The things abusers say and do put you on the defensive, make you feel crazy, and to wonder if you are the abuser in the relationship. Your best ammunition against the things abusers say and do is knowing the answer to What Is Verbal Abuse? If you can say to yourself, “Hey! That’s abuse!” then you’ll more easily detach from the abuse emotionally and find a psychologically or physically safe place. Safety planning can help protect you against things abusers say and do (Hurtful Words Don’t Define You).
The things abusers say and do are designed to control you. Whether abusers say and do these things knowingly or unconsciously, the result is the same: you feel lower than dirt, afraid, and intimidated. In your weakened state, your abuser finds it much easier to gain power over you.
The following statements and actions are common things abusers say and do. Contribute your comments and take a look at everyone else’s comments too.
Name Calling
- Idiot, Stupid Cunt, Go sit in the corner where you belong (dunce)
- Crazy Bitch, Psycho
- Whore, Slut
- Heartless Ho
- Stupid
- Worthless
- Lazy
- Says “woman” or “man” in a sarcastic tone or demeaning tone.
- On the flip side, they may refuse to say your name at all to deny your existence
Intimacy Breakers
- “It is none of your fucking business.”
- “Why don’t you fucking leave?” or “Get the fuck out of my house.”
- “Shut up”
- Says “I don’t care about your feelings.”
- Often leaves you hanging when they promised to do something with you.
- Consistently puts their desires and schedule above yours.
- Breaks up often then comes running back, begging for forgiveness.
- Interrupts you when you’re talking.
Tells You What You’re Doing
- “Yes, why don’t you stuff your feelings inside.”
- “You’ve got your priorities screwed up.”
- “Stop being a drama queen!”
- “Stop crying – we both know you’re faking it to get your way!”
- Tells you what your intentions are, what you intend to do, and what you really meant when you said/did something.
Plays Word Games
- Interrupts you when you’re talking.
- Repeats “your exact words” but takes them out of context or makes up something that you did not say or mean.
- Challenges you to remember “exact words” but you can’t (or tells you you’re wrong) because the conversation is so confusing you don’t know exactly what they’re talking about anymore.
- Changes the subject to divert your attention.
- Tells you what you really mean to say.
- Drones on for hours, repeating the same points, getting nowhere, until you’re so exhausted you want to agree just to get them to be quiet (brainwashing).
- Re-defines words to mean what they want them to mean.
- Denies saying what they said (even if you’re playing it back to them from a digital recorder, they may deny meaning what they obviously meant).
- Uses tricks like abusive anger to get you to be quiet or listen.
Tries to Appear Better Than You
- “You have no money; without me, you’d be lost.”
- “At least I have a job.”
- “You know nothing about the real world!”
- “At least I know how to make friends that matter.”
Insults People And Pets You Love
- “Why don’t you leave, and take your geriatric dog too? I hope he falls dead.”
- “I hope your dog gets killed in the road right in front of you!”
- Uses threatening gestures toward your pets.
- “Your kid is such a sissy!”
- “Your mother left your dad to chase cock and you’re going to do the same to me!”
- “I’m really concerned that your sister will influence you to be a bitch like she is.”
Sexual Insults And Injuries
- Rapes you (it is possible to rape you even if you are married to the abuser).
- Makes you wear clothing that makes you feel uncomfortable.
- “You were just a good fuck.”
- Turns their back to you while laying in bed to show a withdrawal of affection.
- Lies incessantly about porn or cheating, even when faced with proof.
- Makes you feel “dirty” during or after sex with comments they know you don’t like.
- Uses sexual or racial slurs because they know you don’t like them.
- Tells you to go to a party alone and then insults you, withdraws, or sexually assaults you when you come home.
- Knows the meaning and value that you tie with having sex, but breaks up with you right after sex saying they lied about their feelings to get you into bed.
- Uses crude names for your body parts and knows you do not like them.
Insults Your Ideas and Dreams
- The churches, restaurants, movies, etc. that you choose are not good enough.
- Your career interests are “fluffy” or not real jobs.
- Insults the gifts you give or acts disinterested.
- “That is never going to work.”
- Mocks and makes fun of you.
