engel (The Emotionally Abusive Relationship: How to Stop Being Abused and How to Stop Abusing)
“
Bullies do not just wake up and decide to be one. They are people who have or are experiencing emotional or verbal abuse. All you can do is not retaliate but show them love. Doing so, allows them see what they are missing and need. You can let them see the other side of life when you show love not hurt. After all, we are all products of love and we must choose to demonstrate that above all else.
”
”
Kemi Sogunle
“
When I thought about how much time I had already put into a relationship without reciprocation from the other person and how I spent YEARS recovering and trying to recover from the damage of her verbal, emotional and physical abuse and neglect, I realized that I was the only one trying and I wasn’t the problem! That understanding changed everything!
”
”
Darlene Ouimet
“
When you feel the emotional reaction of someone's supposed [verbal] attack, what you're doing is getting them to reflect to you that some portion of yourself feels that way about yourself. Otherwise you wouldn't react. You would just observe it - "oh interesting." - and move on with your day. But if you react to it, it's showing you some part of you actually is buying into this as true.
So say: "Well thank you: Thank you for showing that I was not loving all of myself."
And when you really start doing that, then you may start to see that someone else's attitude toward you may change.
”
”
Bashar
“
HUMAN BILL OF RIGHTS [GUIDELINES FOR FAIRNESS AND INTIMACY] I have the right to be treated with respect. I have the right to say no. I have the right to make mistakes. I have the right to reject unsolicited advice or feedback. I have the right to negotiate for change. I have the right to change my mind or my plans. I have a right to change my circumstances or course of action. I have the right to have my own feelings, beliefs, opinions, preferences, etc. I have the right to protest sarcasm, destructive criticism, or unfair treatment. I have a right to feel angry and to express it non-abusively. I have a right to refuse to take responsibility for anyone else’s problems. I have a right to refuse to take responsibility for anyone’s bad behavior. I have a right to feel ambivalent and to occasionally be inconsistent. I have a right to play, waste time and not always be productive. I have a right to occasionally be childlike and immature. I have a right to complain about life’s unfairness and injustices. I have a right to occasionally be irrational in safe ways. I have a right to seek healthy and mutually supportive relationships. I have a right to ask friends for a modicum of help and emotional support. I have a right to complain and verbally ventilate in moderation. I have a right to grow, evolve and prosper.
”
”
Pete Walker (Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving)
“
Some individuals have what can be considered to be an ‘abusive personality.’ Although they can be somewhat charming at times and sometimes manage to put on a false front in public when it is absolutely necessary, their basic personality is characterized by:
1. A need to dominate and control others
2. A tendency
”
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Beverly Engel M.F.C.C.
“
Father of the fatherless daughters, do not let your daughter’s life pass you by. A daughter’s love is so precious; you will never have to prove your love to her because she will accept you as you are. Do not be the reason why your daughter settles for a man for the wrong reasons. Do not be the reason why your daughter’s self-esteem is shot down to the lowest level. Do not be the reason why your daughter’s in a physical, verbal, and emotional abused relationship.
”
”
Charlena E. Jackson (Dear fathers of the fatherless children)
“
Their manipulation is psychological and emotionally devastating – and very dangerous, especially considering the brain circuitry for emotional and physical pain are one and the same (Kross, 2011). What a victim feels when they are punched in the stomach can be similar to the pain a victim feels when they are verbally and emotionally abused, and the effects of narcissistic abuse can be crippling and long-lasting, even resulting in symptoms of PTSD or Complex PTSD.
”
”
Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
“
What was it about kindness? In my time as Lester Papadopoulos, I had learned to stand up under horrendous verbal abuse and constant life-threatening violence, but the smallest act of generosity could ninja-kick me right in the heart and break me into a blubbering mess of emotions.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Tower of Nero (The Trials of Apollo, #5))
“
Narcissists play a public game and a private game which makes it harder to understand. Expressing your concerns suddenly turns you into the ‘jealous one’ and they make you doubt yourself. He/she becomes cold and uncaring almost overnight, this is when the “mask falls” and you see the real person. They make excuses and if we don’t except these excuses then you are the ‘crazy’ one. They are managing down your expectations from constant contact to crickets this verbally and emotional abuse hurts.
”
”
Tracy Malone
“
Parents who treat the teenager in the same manner in which they treated the child will not experience the same results they received earlier. When the teenager does not respond as the child responded, the parents are now pushed to try something different. Without proper training, parents almost always revert to efforts at coercion, which often lead to arguments, loss of temper, and perhaps, verbal abuse. Such behavior is emotionally devastating to the teenager whose primary love language is words of affirmation. The parents’ efforts to verbally argue the teenager into submission are in reality pushing the teenager toward rebellion.
”
”
Gary Chapman (The 5 Love Languages of Teenagers: The Secret to Loving Teens Effectively)
“
As long as this child within is not allowed to become aware of what happened to him or her, a part of his or her emotional life will remain frozen, and sensitivity to the humiliations of childhood will therefore be dulled.
”
”
Patricia Evans (The Verbally Abusive Relationship: How to Recognize It and How to Respond)
“
It wasn’t some mysterious adverse personality trait that comprises of who I am, it unquestionably had a source - A cradle of years of unprocessed trauma owing to sexual, emotional, mental, verbal and physical ill-treatment.
”
”
Dr. Patricia Dsouza Lobo (When Roses are Crushed)
“
When someone chronically uses their words to put you down, control, or manipulate you—and then they deny it—they become true verbal abusers. The goal, whether or not the abuser recognizes it, is to gain dominance and control over you.
”
”
Barrie Davenport (Signs of Emotional Abuse: How to Recognize the Patterns of Narcissism, Manipulation, and Control in Your Love Relationship)
“
Some individuals have what can be considered to be an ‘abusive personality.’ Although they can be somewhat charming at times and sometimes manage to put on a false front in public when it is absolutely necessary, their basic personality is characterized by:
1. A need to dominate and control others
2. A tendency to blame others for all their problems and to take all their frustrations out on other people.
3. Verbal abuse
4. Frequent emotional and sometimes physical outbursts, and
5. An overwhelming need to retaliate and hurt other for real and imagined slights or affronts
They insist on being ‘respected’ while giving no respect to others. Their needs are paramount, and they show a blatant disregard for the needs and feelings of others.
