Addiction to Toxic People and Toxic Relationships
Break the cycle. No 12 step program needed.
Whether they’re romantic, co-dependent, or superficial, toxic relationships rely on some type of reward or recognition. Except the reward is more bad behavior and unjustifiable bullshit you know you can and should do without.
You’re indoctrinated in a stubborn and volatile brainwashing system where you can’t let the person or relationship go because some catastrophe will ensue and force you to break your patterns. People don’t like to make changes because it’s hard and involves breaking “unbreakable” patterns.
Our lives center around patterns and habits. We can find the support we need to change our habits through seminars, self-help books, hypnosis, and psychologists. Even with all that help…
Why does it have to be so damn hard?
Because toxic people and toxic relationships are bad habits and bad habits are the hardest to break. You signed up for failure because you think that’s the best you can do. You need someone to affirm you’re a pile because that’s what you tell yourself every minute of every day.
Since you think you’re pond scum and refuse to be around people who can prove otherwise, you cling to people who are more than happy to keep knocking you down. You handed them a shovel and begged them to smash it across your face and dig you a six foot grave.
The smug transaction between you and the toxic person allows you to keep seeing yourself as someone who isn’t worthy of anything but maltreatment. You crave the hardship because it’s too much for you to believe you have more to offer than being in a relationship with someone who is a sociopathic shit who wants to use you as a punching bag.
Perhaps your entire life has revolved around people telling you you’re worthless. The bad stuff is easier to believe. Why don’t you expect more of yourself and those around you?
There’s nothing wrong with treating yourself fairly and expecting others to do the same. But it IS wrong to believe you can’t or shouldn’t. There’s a void you can’t identify much less own up to.
What do you hate so much about yourself that you feel you have no other choice than to live dissatisfied and miserable among others dissatisfied and miserable?
People who love themselves refuse dissatisfaction and misery. People who thrive on misery are toxic. They don’t want to see you happy, fulfilled, prosperous, or achieving all they never could. It’s important to consider what roles these people play in your life and at what loss you’ll have to continue to sacrifice to keep them there.
In toxic relationships one person does all the taking while the other does all the giving. People who feel they have a lot to lose don’t want to risk it. If that means holding on to a shitty relationship so they won’t be alone, they’ll cling to it for dear life.
Sometimes it goes deeper than loneliness. It goes right to the heart of remaining warm and toasty under the blanket of powerlessness and loss of hope. It feels good to feel bad because it gets to be comfortable and familiar. When it’s all you’ve ever known, you get used to it and the pattern continues.
Your priorities are out of whack
You’re not putting yourself or your needs first. You’re not loving yourself and being generous to yourself first. You’re not feeding your soul with worthiness, love and positive ambitions. And that’s a deadly mistake.
You have to give to the toxic person first because they’re strangling it out of you. They’re forcing your consent through abuse, degradation and negative belief systems that extract power from your potential to be the person who is 100% fit for a healthy, fulfilling relationship.
If you don’t start giving to yourself that’s when people start taking. Toxic people only know how to take and have no regard for the damage they inflict in leaving you empty. They render you a shell of a person, a chicken with its head cut off, and they know just the level of abuse you need to keep you in line.
If you’re giving more and more to the toxic person, and you are, it’s time to turn the tables.
Your vulnerability attracts toxic people
A confident, well-adjusted person is virtually loser-proof. The person with their head on straight finds depraved scumbags repugnant and unworthy of attention. A lesser person recognizes immediately that they can’t extract what they can so easily from a person who’s self-reliance and self-worth is broken and vulnerable.
Birds of a feather flock together so it’s important to consider: “If I’m attracting these kinds of people what does that say about me as a person? As relationship material?”
We are who we attract. If we want to surround ourselves with shitty people, we do. If we want to surround ourselves with good people, we do. You get to choose. It’s as simple as that.
I don’t know a single person who is successful in any way who spends their time with bloodsucking losers. So why do you? You’re the culmination of the five people you spend the most time with. Let that sink in.
“The 5 most enthusiastic people I know are also the 5 busiest people I know, and the 5 angriest are exactly where they were when I met them.” — Dave Holmes
If you want the truth about why you’re in a toxic relationship you’re going to have to do some soul searching. Have the guts to face the ugly truth about why you’re attracting these people and choosing them as life partners.
Until then your bad habits will repeat like My Heart Will Go On at closing time and your brain hemorrhages. Toxic relationships take two people. People will only do what you let them get away with.
