Key Quotes
‘The more survivors shared their experiences with me, the more it became clear there are common hurdles to overcome. These centre on how confusion affects our ability to understand and process abusive experiences… The overwhelming lack of clarity heavily affects the ability to heal after abuse.’ (pages 9-10)
‘You might feel morally compelled to accept the abuser’s behaviour for several reasons, such as you believe you should love them unconditionally or you feel responsible for their abusive outbursts. However, thus will leave you failing to grasp why it has had such a significant impact on your well-being.’ (page 15)
‘When you acknowledge the abuse, you can accept the depth of your response. It is proportionate; it is valid.’ (page 18)
‘A common inner struggle with abusive relationships is that you have learned not to trust, or perhaps even hear, your intuition. There are high levels of self-doubt which are part of the abuse, so you no longer trust your gut feeling.’ (page 20)
‘An abuser by definition is someone who treats another with cruelty or violence, especially regularly or repeatedly.’ (page 21)
Emotional Abuse
‘Emotional abuse teaches you that your feelings are wrong… Emotional abuse targets your self-esteem, undermines and invalidates your feelings, shame and blame your emotional reactions, withhold affection, and use coercive control. Coercive control is a pattern of intimidation or humiliation to shame or scare you, to regulate your behaviour.’ (page 21)
Psychological abuse
‘Psychological abuse teaches you that your perception is wrong… It involves distorting your reality, manipulating the way you think, and using this to control you. Psychological abusers target your trust in your mental capacity, convince you that you’re crazy, manipulate your judgement, foster intense levels of self-doubt and use coercive control.’ (page 22)
‘Examples of micro patterns are continuous criticism, snide comments, or jokes at your expense. The abuser shows a general disrespect in their communication towards you… The behaviour itself may not seem significantly bad, however it becomes abusive through its persistency, callousness, and the inability to avoid it.’ (pages 23-24)
‘There are good times, but even during these times, there is a subconscious anticipation of when subtle abuse will re-emerge and lead towards escalated incidents. There is a feeling of walking on eggshells as you don’t want to upset the abuser’ (page 26)
‘The abuser doesn’t communicate constructively but expects you to know exactly what they want and for you to meet these demands. These aren’t requests but expectations fuelled by entitlement. They then berate you if you cannot read their mind.’ (page 35)
‘When talking about ‘allowing’ abuse to happen, we often overlook that confusion created a helplessness to take action. It is not simply you ignored red flags or tolerated abuse.’ (page 36)
‘children are abused because of the abusive parent’s rigid expectations based on their child’s gender. More than this, a child might lack parental acceptance and face higher criticism, based on their gender and the abusive parent’s belief of one gender being superior.’ (page 51)
‘In an abusive relationship, any perceived flaws come under intense scrutiny. Over time, you learn to view your own behaviour through the same lens as the abuser and scrutinise the smallest shortcomings. You beat yourself up mercilessly for simple errors and this can lead to over-inflating and labelling your own behaviour as abusive’ (page 58)
‘After abuse it is common to wonder whether you are oversensitive or whether your response to abuse has been an overreaction. The abuser may have told you this, to shift blame and avoid accountability’ (page 63)
‘You cannot simply switch survival mode on and off… Long-term effects of emotional abuse include depression, anxiety and chronic pain, as well as developing low self-esteem and feelings of guilt and shame. It is also connected to issues of substance abuse, heart disease, eating disorders, or other mental health conditions.’ (page 64)
‘Critical Behaviours
- Criticism
- Nit-picking
- Fault finding
- Sarcasm
- Accusations
- High demands
- Jealousy
- -Exaggerating your flaws’ (page 79)
‘Demeaning Behaviours
- Insults
- Jokes at your expense
- Derogatory names
- Belittling pet names
- Belittling your accomplishments
- Dismissive behaviour
- Undermining you
- Humiliation’ (page 80)
‘Unpredictable Behaviours
- Starting arguments for the sake of it
- Reacting negatively to positive news (or vice versa)
- Unpredictable or erratic moods
- Communicating in a confusing or contradictory way
- Lack of respect for personal boundaries
- Using information gained about you to be confrontational’ (page 81)
‘Aggressive Behaviour
- Rage (explosive or under the surface)
- Verbal abuse
- Physical intimidation
- Sexual aggression
- Swearing
- Yelling
- Throwing objects
- Restricting your free movement within the home’ (page 90)
‘Neglectful Behaviour
- Silent treatment
- Withholding affection
- Disregard or contempt towards your feelings, achievements and need for affection.
- Ignoring, intimidating, humiliating, or isolating you,
- Preventing you from having basic needs met (such as food, clothing, or medical needs)’ (page 91)
‘Provoking Behaviour
- Shaming you
- Teasing you as ‘a joke’
- Using your vulnerabilities against you
- Veiled threats (also aggression)
- Dog whistling (abuse / threats that only you can pick up on)’ (page 93)
‘Stress is a known contributor and aggravator to various health issues. We know it adversely affects the immune system, digestive system, and cardiovascular system.’ (page 99)
‘Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse. It is a type of manipulation which undermines your reality and is used to create a power imbalance through distorting your thoughts, causing confusion, invalidating your emotions and denying your experiences. It has a long-lasting impact on your wellbeing, leading to chronic self-doubt, intense confusion, distress, low self-esteem, and loss of identity.’ (page 107)
‘The abuser often places blame on their victim, but they also blame life stressors or other people for their abusive behaviour.’ (page 109)
‘Trauma bonding is when you develop an emotional attachment to someone who is toxic or abusive towards you.’ (page 118)
‘Intermittent good behaviour leads you to question whether you perceived the severity of their abusive behaviour correctly, or whether it really is all in your head. The sporadic acts of kindness strengthen the gas-lighting narrative’ (page 121)
‘In a family setting, the parent might shower you with gifts when they overstep a boundary… There is the extreme admiration of your professional competence or an enormous display of affection through excessive gift giving. Both invalidate your right to feel upset with their unreasonable expectations or boundary violations, whilst providing hope they are capable of meeting your needs and having the relationship you want to have.’ (page 138)
‘The loss of time that could have brought you happiness instead of harm deserves your grief.’ (page 181)
‘We therefore believe if we were good enough, if we were ‘the one’, we could break down their walls. When the abuse continues, rather than hold the abuser accountable, you believe it’s your love that isn’t worthy.’ (page 204)
‘Instead of feeling enough as you are, you try to please and appease the abuser by bending yourself in all shapes and directions, with the hope they will reward you with warmth and kindness’ (page 219)
‘The abuser uses the notion of unconditional love to avoid having to address their abusive behaviour, stating that if you loved them, you would accept them as they are... The abuser’s interpretation of unconditional love is you should unconditionally tolerate abuse.’ (pages 229-230)
‘Conditions negatively affect wellbeing because they either reject parts of you, disregard boundaries or invalidate your responses. It leads to feelings of unworthiness. Conditions are usually about protecting ego rather than wellbeing.’ (page 231)
‘We think of the belief, if we show kindness in the face of rage, love will conquer. The danger is, not everyone is a safe person to love.’ (page 236)
‘The bottom line is, in a healthy relationship you shouldn’t have to think five steps ahead, walk on eggshells, anticipate their mood, take blame for all tensons, read their mind, apologise for their behaviour and fear they may stop loving you from one day to the next. This isn’t healthy love; it is control… you deserve to be loved as you are.’ (page 247)
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