In addition to answering all your questions about recovering from a toxic relationship, I also want to offer suggestions on how to heal and rebuild your self-esteem afterward.
Impact of a Toxic Relationship
The consequences of a toxic relationship can be devastating for the rest of our lives.
Imagine a person standing at a crossroads with two paths that diverge widely from each other. One leads far to the left, and the other far to the right. One represents a typical life path, and the other is the path of a toxic relationship. That second path leads to even more toxic things—bad habits, destroyed self-confidence, a lack of self-love, etc.
Can you imagine how long it takes for a person to return to that first, better path?
And, if you continue down that path, all you’ll find ahead is a series of bad things piling up on top of each other.
That’s the impact of a toxic relationship on a person.
It’s highly challenging to return to the right path later on.
But it’s possible. You just need to take the right steps, which I’ll outline in this text: How to learn to trust yourself again after a toxic relationship, How to rebuild self-esteem, and How to recover from a toxic relationship.
How To Build Self-Confidence: Tips From a Professional
The Emotional and Psychological Effects
In toxic relationships, one person convinces the other of a particular reality.
This version can be extremely cruel: “You’re simply stupid and worthless. You’re not successful/beautiful/slim/rich enough to meet my expectations.”
It can be benign but destructive: a person constantly shows dissatisfaction with you.
It can be unintentional: the person doesn’t love you and constantly leaves you; over time, you start to believe you’re not worthy.
Or it can simply be a bad influence: “Let’s do things that will harm you.”
It’s important to understand that people influence us, no matter how strong we are. They project something onto us, and we start to believe in it. If their influence is brief, we might always question it.
- One of my clients, who loved dancing, was once told that she was a bad dancer, so she didn’t dance for twenty years.
A person will become emotionally and psychologically altered if their influence is long-term.
If their influence is prolonged (like in a parent-child relationship or among relatives), a person can develop a completely different personality.
How To Heal From the Toxicity In Relationship
How Toxic Relationships Erode Self-Trust
We all have some capacity to harbor self-doubt. Some people are more prone to it (neurotics etc.), while others are less so, especially those who were told they were good, competent, etc. Those who were constantly told they were right, narcissists etc. Yes, all extremes are covered.
People with much room for self-doubt are more inclined to trust others. Since they don’t trust themselves, they have to trust someone.
When we trust others, they can implant whatever they want into our minds. And that’s when self-trust starts to erode.
On top of our already fragile self-belief, which comes from someone who knows where and when, someone else confirms it and adds even more self-doubt,. This creates a huge pile where self-trust is completely destroyed.
Recognizing the Signs of a Toxic Relationship
- Constant criticism
- Exploiting your resources
- Constant negativity
- Emotional manipulation
- Lack of empathy
- Control over you
- Lack of support
- Conditional love
- Isolation tactics
You can find more signs and an explanation for these signs (what should be interpreted as toxic and what may be random behavior) in these blog posts.: Signs Of An Unhealthy Relationship, 10 Signs of a Toxic Relationships
- It is quite important to understand whether you are in a toxic relationship or not, in order not to leave a relationship unnecessarily and due to misunderstandings.
If you want, you can also test your partner: Toxic Relationship Test
Low Self-Esteem After a Toxic Relationship
Another aspect that suffers after a toxic relationship is our self-esteem.
It’s hard to believe in yourself when someone constantly tells you that you’re doing things wrong, that you’re inadequate, not good enough, not smart enough, or something else entirely.
But, as I mentioned earlier, the roots of this go deeper.
We have to be open to allowing such people, who will poison us, into our lives. Not everyone allows such people in.
So the question is: why are we open to these toxic relationships and toxic people who then have a toxic influence on us?
Identifying the Root Causes of Low Self-Esteem
The roots of something like this do indeed stem from our early lives and someone’s influence. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be our parents. Sometimes, we are enough on our own.
- The influence of parents who didn’t nurture us emotionally and psychologically as they should have left us without confidence.
- The influence of people in our environment (friends, relatives, partners, influential figures like teachers and other authorities, etc.) can also be toxic.
- That one person who left a strong impression and destroyed our self-esteem.
- We ourselves, who didn’t believe in the parents who believed in us, at some point found some benefit in being less than we should be. Maybe a girl or boy pitied us, or a teacher. And then, by playing that role, we stopped believing in ourselves. This is just one idea, but I wanted to explain the benefit of a poor self-image (learned helplessness).
- Life circumstances that were unfavorable and destroyed our belief in ourselves: “It’s impossible for me to do good things if everything keeps going wrong.”
- Public opinion for people who live in toxic environments that scare them. Countries with such governance systems.
- Few or all of these together.
However, any of these can be considered the root of low self-esteem.
If there is such a root in you, it has sprouted. And if it was well-watered (someone systematically destroyed you), it has grown and branched into a solid and large plant.
How to Build Self-Esteem After a Toxic Relationship
Steps need to be taken to build self-esteem.
But before that, it’s necessary to become aware of a few things.
As I described at the beginning, if we’ve gone down the path of toxic relationships and influences, we now need to walk the entire path back to a healthy relationship with ourselves. And that path can be long.
So, you need to be ready for:
- It will take a time.
- You’ll want to return to the old, familiar path.
- You won’t want to put in the effort to heal yourself.
- The new path is unknown, so it might be scary and unappealing.
- You will have bad days or even periods. But it’s like stepping into a muddy puddle or enduring lousy weather (it rains for days). In those times, just lay low and move forward as soon as better conditions arise.
- But if you succeed, it will pay off more than anything else in your life.
Good self-esteem is one of the most important things you can have in life. Which makes this act of gaining good self-esteem one of the most important things you will do in life.
