The Ugly Truth Behind Why Its So Hard To Let Go Of Toxic Relationships.

- Anchita Thiagarajan     

I wasn’t a stupid little girl; I learned his pattern. I knew how he did what he did, I could predict his move even before he did the move. It’s not that I didn’t know that it was wrong, it was just that, there I something about the rush, the rush about that very person. The snide comments and the game, I almost enjoyed it in their own sick way. You know that people say that the bitterness of dark chocolate slowly deceives us as sweetness, that is what exactly this relationship did to me.

It isn’t that we don’t know that it was toxic and that we should stay away from that person, we just hope to god and pretend to ignore all the red flags. Now some might ask, why do you do that yourself, because it not only affects your mental health now, it also affects your future relationships. Well the truth is that you can be how much ever of a critical thinking person, planner, and think that you can spot that monster from afar, but the ugly truth is that; you can’t. They are not often monsters, they are often the people around you, they are the people who you might consider being friends with for a long time, and all along, they would have been preying on you.

There is something about that relationship, the teases, the whispers, and the reckless behavior, it somehow makes us feel like it can never happen. But all that high goes away the moment they go back, when they turn their back on you, that is when you realize how lonely you are, and in order to fill that gap in your soul, you immediately reply back to that “hey, sup?!” text from them a week after.

They come as they please to our secrets, we share to them about all  our past and present, all the ugly truth that makes you sick from the inside, and they did the same, and how much ever fucked up that is, there is love in there, a love which us so beautifully fucked up in its own way.

That one relationship messes with the rest of our relationship with others, we get blindsided and ignore those who are really there for you. Those who actually have your back. The boomerang people, those who stick around no matter how far throw them. That is when you realize that even now when you go to them after all this, they will be there for you, and that reality hurts you more, so you try not to go back and face the harsh reality and rather fall into the arms of the person who caused it.

They say and do everything right to compensate for all the wrong and make us feel bad for the way we react to their wrongs. This is abuse that leaves no marks or bruises, except for the ones that you make on your own, that tears you apart from inside out.

There will be a time when you realize that was just a temporary fix for all the deep feeling that you had, and that fix was enough to leave you numb so that you do not feel all those feeling back for a while.

Because the truth is, we hang into toxic people because we mistake that horrible relation to be love. We want to stick it to people that they are wrong, we somehow feel that love is something that hurts us so much and, it is wrong.

It’s hard to let go of toxic relationships because there is a sick thrill that comes with getting so close to someone. There is a sick thrill that comes in almost getting it right. There’s something about not giving up on someone that makes you want to stay. And there’s something so intense about both loving and hating someone so deeply that you stay,

But the almosts and the maybes and the broken promises are only that. It won’t ever change.

That future you envision and hope for will never become a reality because if a relationship is toxic, it’s like quicksand, the longer you stay, the harder it’ll be to get out of it. And eventually, it will consume who you are as  a whole.

 It seems almost impossible to let go of someone like that but once you do and once you value yourself enough to never tolerate mistreatment again, the thing that will feel abnormal won’t be normal healthy relationships but that day you see them and you utter under your breath, ‘I can’t believe I ever loved someone like you.’

Now I can’t provide you with research facts or statements by APA, so all I can give you at this moment, is experience. Now I know that this is hearsay, and the experience might be different for all, but if this piece even helps 1% of people out there, it makes a difference.