These people wreak havoc with the lives of nearly every person they come in contact with. They verbally abuse their coworkers or employees, they are insulting and obnoxious to service people, they constantly blame others when something goes wrong. When this type of person becomes intimately involved with a partner, there is absolutely nothing that partner can do to prevent abuse from occurring. Their only hope is to get as far away from the person as possible.
”
”
Beverly Engel M.F.C.C.
“
Distrust and contempt; physical, verbal, and psychological abuse; infidelity; emotional distance; and mutually disabling partnerships—these are the five most destructive dynamics that lead to fractured black relationships and broken families.
”
”
Tom Burrell (Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority)
“
There is also the simple yet terrible fact that the legal system does not provide protection against most kinds of abuse- verbal, emotional, psychological- and even worse, it does not provide context. It does not allow certain kinds of victims in.
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Carmen Maria Machado (In the Dream House)
“
A manipulator belittles a victim by using behavior or language that diminishes or mocks his or her opinions, ideas, feelings, looks, or achievements. Belittling can be accomplished non-verbally through the use of eye-rolls, scoffs, or smug smiles; and verbally by using sarcastic, condescending, or mocking tones. An abuser will sometimes disguise belittling as supposed harmless joking.
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”
Adelyn Birch (30 Covert Emotional Manipulation Tactics: How Manipulators Take Control In Personal Relationships)
“
Forgiving lavishly does not mean that we continue to place ourselves in harm's way. The Bible takes great pains to address the dangers of keeping company with those who perpetually harm others. Those who learn nothing from their past mistakes are termed fools. While we may forgive the fool for hurting us, we do not give the fool unlimited opportunity to hurt us again. To do so would be to act foolishly ourselves. When Jesus extends mercy in the Gospels, he always does so with an implicit or explicit, "Go and sin no more." When our offender persists in sinning against us, we are wise to put boundaries in place. Doing so is itself an act of mercy toward the offender. By limiting his opportunity to sin against us, we spare him further guilt before God. Mercy never requires submission to abuse, whether spiritual, verbal, emotional, or physical.
”
”
Jen Wilkin (In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character)
“
…Decent motives don’t always produce decent results. And the body is not the only target of rape. Violence does not always take visible form, and not all wounds gush blood.
”
”
Haruki Murakami (1Q84 (1Q84, #1-3))
“
Domestic violence can occur at any socioeconomic level.
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”
Asa Don Brown
“
abuse doesn’t just happen
in romantic relationships
abuse can live
in friendships too
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”
Rupi Kaur (Home Body)
“
Learning to protect ourselves from emotional abuse changes everything. The victim no longer has to hope for the kindness of strangers, or that the abuser will simply get tired of their verbal assaults.
”
”
Zak Mucha (Emotional Abuse: A manual for self-defense)
“
To a narrative therapist, there are few interactions between couples that are not influenced by patriarchy. If there is an abuse of power in a relationship, a narrative therapist would view the responsibility for the abuse of power as lying in the hands of the person abusing the power. A narrative approach would invite the abuser to Recognize the abuse as abuse. Position himself against it. Accept total responsibility for stopping it.
”
”
Patricia Evans (Verbally Abusive Relationship)
“
There is also the simple yet terrible fact that the legal system does not provide protection against most kinds of abuse—verbal, emotional, psychological—and even worse, it does not provide context. It does not allow certain kinds of victims in.
”
”
Carmen Maria Machado (In the Dream House)
“
Verbal abuse is as damaging as physical abuse, and in some cases, it does even more damage to a child. Insulting names, degrading comments and constant criticism all leave deep emotional scars that hinder feelings of self-worth and personal agency.
”
”
Susan Forward (Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life)
“
Abusers happily cheat, lie, verbally assault, manipulate, confuse, and ignore others, but survivors often find that when they try to react firmly and stand up to this abuse, they immediately end up feeling bad. Let go of this inner turmoil. Having boundaries is what makes you healthy.
”
”
Jackson MacKenzie (Psychopath Free: Recovering from Emotionally Abusive Relationships With Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Other Toxic People)
“
CONSENSUS PROPOSED CRITERIA FOR DEVELOPMENTAL TRAUMA DISORDER A. Exposure. The child or adolescent has experienced or witnessed multiple or prolonged adverse events over a period of at least one year beginning in childhood or early adolescence, including: A. 1. Direct experience or witnessing of repeated and severe episodes of interpersonal violence; and A. 2. Significant disruptions of protective caregiving as the result of repeated changes in primary caregiver; repeated separation from the primary caregiver; or exposure to severe and persistent emotional abuse B. Affective and Physiological Dysregulation. The child exhibits impaired normative developmental competencies related to arousal regulation, including at least two of the following: B. 1. Inability to modulate, tolerate, or recover from extreme affect states (e.g., fear, anger, shame), including prolonged and extreme tantrums, or immobilization B. 2. Disturbances in regulation in bodily functions (e.g. persistent disturbances in sleeping, eating, and elimination; over-reactivity or under-reactivity to touch and sounds; disorganization during routine transitions) B. 3. Diminished awareness/dissociation of sensations, emotions and bodily states B. 4. Impaired capacity to describe emotions or bodily states C. Attentional and Behavioral Dysregulation: The child exhibits impaired normative developmental competencies related to sustained attention, learning, or coping with stress, including at least three of the following: C. 1. Preoccupation with threat, or impaired capacity to perceive threat, including misreading of safety and danger cues C. 2. Impaired capacity for self-protection, including extreme risk-taking or thrill-seeking C. 3. Maladaptive attempts at self-soothing (e.g., rocking and other rhythmical movements, compulsive masturbation) C. 4. Habitual (intentional or automatic) or reactive self-harm C. 5. Inability to initiate or sustain goal-directed behavior D. Self and Relational Dysregulation. The child exhibits impaired normative developmental competencies in their sense of personal identity and involvement in relationships, including at least three of the following: D. 1. Intense preoccupation with safety of the caregiver or other loved ones (including precocious caregiving) or difficulty tolerating reunion with them after separation D. 2. Persistent negative sense of self, including self-loathing, helplessness, worthlessness, ineffectiveness, or defectiveness D. 3. Extreme and persistent distrust, defiance or lack of reciprocal behavior in close relationships with adults or peers D. 4. Reactive physical or verbal aggression toward peers, caregivers, or other adults D. 5. Inappropriate (excessive or promiscuous) attempts to get intimate contact (including but not limited to sexual or physical intimacy) or excessive reliance on peers or adults for safety and reassurance D. 6. Impaired capacity to regulate empathic arousal as evidenced by lack of empathy for, or intolerance of, expressions of distress of others, or excessive responsiveness to the distress of others E. Posttraumatic Spectrum Symptoms. The child exhibits at least one symptom in at least two of the three PTSD symptom clusters B, C, & D. F. Duration of disturbance (symptoms in DTD Criteria B, C, D, and E) at least 6 months. G. Functional Impairment. The disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in at least two of the following areas of functioning: Scholastic Familial Peer Group Legal Health Vocational (for youth involved in, seeking or referred for employment, volunteer work or job training)
”
”
Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma)
“
It is important to recognize that the narcissist constructs a false, dark alternate reality in which he hands over his pathology to you. You will be labeled the crazy, oversensitive person throughout the relationship even while enduring mind-blowing verbal and emotional attacks from your abuser. The abuser enjoys employing gaslighting and projection techniques to essentially rewrite the history of abuse in the relationship and misplace all blame onto you. Since you are prone to cognitive dissonance, you will often start to blame yourself for the abuse and seek to deny or minimize the severity of the trauma you’re experiencing in an effort to survive and cope with the fact that the person you love and care for is a pathological abuser.
