LovebirdsFlying
My husband drew this cartoon of me.
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- Aug 13, 2007
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I did a similar thread back in 2011, but as I have been collecting contributions and remembering other entries, this has grown and expanded. Contributions will continue to be welcome.
Please note that many of these phrases are innocent and mean only what the words say, coming from most people. This is what ABUSERS AND THEIR ENABLERS mean when they say it. Just because someone says these things does not automatically make them an abuser.
_____
I. SAID BY ABUSERS
"I miss you."
---- "I miss abusing you."
---- "I've run out of punching bags, so I'm trying to reel you back in and start over with you."
"I just want you to be happy."
---- "I want you to *enjoy* living under my thumb."
---- "Just do what I tell you to do, then shut up and pretend you're happy."
"I only want what's best for you."
---- "I want whatever makes *me* look best."
---- "I decide what's best, even if you're an adult. You are not allowed to decide for yourself."
"I'm only trying to help."
---- "I'm trying to help you feel incompetent, so you'll stay dependent on me, and let me tell myself how important I am because you need me."
"You've changed."
"I don't know why you're so mean lately."
"I don't even know you anymore."
---- "You're not letting me abuse you like you used to do."
---- "You've never stood up for yourself before, and I don't want you to start doing it now."
"Your therapist (minister, spouse, significant other, supportive friend) turned you against us."
---- "They are teaching you healthy ways and demonstrating to you how toxic we really are, and I don't like it."
"Why can't you just let it go?"
"It happened so long ago."
"Leave the past in the past."
"Let bygones be bygones."
---- "You don't matter to me, and neither does your pain. I'm trying to ignore it and pretend nothing happened. I'm never going to admit I did anything wrong, so you might as well shut up about it."
---- "The only reason it's in the past is that you went 'no contact' and stopped hanging around. If I still had access to you, I'd keep treating you the same way because I see nothing wrong with it. But I'm not going to admit that either."
"Come back to me. I've changed."
"I won't treat you like that anymore. I learned my lesson."
"I know I need help, and I'll get it, if you'll come home."
---- "I may make an intake appointment, to please you, but I won't follow through on it."
---- "Once you do come home, I'll be nice for a while. After you're settled comfortably and in love with me again, I'll go back to my old ways so slowly and gradually that you won't even notice until it's just as bad as it was before."
"Baby, please don't leave me. My dad (other relative, pet, whoever) just died. I can't lose you too. You're all I've got."
---- "Nobody who's alive will have anything to do with me. I've already run everybody else out of my life. You're the only one who will let me get away with my behavior. Now I'm guilt-tripping you so you'll stay, even though I deserve to be alone.
---- "What I'm not saying out loud, but you know from past experience, is that if you walk out that door, I'll track you down, and I'll hurt you."
"Can't you take a joke?"
"Come on, where's your sense of humor?"
"I was only kidding! Gee, you're so sensitive!"
---- "I demand the right to insult you whenever I please, without being held accountable for it."
---- "It was a deliberately calculated, cruel remark, aimed directly where I knew it would hurt you the most, but I thought you were too stupid to realize that."
---- "I fully expected you to see through the thinly veiled putdown, and take the offense I absolutely meant. By using joking as an excuse, I can now double down and insult you twice for the price of one. Go me!"
"It didn't happen that way. I didn't say or do that."
"You're remembering it wrong."
"You must have dreamed it."
"Maybe you saw that on TV."
"Oh my, you have such an imagination!"
---- "It happened exactly as you say, but I'd rather have everybody thinking you're crazy than admit it."
"Oh, WOW! You did great! I'm so proud of you!"
---- "You made me look good."
---- "You surprised me. I didn't think you'd actually succeed."
---- "Uh-oh, I'd better overcompensate and pretend I'm happy for you. Coming right out and saying I'm jealous because you outdid me would unmask me for what I really am."
"I did the best I could."
---- "I put in the effort I thought you were worth."