A private place to write it down
If you already know why you’re here, there’s a private log built for exactly this: the Verbal Abuse Incident and Pattern Log. Write things down before you second-guess them, in a document made to stay yours.
Purchase “Recipes from Mama's Kitchen” $8.99There is also a bundle offer at the end of this article.
They Do Not Care About Your Medical Issues
- You’re hurt after a fight with them and say you should go to the emergency room…the abuser’s response is “Quit your whining and crying and leave”.
- Major medical issue comes up and the abuser unavailable to comfort you or just disappears.
- Acts like a $10 co-pay for your doctor visit is going to break the bank.
- Makes fun of your medications (happy pills, crazy pills, etc.)
- Tells you that depression is in your head and if you appreciated them like you should you wouldn’t be such a sad sack.
Thoughtless of Your Needs
- Makes lunch for themselves without asking if you want any (on purpose).
- Doesn’t help with the kids or household chores.
- Does not ask you about your day.
- Does not start and/or engage in thoughtful communication.
- Keeps you up all night “talking” or raging. Interrupts your sleep for tiny things they could handle alone.
Gifts Are Not From the Heart or Used As Tools
- Gives gifts that did NOT come from the heart, isn’t wrapped, has a price tag on it, tossed at you with no emotion but scorn, etc.
- Gifts given after fights to gain your forgiveness.
- Ignores (“forgets”) your birthday or holidays that are special to you.
Disrespects Your Belongings
- Destroys things that are important to you.
- Destroys or makes you destroy pictures, diaries, letters, or anything else of sentimental value from before the relationship with you.
- Throws away your clothes that either you love or the abuser hates.
- Gaslighting (purposely moves your things or changes your environment and then denies doing it).
- Hides your personal belongings and denies knowing where they are.
- Steals your jewelry, pawns it, then brings another piece home to place in your jewelry box and pretends it is the missing piece.
- Insists you promised to do something that you know you didn’t promise.
- Engages in crazy making behaviors at your expense.
Withholds Financial Information or Money
- Demands that you shop for the household but doesn’t give you enough money to cover necessities.
- Makes you give them your paycheck.
- Doesn’t give you access to the bank accounts.
- Makes you believe that you cannot budget or save, that you waste money, or generally cannot figure out how to handle your financial matters.
- Gives you complete access to the bank accounts and allows you to make financial decisions, but uses your decisions as a tool to verbally and mentally abuse you.
- Closes joint bank accounts with no notice.
- Finds a way to close your bank accounts using your passwords and security information.
Threatens Or Intimidates You
- “Maybe I should just do pot, porn and date other women so you will leave me.”
- “I should run you through the wood chipper out there!”
- “If you don’t shut your ever-runnin’ mouth,…”
- Says “This is YOU!” and hits something or says nothing but you know they’re hitting things to scare you.
- Jerks the steering wheel from you when you’re driving or drives like a crazy person with you in the car.
- Spits on you.
- Threatens to take you to court over issues they know they will lose, but be able to waste your time anyway.
- Seeks attention by threatening suicide. Intimidates you into doing things by threatening suicide.
Abandons and/or Threatens to Abandon You Physically
- Pushes you out of the car and leaves you in a strange place without your personal effects (i.e. cell phone, purse, wallet).
- Takes you to their family’s home far away and then leaves you at their mother’s house for two days while partying with cousins.
- “Maybe I just won’t come home tonight!”
- “I’ll take our kids and leave you on the street!”
Physically Insults or Assaults You
- Spits on you.
- Blocks your exit.
- Drags you.
- Grabs you and makes you stay in one place.
- Hits, punches, or slaps you.
- Kicks you.
- Makes you hold pillows so they can “practice” fighting/self-defense.
- Pinches you
- Squeezes you too tightly.
- Chokes you or puts you in a position where they could easily choke you.
You just read what’s been happening to you.
Here’s somewhere to put it.
Reading a list like this is one thing. Writing down what’s actually happening in your own relationship, in your own words, is another.
That’s what the Verbal Abuse Incident and Pattern Log is for: a private, structured place to record what’s said and done to you, so there’s a record you can trust, even when your memory feels less certain.
What’s inside:
- Quick Capture pages for when you only have thirty seconds and need to get it down before you forget, or before someone’s back in the room.
