How To Use A Toxic Relationship As Fuel
Finding my way through the maze of a toxic relationship was like realizing I was in love with a ghost. He wore the mask of a person he could have been, but that person died a long time ago. Mourning the death of someone who is still alive is an anguish that comes for your bones.
My goal is to walk the impossible line of holding compassion for all sides. The ones who stay, the ones who leave, the ones who get better, and the ones who don’t. To hold truths so opposing it feels like they will rip you apart. To say the taboo things that no one else wants to say. I will screw up, but I will try anyway. Because that’s what I learned from my abuser. To get back up when someone beats you down. To walk through the fire of ridicule to be true to yourself. To stand naked, scared and alone for the sake of what calls you.
I love you more than I love myself.
That's what he used to tell me. I didn't see the projection until the end. I loved him more than I loved myself. He was talking about me.
Because the whole time he was abusing me, I just saw him replaying his trauma. I watched what made him the monster he was, and my heart splintered. When I looked in his eyes I saw a scared little boy, trapped and abandoned. I wasn't ready to accept that I was too late to save him until he cost me so much that giving up was the only choice left. In the end, he forced me to choose myself. He didn't know he was giving me a gift.
He left me with PTSD, health issues, financial loss, property damage, wasted time, and legal problems. On a mortal level, he deserves the hatred. On a spiritual level, he was also my greatest teacher.
Some people don't heal until staying the same becomes more painful than changing. It's very true for toxic people, but it was also true for me. Rock bottom was the only place extreme enough to wake me up to the life-long patterns that were keeping me stuck. It was where I went to re-break bones that had healed out of place. If you can't escape the lessons, then let them be your fuel.
Uno reverse motherfucker.
I’m not here to tell you to leave because I trust you to decide for yourself. It's your choice to make.
No one understands that there's something unsolved in your heart that you are trying to answer. When well-meaning people try to protect you from solving it, it’s like they're trying to take your power away. The deeper you can look at the questions, the more staying becomes a choice made out of freedom instead of fear. My only wish for you is that.
I’m just here to show you the map I used and the paths I took through the darkness. I know that there’s beautiful, intimate moments too. Those moments are hard to give up on.
If you're staying put, you've got to fight for your healing while you're still being wounded. It's an incredibly hard thing to do. Be gentle with yourself. Learn to rest, not to quit. Just take one step, one minute at a time. Always remember that just because it’s hard doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong.
If you left, or if they left you, or if you want to leave, I hope my lessons can help you, too.
Toxic relationships are like quicksand. You don't know you're in one until you're already stuck. And as hard as you try to escape, you keep getting sucked back in. Without any tether back to reality, you slowly drown.
Here comes lesson number one. Get ready to catch…
🔥 To survive, you need a tether.
If you’re like me, you’re so used to being misunderstood or invalidated that you’ve gone most of your life without asking for help from anyone. Now, you get to learn how to ask from help, but from the right people.
Get a support system that won’t judge you or give you advice, but empower you no matter what. The more help you have, the more you will dilute the quicksand. Family, friends, codependents anonymous, therapists, domestic violence counselors. Assemble your team. Document everything. You’re not crazy but you will feel like you are.
🔥 Slow down.
You can’t think clearly when you’re in survival mode. It’s hard to hear your intuition when you’re constantly being triggered. The slower you can go, the more you will see. Practice finding your peace in the chaos because the strongest nervous system wins. When you can, take time and space to regroup. By being unhurried, you stop time. Go slowly. Listen to your beating heart.
🔥 Wake up.
Becoming self-aware feels like sky-diving without a parachute. That’s how you know you’re doing it right. But don't worry. We have bacon at the bottom. Extra crispy.
If you’re ready to jump, start looking deeper. Picture yourself walking into a dark closet, pulling out boxes that were packed away, and dusting off the relics of your subconscious. Open the scope of your awareness to examine the voices in your head and the insidious lies they’ve been whispering into your ear. If you want to escape abuse, then stop abusing yourself first. Toxic relationships hurt but if your self-talk sucks then you’re suffering twice. So start re-writing all the stories in your head that say you’re not good enough.
🔥 Trust the triggers.
Toxic people will target your weaknesses, so use it to show you what needs healing. Wherever they twist the knife, look past the blood. Under the surface, there are core wounds that have been waiting for a long time to be uncovered.
Look for abandonment, rejection, conditional love, powerlessness, isolation, chaos, instability, deception, loss, criticism, invalidation, abuse, neglect, violence, addiction, betrayal, humiliation, manipulation.
Our early emotional experiences don’t go away. They are roaming around inside of us, yearning to be resolved.
