Toxic Relationships: A Serious Threat to Mental Health
One of the most critical choices a person can make is with whom to be in a relationship; the second most critical is with whom not to be in a relationship.
Because every facet of life involves relationships of some type, the characteristics of those relationships are significant factors that influence mental and emotional health. The correlate to that truth is that one’s mental and emotional health also vitally influence the quality and characteristics of relationships. A simple binary approach to categorizing relationships as good or bad masks the actual behaviors that occur and causes people to often minimize or overlook altogether dangerous and destructive relational dynamics that compromise mental, physical, and emotional health. More descriptive relationship labels like co-dependent, abusive, and toxic pull the covers off, reveal hurtful behaviors for what they really are, and prepare people to face their relational reality so that changes can be made. Telling a woman that she’s in a ‘bad’ relationship with her fiancé doesn’t create the same urgency as helping her see that the emotional manipulation and physical aggression she’s experiencing is abuse. Saying to a male friend that his relationship with his girlfriend is ‘not healthy’ isn’t as powerful as showing him that constant deception, intensifying arguments, and guilt-tripping is toxic at the root. The toxic label is perhaps the most difficult for people to accept.
A mother who gets a throbbing headache whenever she has to deal with her daughter, anticipating the often-irrational pushback she will get in response to even the simplest request or comment, and who knows that what she is experiencing with her daughter seems beyond the pale of normal developmental friction between a parent and child will nonetheless bristle at any suggestion that this relationship with her daughter has become toxic.
Toxic relationships can be hard to define and in some ways, toxicity can be in the eye of the beholder. It’s not necessarily a checklist, but we acknowledge common traits and behaviors such as abuse of power and control, demandingness, self-centeredness, negativity, criticism, dishonesty, demeaning comments and attitudes, and jealousy. It is perhaps most helpful to understand toxicity in relationships as a combination of behaviors that is both caused by and results in toxic thinking and toxic emotions of those involved. Arguably the most devastating thing about toxic relationships is that they trap victim and perpetrator (and in many cases, the people involved play both roles at various times) in a cycle of stress and negativity that feels impossible to escape and over time conditions the players to accept the situation and not even try to get out. Toxic relationships cause feelings of low self-worth, helplessness, fear, anxiety, depression, insecurity, paranoia, and even narcissism.
“Toxic relationships are dangerous to your health; they will literally kill you. Stress shortens your lifespan. Even a broken heart can kill you…Your arguments and hateful talk can land you in the emergency room or in the morgue. You were not meant to live in a fever of anxiety; screaming yourself hoarse in a frenzy of dreadful, panicked fight-or-flight that leaves you exhausted and numb with grief. You were not meant to live like animals tearing one another to shreds…For your own precious and beautiful life, and for those around you — seek help or get out before it is too late. This is your wake-up call!”
— Bryant McGill
Relationships that compromise health and family stability can no longer be tolerated, and this applies to marriage and other romantic relationships, friendships, work relationships, and family members.
The hardest thing about ditching or changing a toxic relationship is knowing how — what to do.
“Set boundaries — treat yourself with respect and let others know that drama and people who constantly deplete you will be cut off”
— Sophia Nelson
Dana Abdalla