”
”
Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
“
of the worst kinds of verbal abuse are quiet; silence in answer to a question asked or a comment made can pack a mightier wallop than a loud rant. Silence effectively ridicules and shames. The child subjected to quiet abuse often experiences more emotional confusion than one who’s being yelled at or insulted, precisely because the absence of rage sends mixed signals, and the motivation behind willful silence or a refusal to answer is impossible for a child to read. There’s a special kind of hurt in being treated as though you’re invisible or that you are so unimportant in the scheme of things that you’re not even worth answering. Is there anything more chilling and hurtful than seeing your mother act as though she can’t see you, her face calm?
”
”
Peg Streep (Daughter Detox: Recovering From An Unloving Mother and Reclaiming Your Life)
“
They may not even realize that they are being verbally abused nor how it is impacting them. A person who has been slammed with verbal abuse may feel like giving up, like dying. Their emotional pain and mental anguish may be so great they self-medicate with drugs or alcohol. They may have had no name for what they suffered. 4. Over time, verbal abuse compromises the immune system of anyone it targets. Any illness brought on or exacerbated by stress can lead to an early death.
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Patricia Evans (Victory Over Verbal Abuse: A Healing Guide to Renewing Your Spirit and Reclaiming Your Life)
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1) The woman has intuitive feelings that she is at risk. 2) At the inception of the relationship, the man accelerated the pace, prematurely placing on the agenda such things as commitment, living together, and marriage. 3) He resolves conflict with intimidation, bullying, and violence. 4) He is verbally abusive. 5) He uses threats and intimidation as instruments of control or abuse. This includes threats to harm physically, to defame, to embarrass, to restrict freedom, to disclose secrets, to cut off support, to abandon, and to commit suicide. 6) He breaks or strikes things in anger. He uses symbolic violence (tearing a wedding photo, marring a face in a photo, etc.). 7) He has battered in prior relationships. 8) He uses alcohol or drugs with adverse affects (memory loss, hostility, cruelty). 9) He cites alcohol or drugs as an excuse or explanation for hostile or violent conduct (“That was the booze talking, not me; I got so drunk I was crazy”). 10) His history includes police encounters for behavioral offenses (threats, stalking, assault, battery). 11) There has been more than one incident of violent behavior (including vandalism, breaking things, throwing things). 12) He uses money to control the activities, purchase, and behavior of his wife/partner. 13) He becomes jealous of anyone or anything that takes her time away from the relationship; he keeps her on a “tight leash,” requires her to account for her time. 14) He refuses to accept rejection. 15) He expects the relationship to go on forever, perhaps using phrases like “together for life;” “always;” “no matter what.” 16) He projects extreme emotions onto others (hate, love, jealousy, commitment) even when there is no evidence that would lead a reasonable person to perceive them. 17) He minimizes incidents of abuse. 18) He spends a disproportionate amount of time talking about his wife/partner and derives much of his identity from being her husband, lover, etc. 19) He tries to enlist his wife’s friends or relatives in a campaign to keep or recover the relationship. 20) He has inappropriately surveilled or followed his wife/partner. 21) He believes others are out to get him. He believes that those around his wife/partner dislike him and encourage her to leave. 22) He resists change and is described as inflexible, unwilling to compromise. 23) He identifies with or compares himself to violent people in films, news stories, fiction, or history. He characterizes the violence of others as justified. 24) He suffers mood swings or is sullen, angry, or depressed. 25) He consistently blames others for problems of his own making; he refuses to take responsibility for the results of his actions. 26) He refers to weapons as instruments of power, control, or revenge. 27) Weapons are a substantial part of his persona; he has a gun or he talks about, jokes about, reads about, or collects weapons. 28) He uses “male privilege” as a justification for his conduct (treats her like a servant, makes all the big decisions, acts like the “master of the house”). 29) He experienced or witnessed violence as a child. 30) His wife/partner fears he will injure or kill her. She has discussed this with others or has made plans to be carried out in the event of her death (e.g., designating someone to care for children).
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Gavin de Becker (The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence)
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In the track of love, you are giving more than taking. And of course, you love yourself so much that you don’t allow selfish people to take advantage of you. You are not going for revenge, but you are clear in your communication. You can say, “I don’t like it when you try to take advantage of me, when you disrespect me, when you are unkind to me. I don’t need someone to abuse me verbally, emotionally, physically. I don’t need to hear you cursing all the time. It’s not that I am better than you; it’s because I love beauty. I love to laugh; I love to have fun; I love to love. It’s not that I am selfish, I just don’t need a big victim near me. It doesn’t mean that I don’t love you, but I cannot take responsibility for your dream. If you are in a relationship with me, it will be so hard for your Parasite, because I will not react to your garbage at all.” This is not selfishness; this is self-love. Selfishness, control, and fear will break almost any relationship. Generosity, freedom, and love will create the most beautiful relationship: an ongoing romance.
