Jackson MacKenzie > Quotes

“Psychopaths provide shallow praise and flattery only in order to gain trust. When you actually need emotional support, they will typically offer an empty response—or they will completely ignore you. With time, this conditions you not to bother them with your feelings, even when you need a partner the most, especially during times of tragedy or illness. You will begin to notice that you are never allowed to express anything but positive praise for them.”
― Jackson MacKenzie, Psychopath Free: Recovering from Emotionally Abusive Relationships With Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Other Toxic People

“If someone’s opinion of you goes from sky-high to rock bottom, this isn’t normal.”
― Jackson MacKenzie, Psychopath Free: Recovering from Emotionally Abusive Relationships With Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Other Toxic People

“But that’s the magic of alone time! You are completely and 100 percent in control of your own happiness. You can imagine anything you want, transforming a bad mood into a good one. Or maybe you want to feel the bad mood fully, in which case you can cry all you want, and nobody can judge you. When you’re alone, there’s no pressure to be someone you’re not. For a while I actually used to need time alone in order to remember who I was. When we’re constantly surrounded by people—especially toxic influences—it becomes really easy to forget ourselves. We get caught up in drama, gossip, and negativity.”
― Jackson MacKenzie, Psychopath Free: Recovering from Emotionally Abusive Relationships With Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Other Toxic People

“Carl Jung wrote: “The foundation of all mental illness is the unwillingness to experience legitimate suffering.”
― Jackson MacKenzie, Whole Again: Healing Your Heart and Rediscovering Your True Self After Toxic Relationships and Emotional Abuse

“You cannot circle around the pain and discover the happiness you deserve. You must travel through the pain and embrace all of the challenging feelings and difficult ups and downs that are the essence of the grieving process. For a long time, it may seem as if you will always be hurting . . . until one day you will find that you turned a corner and found a lovely new world you never could have imagined.”
― Jackson MacKenzie, Psychopath Free: Recovering from Emotionally Abusive Relationships With Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Other Toxic People

“You’re essentially sitting with years or decades of ignored emotions. All you need to do is listen and respond only with kindness. You do not need to judge or analyze what’s going on. Instead, simply welcome these feelings. Let them in.”
― Jackson MacKenzie, Whole Again: Healing Your Heart and Rediscovering Your True Self After Toxic Relationships and Emotional Abuse

“It’s not your job to manage the emotions of others.”
― Jackson MacKenzie, Whole Again: Healing Your Heart and Rediscovering Your True Self After Toxic Relationships and Emotional Abuse

“The psychopath is constantly provoking drama, rivalries, and competitions. What separates them from everyday drama queens is their ability to appear innocent in all of it. They make subtle suggestions, then sit back and watch as others go down in flames for them.”
― Jackson MacKenzie, Psychopath Free: Recovering from Emotionally Abusive Relationships With Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Other Toxic People

“Many survivors find that they didn’t really know how to express sadness or anger throughout most of their lives. They were instead expected to be a cheerful servant to everyone around them. And so they developed this stubborn light in their hearts that always sought to see the best in everything, no matter how much the evidence pointed to the contrary.”
― Jackson MacKenzie, Psychopath Free: Recovering from Emotionally Abusive Relationships With Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Other Toxic People

“if you find yourself playing detective with someone, you should remove them from your life immediately”
― Jackson MacKenzie, Psychopath Free: Recovering from Emotionally Abusive Relationships With Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Other Toxic People

“Psychopaths do not actually feel the love and happiness that they so frequently proclaim. They oscillate between contempt, envy, and boredom. Nothing more.”
― Jackson MacKenzie, Psychopath Free: Recovering from Emotionally Abusive Relationships With Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Other Toxic People

“codependents stay in toxic relationships for far longer than any other person would. Your intuition is actually really good—the problem is, you doubt it. You’re so preoccupied with trying to make sure you’re reasonable and seeing all perspectives that you fail to throw in the towel when people are blatantly mistreating you. Oftentimes you notice something seems “off” for the longest time, but you feel guilty and dismiss it because the person is nice to you, or because they aren’t rejecting you.”
― Jackson MacKenzie, Whole Again: Healing Your Heart and Rediscovering Your True Self After Toxic Relationships and Emotional Abuse

“When we stay with shame, we are learning how to tolerate pain. The more we can do this, the more our bodies will reveal their truth to us. Instead of instinctually avoiding pain, we can meet it with kindness and curiosity. We can ask it questions and learn about it, without being consumed by it.”
― Jackson MacKenzie, Whole Again: Healing Your Heart and Rediscovering Your True Self After Toxic Relationships and Emotional Abuse

“During a relationship with a psychopath, you are likely to experience a range of emotions that you’ve never felt before: extreme jealousy, neediness, rage, anxiety, and paranoia. After every outburst, you constantly think to yourself, “If only I hadn’t behaved that way, then maybe they’d be happier with me.” Think again. Those were not your emotions. I repeat: those were not your emotions. They were carefully manufactured by the psychopath in order to make you question your own good nature. Victims are often prone to believe that they can understand, forgive, and absorb all of the problems in a relationship. Essentially, they checkmate themselves by constantly trying to rationalize the abuser’s completely irrational behavior.”
― Jackson MacKenzie, Psychopath Free: Recovering from Emotionally Abusive Relationships With Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Other Toxic People

“As we learn that we’re responsible for our own emotions, we become more comfortable with the idea that others are responsible for their own emotions too. With this mind-set, we can finally relax—and begin to heal.”
― Jackson MacKenzie, Whole Again: Healing Your Heart and Rediscovering Your True Self After Toxic Relationships and Emotional Abuse

