“How to read her coldness: She is preoccupied. She is unhappy. She is unhappy with you. You did something and now she’s unhappy, and you need to find out what it is so she will stop being unhappy. You talk to her. You are clear. You think you are clear. You say what you are thinking and you say it af…”— Carmen Maria Machado, amazon.com
“Multiple ex-members compared aspects of the group dynamic to a 'cult.'”— Amy Zimmerman, thedailybeast.com
“This guy was never violent, rarely raised his voice. Coming from an abusive past, it was hard for me to recognize what he was doing as abuse because it was all mental.”— Gabbie Hanna, youtube.com
“I would try to sleep in as late as possible so my days were shorter. I stopped listening to music entirely. I ceased to be. I was an ex-person.”— Chloe Dykstra, medium.com
“In a gut-wrenching essay on Medium, actor Chloe Dykstra describes a years-long emotionally abusive relationship with a man 20 years her senior, who she supported as he went from 'a mildly successful podcaster to a powerhouse CEO of his own company.' Though she never mentions him by name in her piece…”— Madeleine Davies, jezebel.com
“And when your self-worth reaches such depths after years of being treated like you’re worthless, you might find you think you deserve that sort of treatment, and no one else will love you.”— Chloe Dykstra, medium.com
“This kind of relationship is so common, and so easy to slip into. Normalizing behavior happens incredibly quickly, and one can lose track of what is acceptable treatment.”— Chloe Dykstra, medium.com
“When cameras were on us? He was a prince. Turn them off, he was a nightmare.”— Chloe Dykstra, medium.com
“I believed that, to borrow an analogy from a friend, if I kept digging I would find water.”— Chloe Dykstra, medium.com
“I reasoned that the second man was nothing like the first, though they looked the same—swallowed my lies in tiny cups until they both drowned me, Annabel Lee in her tomb by the sounding sea.”— Shahida Arabi, thoughtcatalog.com
“I recoiled in the hard grip of your hands, delicately tying my stomach into knots.”— Shahida Arabi, thoughtcatalog.com
“Leave the man who breaks your wings and uses them as crutches just so he can learn to fly.”— Shahida Arabi, amazon.com
“I sold my heartbeats for a lived-in cage A secondhand soul and a man I had never met.”— Shahida Arabi, amazon.com
“This is a girl who can turn water into fire and fire into rebirth. This is the girl who can taste death a thousand times and use it to relish life.”— Shahida Arabi, amazon.com
“I reasoned that the second man was nothing like the first, though they looked the same— swallowed my lies in tiny cups until they both drowned me, Annabel Lee in her tomb by the sounding sea.”— Shahida Arabi, amazon.com
“I became accustomed to the cruelty and the raging storms The silent glare followed by the teasing eyes The sweet nothings and the callous words Bruising the soul and battering the mind - Carefully evaluating how far I could go. I recoiled in the hard grip of his hands delicately tying my stomach int…”— Shahida Arabi, amazon.com
“Trust her when she tells you - That like Rapunzel she can spin your hatred into gold.”— Shahida Arabi, amazon.com
“When you’re dealing with an empathy-deficient individual with a high sense of entitlement and a sadistic need to bring others down, conversations become crazymaking minefields meant to psychologically terrorize and divert you.”— Shahida Arabi, thoughtcatalog.com
“Remember: toxic people don’t argue with you, they essentially argue with themselves and you become privy to their long, draining monologues. They thrive off the drama and they live for it.”— Shahida Arabi, thoughtcatalog.com
“Growing up in an abusive household is a fucking trip dude. If you’ve never had someone angrily wash a dish at you, or fold a sock in your direction, then how are you gonna understand why I get nervous when you quietly do the laundry, or why I ask “are you mad at me?” when you set the bag of grocerie…”— ericfvckingharris, ericfvckingharris.tumblr.com