When you are small, you are friends with everyone. You look to every person as one and do not see anyone as arrogant, poor, rich, good, bad, etc. You love everyone, and everyone around you loves you. It’s just as simple as that.
But as you grow up, you notice that your relationships with people change over a year to year. You lose friends who had been with you since your school time, relatives whom you once loved dearly are no longer in your inner circle as they appeared to be cheating on you, your lover who you have been dating for long years have been found to have an external affair, and say whatnot.
It’s all a part of growing up, and every one of you has to go through the trauma of relationship failures and loss of relationships to get to a stage in life where you can recognize fake relationships, kick them out, and live with the real ones. Live with the ones who love you from all the heart and soul, for life.
But till the time you get the ability to identify the fake relationships, you have to go through a large amount of confusion and mess in your life. You struggle a lot in the beginning, you get heavy in heart and mind, you feel lost, unaware of the fact with what’s happening with you, and life, you feel broken, guilty for losing your past relationships. For a while, you may even get isolated from the rest of the world. You encounter criticism, humiliation, tantrums, disappointments, hopelessness, and whatnot.
But, no matter what, with time, you learn and start to understand everything, kick off the fake people, give space to the real ones in your life so that you can continue to live a life of meaning.
If you are dealing with such points in life where you are confused about whether or not you are in a toxic relationship with someone, here are the signs:
1. You feel the other person tries to put you down
If a person is finding faults in you, leaving no chance to bring you down, suppressing your talents, reflecting on your weaknesses, or what you cannot do in front of you and even other people, it is more likely that you’re in a toxic relationship.
Highly toxic people can go any cost to make themselves feel good about their selves. Initially, they give you all the love in the world to control you. But soon as you become an unwilling participant in their master plans, they show their true colors. You find that you have been used all the while for the toxic person’s motives.
The world starts to misunderstand you. The toxic person portrays you to be at fault and act as a victim of the situation. You become shattered and silent. But you don’t have to worry here. In time, the world gets to understand you, and slowly and steadily, you can build it all back.
2. You feel blamed every time
If you feel blamed for happenings or circumstances in your life, even if you are not wrong, these are other signs that you are in a highly toxic relationship. Toxic people never apologize for their mistakes regardless of how many times they put you in painful situations. Instead, every time they will take the help of the high voltage drama and play the blame game to make you responsible even for their actions.
3. You don’t feel the type of trust you must have
When you are in a toxic relationship, signs are you always get negative vibes when around the other person. You don’t feel like sharing your secrets or any of your personal information while talking to them. You avoid eye contact as much as you can and share as little as you can and that too with caution. You believe that sharing your secrets with the other person will cause you problems and may even act as a hindrance to your growth.
4. You don’t practice self-care
You don’t take time for self when in a toxic relationship. You voluntarily drop your plans, hang-outs, personal activities to favor the schedules of the toxic person. Your entire life revolves around satisfying the interests of that person first.
You stick to your everyday schedule and look to if you are not giving any chance to the toxic person to get angry. It is because you were supporting the toxic person since the beginning unintentionally, so now you cannot ignore them altogether. You are stuck, so you have to deal with them calmly. You have to get out of the toxic relationship step by step and lead yourself towards the path of freedom and quality self-care.
5. You keep waiting/hoping for the other person to change
If you are in a toxic relationship with someone, you want them to change. You hold on for a long time believing that they will realize their fault or your kind, good nature will change such people. You hold on because you love them and have been with them for a long time, and you feel a bond with them as close as anything else in the world.
In the end, either the toxic person finally changes, or you learn to adjust your behavior according to their moods, or kick them out from your life, which is in your best interest if it is possible in case the toxic person does not want to change.
6. You feel all drained in life
If you are in a toxic relationship, signs are you feel drained, tired and exhausted almost all the time. You are busy all the time but are not able to do much productive. You feel like you can do and deserve something better. But the toxic person stuck you in situations where you have to follow the unwanted routines for a long time unwillingly to get your life in order at some future point.
7. You feel very insecure
When around the toxic person, you do not feel confident. You feel judged, and there is always unknown chaos around you. The world sees you as the wrong person. You feel a deep ray of insecurity and hopelessness around you.
You don’t feel appreciated, no matter what you do, you feel as if your weaknesses are explored out more and highlighted upon, you feel caged in an environment where people misunderstand you and see you as a useless person. Your self-image is almost on the path of exploitation.
The toxic person never makes you feel good about yourself and leave no stone unturned to put you down until and unless you take a stand and say no to all the injustice caused to you.
8. You feel stonewalled
The toxic person in your life never gives answers to your questions and solutions to your problems. Whenever you sit in a conversation with them, you feel like you are talking to a wall, and there’s no coming back for what you are saying – no feedbacks, advice, or even replies.
You feel like the other person is least bothered, about what’s troubling you and neglect, and don’t respect your feelings. The moment you begin a conversation with them, they act unresponsive as if they are not listening, or even straight walk away from the situation.
Non-toxic relationships respect each other’s emotions, feelings, happiness, stresses, and exchange feedback and advice, look to each other’s happiness, and invest in how and what both can do to engage in effective communications.
When you are in a toxic relationship, you feel like you are not living the real you, you are just living life as per the standards and demands of the toxic person. You don’t get a positive feeling about the future with them. You feel if you have to live with them, you have to unnecessary praise them all the time.
And Finally..
When you are in a toxic relationship, you get plenty of signs to recognize it. The moment you find toxicity in a relationship and start to do things on your own and try to live freely, the toxic person seems unable to digest the fact, become aggressive, and create unnecessary drama. You have no choice except creating healthy boundaries and end up living with them till you come to an appropriate conclusion.
But no matter what, if at any stage in life, you find toxicity in a relationship, remember one thing that it doesn’t make any sense. It may be hard for you to accept to it at the beginning that the relationship that you once loved from the core of your heart is toxic. You get heavy and like literally dying inside out. You feel like someone has snatched an integral part out of you.
You want to get answers to why all this happened to you and that too unexpectedly, at the time when you were completely unaware. You feel stuck in a situation that you have never imagined, even in the worst of your nightmares, you search for why you found toxicity in the relationship.
To make it sense, you blame your past behavior, things you didn’t understand, circumstances, scenarios, and whatnot. But nothing is of use, and in the end, you have to accept the truth no matter the reason for unexpected and sudden toxicity in your life or from where it came.
You have to realize that growing up is not easy, and as you grow up, love and happiness cannot go hand in hand. You have to face love sometimes that can be a dirty liar. You have to deal with it even if it looks like the end of the world.
No matter what, you have to deal with the toxicity. However, dealing with toxicity does not mean losing yourself or your identity amidst all it, it means handling it, as well as you can once you detect it. You have to make sacrifices for relationships but your self-respect, faith in yourself, pride, happiness, must be on the top of the list.
In The End..
While dealing with any relationship in life, remember that, if the foundation of it is on love, trust, then it grows, restores, revives, and replenishes. It doesn’t break down or hurt you. On the other hand, if you feel suffocated to every single part of your body, feel like you owe the other person something, then you must get alive to the damaging signs of that relationship.
It is toxic, so don’t let the cruelty of that relationship violate your open, warm heart. Get ways to deal with it. Be happy, live life, and feel safe! It is your life, and you better know who to live with to make to all peace till the end!