Recover From a Toxic Relationship
Practical Steps for Recovering From Toxic Relationship
1. Demystify the Person Who Planted the Seed of Self-Doubt in You.
If it’s your parents, this post is for you: How to Talk to Ourselves About Our Parents
If it’s people from your environment, this text is for you: The Impact of Toxic Friendships on Our Self-Love
If it’s you, this text is for you: An Important Conversation We Need to Have With Ourself
The essence of these steps is to help you converse with yourself about these issues, so you can rebuild self-trust after a toxic relationship.
2. Analyze Everything That Person Ever Told You About Yourself.
This can be done quite successfully if you uncover their inner motives.
For example, if your ex-partner was naturally aggressive, their inner motive was to hurt others.
Everything they said to you could easily have stemmed from their desire to hurt someone that day. It doesn’t have to be true at all, yet you accepted it as truth.
3. Decide What You Want to Become.
What does self-trust look like to you? Don’t take this task lightly because you can’t become something if you don’t know what you want to be.
It’s like setting a goal for yourself. You can only reach a goal if you know what it is.
4. Write Down Your Goal and the Steps You Need to Take to Become What You Want.
This text How to Love Yourself: 19 Exact Steps is for you if you need ideas on how to start believing in yourself again after a toxic relationship.
5. Who Can You Learn From?
Who can you ask about how do to believe in themselves? Take their steps and apply them to your own life.
And remember: don’t be shy to ask. People love to brag and talk about their expertise.
6. Analyze the People You Compare Yourself To.
Try to uncover the truth about them. People often compare themselves to others who appear successful without learning the real story behind it. Things usually look better from the outside than they do from the inside.
7. Try Faking Confidence Just to See How Little Resistance You’ll Encounter.
If you start believing in yourself, others will believe in you too, especially if you project it strongly.
8. Consider Talking to a Therapist if You Can’t Do It Alone.
Setting Boundaries With Yourself and Others
Don’t let anyone stand in your way or place obstacles in your path as you work toward your goal.
Anyone who tries to shake your self-confidence or undermine your belief in yourself or in your process of healing from a toxic relationship must be stopped, warned, and removed from your life if the first two steps aren’t enough.
Be open and direct with people: “I want you to stop saying what you’re saying to me. I want you to stop doing what you’re doing. I’m currently working on myself after a toxic relationship, and you’re only sabotaging my progress. By the way, why are you doing this? Why are you sabotaging me?”
If you’re afraid they’ll get angry, leave you (because you expressed your desires), or react badly, or something similar:
- It’s better if such people leave your life.
- You should be more afraid of staying in the state you’re currently in.
- Staying in such a relationship is staying in a toxic relationship.
If you’re sabotaging yourself, or if you fail, it’s to be expected after a toxic relationship. We often carry our habits with us for a long time, and here’s the thing: When there’s no one else to make our lives toxic and ruin them, we do it to ourselves.
That’s why you need to be aware that you’re doing this and of your reasons (Aha! I do this because I’m used to having this done to me by life).
To prevent this from hindering your progress, you need to:
- Stop yourself whenever you can.
- Do good things for yourself whenever you can.
How to Heal From a Toxic Relationship
Create Physical and Emotional Distance
You can’t heal if you’re still exposed to the source of your toxicity. It’s like standing next to a radioactive reactor and expecting to rid yourself of radiation.
Develop Boundaries With That Person
Keep in mind:
- This person will likely reach out again and try to return to your life.
- You might feel recovered and think that this toxic person can no longer affect you.
- You may feel nostalgic for your old times together.
- You might believe they’ve changed… or that you’ve changed enough… or you might want your chance for revenge.
- You may have bad days when you just need someone familiar to love you.
Expect many moments when you’ll want to let this person back into your life.
But remember, people don’t change. And if they do, they change really, never completely, and very slowly. If they change quickly, it is usually by only 10-15%.
Also, remember that people always want to restore old dynamics, so this person will try to pull you back into the old dynamic that worked for them (where you lose, and they win).
That’s why you must set clear and firm boundaries with the person you were in a toxic relationship with.
Communicate precisely what is allowed and what is not.
If the person doesn’t respect this, the boundary should be so strong that they can’t come near you at all to continue poisoning you.
Rediscover Your Identity and Passions
Since you lost yourself in coexisting with this person, now is the time to rediscover who you are.
You’ll need to take some time to think about who you are.
The premise is that this person convinced you of their values and their truths. For example, they told you all your friends were stupid, so you distanced yourself from them. Now is the time to sit down and think: Do you also believe your friends are stupid? If they are, what kind of friends do you want for yourself?
You need to go through this same process for everything this person caused you to doubt in your life—your clothes, your job, hobbies, interests, relationships with family, and future plans. But also the negative things: fears (I remember a client whose toxic ex convinced her that driving a car was terrifying, so she never drove because of him), doubts, and so on.
Don’t Speak Poorly of Yourself or Treat Yourself Badly
It is important to understand that every time you say something bad about yourself to someone, you are also saying it to yourself.
In this sense, you are someone who destroys your self-confidence and self-esteem.
Also, every act that damages you is a small act of not loving yourself. In this way, we send a message to ourselves that we are not worthy and that we should be damaged. Why should someone else protect us if we don’t protect ourselves and damage ourselves?
We must first start showing ourselves and others that we value ourselves highly, especially myself. Showing others is more a way to set others and ourselves standards of how we will be treated. I suggest respect and treatment as if we were precious. In this way, we also heal ourselves from toxic relationships.
Read this text How Can I Learn To Love Myself to better understand how to practice self-love.
This was a rich text, and we only said the basic part. There is still so much to say.
But I hope you liked and found this blog post useful. I love you. Dee
