Top 40 Patricia Evans Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “What blinds people the most to controlling behavior is the belief that the person who consistently defines them truly loves them.”

— Patricia Evans

2. “A poisonous pedagogy is a toxic method of teaching or raising a child. It is a method which controls the behavior of the child by the misuse of Power Over the child. This misuse of power causes the child extreme pain. If the child becomes an adult without having worked through the hurt and pain of the experience, he will perpetuate the misuse of power in adulthood. Consequently, the adult can become toxic or poisonous to others. This toxicity is what we find in abusive relationships.”

— Patricia Evans

3. “Recovery is the restoration of something lost. Verbal abuse creates loss. It robs people of their sense of self, their confidence, happiness, self-esteem, self-awareness, serenity, ability to trust, peace of mind, and almost their minds.”

— Patricia Evans

4. “Don’t ever delude yourself into thinking that you should have the ability to stay serene no matter how you are treated. Your serenity comes from the knowledge that you have a fundamental right to a nurturing environment and a fundamental right to affirm your boundaries.”

— Patricia Evans

5. “Generally, in a verbally abusive relationship the abuser denies the abuse. Verbal abuse most often takes place behind closed doors. Physical abuse is always preceded by verbal abuse.”

— Patricia Evans

6. “If the spell can’t be broken, if you are with a Spellbound person who will not change, your spiritual, if not your physical survival may depend upon your escaping.”

— Patricia Evans

7. “Love is the child of freedom, never that of domination. – Erich Fromm.”

— Patricia Evans

8. “They may not even realize that they are being verbally abused nor how it is impacting them. A person who has been slammed with verbal abuse may feel like giving up, like dying. Their emotional pain and mental anguish may be so great they self-medicate with drugs or alcohol. They may have had no name for what they suffered. 4. Over time, verbal abuse compromises the immune system of anyone it targets. Any illness brought on or exacerbated by stress can lead to an early death.”

— Patricia Evans

9. “If the words or attitude disempower, disrespect, or devalue the other, then they are abusive.”

— Patricia Evans

10. “The distress and discord that permeate the lives of millions are clear messages meant to tell us something. Just as a searing physical pain says something is wrong, so, too, does the psychic pain that floats through the world. Whatever form it takes, it is a sign that people have forgotten what is real and what is not, what is pretend and what is not, who they are and who they are not.”

— Patricia Evans

11. “All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter into another! – Anatole France.”

— Patricia Evans

12. “Not to know is bad; not to wish to know is worse. – Nigerian Proverb.”

— Patricia Evans

13. “Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt, Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands As if alive. – Robert Browning.”

— Patricia Evans

14. “But almost everyone I have spoken to has said that being the object of a Control Connection leaves them feeling disintegrated, as if they were being dismantled within. By.”

— Patricia Evans

15. “Agreement and appreciation are not about being of one mind but about sharing and community.”

— Patricia Evans

16. “In general, when you respond to verbal abuse, speak firmly and clearly, stand or sit straight and tall, hold your head high, look the abuser in the eye, and breathe deeply, letting your abdomen expand with the intake of air.”

— Patricia Evans

17. “In some cultures, if you break a Control Connection, you are shunned, alienated from the society that originally created the taboo, the one you have known, the one from which you seek acceptance. Even their God, they say, will turn against you. But making up what God will do is just another way of establishing a backwards connection. Even keeping a relationship but at a distance may be forbidden in very oppressive families.”

— Patricia Evans

18. “Many partners, who are constantly blamed and confused by verbal abuse, are surprised to realize that they have never said, nor would they think of saying, what is frequently said to them.”

— Patricia Evans

19. “Verbal abuse: Words that attack or injure, that cause one to believe the false, or that speak falsely of one.”

— Patricia Evans

20. “Now it is clear that breaking the spell not only preserves our freedom, but freedom itself. Becoming a Spellbreaker is a matter of conscience.”

— Patricia Evans

21. “People disconnect from us the moment they begin to define us. They begin to connect with us when they define themselves to us or ask us about ourselves. That’s how we get to know them and how they get to know us. It doesn’t work the other way around.”

— Patricia Evans

22. “It was really hard too, because I always had a lot of feeling. You know, when I was little I used to pray to God that I’d grow up fast so I wouldn’t feel anymore.”

— Patricia Evans

23. “Recovery from verbal abuse is the opportunity to accept all your feelings and to recognize their validity. You may be the first person to recognize and accept them and to know that they are not wrong. They are, as we have said earlier, indicators that something is or was wrong in your environment, and it isn’t you.”

