Your Baby's Mind : Features over 200 Learning Games and Activities to Help Babies Develop to Their Full Potential During the Critical First Two Years Book

If you put a frog ina pot of boiling water it will jump out; but if the frog goes into cold water that heats gradually, it will stay in and die.

The same is true for any habitual recipient of verbal abuse. you learn to accept things no person should accept. Ultimately you need to make a choice to leave, unless you have been able to set limits and stop it before then.

This seems so simple when you read about it in a book such as this one, but it is not so easy in practice after you have been wounded.

Anyway, this is a good resource to come to grips with the problem and to gain perspective.