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Miguel Ruiz (The Mastery of Love: A Practical Guide to the Art of Relationship)
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While we may forgive the fool for hurting us, we do not give the fool unlimited opportunity to hurt us again. To do so would be to act foolishly ourselves. When Jesus extends mercy in the Gospels, he always does so with an implicit or explicit “Go and sin no more.” When our offender persists in sinning against us, we are wise to put boundaries in place. Doing so is itself an act of mercy toward the offender. By limiting his opportunity to sin against us, we spare him further guilt before God. Mercy never requires submission to abuse, whether spiritual, verbal, emotional, or physical.
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Jen Wilkin (In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character)
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Imagine the daughter of a narcissistic father as an example. She grows up chronically violated and abused at home, perhaps bullied by her peers as well. Her burgeoning low self-esteem, disruptions in identity and problems with emotional regulation causes her to live a life filled with terror. This is a terror that is stored in the body and literally shapes her brain. It is also what makes her brain extra vulnerable and susceptible to the effects of trauma in adulthood. Being verbally, emotionally and sometimes even physically beaten down, the child of a narcissistic parent learns that there is no safe place for her in the world. The symptoms of trauma emerge: disassociation to survive and escape her day-to-day existence, addictions that cause her to self-sabotage, maybe even self-harm to cope with the pain of being unloved, neglected and mistreated. Her pervasive sense of worthlessness and toxic shame, as well as subconscious programming, then cause her to become more easily attached to emotional predators in adulthood. In her repeated search for a rescuer, she instead finds those who chronically diminish her just like her earliest abusers. Of course, her resilience, adept skill set in adapting to chaotic environments and ability to “bounce back” was also birthed in early childhood. This is also seen as an “asset” to toxic partners because it means she will be more likely to stay within the abuse cycle in order to attempt to make things “work.” She then suffers not just from early childhood trauma, but from multiple re-victimizations in adulthood until, with the right support, she addresses her core wounds and begins to break the cycle step by step. Before she can break the cycle, she must first give herself the space and time to recover. A break from establishing new relationships is often essential during this time; No Contact (or Low Contact from her abusers in more complicated situations such as co-parenting) is also vital to the healing journey, to prevent compounding any existing traumas.
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Shahida Arabi (Healing the Adult Children of Narcissists: Essays on The Invisible War Zone and Exercises for Recovery)
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Healing childhood trauma is more difficult and complex because the child’s brain is not yet developed. And most children don’t have an adult nearby who is wise and supportive enough to help. On their own, a child will try to think his way out of the trauma, and that’s a task no child is up to. His mind can end up resembling a piece of twine that’s become hopelessly knotted and tangled. The child, and later the adult, will make twisted assumptions about himself, about the world, about life. He will blame himself for the events that caused the trauma. Ultimately, he will disconnect from himself and suffer from depression, dissociation, anxiety, insomnia, negative self-talk, and low self-esteem. Trauma specialists now believe that the experience doesn’t need to be a dramatic, life-endangering accident to cause post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD. Growing up in a dysfunctional family can cause relational or attachment trauma and lead to complex PTSD symptoms. In a dysfunctional family marked by emotional abuse or neglect, as I have come to view my family, a child is often scapegoated. The family, overtly and covertly, blames a child for their problems as a means of deflecting attention from the real problems. Instead of a single traumatic event, a child in this role might experience a continual barrage of subtle attacks on his worthiness, sense of belonging, and even his very identity. These attacks might come in the form of gaslighting, verbal abuse, and other obvious forms of manipulation. But they also can come in the form of thousands upon thousands of subtle negative facial expressions and sarcastic put-downs over years or decades.
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Brad Wetzler (Into the Soul of the World: My Journey to Healing)
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Like stress, emotion is a concept we often invoke without a precise sense of its meaning. And, like stress, emotions have several components. The psychologist Ross Buck distinguishes between three levels of emotional responses, which he calls Emotion I, Emotion II and Emotion III, classified according to the degree we are conscious of them. Emotion III is the subjective experience, from within oneself. It is how we feel. In the experience of Emotion III there is conscious awareness of an emotional state, such as anger or joy or fear, and its accompanying bodily sensations. Emotion II comprises our emotional displays as seen by others, with or without our awareness. It is signalled through body language — “non-verbal signals, mannerisms, tones of voices, gestures, facial expressions, brief touches, and even the timing of events and pauses between words. [They] may have physiologic consequences — often outside the awareness of the participants.”
It is quite common for a person to be oblivious to the emotions he is communicating, even though they are clearly read by those around him. Our expressions of Emotion II are what most affect other people, regardless of our intentions. A child’s displays of Emotion II are also what parents are least able to tolerate if the feelings being manifested trigger too much anxiety in them. As Dr. Buck points out, a child whose parents punish or inhibit this acting-out of emotion will be conditioned to respond to similar emotions in the future by repression. The self-shutdown serves to prevent shame and rejection. Under such conditions, Buck writes, “emotional competence will be compromised…. The individual will not in the future know how to effectively handle the feelings and desires involved. The result would be a kind of helplessness.” The stress literature amply documents that helplessness, real or perceived, is a potent trigger for biological stress responses. Learned helplessness is a psychological state in which subjects do not extricate themselves from stressful situations even when they have the physical opportunity to do so. People often find themselves in situations of learned helplessness — for example, someone who feels stuck in a dysfunctional or even abusive relationship, in a stressful job or in a lifestyle that robs him or her of true freedom.
Emotion I comprises the physiological changes triggered by emotional stimuli, such as the nervous system discharges, hormonal output and immune changes that make up the flight-or-fight reaction in response to threat. These responses are not under conscious control, and they cannot be directly observed from the outside. They just happen. They may occur in the absence of subjective awareness or of emotional expression. Adaptive in the acute threat situation, these same stress responses are harmful when they are triggered chronically without the individual’s being able to act in any way to defeat the perceived threat or to avoid it. Self-regulation, writes Ross Buck, “involves in part the attainment of emotional competence, which is defined as the ability to deal in an appropriate and satisfactory way with one’s own feelings and desires.” Emotional competence presupposes capacities often lacking in our society, where “cool” — the absence of emotion — is the prevailing ethic, where “don’t be so emotional” and “don’t be so sensitive” are what children often hear, and where rationality is generally considered to be the preferred antithesis of emotionality. The idealized cultural symbol of rationality is Mr. Spock, the emotionally crippled Vulcan character on Star Trek.
