Quotes by Gail McHugh

When you want something this badly, you dont just give up. You fight and fight until you absolutely cant fight anymore.

Fate had a weird way of circling back over paths that were meant to cross.

I don’t know if he’ll even look at me, because I can barely look at myself.

Every part of you was made for me. Your lips were made to kiss mine, your eyes were made to wake up to me looking at you in my bed every morning, and your fucking tongue was made to roll my name off of it. I am more certain of us than Im certain I require oxygen to breathe.

Did you know one in three woman wind up in a mentally or physically abusive relationship?But the funny part is, it doesnt start off that way. It starts of wonderful, as close to everything you imagined something solid should be. Then little by little, the relationship changes, and you wonder if youre going crazy. You literally start to question your own sanity. One minute, the person youre in love with is kind and caring, and the next theyre flipping out. The first few times you write it off, assuming theyre having a bad day, but then it becomes a regular pattern of behavior. The person on the receiving end isnt oblivious to it but starts blaming themselves.Did you know mental abuse can make a victim feel depression, anxiety, helplessness, nonexistent self-worth, and despair? But that doesnt matter because your feelings dont count, and you dont realize they never will. Sometimes the abuser makes you think they count. Then youre back to thinking that youre the one who belongs in an institution, not them. But on the norm, your needs or feelings, if you actually have the fucking courage to express them-and most women dont-are ignored, ridiculed, minimized, and dismissed. Youre told youre too demanding, or theres something wrong with you. Basically, youre denied the right to feel... anything.Sometimes you distance yourself from friends or loved ones. Sometimes youre not even allowed to have friends. Thought youve given this person your heart and soul, their behavior becomes so erratic, its as if you feel like youre walking on landmines. But you continue to love them because they werent like this when youre met, so it only seems obvious its your fault. Then-theres the hysterical part and just how twisted this whole thing becomes-you start making excuses for their inexcusable behaviors in an effort to convince yourself its normal. In an actual, damn convince yourself youre the one who;s made them become the monster theyve turned into. A couple of ladies from an organization fighting against domestic abuse told me I allowed this to happen because Im a product of my environment. I mean really, how cliched is that? Did I ever tell you about my parents? Did I ever tell you how after my father left us, my mother continued pursuing assholes?Well, she did. She went through them like the world was going to end the next day. I get that being a single parent was hard for her. I do. But she definitely had a thing for picking up the local drunk at the nearest bar in order to help pay the next months rent. Theyd help for a while before they bounced out like my father did, but that never came without a price. She let them smack her around a bit if dinner wasnt cooked by the time they walked in the door, or if the house wasnt cleaned by the time they kicked off their filthy boots. They all looked different, but they came from a mold. Each and every single one of them was cut from the same piece of abusive wax,So, those women told me witnessing my mothers weakness drove my own, and her watching my grandfather beat my grandmother was what drove hers. They told me I was raised thinking it was okay for a man to do that to a woman. I was raised thinking self-worth was gained by catering to a mans needs at whatever cost. Ever if it meant degrading myself time and time again. But the apple can fall far from the tree. Fifty percent of children who grow up seeing that will never walk in their parents footsteps, whether its a boy watching his father beat his mother a young girl watching her mother get hit. But this apple landed on the trees stump. This apple took the same path as her mother.