“Emotional abusers condition their victims to feel ashamed, inadequate, and unstable. This is because they are cowards, incapable of healthy relationships with strong and self-respecting individuals. Oftentimes, they choose targets who are unusually successful and idealistic, because these people have more to lose. But abusers cannot control someone with such qualities, and so they break down the target’s self-esteem through belittling, teasing, and manufactured jealousy. The target may have perfectionist tendencies, striving to meet the abuser’s impossible standards. This results in a strange dynamic where the abuser is idealized, despite being lazy, dishonest, and unfaithful, while the victim is devalued, despite putting more effort into this relationship than ever before.”
― Jackson MacKenzie, Psychopath Free: Recovering from Emotionally Abusive Relationships With Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Other Toxic People

“You can break this cycle by meeting your own internal pain with self-love and a heartfelt understanding that this experience truly was not your fault. Whatever happened to them to cause this disorder was likely not their fault either, but now you see that your love cannot possibly break that psychological barrier. Your first priority is to turn your focus inward, allowing yourself to feel the emotions you were told were wrong.”
― Jackson MacKenzie, Whole Again: Healing Your Heart and Rediscovering Your True Self After Toxic Relationships and Emotional Abuse

“what are your insecurities? Get out a piece of paper and make a list. This will save your life down the road. Once you’re aware of these traits, you will also become aware of the people who try to manipulate them. And even better, you can begin to make changes—to better yourself and improve your life.”
― Jackson MacKenzie, Psychopath Free: Recovering from Emotionally Abusive Relationships With Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Other Toxic People

“It is recognizing and accepting the full extent of the damage this person caused, and choosing not to carry it as your own damage anymore. It means you can walk away much faster the next time.”
― Jackson MacKenzie, Whole Again: Healing Your Heart and Rediscovering Your True Self After Toxic Relationships and Emotional Abuse

“C-PTSD sufferers who experienced abuse may engage in mental arguments with their abusers long after the abuse has ended. Most people with C-PTSD experienced ongoing abuse from someone (or multiple people) who repeatedly betrayed their trust, and blamed them for this betrayal. They were made the scapegoat of someone else’s shame, which eventually caused them to absorb this shame themselves.”
― Jackson MacKenzie, Whole Again: Healing Your Heart and Rediscovering Your True Self After Toxic Relationships and Emotional Abuse

“Spirituality makes a really nice companion to therapy, because it provides love and warmth that you can tap into any time.”
― Jackson MacKenzie, Whole Again: Healing Your Heart and Rediscovering Your True Self After Toxic Relationships and Emotional Abuse

“Recovery comes from experiencing the pain fully,”
― Jackson MacKenzie, Whole Again: Healing Your Heart and Rediscovering Your True Self After Toxic Relationships and Emotional Abuse

“You find yourself explaining the basic elements of human respect to a full-grown man or woman. Normal people understand fundamental concepts like honesty and kindness. Psychopaths often appear to be childlike and innocent, but don’t let this mask fool you. No adult should need to be told how he or she is making other people feel.”
― Jackson MacKenzie, Psychopath Free: Recovering from Emotionally Abusive Relationships With Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Other Toxic People

“With you, the psychopath acts covert, ambiguous, condescending, and always trying to keep you doubting the relationship.”
― Jackson MacKenzie, Psychopath Free: Recovering from Emotionally Abusive Relationships With Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Other Toxic People

“If at any point your forgiveness process convinces you to invite an abuser back into your life (or even talk to them), this is not the kind of forgiveness we’re looking for. It will actually impede your own progress.”
― Jackson MacKenzie, Whole Again: Healing Your Heart and Rediscovering Your True Self After Toxic Relationships and Emotional Abuse

“People pleasers often have no idea what they want, what their needs are, or what their boundaries look like. Everything is just about making sure others are happy. They can view any issue from another person’s perspective, making excuses for others while offering themselves none of the same flexibility.”
― Jackson MacKenzie, Whole Again: Healing Your Heart and Rediscovering Your True Self After Toxic Relationships and Emotional Abuse

“Toxic shame is the feeling that we are somehow inherently defective, that something is wrong with our being. Guilt is “I made a mistake, I did something wrong.” Shame is “I’m a mistake, something is wrong with me.” At the core of our wounding is the unbearable emotional pain resulting from having internalized the false message that we are not loved because we are personally defective and shameful. —ROBERT BURNEY”
― Jackson MacKenzie, Whole Again: Healing Your Heart and Rediscovering Your True Self After Toxic Relationships and Emotional Abuse

“People cannot go from abusing and manipulating you one day, to magically being healed a week later. This is simply impossible. Especially when this change occurs as a response to possible abandonment or rejection, there’s just no chance this is authentic change.”
― Jackson MacKenzie, Whole Again: Healing Your Heart and Rediscovering Your True Self After Toxic Relationships and Emotional Abuse

“Their partner can say and do unacceptable things on a daily basis, which the codependent will try to explain and understand (“they had a difficult childhood!”). But the moment codependents make a single mistake, they berate themselves for it, obsess over it, and wonder if they’re crazy. For this reason, they come up short in relationships, over and over again. Because they’re unable to recognize that the balance is skewed, and unable to recognize that they’re not getting what they deserve from a healthy relationship. Their self-doubt keeps things forever skewed in their partner’s favor.”
― Jackson MacKenzie, Whole Again: Healing Your Heart and Rediscovering Your True Self After Toxic Relationships and Emotional Abuse

“Something really important to understand about the protective self is that you didn’t ask for it. Repeat that in your mind a few times: You didn’t ask for the protective self to take over. This was a physiological response from your own body, tensing or blocking or numbing to protect you. You didn’t go through a trauma and say, “Okay, body, numb me out now!” Decisions were made without your approval or awareness.”
― Jackson MacKenzie, Whole Again: Healing Your Heart and Rediscovering Your True Self After Toxic Relationships and Emotional Abuse