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Gabor Maté (When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress)
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But nothing in my previous work had prepared me for the experience of reinvestigating Cleveland. It is worth — given the passage of time — recalling the basic architecture of the Crisis: 121 children from many different and largely unrelated families had been taken into the care of Cleveland County Council in the three short months of the summer of 1987. (p18)
The key to resolving the puzzle of Cleveland was the children. What had actually happened to them? Had they been abused - or had the paediatricians and social workers (as public opinion held) been over-zealous and plain wrong? Curiously — particularly given its high profile, year-long sittings and £5 million cost — this was the one central issue never addressed by the Butler-Sloss judicial testimony and sifting of internal evidence, the inquiry's remit did not require it to answer the main question. Ten years after the crisis, my colleagues and I set about reconstructing the records of the 121 children at its heart to determine exactly what had happened to them... (p19)
Eventually, though, we did assemble the data given to the Butler-Sloss Inquiry. This divided into two categories: the confidential material, presented in camera, and the transcripts of public sessions of the hearings. Putting the two together we assembled our own database on the children each identified only by the code-letters assigned to them by Butler-Sloss.
When it was finished, this database told a startlingly different story from the public myth. In every case there was some prima fade evidence to suggest the possibility of abuse. Far from the media fiction of parents taking their children to Middlesbrough General Hospital for a tummy ache or a sore thumb and suddenly being presented with a diagnosis of child sexual abuse, the true story was of families known to social services for months or years, histories of physical and sexual abuse of siblings and of prior discussions with parents about these concerns. In several of the cases the children themselves had made detailed disclosures of abuse; many of the pre-verbal children displayed severe emotional or behavioural symptoms consistent with sexual abuse. There were even some families in which a convicted sex offender had moved in with mother and children. (p20)
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Sue Richardson (Creative Responses to Child Sexual Abuse: Challenges and Dilemmas)
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When you contribute to a safer world for the truth, contribute to help stop violence and help end impunity: be vigilant, be alert, stay safe, protect your emotions and health from aggressive troublemakers and manipulators, and have a strong, diplomatic, clear and firm boundaries.
Be honest, be factual, and have an indestructible firm coping mechanism ways while you could experience waves of digital aggression as they would like to silence you, discredit you, and they try to ruin your integrity, persona, reputation and credibility.
The deceptive, evil manipulators plant lies and create intrigues, polemics mongering, gossip-mongering, and calumny committed by abusive political harridans, bitches and assholes who can shame you privately and publicly.
Group cyber lynching, group cyberbullying, defamatory libellous slander is committed by these cyber aggressors who are also financial-political abusive parasites, pathological liar cyberbullies toxic manipulators, and repetitive abusers. Usually when the stakes are high, these manipulative, deceptive, dishonest, unscrupulous aggressive and vindictive, abusive toxic people would resort to any forms of aggression/abuse: digital or cyber aggression, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, and psychological abuse, financial/economic abuse, and/or physical aggression.
When a group of habitual, deceptive, toxic netizens, digital aggressors send you threats, disturb your family member with their concocted destructive lies, and they took hold a copy of your passport or ID - change it immediately.
Document the threats, the libellous slander, done by these aggressive and abusive people who took advantage of you, used you, and abused you, and do not hesitate to report them to the right authorities.
You have to learn how to handle these scammers, habitual offensive abusive offenders/perpetrators, manipulators, bullies, digital aggressors/aggression, cyber lynchers, coward, pathological liars, opportunistic users, economic/financial abusers, emotional, psychological and verbal abusers, and repetitive abusers without breaking the law.
Even if they dehumanised you, shamed you and abused you for several years, do not and never dehumanise them.
Always remember the three Rs of life:
1. Respect for self
2. Respect for others
3. Responsibility for all your actions
~ Angelica Hopes, an excerpt from The S. Trilogy
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Angelica Hopes (Life Issues)
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earth. They will go to their graves unloved and uncherished, a total failure as the woman God called them to be. Wisdom allows us the ability to use our minds and spirits to handle small problems with grace and honor. To those of you who are enduring verbal and physical abuse, we realize that statistically, you are likely to remain with your husband. It is therefore important that you understand how to speak and conduct yourself in a way that will maintain your physical and emotional safety and ultimately win your husband. The Bible
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Debi Pearl (Created to be His Help Meet)
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Much like a bully, a narcissist will protect him or herself by using aggression and holding a superiority or power over others’. There are malignant narcissists are often maliciously hostile and will continuously inflict pain on others without any remorse for their actions. Alternatively, there are narcissists who have no idea that they have inflicted pain on someone else and that they are causing damage in their relationships because they lack the ability to feel empathy for others. The main goal of a narcissist is to avert anything they perceive as a threat and ensure that they get their own needs met. In a way, they are reverting to a very basic instinctive survival mechanism in order to thrive in the only way they feel they truly can. Because of this, they are rarely aware of the way their words and actions can hurt or impact others. Narcissistic abuse most commonly features emotional abuse, but it doesn’t end there. It actually extends to portray signs of any type of abuse: sexual, financial, physical, and mental in addition to emotional abuse. In the majority of circumstances, there will be some level of emotional abandonment, withholding, manipulation, or other uncaring and unconcerned behaviors towards others. Narcissists may enforce tactics from silent treatments all the way to rage, and they will often verbally abuse others, blame them for being the problem, criticize them excessively, attack them, order them around, lie to them or belittle them. They may also use emotional blackmail or various levels of passive-aggressive behaviors to get their way. If
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Emily Parker (Narcissistic: 25 Secrets to Stop Emotional Abuse and Regain Power)
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Underdeveloped adolescents all too often feel strong emotion and look for escape, since they can think of no way to cope with the situation. Many turn to alcohol or getting high, “so I won’t have to feel anything.” Many are explosive and verbally or physically abusive toward family members. The parents of such teenagers may report that their adolescent son constantly fights with his girlfriend and has pounded a hole in the wall with his fist or smashed the phone down so hard he broke it while arguing with her on the phone. Or they may report that when they confront their daughter about her poor schoolwork, she leaves home for several days. She usually turns up at a friend’s house, but when she comes home after
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Elizabeth Ellis (Raising a Responsible Child:: How Parents Can Avoid Indulging Too Much and Rescuing Too Often)
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I have observed that the minority of Christian husbands who do harp on their wives about their supposed lack of submission are often men who are emotionally, verbally, spiritually, and/or physically abusive.