"I'm sorry you're upset."
"I'm sorry you took it that way."
"I'm sorry for whatever you think I did."
---- "I'm pretending to apologize while absolving myself of any actual responsibility. Not only am I wording it in a way that makes it sound like it's your fault, but if you don't accept my fake apology, I'm going to blame you again and call you unforgiving."
"I said I was sorry."
---- "I offered you a phony apology, and it didn't fool you."
---- "I'm not in any way sorry, and I don't care how you feel. I only said it to shut you up. I'm going to keep right on treating you any old way I please, but now you're never allowed to bring it up again."
"Keep your mouth shut about family matters."
"Loose lips sink ships."
"What happens in this house, stays in this house."
---- "I have something to hide. If the truth got out, I'd be in jail, and that's going to be your fault for telling, not mine for committing the crime."
---- "You're correct that this isn't right and shouldn't be happening, but I have no intention of stopping it. It's easier to intimidate and guilt-trip you into silence instead."
"You're choosing to see only the negative, and ignore the positive."
---- "And I'm doing exactly the opposite, which isn't any healthier."
---- "I realize you see the positive too, but because I'm a hypocrite and don't hold myself to the same standard I hold you to, I'm choosing to ignore that and say whatever puts you in a bad light."
"I don't sugarcoat things."
"I tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear."
---- "I have the answers you seem to be looking for, and that makes me superior to you. Therefore I reserve the right to insult you, and then blame you for feeling insulted.
---- "I don't care about being kind, polite, or tactful, as long as I can demonstrate that I'm right and you're wrong."
"I can't help it. I have no control when I get angry."
---- "I know perfectly well what would happen if I were to hit my boss, or a cop, or anybody else when I'm angry. I can control myself just fine. But you're safe and won't hurt me back, so I'll unleash all my fury on you, and then claim I couldn't stop myself."
"Yes, I know, you've told me you don't like it when people call you that name. I keep forgetting."
"All right, so I forgot to do what I told you I would do. Big deal."
---- "I couldn't care less. You're not worth the effort to remember. Your feelings matter so little to me that I won't even try to respect them. No matter how clearly you communicate, I'm just going to pretend I didn't hear, and do whatever I want to do."
---- "I see our relationship as a competition rather than both of us being on the same team. I'm afraid that if I ever respect your wishes or do what you wanted me to do, you might start thinking you're in charge of me. I do the opposite of what I know you want me to do, so I can show you who's boss."
"I'm not the crazy one in this relationship. You are."
----"You must be crazy to put up with me, and yet here you are."
"Come home, sweetheart. It's OK. No one's mad at you anymore."
---- "How DARE you tell anybody what goes on in this house? I'm all sweet now, because there's an audience, but just you wait and see what happens once nobody's looking."
"Well, what do you want from me? Nobody's perfect."
"You're not perfect either, you know."
---- "Of course we all make mistakes, as I'm fond of pointing out when I'm forced to admit I made one. But I expect you to be perfect, and when you're not, I'm totally going to use that fact to justify abusing you."
---- "I know my behavior is wrong, but I have no intention of changing it."
---- "I dismiss your reasonable requests for better behavior by making it sound like you are demanding perfection."
"Don't tell anybody what we did, or you'll be in trouble."
---- "Don't tell anybody what I did to you, or I'll be in trouble."
"Well, I'm sorry I have problems."
---- "I want you to focus on my pain, and ignore your own."
---- "I don't want to work on my issues, because I'm using them as a convenient excuse for abusing you."
"What are you trying to do, break up the family?"
---- "This family is toxic and should very well be broken up. If and when that happens, I want you to eat yourself up with guilt, thinking it's your fault for telling, not mine for abusing."
"I wouldn't have done that if you hadn't pushed my buttons and made me angry. It's your fault I act this way."
---- "I was already angry when I walked in the door, and I've spent the last three hours picking a fight until you finally had enough. When you said one word to stand up for yourself, I used it as an excuse to unload on you."