🔥 Get brutally honest.
Vulnerability. Are you strong enough to be weak?
The people who have been through toxic relationships are some of the strongest, most big-hearted people I know. They also have a lot of armor, because they needed it to survive. To thrive, you have to take the armor off and get super real, super raw, and super honest. Especially with yourself.
I’ll go first.
Once upon a time a therapist asked me why I was choosing this relationship.
What kind of a fucked up question is that?
That’s like asking someone why they’re choosing to be an alcoholic.
(I’m in this relationship because I’m being psychologically manipulated and leaving is harder than breaking a heroin addiction. Read a fucking book).
It also implies that love is absent. To invalidate the reason of love doesn’t help people. It hurts their self-worth more. Love is there. It’s that their model for love looks like abuse. It’s that respect and trust that are missing.
Therapists also like to imply that we’re attracted to what’s familiar. I can agree that the primary feeling we had as children is the primary emotion we seek in adult relationships, but it’s not always obvious or easy to see. It takes a long time to connect all the dots.
Between you and me, there are other reasons I was choosing it. But the people who deserve to hear your story are the ones who can deliver you from shame, not add to it. So I’ll tell you instead.
Because in the beginning he treated me like I was perfect, and I’ve spent my whole life not feeling good enough.
Because my soul recognized his.
Because it was an honor to witness the healing journey that I thought he was on.
Because he was talented, creative, exciting, and funny.
Because he’s the only person who ever really saw me, even though he was just looking deeply for ways to use me.
Because I care more about loving hard than getting hurt.
Because I saw the sadness underneath the anger.
Because I chose to see his illness as separate from him.
Because I would want someone to rescue me.
Because the chaos made me feel alive.
Because I wanted to earn love by proving I was good enough and I wanted to be punished when I wasn’t.
Because the sex was amazing.
Because helping him gave my life meaning.
Because he made me feel wanted.
Because I’m a sucker for a good challenge.
Because I need constant mental stimulation and he was psychologically fascinating.
Because I’m attracted to mysterious and emotionally unavailable men.
Because I have an abandonment wound that makes me refuse to abandon other people.
Because he was a suicidal addict and I was trying to save his life.
Because he felt safe and dangerous at the same time.
Because I liked the way my head fit under his chin.
Because I’m tired of starting over.
Because he was mesmerizingly unhinged and free in all the ways I wasn’t.
Because feeling alone is worse than feeling abused.
Because I don’t believe in giving up on someone you care about.
… Well, I didn’t then. But I do now. You can’t wake someone up who’s pretending to be asleep.
🔥 Practice serenity.
Toxic people make you feel like you have to choose between abandoning them or betraying yourself when all you want is to be a team. The futility is crippling. So let it be crippling. Let the discomfort wash over you like waves and surrender. Radically accept the beautiful disaster you’ve found yourself in and save your energy and focus for the only thing you have control over; yourself.
🔥 Learn boundaries.
When I started asking for help, everyone told me to practice strong boundaries. I had made it into my 30s with no idea what boundaries were or how to use them. It feels like I’m constantly learning basic human skills I should have known already.
Boundaries are designed to protect you from other people’s bullshit. It’s a statement of your limits and how you will respond if your limits are crossed. The tricky thing about boundaries is; you have to be prepared to enforce them. The other tricky thing about boundaries is you can’t use them as an ultimatum or to manipulate the other person into doing what you want (which is hard because they are wreaking havoc on your life). In that way, a boundary can sound the same but mean two different things. It’s about your intent. The wrong way to use them is to try to change the other person. The right way to use them is to protect yourself.
No matter how well you practice boundaries, be prepared. Toxic people will call you controlling, they will act like boundaries are a form of withholding love, and they will test the fence, over and over again systematically looking for weaknesses. Like the velociraptors in Jurassic park.
🔥 Be radically accountable.
My partner used to call me controlling, manipulative, impatient. And you know what? I was, but not in the ways he was accusing me of. I didn’t want him flirting with girls on Facebook… that’s not controlling.
In a healthy relationship, it’s important to be accountable. To toxic people, it’s a game, and if you concede to any of their half-truths, you lose. Any admission becomes ammunition they will use to keep you stuck in guilt and shame because that’s where they have the most power over you. The only way to win the game is not to play.
So be accountable, but to yourself. Mentally discard their black and white accusations for the legitimate gray. You’re a perfectly imperfect human who is doing their best. Sometimes, you mess up. The difference is that you strive to grow. So own your shit, and laugh in the face of your mistakes. You will never be good enough for them, but you can be good enough for you. Liberate yourself by finding the fun in being a flawed and awesome mess.