- Detailed Record pages for later, when you have more time to write.
- Pattern Review pages that help you see what’s repeating, not just what happened once.
- A Summary page, built to hand to an advocate, counselor, doctor, or attorney, without having to explain everything from scratch every time.
It’s not a diagnosis, and it’s not a legal document. It’s a way to keep your own record straight, whether you’re still deciding what this is, still living with it, or getting ready to talk to someone about it.
Privacy. Not everyone needs to hide that they bought this, but every download works the same way regardless. Needing that privacy, or not needing it, has nothing to do with how much what’s happening to you matters.
The download opens with a couple of pages made to look like a recipe file before the real Log begins. PayPal will send you a purchase confirmation email, but even that uses a discreet product name, not the title of what you bought.
Getting it. After you pay through PayPal, you’re brought right back here to a download page where your file is ready and waiting.
Price. $8.99 on its own.
Purchase “Recipes from Mama's Kitchen” $8.99If you also want the Domestic Violence Safety Plan Workbook, the two together are $18.99, or $3 less than buying them separately. The Safety Plan Workbook covers what to do before, during, and after leaving; the Log covers what to write down along the way. Get one or both, whichever is useful to you right now.
Purchase “Recipes from Mama's Kitchen Bundle” $18.99The file name for the Verbal Abuse Incident and Pattern Log is recipes-mamas-kitchen.pdf and the cover of your downloaded document will say “Recipes from Mama’s Kitchen”. It’s the same for the Domestic Violence Safety Plan Workbook, except the file name is more-recipes-from-mamas-kitchen.pdf and the title showing is “More Recipes from Mama’s Kitchen”.
Written by Kellie Jo Holly Close, who has worked in domestic violence advocacy since founding VerbalAbuseJournals.com in 2008.
He buys his stuff from the store and only brings me home stuff found in the trash so when he ruins it it says it was trash anyway or if i dont like it im not appreciate. It enough or says thats all im worth.
Im not allowed to have my own thoughts or opinion and if he caught me thinking i get punished
Every friend ive made he run off cuz he gets jealous men and woman i dont care about sexin so long i dont dress sexy or nothing he still acusses me of stuff
I came back (again) to a guy who displays most of the above listed actions. He is a defensive guy who says horrible (un true) comments to me -mostly when he’s tired or drunk. He punished me – verbally and emotionally when he feel that he is forced to talk with me or even hug me. I do care for him but I can’t take the way that I allow him to make me feel. 🙁
my step father leaves me at the beach on purpose and when we were there he would scream at me if i tried to have fun with my siblings.he always throws me on the floor when he is mad at someone else.my mom does nothing about it but tell him that he needs to calm down but he yells at her when she opens her mouth . He never lets me talk or explain things.i am sick and tired of this bullshit. i do not feel safe at home. the one place that i feel decent enough to smile or laugh or feel like i am finally free is at school.I need some help and support.Please help me.
Pushes you down or pushes you back. Raises fist and says “I’m going to beat the ****out of you”.
So, there is aomeone Ive been dating and when I tell him how I feel, in terms of…That was vague, or I dont feel listened to, this is how that made me feel…He takes it as a personal attack. That I am picking on him. Thks was over text because my speaker blew out.
I try and say, no, this is not a judgement on your character, ect…I explained it over and over. He tells me thats how it makes him Feel though. So Im left feeling I cannot express how I feel.
We get into stuff hes created, and I get really into it…poetry, ect…I write him something back and I get, “I admire your writing, Id like to hear more…”
He kept on going about his ideas and writing so Im under the impression he has time. Nothing except for a sexual innuendo…After I took the time to really get into him.
I told him why it bothered me. That my substance given back was given little consideration then straight to sex. It made me feel my body meant more than my substancial replies. He took it as he cant say anything sexual to me ever and that he doesnt expect people to respomd right away on text!! AND he was babysitting!!! Though he told me none of that.
Am I wrong????
And all of this started after I said I want to take it slow….He started out as a friend.
He feels its picking on him, makes him feel lower than low…when I say, “I feel or felt..”
Why dont I go to where he lives he can get me work?