---- "Someone put me in my place earlier, and I couldn't stand up to them because they had power over me. I needed to take it out on you so I could feel big and mighty again."
---- "I don't want to control my emotions or my actions, so I'll blame you for them."
"You think YOU have it bad. At least you haven't been through what that poor person over there has been through."
"Isn't it awful, what that terribly mean person did? At least I don't treat you as bad as that."
"You don't know what real abuse is."
---- "I know perfectly well it isn't a contest to see who's been abused the most. We can always find somebody else worse off than we are. But I really, really, REALLY don't want to face the fact that I'm an abuser, so I'm resorting to comparisons to invalidate your feelings. As long as somebody else abuses more severely, I can tell myself I don't abuse at all."
"I'm never going to stop loving you."
---- "No matter how many times you ask me to leave you alone, I absolutely refuse to respect your boundaries."
"I’m concerned about your lack of resilience."
---- "I'm uneasy with the emotions you're expressing. I want you to go back to repressing them so I'm comfortable again."
"There you go, complaining again. You need to stop trying to control others. The only person you have control over is yourself.”
---- "Bottom line is, I don’t want that person coming after me later, venting their frustration because they couldn’t bully you into submission. Shut up and be the lightning rod, so I don't have to."
---- "Let's ignore the fact that by trying stop you from advocating for yourself, I'm now attempting to control you. That’s different. I’m allowed."
---- "By saying you can only control yourself, I really mean you can control diddly squat. If you ever do take charge of your own life and start controlling your own actions--for example, by staying away from me because I won't stop devaluing you--I'm going to see it as you trying to force me to change my behavior. I'll throw around words like 'manipulation,' 'silent treatment,' and 'temper tantrum," in an effort to bring you back in line."
II. SAID BY ENABLERS
"I'm sure he didn't mean it like that." ENDLESS VARIATIONS:
"You must have misunderstood."
"Maybe she's having a bad day."
"He's not feeling well."
"She has problems, poor thing."
"He's worried about his job."
"She can't help it."
"He's just like that sometimes."
"She has a mental illness."
---- "Everybody deserves sympathy and a free pass for their bad behavior, except you. Even if somebody says or does something to you that is undeniably hurtful, I want to make you feel like it's your fault for taking it badly, not their fault for saying a mean thing. You're always the one who's wrong, and I'm always going to take the other person's side against yours. And don't you forget it."
"Just ignore it. Don't let it bother you."
---- "I'm ignoring it. Don't bother me about it."
"You reap what you sow."
"You only get what you deserve."
"You made your bed, and now you'll have to lie in it."
---- "I stayed in my abusive marriage, and that means you have to stay in yours."
"He said it never happened."
"He said you're taking it all out of context."
---- "I'm so desperate to believe nothing happened, because that's easier and more comfortable for me, that I'd rather believe you're crazy even though I know you're telling the truth."
"There are two sides to every story."
"I don't want to be caught in the middle."
---- "I see exactly what's going on, but I'm so cowed myself, I refuse to step in and help you."
"You'll just have to be the bigger person."
---- "You're easier to control and manipulate than they are, so I'm putting all of the responsibility on you. They don't have to change in any way. You have to be the one to make the concessions.
"We teach people how to treat us."
---- "Even when it's their fault, it's still your fault."
III. PARENTAL STANDBYS, AS SAID BY ABUSERS
"Don't you talk back to me."
"Quit being such a smart-aleck."
"Show respect when you speak to me."
"Stop being so sassy."
WHEN SAID BY A HEALTHY PARENT:
---- "I have your best interest at heart. It is my responsibility to care for you, and therefore I correctly insist that you respect me."
WHEN SAID BY AN ABUSER:
---- "You brought up a point I hadn't considered, and/or asked a valid question, but since I find it embarrassing to be shown up by a child, I'm not about to admit I could be wrong. Instead, I'll use intimidation to silence you."