Even if you do everything in your power to fix a toxic relationship, you are still only capable of fixing half.
If you’re still swimming through the aftermath of a breakup or if you’re preparing to leave, this part is for you.
I know that giving up can feel like the worst-case scenario, but try to ask yourself what would need to happen for this to be the best thing that ever happened to you. It’s not about choosing who you do or don’t want to be with. It’s about choosing how you want to be treated and who will rise to meet you. To let someone reap what they sow is an act of love.
Trust that the universe might know what you need better than you do, and embrace the unknown with reckless abandon. You can’t ruin anything that is meant for you.
For those who were abandoned by a toxic partner, I just want to say, I know how confusing and painful that can be. But being abandoned by a toxic person is like getting thrown into rehab by heroin. You’re too much trouble for them, in a good way. They actually set you free.
Sometimes you pick your hard, sometimes your hard picks you… Sometimes you get trauma-bonded to your hard and it won’t let you un-pick it. Trauma-bonds are why it takes people an average of 8 times to leave a toxic relationship, so don’t be hard on yourself if you go back. Your chances will be best if you can go no contact. Trust that it gets easier after the first two months. If there is a risk of violence, the danger is highest when you try to leave, so have a plan ahead of time.
Loving someone who is hard to love is not a weakness. Empathy, vulnerability, and emotional intelligence are qualities to be proud of. But when it comes to leaving a toxic relationship, they will keep you stuck. No one is coming to save you, so you’re going to have to get ruthless.
In these moments, you are at war with yourself. Sit down with all the broken pieces of your heart until everyone agrees. It’s only after we’ve lost all hope that we are free to live again.
To get out, you need a disguise. Turn your heart off like a switch and focus on the facts. I know that’s not who you are, but you’ve got to adopt a selfish, impervious, every-man-for-himself mentality if you want to make it out.
A long time ago, I think toxic people had to put on this same costume. But they made the weaker choice to keep it on.
Once you’re free, there’s more healing to do.
🔥 Forgive
Fuck everyone who told me that forgiveness is a choice. Forgiveness is a process.
The desire to get there as a gift to yourself is the choice. You cannot be expected to forgive someone who devastated you to your core. It's impossible to want to. Instead you can want to want to. Freedom is the choice. Let the devastation belong to them.
They don’t deserve the forgiveness, but you do. By canceling the debt, you free yourself from being haunted by the apology you’re owed.
It’s also time to forgive yourself. Toxic people make you act out of character. They push you until you react and then they use your reaction as proof that you’re the abusive one. There’s no shame in being a human who was pushed to their limit. Show some compassion for your suffering.
🔥 Meet your shadow
Leaving a toxic relationship is like recovering from an addiction. They show you your soulmate and then withhold it from you. And in doing so they doom you to searching for that unreachable high. Sober and forever craving. Addicted to feeling wanted.
I’m going to let you in on a deep dark secret. Toxic people feel like soulmates because they are mirroring you. The best parts of you, and the dark shadowy parts that you repress. Everything you love about them, you can reclaim within yourself. So integrate your sexy unhinged wildness, marvel at the depths of your compassion, and take back your duality. The bold, expressive, edgy person that you fell in love with is inside of you.
🔥 Grieve
I remember my coach telling me to treat my breakup like a death. It felt like a death, that deep pit in the middle of your chest that physically hurts. It was that kind of helplessness. The same desperation to change an outcome that you can’t.
If you swallow the grief, it will live in your body and fester. So mourn the death. Your capacity for pain is equal to your capacity for joy.
🔥 Get angry
You’ve been overriding your nervous system for a long time. Putting your anger aside for the sake of peace or for your own safety. Now, it’s safe to get angry. You deserve to be angry. Anger is rocket fuel that will propel you out of grief and shame towards a brighter future, so let loose.
My advice, screaming alone in your car is a special kind of catharsis.
My abusive relationship taught me how to love myself, how to reparent myself, how to act in the face of crippling fear, to tirelessly advocate for myself, to honor my needs, to validate myself when no one else will, to believe my intuition, to trust my decisions, and to find meaning in my pain. By telling my story, I hope I can clear the path for others to do the same.
Whatever you are trying to earn, you are already deserving of it.
Resources
These are the books that helped light my way. If you make a purchase through any of these links, I will get a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find - and Keep - Love
Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men
Love Me, Don't Leave Me: Overcoming Fear of Abandonment and Building Lasting, Loving Relationships
Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself
Come As You Are: Revised and Updated: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life