These men pull out Scripture and use it as a whip to humiliate and control their wives. With verbal “sleight of hand,” this kind of husband uses God’s Word to distract his wife from noticing that the real problem is not her alleged lack of submission—the real problem is his abusive words, attitudes, and actions.
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Paul Coughlin (No More Christian Nice Girl: When Just Being Nice--Instead of Good--Hurts You, Your Family, and Your Friends)
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The majority of women, like the mice trapped in the drug company experiment, are confined in a woman hating culture from which they cannot escape. They suffer continual shocks: Verbal, sexual, emotional and physical abuse in and outside the home, pervasive social contempt, a sense of powerlessness and despair, and a lack of control over their ability to work effectively or even take care of their own children. Women’s depression, as feminists have pointed out, is a logical and rational response to having one’s human rights continually abused. Depression, burnout, or learned helplessness can be compared to the ways in which the mice freeze when they hear the sound before their torture.
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Abigail Bray (Misogyny Re-Loaded)
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Forget about raping her, do not even force her, verbally or even emotionally.
I bet you will not enjoy the act for even a moment!
You will feel good only when she feels good and enjoys the act with her consent!
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honeya
“
We're strong for each other ! It's what women do!" said Zelda to Pearl
"He Counts Their Tears" by Mary Ann D'Alto
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Mary Ann D'Alto
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Today wife-abuse is a common occurrence and, sadly, is seen sometimes in Christian marriages. Submission does not mean allowing another person to batter us, whether it battering is physical, verbal or emotional.
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Linda Dillow (Creative Counterpart : Becoming the Woman, Wife, and Mother You Have Longed To Be)
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Her husband’s voice. He has abused her verbally for so many years that she actually hears him yelling at her. It sends her into a tizzy.” “Has she reached the stage where she knows that he isn’t really there?” Brianna asked. “Intellectually, yes. Emotionally, no. There are times when she’s paralyzed by it.
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Barbara Delinsky (Flirting with Pete)
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scurrilous (SKUR-ih-luss). Offensive to civilized discourse; verbally abusive; vulgar; coarse; slanderous. Because they were made on the floor
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David Olsen (Roget's Thesaurus of Words for Writers: Over 2,300 Emotive, Evocative, Descriptive Synonyms, Antonyms, and Related Terms Every Writer Should Know)
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When confronting bullies, be sure to place yourself in a position where you can safely protect yourself, whether it’s standing tall on your own, having other people present as witnesses and support, or keeping a paper trail of the bully’s inappropriate behavior. In cases of physical, verbal, or emotional abuse, consult with counseling, legal representation, law enforcement, or administrative professionals. It’s important to stand up to bullies—and you don’t have to do it alone.
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article
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Domestic violence is not just physical abuse but also emotional, verbal, and psychological manipulation. It is a sin that seeks to destroy the very fabric of our being, leaving us feeling helpless, hopeless, and isolated. The evil one uses domestic violence to destroy families.
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Shaila Touchton
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Researchers have estimated that sexual assault occurs in 10–14 percent of all marriages.”66 Men who sexually assault their wives commonly also abuse them in multiple other ways, including verbal, mental, emotional, and spiritual abuse, in addition to battering the women physically. These beatings and rapes have little, if anything, to do with sex. Instead, they are haunting degradations.
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Mark Driscoll (Real Marriage: The Truth About Sex, Friendship, and Life Together)
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In therapy, I’ve seen many clients who identify their interactions with siblings as the source of their attachment wounds. Sometimes this stems from parents who neglect to protect siblings from each other—placing one sibling’s needs over the other’s or practicing outright favoritism—but other times the disruption is directly between the siblings. Attachment ruptures with siblings can occur when there has been overt emotional or verbal abuse, bullying, physical abuse or outright rejection. Disconnection resulting from a large age or personality difference, competitiveness and consistent mis-attuned teasing also show up in the therapy room as attachment disruptions from sibling relationships. These experiences can impact a person’s ability to make meaningful connections with romantic partners as an adult.
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Jessica Fern (Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy)
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gaslighting has come to be defined as the manipulation by psychological means of an individual in order to cause that individual to question their own memory, perception, and sanity (Stout, 2005). It is a tactic often associated with bullies, sociopaths, narcissists, and verbal or emotional abusers who want to deflect their own wrongdoing and belittle or degrade the intelligence of their victims and undermine their credibility as witnesses (Stout, 2005). During the retaliation of the whistleblower, gaslighting purposefully creates a cognitive dissonance within the victimized employee/whistleblower so that they question their own sense of reality, lose confidence in their own judgment, and experience mental health deterioration from the stress (Ahern, 2018).
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Jacqueline Garrick (The Psychosocial Impacts of Whistleblower Retaliation: Shattering Employee Resilience and the Workplace Promise)
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Undependable people, in contrast, provide erratically and inflict heavy costs on their mates. In a study of newlywed couples, my lab found that emotionally unstable men were especially costly to women. They tended to be self-centered, to monopolize shared resources, and to be possessive, monopolizing much of the time of their wives. These men showed higher-than-average sexual jealousy, becoming enraged when their wives even talked with someone else, as well as dependency: they would insist that their mates provide for all of their needs. With a tendency to being abusive, both verbally and physically, they also displayed inconsiderateness, such as by failing to show up on time. Emotionally unstable men were also moodier than their more stable counterparts, sometimes crying after minor setbacks. Suggesting a further diversion of their time and resources was their tendency to have more affairs than average.34 All of these costs indicate that emotionally unstable mates will absorb their partner’s time and resources, divert their own time and resources elsewhere, and fail to channel resources consistently over time. Dependability and stability are personal qualities that signal increased likelihood that a woman’s resources will not be drained by the man.
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David M. Buss (The Evolution Of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating)
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Kleptocracy, corruption, injustice, dirty politics, unscrupulous political movers, patronage politics, destructive and corrupt political dynasties, and impunity have found perpetual happiness in the Pearl of the Orient Seas.
There are so many endless questions:
What have you done?
What are you going to do?
Will silence, apathy, vindictiveness, emotional abuse, verbal abuse, psychological abuse and economic abuse go on?
Will you just go with the flow of kleptocracy, corruption, injustice and impunity?