---- "Demonstrating my authority over you matters more than addressing your concerns. By the way, I'm going to continue dominating you with this attitude long after you're grown and on your own. You're never going to be allowed to speak your mind, if I don't want to hear it."
"Because I said so."
WHEN SAID BY A HEALTHY PARENT:
---- "Right now is not the time to discuss it. Do what I told you, and if you still have questions later, we'll talk about it then."
WHEN SAID BY AN ABUSER:
---- "I have no real reason. What matters isn't helping you turn out to be well-adjusted and competent in the adult world. What matters is that you do what I tell you. I'm on a power trip, and I get off on ordering you around, because you're the only being on this planet smaller and weaker than I am."
"Do you want something to cry about?"
WHEN SAID BY A HEALTHY PARENT:
---- "Pitching a fit because you're not getting your way is not going to help your case. I expect you to express your emotions in a more appropriate manner." NOTE: It may be better for the parent to word it something like this, instead of the implied threat.
WHEN SAID BY AN ABUSER:
---- "It isn't OK to cry. Ever.
---- "I realize if you didn't think you already have something to cry about, you wouldn't be crying. But you are so insignificant, you don't know what's worth crying about. I refuse to validate your feelings no matter what.
---- "I don't like it when you show negative emotions. It's easier for me to threaten you than to help you figure out ways to control yourself."
"Be good."
"Behave yourself."
"Quit acting up."
WHEN SAID BY A HEALTHY PARENT:
---- "There are clear, consistent standards of behavior I expect you to follow. I will correct you if you aren't following them."
WHEN SAID BY AN ABUSER:
---- "Stop having needs and feelings."
---- "Stop acting like the child you are. If you must have needs and feelings, I expect you to be adult about it, even though you're not one, and that kind of self-control is beyond your normal level of maturity."
---- "Stay quiet and out of the way so I can temporarily pretend you don't exist while I deal with my own problems, or have fun that doesn't include you."
NOTE: It is perfectly OK for parents to need alone time, away from their children, but the children should never be made to feel unwanted because of it.
Please note that many of these phrases are innocent and mean only what the words say, coming from most people. This is what ABUSERS AND THEIR ENABLERS mean when they say it. Just because someone says these things does not automatically make them an abuser.
_____
I. SAID BY ABUSERS
"I miss you."
---- "I miss abusing you."
---- "I've run out of punching bags, so I'm trying to reel you back in and start over with you."
"I just want you to be happy."
---- "I want you to *enjoy* living under my thumb."
---- "Just do what I tell you to do, then shut up and pretend you're happy."
"I only want what's best for you."
---- "I want whatever makes *me* look best."
---- "I decide what's best, even if you're an adult. You are not allowed to decide for yourself."
"I'm only trying to help."
---- "I'm trying to help you feel incompetent, so you'll stay dependent on me, and let me tell myself how important I am because you need me."
"You've changed."
"I don't know why you're so mean lately."
"I don't even know you anymore."
---- "You're not letting me abuse you like you used to do."
---- "You've never stood up for yourself before, and I don't want you to start doing it now."
"Your therapist (minister, spouse, significant other, supportive friend) turned you against us."
---- "They are teaching you healthy ways and demonstrating to you how toxic we really are, and I don't like it."
"Why can't you just let it go?"
"It happened so long ago."
"Leave the past in the past."
"Let bygones be bygones."
---- "You don't matter to me, and neither does your pain. I'm trying to ignore it and pretend nothing happened. I'm never going to admit I did anything wrong, so you might as well shut up about it."
---- "The only reason it's in the past is that you went 'no contact' and stopped hanging around. If I still had access to you, I'd keep treating you the same way because I see nothing wrong with it. But I'm not going to admit that either."
"Come back to me. I've changed."
"I won't treat you like that anymore. I learned my lesson."
"I know I need help, and I'll get it, if you'll come home."
