Here’s What You Honestly Learn When You Survive A Toxic Relationship
A toxic person makes goodbyes seem so hard, they force you to run in circles because goodbye never symbolises the end when you’re with a toxic person. They’ve mastered an apology for any situation, they’ve taught you how to forgive them for anything, even when whatever it is they’ve done hurts you to the core, but they’ve even taught you how to numb that pain over time. When they’ve hurt you so many times that you’ve lost count the pain they cause you doesn’t even feel like pain anymore. Disappointment becomes something you expect. They’ve taught you how to spin everything into a different perspective so that even when they’re the one in the wrong somehow you are still the one that winds up apologising.
Their personality can change from caring for you one moment to hurting you without a second thought the next and in the next breath they will tell you that whatever it was that they said or did shouldn’t have hurt you, that you shouldn’t have let it hurt you. Whenever something in their life goes wrong they find a way to make you believe that it is your fault, and you do everything in your power to try and make things right again but they manage to convince you that every attempt you make is futile and only results in more damage being caused.
You show them as much affection as you can and become disappointed when they don’t reciprocate that, so you keep trying harder, showing them more and more affection, believing that their love is something you need to earn.
You call this love because you’ve invested so much time and effort and energy into it, but it’s not love, love isn’t one sided, love shouldn’t drain you entirely.
You become addicted to the emotions, the good and the bad, it’s not that you’re addicted to the feelings, just addicted to having them make you feel something. Once you leave them you question everything, you’re not used to someone texting you back, treating you with respect, not trying to manipulate your emotions, being interested and invested in your life, all of these actions are foreign to you. Being happy is foreign to you, you never realised how unhappy you were with them, but once you leave you feel free, you’re smiling all the time, you actually feel happy and content even when you know you have other stressors in your ife.
Toxic relationships destroy you piece by piece, so slowly that you don’t even recognise it. Your heart is constantly broken, your eyes lose the glow they used to have, your self-confidence is shaken, your belief in yourself destroyed. Your appearance means nothing special to you because they never told you, you looked beautiful, they never commented on the positive aspects of your appearance or personality, only the negatives. They reduced your self-worth to rubble, they tore apart the love you had for yourself, everything that meant anything to you they tried to take away.
Once you leave you learn that your best is enough, that you are worthy. They made you believe that your best always fell short, that even when you tried so hard it still wasn’t enough. Leaving them teaches you that you are important, you are enough and you are special and one day someone will come along who will appreciate you, all of you.
Throughout the toxic relationship you did everything you possibly could to keep the relationship together, but you found you only managed to lose yourself in the process of trying to keep someone who was never destined to be yours.
You tried so hard to believe that you had a connection like no other, that you were special together, that you were made for each other, that you forgot what real feelings actually are.
You willed yourself to believe in their false promises, but you know they were empty, they had promised the same things a million times and never came through with them.
Your toxic person became a habit, just something that you did every day. The one person you looked forward to doing things with the most was the same person who was capable of ruining anything good in your day with one look, one word, one unacknowledged text, one missed call.
Before you know it you’re already in too deep. You spent so long making excuses for their pathetic behaviour that you lost yourself on the way and now you feel suffocated and suppressed. Part of you wants and knows you need to move on and meet and be with someone who deserves you, who will treat you right, who will respect you and who will recoil at the idea of hurting you. The other half of you questions whether letting go will actually hurt you more if there is something in this relationship that is worth holding onto.
You see this toxic person as who they could potentially be, not who they are, and it is that confusion that makes you think there is something worth holding onto. But that isn’t who they are and while you keep giving them chances they will never change.
The only way to beat a toxic person, to truly be yourself and happy, is to leave. They will learn their lesson, they will change for the better, but you won’t reap any of those benefits, another girl will, and you need to be okay with this.
Because in the process of leaving, you will find yourself.
You will discover how strong you can be, you will realise your full potential, you will acknowledge and chase your dreams, you will realise you are worth it, you will know what you deserve and know what you will never settle for again but most of all you will learn to love and accept yourself, you will learn how to smile again. You will be stronger for it, you will improve in yourself and another man will reap the benefits of the new you, the real you. And that is okay, it is okay for you to choose to be happy. 
