Interpersonal Violence Quotes

“•The abusive partner continually denies any responsibility for problems.”
― Beverly Engel, The Emotionally Abusive Relationship: How to Stop Being Abused and How to Stop Abusing

“I think a lot about what evidence, had it been measured or recorded or kept, would help my case. Not in a court of law, exactly, because there are many things that happen to us that are beyond the purview of even a perfectly executed legal system. But the court of other people, the court of the body, the court of queer history.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

“From then on, that Sunday was like a veil that came between me and everything I did. I would play, I would read, I would behave normally but somehow I wasn't there. Everything had become artificial. I had trouble learning my lessons, when before I only needed to read them once to know them by heart. Acutely aware of everything around me and yet unable to concentrate., I lost my insouciance and natural ability to learn.

(...)

I waited for the scene to be repeated. I was positive it would happen again. I found the presence of customers comforting, dreading the moments when my parents and I were alone, in the evenings and on Sunday afternoons. I was on the alert as soon as they raised their voices; I would scrutinize my father, his expression, his hands. In every sudden silence I would read the omens of disaster. Every day at school I wondered whether, on returning home, I would be faced with the aftermath of a tragedy.”
― Annie Ernaux, Shame

“So unfair: the people who hated me most were always the ones who were hard to hate back.”
― Megan Howell, Softie: Stories