---- "I may make an intake appointment, to please you, but I won't follow through on it."
---- "Once you do come home, I'll be nice for a while. After you're settled comfortably and in love with me again, I'll go back to my old ways so slowly and gradually that you won't even notice until it's just as bad as it was before."
"Baby, please don't leave me. My dad (other relative, pet, whoever) just died. I can't lose you too. You're all I've got."
---- "Nobody who's alive will have anything to do with me. I've already run everybody else out of my life. You're the only one who will let me get away with my behavior. Now I'm guilt-tripping you so you'll stay, even though I deserve to be alone.
---- "What I'm not saying out loud, but you know from past experience, is that if you walk out that door, I'll track you down, and I'll hurt you."
"Can't you take a joke?"
"Come on, where's your sense of humor?"
"I was only kidding! Gee, you're so sensitive!"
---- "I demand the right to insult you whenever I please, without being held accountable for it."
---- "It was a deliberately calculated, cruel remark, aimed directly where I knew it would hurt you the most, but I thought you were too stupid to realize that."
---- "I fully expected you to see through the thinly veiled putdown, and take the offense I absolutely meant. By using joking as an excuse, I can now double down and insult you twice for the price of one. Go me!"
"It didn't happen that way. I didn't say or do that."
"You're remembering it wrong."
"You must have dreamed it."
"Maybe you saw that on TV."
"Oh my, you have such an imagination!"
---- "It happened exactly as you say, but I'd rather have everybody thinking you're crazy than admit it."
"Oh, WOW! You did great! I'm so proud of you!"
---- "You made me look good."
---- "You surprised me. I didn't think you'd actually succeed."
---- "Uh-oh, I'd better overcompensate and pretend I'm happy for you. Coming right out and saying I'm jealous because you outdid me would unmask me for what I really am."
"I did the best I could."
---- "I put in the effort I thought you were worth."
"I'm sorry you're upset."
"I'm sorry you took it that way."
"I'm sorry for whatever you think I did."
---- "I'm pretending to apologize while absolving myself of any actual responsibility. Not only am I wording it in a way that makes it sound like it's your fault, but if you don't accept my fake apology, I'm going to blame you again and call you unforgiving."
"I said I was sorry."
---- "I offered you a phony apology, and it didn't fool you."
---- "I'm not in any way sorry, and I don't care how you feel. I only said it to shut you up. I'm going to keep right on treating you any old way I please, but now you're never allowed to bring it up again."
"Keep your mouth shut about family matters."
"Loose lips sink ships."
"What happens in this house, stays in this house."
---- "I have something to hide. If the truth got out, I'd be in jail, and that's going to be your fault for telling, not mine for committing the crime."
---- "You're correct that this isn't right and shouldn't be happening, but I have no intention of stopping it. It's easier to intimidate and guilt-trip you into silence instead."
"You're choosing to see only the negative, and ignore the positive."
---- "And I'm doing exactly the opposite, which isn't any healthier."
---- "I realize you see the positive too, but because I'm a hypocrite and don't hold myself to the same standard I hold you to, I'm choosing to ignore that and say whatever puts you in a bad light."
"I don't sugarcoat things."
"I tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear."
---- "I have the answers you seem to be looking for, and that makes me superior to you. Therefore I reserve the right to insult you, and then blame you for feeling insulted.
---- "I don't care about being kind, polite, or tactful, as long as I can demonstrate that I'm right and you're wrong."
"I can't help it. I have no control when I get angry."
---- "I know perfectly well what would happen if I were to hit my boss, or a cop, or anybody else when I'm angry. I can control myself just fine. But you're safe and won't hurt me back, so I'll unleash all my fury on you, and then claim I couldn't stop myself."
"Yes, I know, you've told me you don't like it when people call you that name. I keep forgetting."
"All right, so I forgot to do what I told you I would do. Big deal."