Its super frustrating!!!
He got drunk the other night and he told me,”Why didnt I just hang up on him??!”
I said because I was trying to stear it to the positive. He told me he wouldnt do that.
He told me-When I said, because he wants me up there NoW and I have a Dad whos ailimg and Im goimg to see his cancer results Wed…I told him (my bad, how do I correct that?) maybe thays why he should find one of those pixie chicks who can just take off, I was really SAD Im not living up to his ,artistic dream” at the moment and je suddenly told me,”YOU KNOW, you’re right!!! Dont sign me up for that SHIT. Thats Pathetic!!
He also told me I always looked down on him. He Always saw it in my eyes…and I calmly asked him why…He told me,”No, you dont always get the answers!! Thats the way life IS!!”
He also told me he hates my ex (Ive never compared him to him, it was a 10 uear relationship and Im still healing and maybe I shouldnt have told him anything at all although he started oit as a friend…)
He told me he hayes my fucking ex and that if I ever killed myself he’d go up to his state, kill him so, we could be in hell together.
That he was hangimg out with his ex (those where the kids, he was babysitting) and asks if Im jealous. My response and the truth is,”No..”
He said he told his ex a little aboit me and she said to him,”You need to stop hanging oit witj natcissistic chicks..”
He told me this…
He texts me the next day,”Sorry for getting so worked up and talking while drinking. I need today to recover and dry out. I love you. Being apart has been just agony on my end. I hope i didn’t cross the line or say anything hurtful. I miss you. I hope your father is doing ok. I hope your heart is too.” My reply,”
Dry out, we’ll talk later about it.
You told me, alot.
I was trying to run damage control….
Im kind of in shock.
It gave me a lot of insight.”
So he writes me back,” I have been sleeping since I talked with u. Been in a lot of physical pain. Back and then neck too. So bad. Just been dosing with aspirin, valerian, skullcap llcap and weed to sleep through pain, hoping to heal. Still hurting but coming out of my couch coma. I was REALLY upset and at completely out of patience e with the nature of our text convo. I shouldn’t drink when I’m that pissed, and I shouldn’t talk on phone when i am drinking. But I was in a lot of pain n and I broke all those rules. Like to talk this evening. See what vulnerablenesses and exaggerations came out of my mouth and how you are reacting. .. I have been in total shock after many convos when u are in your very dark place. Not always fun. Hence my earlier apology.”
I told him on the phone what he said and he said I just should have hung up on him. Durimg those drunk talks he also told me he’s spent soo much money coming down to see me that of I dont go and see him, its pretty black and white, that I dont care…he says Im doimg Nothing (school fell through this year and my job doesnt have the bids it said it did, or else I would have stayed up there and come back down in time for my Dad.) he told me I domt even have a finger on What I WANT, so why not jist come up there. Hes a doer, he makes things happen and tjat hes lived several different lives while I just was in the city Ive been in.
I wonder is Im goimg completely mad. If I am in appropriate with how I say things but I try and make sure the person knows its my feelimga on a statement or an action….I dont want to pit them down for who They Are….
And yet iys taken that way.
When I ask questions, it may be because I dont want to hurt or get hirt again, thus taking ot slow and getting to know but he says its like Im picking him apart…strangling the magic out…
I shouldnt act on fear. I told him my plans on movimg to a different city. Its actually closer to him. Ive had those plans for awhile.
He told me he”s movimg down here. Then was upset when I said Im eventually movimg up there and I wont even move an inch.
Last night I try and call, he texts me what Im up to.I said,” Nada at all. Was talking with Dez. Missed the concert.
Tried to call you. Went to get a pack of smokes…
Waiting on Wed.
Youre body is sick?
Well, I hope your sick isnt tweaking your back anymore with coughing
and I was thinking about going up there.
I hope you understand first things first, with my Dad and everything. What where you up so late for to see if Id be up in an hour at 130 last night? Sorry I was going back to sleep, I just couldnt see waiting an hour. I was out of it.”
He replies,”Sorry you missed the concert.”
I just say to him, domt say sorry for that, it has nothing to do with you..the rest does though…
And he never replied to the rest…
WTF is goimg on???!!!
Is this modes of differing communication???!!