When will you ever genuinely decolonise your mind from colonial mentality?
Will you live and work upholding truth and honesty as you continue to help strengthen the country's collective memory of various factual incidents in history without being politically biased?
Are you one of those who committed revisionism, cancelling out, discrediting others, peddled disinformation, calumny, gossip-mongering, fear-mongering, destructive lies, group political narcissist bullying, harassing, blaming, gloating, provoking, sabotaging, intimidating, threatening, abusing others as you are more loyal to a political party than the truth?
Will there be honest public servants and honest lawmakers?
Because with honesty as a top living value, you can find effective solutions to many issues in society.
Are you willing to help minimise, stop and eliminate corruption, violence, injustice and impunity?
Are you going to be one of those honest voices for the voiceless without breaking the law?
Are you going to help hold accountable those thieves, perpetrators, scammers, and corrupt members of society without breaking the law?
I have so many nagging questions, but I shall always end it with these:
Will you be honest in every deal?
How hard is it to be truthful?
Will you uphold the truth and justice?
Do the fact and truth whisper to your conscience?
Then, are you willing to honestly listen to it and move toward the right, lawful and humane actions?
~ Ana Angelica Abaya van Doorn writing as Angelica Hopes
Onestopia
Book 3, Solo la verità è bella Trilogy
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Angelica Hopes
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Not that he would ever lay a hand on Cy the golden boy. Abuse of the smart one must always remain verbal. Emotional scars only for the good twin.
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Nyla K. (Double-Edged)
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sometimes slick-talking salesman can become belligerent, using his verbal abilities to insult, to manipulate, to demean, to condescend. Feelings of failure are projected onto the other in order to protect the fragile ego.
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Chuck DeGroat (When Narcissism Comes to Church: Healing Your Community From Emotional and Spiritual Abuse)
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Fact: Most of the mass murderers/shooters, homegrown terrorists, prison inmates, rapists, and violent criminals in this country grew up in homes with some mix of child abuse, domestic violence, neglect, verbal and emotional abuse, and drug and/or alcohol abuse. The ACEs of childhood produce the rage and criminality of adulthood.
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Casey Gwinn (Hope Rising: How the Science of Hope Can Change Your Life)
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The ... conditions of democracy in the public sphere ... bear very directly upon the democratisation of personal life. Violent and abusive relationships are common in the sexual domain and between adults and children. Most such violence comes from men and is directed towards beings weaker than themselves. As an emancipatory ideal of democracy, the prohibition of violence is of basic importance. Coercive influences in relationships, however, obviously can take forms other than physical violence. Individuals may be prone, for example, to engage in emotional or verbal abuse of one another; marriage, so the saying goes, is a poor substitute for respect. Avoidance of emotional abuse is perhaps the most difficult aspect of the equalising of power in relationship; but the guiding principle is clearly respect for the independent views and personal traits of the other.
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Anthony Giddens (The Transformation of Intimacy: Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in Modern Societies)
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Insulting your intelligence. Not making you feel special and appreciated . All the times I continued to do things when you asked me to stop. Using the silent treatment to get what I wanted. Choosing to ignore you until you said you were sorry when we had a fight . Expecting sex whenever I wanted it but not giving it when you did . Not meeting your emotional needs and driving you to get them from another man . Not recognizing just how strong of a person you are . Making you wear a bathing suit when you were pregnant so I could make fun of you. All of the times that I didn't do things around the house because I knew you would do them eventually. Not doing more upkeep on our house. Having so many hobbies and interest and not simply appreciating you, the kids, our home, and our life. Always finding something to criticize about you. Not nurturing you . Not building you up but always tearing you down. Not complimenting you more. Taking you for granted. Not taking care of my body more to give you something pleasing to look at. Not letting go . All the emails. Expecting my needs to be the first priority of the family because I was the head of the household . Not knowing the true meaning of being the head of the household . Not reading more with you . Getting mad at you about something 3 or 4 times a week, maybe more . Not learning to enjoy your hobbies with you . Not working in the yard with you more . Interrupting you when you talk . Always acting like the victim . Limiting your spending money by giving you an allowance . Being unhappy so many days of my life . Ingraining in you and the kids "Is dad mad?". Getting mad and not staying overnight at the marriage seminar a few years ago . All the 1000's of more times I’m not remembering of "being mad because ______”. Yelling at you 1000's of times. Not providing the means for you to fix up the house the way you wanted to. Destroying your dreams. Always having to struggle for money . Not going to kids events with you . Defending myself whenever you'd point out something I was doing to upset you or the kids. You being married to a man who was still a child in his emotional development. Not recognizing how hurt you were . Being verbally abusive . Taking my misery out on you and the kids . My ego and my pride . Putting you first instead of God . Making you feel as if you never measured up . Crushing the tender flower in you . Not building the children up spiritually . Always thinking your issues were no big deal . All the tax problems . Not paying all our bills . Being lazy . Thinking I always had all the answers . Never apologizing . Never backing down. Telling you why you shouldn't feel the way you felt about things . Not learning the true meaning of a godly man and godly marriage. Having to make you suffer because of my fear of abandonment . Asking you to do things during sex that you didn’t like or were not comfortable doing . Any event(s) that are strong in your mind that I have failed to recognize in this list that was ever hurtful, disrespectful or disappointing to you. Making you have to divorce me. There was no other way for me to wake up and realize exactly the person I have been and how I was in our marriage. I am waking up.
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Austin F. James (Emotional Abuse: Silent Killer of Marriage - A Recovering Abuser Speaks Out)
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I have yet to meet a woman who was diagnosed as an adult (virtually all of us born before 1990) who has not been sexually violated, abused physically, emotionally, verbally, or all three, by a romantic partner, or is a survivor of rape or incest.
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Jennifer O'Toole (Autism in Heels: The Untold Story of a Female Life on the Spectrum)
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Abuse is not only physically. You can abuse someone emotionally and verbally. There is no abuse that is big or small, most important or less important, most serious or less serious, because every abuse is wrong and must stop.
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D.J. Kyos
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While the origin of Cptsd is most often associated with extended periods of physical and/or sexual abuse in childhood, my observations convince me that ongoing verbal and emotional abuse also causes it.