---- "I couldn't care less. You're not worth the effort to remember. Your feelings matter so little to me that I won't even try to respect them. No matter how clearly you communicate, I'm just going to pretend I didn't hear, and do whatever I want to do."
---- "I see our relationship as a competition rather than both of us being on the same team. I'm afraid that if I ever respect your wishes or do what you wanted me to do, you might start thinking you're in charge of me. I do the opposite of what I know you want me to do, so I can show you who's boss."
"I'm not the crazy one in this relationship. You are."
----"You must be crazy to put up with me, and yet here you are."
"Come home, sweetheart. It's OK. No one's mad at you anymore."
---- "How DARE you tell anybody what goes on in this house? I'm all sweet now, because there's an audience, but just you wait and see what happens once nobody's looking."
"Well, what do you want from me? Nobody's perfect."
"You're not perfect either, you know."
---- "Of course we all make mistakes, as I'm fond of pointing out when I'm forced to admit I made one. But I expect you to be perfect, and when you're not, I'm totally going to use that fact to justify abusing you."
---- "I know my behavior is wrong, but I have no intention of changing it."
---- "I dismiss your reasonable requests for better behavior by making it sound like you are demanding perfection."
"Don't tell anybody what we did, or you'll be in trouble."
---- "Don't tell anybody what I did to you, or I'll be in trouble."
"Well, I'm sorry I have problems."
---- "I want you to focus on my pain, and ignore your own."
---- "I don't want to work on my issues, because I'm using them as a convenient excuse for abusing you."
"What are you trying to do, break up the family?"
---- "This family is toxic and should very well be broken up. If and when that happens, I want you to eat yourself up with guilt, thinking it's your fault for telling, not mine for abusing."
"I wouldn't have done that if you hadn't pushed my buttons and made me angry. It's your fault I act this way."
---- "I was already angry when I walked in the door, and I've spent the last three hours picking a fight until you finally had enough. When you said one word to stand up for yourself, I used it as an excuse to unload on you."
---- "Someone put me in my place earlier, and I couldn't stand up to them because they had power over me. I needed to take it out on you so I could feel big and mighty again."
---- "I don't want to control my emotions or my actions, so I'll blame you for them."
"You think YOU have it bad. At least you haven't been through what that poor person over there has been through."
"Isn't it awful, what that terribly mean person did? At least I don't treat you as bad as that."
"You don't know what real abuse is."
---- "I know perfectly well it isn't a contest to see who's been abused the most. We can always find somebody else worse off than we are. But I really, really, REALLY don't want to face the fact that I'm an abuser, so I'm resorting to comparisons to invalidate your feelings. As long as somebody else abuses more severely, I can tell myself I don't abuse at all."
"I'm never going to stop loving you."
---- "No matter how many times you ask me to leave you alone, I absolutely refuse to respect your boundaries."
"I’m concerned about your lack of resilience."
---- "I'm uneasy with the emotions you're expressing. I want you to go back to repressing them so I'm comfortable again."
"There you go, complaining again. You need to stop trying to control others. The only person you have control over is yourself.”
---- "Bottom line is, I don’t want that person coming after me later, venting their frustration because they couldn’t bully you into submission. Shut up and be the lightning rod, so I don't have to."
---- "Let's ignore the fact that by trying stop you from advocating for yourself, I'm now attempting to control you. That’s different. I’m allowed."
---- "By saying you can only control yourself, I really mean you can control diddly squat. If you ever do take charge of your own life and start controlling your own actions--for example, by staying away from me because I won't stop devaluing you--I'm going to see it as you trying to force me to change my behavior. I'll throw around words like 'manipulation,' 'silent treatment,' and 'temper tantrum," in an effort to bring you back in line."
II. SAID BY ENABLERS
"I'm sure he didn't mean it like that." ENDLESS VARIATIONS:
"You must have misunderstood."
"Maybe she's having a bad day."
"He's not feeling well."
"She has problems, poor thing."
"He's worried about his job."
"She can't help it."
