How to Overcome a Toxic Relationship

Grieving a toxic relationship is much easier than trying to fix it.

It is a long story though, after saying goodbye to your ex until you get him out of your life. It starts from leaving the relationship to when you finally build a strong foundation of a healthy life and reinforce it by self-love and enjoyments. Because after all, you do not want a certain man to define who you are, it’s your decision to be happy.

1- Identify a toxic relationship

When you start looking for a definition of a toxic relationship, you are almost ready to move on from the past. Otherwise, your old relationship would remain as a romantic sorrow, a hopeless effort, or in my case, a tragic love song.

I met my ex more than four years ago, who was the manager in my first job. He was many years older than me, a close friend of my teacher. Sharp-minded, driven, and assertive. I am the type of person who has strong opinions, but I was just 22, freshly graduated from university, and obviously, lacked of experience. I genuinely committed myself to the relationship and the job until I was completely drained. It was then that I seriously felt into depression, though I didn’t recognize my condition and symptoms of mental disorders. I was hopeless, sleep-deprived. I shred around ten pounds, and had extreme mood swings because of work stress as well as maintaining the complicated relationship in a busy office. After more than a year being miserable, leaving the job seemed like the rational decision that I had to make. I ran away from the unresolved problem.

Back then, I didn’t have any ideas that my old relationship was toxic. Any loving relationships include conflicts, misunderstanding, sometimes indifference. This is when we need empathy to figure things out, or not it would become a situation that one person gives too much while the other keeps ignoring and taking it for granted. A relationship is not properly nourished; it expires as a product on grocery shelves. However, even though you are physically, mentally, and emotionally out of balance, you will not be able to get yourself out of the problem, unless you explicitly acknowledge it. Having a toxic relationship is like being stuck in a loop of misery made by yourself in which you are invalidated, unrecognized, and powerless. Your partner might diminish your feelings, but honestly, you are the one who humiliates yourself or is responsible for letting that happened.

2- Confront your helplessness

The first step was Running away from the toxic relationship. Now, the second step: Let’s examine your negative thoughts and exhume your last relationship. Since when it became a one-sided relationship? What is your worst fear? Is it incidentally (or hopefully) bumping into your ex on the street or receiving a wedding invitation? The common method is to write down your feelings but should thwart yourself from sending them to your ex. Both your ex and the emotions belong to the past while you are now dwelling in the present. Sending out the invalid parcel will not get you any attention. Doing exercises or having new experiences, let’s use the time for understanding yourself and finding inner peace after the breakup.

After changing the job, I spent a year mending my inner self. I tried activities that are known as things people should do after breaking up. Learning interesting things, starting a new hobby, yoga, piano, swimming, traveling, having a healthy lifestyle, opening up to another relationship, etc.

To some extent, they are pretty useful.

It was some months ago when I knew that my ex had a newborn son with a former colleague who used to be close to me. Tragedy suddenly struck. It was hilarious. My head was spinning with a thousand questions: What? When? How? Why?

Again, I was constantly consumed by self-doubt and self-devaluation as I used to be. However, I also raised some more reasonable questions: Why does it still hurt me? Am I not happy here even after two years of putting in all the efforts? Am I still not able to cut them out of my life?

The concise answer is Yes. I am delighted to be here. What I need to do now is clearing my mind and looking straight into the problem. I have tried many ways to be externally distracted from the depression, but when it comes to psychological pain, I am helpless. The truth is somewhere in my journey, I stopped loving that person, but I didn’t admit it. I was drowning in old memories and afraid of letting go.

There is no correct answer to the preceding questions in my mind. Now, it is also not necessary to answer. I don’t have to be wealthy or gorgeous to make someone regret it. I don’t need to visualize any future situations whether we meet once again. Standing in front of my young and vulnerable self, what I should do is to embrace my sufferings and resettle in the present. I am a whole-fully living person. I am thankful that I chose to leave, and for the lessons that I have learned.

3- Building a daily routine.

The most significant change happened to me while I was taking the famous course: The science of Well-being by Yale University. The knowledge delivered in the course opened my mind by defining what precisely made me feel resentful in a scientific way. It clears my mind like an ocean tide and helps me gain back my mental strength.

I also realize excitements do not last long and habits form our personalities. I have been collecting good habits for a year and forming them into a timetable by prioritizing. I try to keep my mind in the present by focusing on the current problem, redirecting my attention back to my breath, and readdressing my thoughts every time I notice that they are wandering around.

I will sum up my daily activities as below for your reference, in case, this is my To-do list:

• Sleeping enough (7–8 hours).
• Having a cup of warm water with lemon and honey after waking up.
• Working. (FYI this is the Corona WFH era).
• Breakfast in break time. (NEVER forget breakfast)
• Working out and Yoga (Boho beautiful & Chloe Ting).
• Learning some course on Coursera (Ongoing Computer Science: Programming with a purpose and Chinese for Beginner).
• Eating (a lot of) fruits & yogurt (Avocado, apple, tangerine, pear…).
• A phone call home — Family time (It’s kind of a checking activity on my mom and dad’s health because I have been working abroad for seven months).
• Cooking.
• Showering.
• Skincare routine.
• Writing (maybe in my diary or on Blog).
• Meditation (30 minutes before sleep).

Along with a To-do list, this is a Not-to-do list:

• Being on social media: I use App limit to restrict the total hours per day that I spend on Facebook and Instagram.
• Social comparison. (Avoiding social comparison is very important to be happy).
• Spending a whole day only lying in bed and watching Netflix.
• Forget to punctually eat.
• Avoiding exercise, meditation & dish-washing.

Conclusion

Being in a relationship is appealing, but also a series of trade-offs. One of them is that you may easily lose your life balance once the relationship goes wrong. A healthy relationship doesn’t need to be a jigsaw puzzle of two puzzle pieces that fit together. It probably sparks off when two persons having common interests, same ideas of growth meet, then decide to be together.

But first. Don’t wait for someone to fill your gaps. Learn to embrace yourself, and grow love inside you until you are fulfilled and joyfully share it with others.