#abuse

There were probably many factors that kept the relationship going and kept your love alive. There were all his promises. "I promise this will never happen again." You believed him the first time. And the second. As the abuse continued, he became increasingly remorseful, his promises more insistent. You continued to believe him; you wanted to believe him. After all, you loved him. Then there were all the apologies. He seemed truly sorry. You forgave him. Now, however, when you think back, you realize the apologies were conditional. They blamed you! "I'm sorry, but if only you hadn't..." They always made his abuse somehow your fault. You may have begun to believe this, and you may even remember apologizing to him. You began to believe that if you were careful about what you said or did, you could prevent the abuse from happening again. As the abuse escalated over time, the blaming became more obvious. "I didn't mean to hurt you, but if you just weren't so [stupid, ugly, careless, dumb, etc.], this would never have happened." Time after time you were made to believe that every act of violence or abuse was your fault. Day after day you were made to feel that you were unworthy of him. ↗

— Meg Kennedy Dugan

#life

A man with a club [bat] is a law-maker, a man to be obeyed, but not necessarily conciliated. ↗

— Jack London

#clubs #london

The thing about secrets is they keep you in a prison. Once you share, WHOOSH, there is a release. ↗

— Joyce Meyer

#abuse

Romanticism is the abuse of adjectives ↗

— Alfred de Musset

#romanticism #writing #abuse

Perfectionism is self-abuse of the highest order. ↗

— Anne Wilson Schaef

#work #abuse

The advantage of beating a mute is he can't tell on you. ↗

— Thomas Harris

#silence #testimony #abuse

I can no longer stay quiet in this world, I have a voice and I feel it reverberate off my internal walls, making its slow climb upward until its melody can be heard all around. ↗

— Elin Stebbins Waldal

#healing-the-past #strength #abuse

Her soft trailing fingers would continue to attempt a connection that I refused to allow; that I couldn’t allow if I wanted to survive. ↗

— J.D. Stroube

#adult #child #connection #fingers #ghost

...they needed someone to explain, to spin, the parts of the tale that couldn't be suppressed. Someone reputable and educated. Someone brilliant yet absolutely committed to the faith. Someone like my father. ↗

— Martha N. Beck

#controversial #faith #leaving #leaving-the-saints #mormonism

We know, at least, that this decision (ending factory farming) will help prevent deforestation, curb global warming, reduce pollution, save oil reserves, lessen the burden on rural America, decrease human rights abuses, improve publish health, and help eliminate the most systematic animal abuse in history. ↗

— Jonathan Safran Foer

#environment #factory-farming #abuse