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Pete Walker (Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving)
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She believed the relationship would work
He wanted her to do all the work for the relationship
She believed adjustments needed to be made
He wanted her to improve for the sake of it
She was in pain, she was suffering because of the hardships
He told her the hardships were because of her.
She tolerated all the abuse silently, verbal and psychological;
He abused her every single time that he could
She grew tired of it, finally -
Started to ignore his tantrums
He intensified the tantrums;
She told him she was depressed
He told her he was depressed
It was a battle of emotions
To see who wins in the end.
It was not a relationship anymore,
It was a game, to prove who is suffering more.
She lost her calm, made it clear that she cannot take it anymore
He walked away, like he always did -
He made sure people knew he suffered ‘thanks’ to her
She did not know what to do,
What step next to take
He knew exactly what he had to do -
He knew the ways
He pulled out his sword of manipulation
Scared the other family members so much
That she was scared as well -
And decided to give it another chance.
She’d done enough to bring herself out of the loop
And finally she walked into another one willingly
Because for her, the relationship mattered -
She failed to see the manipulation;
For her it seemed like his love for her.
Promises were made -
He said he’d change,
She believed.
Because she still wants the relationship to work -
And he knows it well.
Amidst all this drama between the couple
In some corner, an alone child suffers -
And - learns that tantrums give favourable results.
In some corner, a child grows up -
Trying to understand the complexities of a relationship
The dynamics of it and its worthiness
In some tender-mind corner, a doubt grows -
Is it all worth in the end?
Meanwhile -
The calm after the storm continues
No one bothers to see what the storm has damaged
Fresh efforts are put in -
She believes the relationship can work
He knows he still has the control.
Things might continue the same -
For how long, no one knows -
Why? No one knows.
But it does -
While others stand spectators -
Trying to understand the dynamics of the relationship.
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Arti Honrao
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Words possess immense power. Through a word, God created the world. Through The Word, who was made flesh (John 1:14), God saved the world. Words can be life-giving as well as life-threatening; life-giving by inspiring us to be all we were meant to be, and life-threatening by destroying our hopes and dashing our dreams. Ultimately, words move from being positive to being abusive when they hurt our hearts and harm our relationships.
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June Hunt (Verbal & Emotional Abuse: Victory Over Verbal and Emotional Abuse)
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Emotional abuse is any behavior that is designed to control another person through the use of fear, humiliation, and verbal or physical assaults. It can include verbal abuse and constant criticism to more subtle tactics like intimidation, manipulation, and refusal to ever be pleased. Emotional abuse is like brainwashing in that it systematically wears away at the victim’s self-confidence, sense of self-worth, trust in her perceptions, and self-concept. Whether it be by constant berating and belittling, by intimidation, or under the guise of “guidance” or teaching, the results are similar. Eventually, the recipient loses all sense of self and all remnants of personal value.
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Paul T. Mason (Stop Walking on Eggshells: Taking Your Life Back When Someone You Care About Has Borderline Personality Disorder)
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In the most classical form, domestic violence manifests as an intimate partner’s (husband’s, wife’s, boyfriend’s, girlfriend’s, fiancé’s, fiancée’s) verbally, emotionally, financially, and/or physically abusing his or her partner.
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Ramani S. Durvasula ("Don't You Know Who I Am?": How to Stay Sane in an Era of Narcissism, Entitlement, and Incivility)
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If, as is more likely, your loved one has the unconventional form of BPD, they may insist that everyone else is the problem. They will have no interest in therapy, and they will be verbally and emotionally abusive. There is a 99 percent chance that they will DARVO: deny, attack, reverse, claim victimhood, and make you into the offender.
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Paul T. Mason (Stop Walking on Eggshells: Taking Your Life Back When Someone You Care About Has Borderline Personality Disorder)
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Choose not to ABUSE.
Not to abuse the power given to you.
Not to abuse respect given to you.
Not to abuse the love given to you.
Not to abuse the trust given to you.
Not to abuse the time given to you.
Not to abuse other people kindness.
Not to abuse other people’s help.
Not to abuse other people emotionally,
financially, sexually, verbally , spiritually,
mentally, physically. Say No to any abuse .
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D.J. Kyos
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1) The woman has intuitive feelings that she is at risk. 2) At the inception of the relationship, the man accelerated the pace, prematurely placing on the agenda such things as commitment, living together, and marriage. 3) He resolves conflict with intimidation, bullying, and violence. 4) He is verbally abusive. 5) He uses threats and intimidation as instruments of control or abuse. This includes threats to harm physically, to defame, to embarrass, to restrict freedom, to disclose secrets, to cut off support, to abandon, and to commit suicide. 6) He breaks or strikes things in anger. He uses symbolic violence (tearing a wedding photo, marring a face in a photo, etc.). 7) He has battered in prior relationships. 8) He uses alcohol or drugs with adverse affects (memory loss, hostility, cruelty). 9) He cites alcohol or drugs as an excuse or explanation for hostile or violent conduct (“That was the booze talking, not me; I got so drunk I was crazy”). 10) His history includes police encounters for behavioral offenses (threats, stalking, assault, battery). 11) There has been more than one incident of violent behavior (including vandalism, breaking things, throwing things). 12) He uses money to control the activities, purchase, and behavior of his wife/partner. 13) He becomes jealous of anyone or anything that takes her time away from the relationship; he keeps her on a “tight leash,” requires her to account for her time. 14) He refuses to accept rejection. 15) He expects the relationship to go on forever, perhaps using phrases like “together for life;” “always;” “no matter what.” 16) He projects extreme emotions onto others (hate, love, jealousy, commitment) even when there is no evidence that would lead a reasonable person to perceive them. 17) He minimizes incidents of abuse. 18) He spends a disproportionate amount of time talking about his wife/partner and derives much of his identity from being her husband, lover, etc. 19) He tries to enlist his wife’s friends or relatives in a campaign to keep or recover the relationship.
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Gavin de Becker (The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence)
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According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV), “Psychological abuse involves trauma to the victim caused by verbal abuse, acts, threats of acts, or coercive tactics. Perpetrators use psychological abuse to control, terrorize, and denigrate their victims. It frequently occurs prior to or concurrently with physical or sexual abuse.” Psychological abuse in intimate relationships is not an infrequent occurrence.
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Barrie Davenport (Signs of Emotional Abuse: How to Recognize the Patterns of Narcissism, Manipulation, and Control in Your Love Relationship)