Caroline Wilbourne
Realizing a loved one is toxic in your life isn’t easy. It can be hard to let go of them because of how much you care about them and how much they’ve impacted your life. However, your well-being should be your top priority at the end of the day.
While it seems like identifying toxic traits in people can be easy, a lot of the time it’s hard to realize you’re in a toxic relationship. So it’s important you analyze your personal relationships to see if anyone is treating you poorly. According to Mental Health America, the characteristics of toxic people include manipulation, making others feel bad about themselves, being judgemental, self-centered, controlling and more.
Also, it’s important to note this not only occurs in friendships but also in romantic relationships and within your own family.
Toxic relationships often leave people feeling unhappy because of the constant negative feelings being inflicted on them. It usually involves lots of mental abuse, and in some serious situations it can lead to physical harm. These types of people often treat you like crap and make you believe you deserve it, making mistreatment your new normal. It’s hard to have a realization and break away from this person, but it has to be done for your own health. It’s important to understand that you’re worth so much more.
Keeping toxic people around can cause many negative effects on your well-being. These negative effects include mental and eating disorders, unnecessary amounts of stress, low self-esteem and overall feeling sad/depressed.
Leaving toxic people definitely isn’t easy, and according to relationship coach Cindi Sansone-Braff, the reason why it’s so hard to leave these relationships is people often want to stay to try and fix the relationship. You feel the time and energy you’ve invested would be wasted if you left, and you’re scared of leaving them and ending up alone.
Of course, there are many circumstances where it’s not as easy to leave someone who is toxic and bad for you. It can be super hard, especially when these people have been in your life for so long, like a childhood best friend or even your parents.
In these types of situations, it’s best to try and talk to the person who is making you feel bad, and try to explain to them their behavior is toxic. If this doesn’t really work then it would be best to just keep your distance from them as much as possible. This is definitely easier said than done though. It is definitely not easy to just up and leave toxic people, especially when they’ve been such a big part of your life for so long.
Leaving a toxic relationship with someone, whether it’s your significant other, best friend or your own parents, can make you feel hopeless and lost. It can make you feel like you should go back, or at least reach out to get some sort of closure, but you have to try and ignore those feelings and focus on healing. As you heal, it’s important that you rediscover yourself and not regret your decision. Also, don’t blame yourself. Instead, try and learn from your experience.
Once you have finally left this toxic person and are now on your own, it’s important to do certain things while you’re healing, including setting boundaries and not contacting them, surrounding yourself with positive people who lift you up, practicing self-care and most importantly, focusing on yourself.
After leaving a toxic person though, it can definitely be hard to do these things. Just know that you don’t have to do these things alone. NC State has many resources available to help if you’re struggling with mental health or just need someone to talk to, like the Counseling Center. Additionally, even if you are not personally facing these issues but instead know someone who is struggling, you can refer them to NC State CARES via an anonymous form if that’s something that you’re comfortable with and feel would be the best option.
Also, there are many non-NC State-affiliated resources that can help. Silence The Shame has compiled many organizations that have many mental health resources based on your needs. Another online counseling resource that specializes in many different mental health fields is BetterHelp which I would encourage students to take advantage of to make sure you get the help you need.
At the end of the day, talking to someone you trust is the best thing you can do. It’s not easy having to let go of toxic people, but once you do you’re going to feel so much better and free now that you’ve finally gotten rid of them in your life. Because if they’re toxic, they don’t deserve to be there in the first place.