— Patricia Evans

24. “People who act against others truly act in a backwards way, doing the opposite of what they would need to do to realize their goal.”

— Patricia Evans

25. “Individually we have ever-increasing freedom to choose our own path on life’s journey.”

— Patricia Evans

26. “The abuser’s worth is derived from a sense of one-upmanship and winning over. If the partner accomplishes something, the abuser views her accomplishment.”

— Patricia Evans

27. “The partner suffered many wrongs to her spirit. And, she did not know the meaning of her pain. However, because she remained aware of her feelings, she was connected to the spirit of life at her center – the source of her Personal Power. Eventually, it was the power of her feelings and the knowledge of her spirit which enabled her to recognize the abuse and, in so doing, gain Reality II self-esteem.”

— Patricia Evans

28. “As long as this child within is not allowed to become aware of what happened to him or her, a part of his or her emotional life will remain frozen, and sensitivity to the humiliations of childhood will therefore be dulled.”

— Patricia Evans

29. “We have learned that the need for connection is inherent in consciousness because consciousness is universal connection.”

— Patricia Evans

30. “The abuser controls the interpersonal communication and, therefore, the interpersonal reality by refusing to discuss upsetting interactions. The abuser blames the partner for upsetting interactions, and the partner believes him and therefore thinks that they are her fault.”

— Patricia Evans

31. “Denial and avoidance are classic abusive behaviors. They’re what the abuser is doing when he trivializes and counters his partner’s experience.”

— Patricia Evans

32. “Paradoxically, Controllers usually see themselves as self-reliant even while they are dependent upon others to maintain their backwards connections and their fragile identity. They often carry the banner of rugged independence, of needing no one, while launching an ever-accelerating assault upon someone else’s individuality. They are most threatened by Witnesses who do not conform to their particular idea of how things should be.”

— Patricia Evans

33. “To a narrative therapist, there are few interactions between couples that are not influenced by patriarchy. If there is an abuse of power in a relationship, a narrative therapist would view the responsibility for the abuse of power as lying in the hands of the person abusing the power. A narrative approach would invite the abuser to Recognize the abuse as abuse. Position himself against it. Accept total responsibility for stopping it.”

— Patricia Evans

34. “If you are considering a new relationship, be discriminating. Notice the difference between what you want, what you imagine, and what you are actually getting. Notice if you and your new mate share the same reality.”

— Patricia Evans

35. “You’re too sensitive.”

— Patricia Evans

36. “Verbal abusers block discussions because they are not willing to talk with their mates on an equal basis. The abuser prevents the possibility of mutual support and planning together and so deprives himself and his partner of the many benefits such partnership would bring.”

— Patricia Evans

37. “Some progress is progress. I see change.”

— Patricia Evans

38. “Controllers think differing ideas and views are personal opposition to be rejected and destroyed. And, since Controllers identify themselves with their prescriptions, it becomes important to them that others be dissuaded of theirs. Their success is measured in conversions.”

— Patricia Evans

39. “Imagine a world where no child grows up in chaos, rage, verbal or physical assaults, or deprivation. As humanity becomes increasingly conscious of the need to protect our earth from assaults upon its resources and atmosphere, we also move collectively toward the understanding that assaults upon the human psyche must end. Awareness is required and healing is the outcome.”

— Patricia Evans

40. “In some cases, the partner of an abuser may eventually come to the conclusion that something is wrong in the relationship but not know what it is. This is most common if the abuser is covert. The abuser may quietly counter nearly every comment and enthusiasm the partner expresses.”

— Patricia Evans

41. “Would a white supremacist group bond together against an African-American group if the African-American group magically transformed into whites?”

— Patricia Evans

42. “So, get still and listen to the soul. What do you want?”

— Patricia Evans

43. “Some people have not learned to know what their feelings mean. Some have been trained not to feel much. And some have been trained not to know that they have feelings.”

— Patricia Evans

44. “If we are to recognize and free ourselves from the influence of the Power Over model, we must hear ourselves – what words we speak and in what manner we speak them. Likewise, we must hear the words spoken to us and the manner in which they are spoken. This awareness can bring us to the realization of how we do or do not dignify, respect, protect, and esteem ourselves and ultimately all life.”

— Patricia Evans

45. “You get conditioned to it and confused by it, and then you don’t know what’s going on.”

— Patricia Evans