I Survived a Toxic Relationship

It was the most painful and confusing time of my life. There were days I convinced myself I’d be okay if I changed nothing. I practiced yoga occasionally, burned my sage, taught my daughter about the crystals in my bag, and sometimes (at least for a moment) I stood on a ground that felt solid. Those days were great and I wouldn’t trade them for all the iced chai tea lattes in the world.

Then there were the other days - the majority. Some, I couldn’t get out of bed. Others, I claimed wild diagnoses from Dr. Google, grasping for any blame that didn’t ask me to be responsible for the way my life was unfolding. I contemplated taking my own life at times. (Times is the key there. It was a consideration that seriously stuck around.)

Here’s the part that blows your mind.

Ready?

Not only did this relationship cloud my life for the majority of it, I wasn’t actually trapped by anyone else.

I chose this pattern repeatedly, day in and day out because it was comfortable and familiar.

It’s not what you think.

I’d been in a “toxic” relationship with myself.

Now, wait.

I, myself, am not “toxic”.



Today in my life, I choose not to use words like this to describe anything (hence qUoTaTiOnS around the word). My intention is to help my brain decipher fact from fiction and to further cement my core belief that no one human is a toxic human. Harmful habit cycles? Inability to see things for what they are? Painful interactions with those you love because of your distorted understanding of yourself? YES. Toxic? Not so much.

This leaves me with two powerful and factual descriptors: workable and not workable.

Because my relationship with myself was profoundly twisted, I believed in things that did not serve me; things that were not workable to believe.

I believed I was “toxic”, even though I am not. I was consistently busy beating myself up for things that weren't true. For thousands of days, I lived in a dramatic survival mode, fighting for dear life in the face of inconvenient circumstances, seeing them as an actual threat to my life.



If it’s true that two things cannot exist in one space (try it. Put a fork on the table and then try to put another one in the same spot), then how could I have had the room for happiness while all my time was filled with fear and anger?

I had to get out of this relationship.



Suddenly - and I do mean suddenly - the clouds parted and the self-love appeared. I spent years buried in diagnosis stories, self-help books, and intense meditation. Something just clicked (or un-clicked) one day, and I could see a bit more of who I actually am looking back at me in the mirror.



It's freeing to connect the dots between how I relate to myself first and how I then relate to the world. Possibilities now exist where it seemed there were none.

I share all of this today knowing I am not the only one who's created, living with, and even protecting their own "toxic" relationship with themselves.

To those of you who are, may you move forward today knowing something can be different for you. That you can choose a new way to see yourself when you’re ready to get off it. You’ll know when you’re ready. It’s true you don’t have all the time in the world. Still, you have all the time you need.

I'm hoping if reading this you've felt seen, heard, supported, inspired, challenged, angry, charged-up, emotional, anything at all, that you’ll find three seconds of courage to connect with me or someone in your life in a vulnerable and honest way. There is real, tangible power in sharing.



I’m not an adorable photo attached to motivational words. I am a real human, and I survived.