Damaging, toxic relationships! How did I let this happen?
I sat and listened to her story of shame and guilt. She described how she struggles to stop using substances to drown out the feelings of unworthiness, desperation, and fear of no one ever loving her again. She spoke of her manifested OCD tendencies and how she feels embarrassed now that others are starting to notice. She cried as she talked about how inadequate and incapable she feels and how the feelings overwhelm her.
This is the damage a toxic relationship has on one’s mental health – it is crippling and not something you just get over.
It will seep into the very core of your being, damaging your self-worth, shattering every boundary, stripping away any sense of self, and invoking an incredible amount of guilt and shame.
The thing about these types of relationships is that it causes you to do things that are out of character as a coping mechanism. You become someone you don’t recognize AND look for ANY way to survive in the relationship, yet find it extremely difficult to leave the relationship.
Where do you even start to heal from this?
Getting to the place of feeling like you are so broken doesn’t happen overnight. It happens over time, through a blend of perceived love and caring followed by tearing down of who you are. I call this the ‘chipping away process’. It’s a gradual and consistent process that causes a great deal of confusion, hurt, lightly sprinkled with happy times that you can cling to.
That's why so many will agonize over, 'How did I let this happen?'
If you are or have been in this type of relationship, know that this can happen to ANYONE. Everyone can find themselves in a place in life where they are vulnerable to this experience and there are those who find they experience these exact relationships repeatedly.
Here are a few reasons for this:
- Not listening to, trusting, and acting upon your intuition,
- Finding yourself at a vulnerable place in your life, and
- Deeper unhealed trauma.
Let's talk about your intuition
Intuition is the feeling that you get, somewhere in your body, letting you know that something isn’t right! We all have it. The question is, do you hear it? and can you draw on your courage to trust the guidance?
When it comes to toxic relationships there are always red flags, likely as early as the 1st date but definitely by the 2nd date!
Your intuition is your guiding light in this life but, and this is a BIG but, trusting it is definitely a learned skill few are taught. It is very challenging to trust in something, that is gifted to you at birth, but is snubbed out and never fully cultivated.
Here is why!
We are told what to do, how to feel, and how to think from a very young age.
Can you remember a time when you were upset about something and you were told, ‘that’s nothing to be upset about, or ‘you’re just over-reacting!’.
This invalidates your feelings, affirms that how you feel must be wrong, and implies a different feeling should apply and not the one you have.
Another example.
You get an uneasy feeling around a person. You tell someone about this uneasiness. They respond with, ‘Who him/her? Don’t be ridiculous they’re harmless!”
This again invalidates your intuition and teaches you to not trust yourself because somehow how you feel is wrong.
We can learn to develop and trust our intuition through life experiences and the lessons learned from them. If you meet someone or encounter a situation that reminds you of a painful experience, trust that inner knowing.
It takes courage to trust and act on a feeling when you don’t know why you feel the way you do or know the outcome!
Being able to trust yourself with the choices and decisions you make requires a healthy sense of self.
A healthy sense of self
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