108 Quotes by Susan Forward

"Many people are frightened to take a look at the forces that shaped their characters and their backgrounds, believing that the past should be buried and that looking back might mean wallowing in self-pity and old wounds. But self-discovery can open up exciting new choices and options for us. The more we understand what shaped us as individuals, the more tools we have to free ourselves from behaviors that no longer work for us."

"Abused children have a caldron of rage bubbling inside them. You can’t be battered, humiliated, terrified, denigrated, and blamed for your own pain without getting angry. But a battered child has no way to release this anger. In adulthood, that anger has to find an outlet."

"The family drama may look and sound different from generation to generation, but all toxic patterns are remarkably similar in their outcome: pain and suffering."

"An even darker side to the behavior of the needy, victim mother is that she may use her son as a sacrificial lamb. In addition to not protecting him from his abusive father, she may actually place him between herself and her husband in order to deflect some of his wrath away from her."

"Strange as it may seem, many people are still controlled by their parents after their deaths. The ghosts that haunt them may not be real in a supernatural sense, but they’re very real in a psychological one. A parent’s demands, expectations, and guilt trips can linger long after that parent has died."

"The more she sees him as the primary source of her good feelings, the more she will need him to be the center of her life. Remember, the misogynist’s jealousy and possessiveness have already seriously limited her world, which further enhances his importance to her. It is a vicious cycle. The more dependent she becomes, the more important he becomes. The more important he is, the more she is willing to give up for him, so that there is less left in her life that is free of him."

"Denying or repressing strong emotions doesn’t eliminate them. Instead, they get displaced or stored up."

"Unfortunately, there is no magic key. The misogynist’s outbursts as well as his tenderness generally have little to do with how his partner is behaving. He is driven by his own inner demons. Therefore, there is no way to guarantee his good moods or eliminate his angry ones."

"As you gain more control over your past and present relationship with your parents, you will discover that your other relationships, especially your relationship with yourself, will improve dramatically. You will have the freedom, perhaps for the first time, to enjoy your own life."

"What is so distressing about the use of denial as a tactic is that you are left with nothing to deal with. It creates a sense of desperate frustration. There is no way to resolve a problem with someone who denies the existence of certain events and who insists that what you know to be real never happened."