"He's just like that sometimes."
"She has a mental illness."
---- "Everybody deserves sympathy and a free pass for their bad behavior, except you. Even if somebody says or does something to you that is undeniably hurtful, I want to make you feel like it's your fault for taking it badly, not their fault for saying a mean thing. You're always the one who's wrong, and I'm always going to take the other person's side against yours. And don't you forget it."
"Just ignore it. Don't let it bother you."
---- "I'm ignoring it. Don't bother me about it."
"You reap what you sow."
"You only get what you deserve."
"You made your bed, and now you'll have to lie in it."
---- "I stayed in my abusive marriage, and that means you have to stay in yours."
"He said it never happened."
"He said you're taking it all out of context."
---- "I'm so desperate to believe nothing happened, because that's easier and more comfortable for me, that I'd rather believe you're crazy even though I know you're telling the truth."
"There are two sides to every story."
"I don't want to be caught in the middle."
---- "I see exactly what's going on, but I'm so cowed myself, I refuse to step in and help you."
"You'll just have to be the bigger person."
---- "You're easier to control and manipulate than they are, so I'm putting all of the responsibility on you. They don't have to change in any way. You have to be the one to make the concessions.
"We teach people how to treat us."
---- "Even when it's their fault, it's still your fault."
III. PARENTAL STANDBYS, AS SAID BY ABUSERS
"Don't you talk back to me."
"Quit being such a smart-aleck."
"Show respect when you speak to me."
"Stop being so sassy."
WHEN SAID BY A HEALTHY PARENT:
---- "I have your best interest at heart. It is my responsibility to care for you, and therefore I correctly insist that you respect me."
WHEN SAID BY AN ABUSER:
---- "You brought up a point I hadn't considered, and/or asked a valid question, but since I find it embarrassing to be shown up by a child, I'm not about to admit I could be wrong. Instead, I'll use intimidation to silence you."
---- "Demonstrating my authority over you matters more than addressing your concerns. By the way, I'm going to continue dominating you with this attitude long after you're grown and on your own. You're never going to be allowed to speak your mind, if I don't want to hear it."
"Because I said so."
WHEN SAID BY A HEALTHY PARENT:
---- "Right now is not the time to discuss it. Do what I told you, and if you still have questions later, we'll talk about it then."
WHEN SAID BY AN ABUSER:
---- "I have no real reason. What matters isn't helping you turn out to be well-adjusted and competent in the adult world. What matters is that you do what I tell you. I'm on a power trip, and I get off on ordering you around, because you're the only being on this planet smaller and weaker than I am."
"Do you want something to cry about?"
WHEN SAID BY A HEALTHY PARENT:
---- "Pitching a fit because you're not getting your way is not going to help your case. I expect you to express your emotions in a more appropriate manner." NOTE: It may be better for the parent to word it something like this, instead of the implied threat.
WHEN SAID BY AN ABUSER:
---- "It isn't OK to cry. Ever.
---- "I realize if you didn't think you already have something to cry about, you wouldn't be crying. But you are so insignificant, you don't know what's worth crying about. I refuse to validate your feelings no matter what.
---- "I don't like it when you show negative emotions. It's easier for me to threaten you than to help you figure out ways to control yourself."
"Be good."
"Behave yourself."
"Quit acting up."
WHEN SAID BY A HEALTHY PARENT:
---- "There are clear, consistent standards of behavior I expect you to follow. I will correct you if you aren't following them."
WHEN SAID BY AN ABUSER:
---- "Stop having needs and feelings."
---- "Stop acting like the child you are. If you must have needs and feelings, I expect you to be adult about it, even though you're not one, and that kind of self-control is beyond your normal level of maturity."
---- "Stay quiet and out of the way so I can temporarily pretend you don't exist while I deal with my own problems, or have fun that doesn't include you."
NOTE: It is perfectly OK for parents to need alone time, away from their children, but the children should never be made to feel unwanted because of it.
