Moving On From a Toxic Relationship… (or at least trying to)

My best friend tried to set me up with her boyfriend’s buddy. I looked at pictures of him and replied “Nah, he isn’t that cute.” Upon my rejection of the guy via text she was livid. She replied that I “always pinpoint something wrong with guys WHEN IN REALITY YOU ARE JUST SCARED AND DON’T REALLY WANT A MAN.” She is partially right. I am scared. She is also partially wrong. I do want a man. I want someone to love me and hold me and take me on dates and all the stuff they are ‘supposed to do’. In all truth I try not to base initial rejection off of looks because ‘looks aren’t everything’, but in this case his actual lack of good looks was just a front for my internalized fear of ever dating again.

My best friend is aware of how bad my last relationship was, but I don’t think she fully understands. She has only been in one relationship so I’m sure she is unaware of the affects a toxic relationship has on a person. Hell yeah I am scared. But a different type of scared. I don’t think she understands how much my last relationship instilled fear into me. I’m not fearful of being in a relationship that fails, but being in a toxic relationship because it’s so easy to fall into it and not even realize.

The toxic relationship at hand was my first relationship. I was young and dumb. I gave him everything and he left me with nothing. Of course he dated his best friend after me and broke up with me via text after being together for about a year and a half. A year and a half of time shared and all I got was a text saying he wanted to ‘try something new’. Of course I was enraged by this, but that was probably the least toxic thing he did while we were together.

I had urges to breakup with him. So many urges, but I could never follow through because I was going to feel bad. I felt obligated to be with him because he would buy me food or pay for my gas here and there; you know nice little things that shouldn’t make someone feel obligated to stay with them. But he made me feel obligated to stay with him through a series of actions.

In high school, shortly after my 18th birthday, my mother and I got into an argument and she told me to move out. Long story short; I ended up staying with my ex for a few weeks per his request. I did not want to, but he guilt tripped me into it. He said if I went back home my mom would continue treating me badly and being at his house would be better, so I stayed with him until his mother wanted me to leave. That was the biggest mistake I ever made.

When I was staying with him our relationship was still pretty new. Looking back he displayed signs of toxicity from the beginning. When I was staying with him we always had sex when he wanted to, even if I didn’t want to. He would keep asking or start removing my clothes. At that point I would just say whatever. It never crossed my mind that this was toxic behavior because I had nothing to compare it to.

I had nothing to compare it to.

During my short 20 years on Earth I have realized that everything is normal until you find out it isn’t. I thought everything in my relationship was normal until I found out it wasn’t. During my relationship I didn’t really talk to a lot of my friends. I literally cut off everybody. Again another sign of a toxic relationship. At that point I only had the input an opinions of my toxic boyfriend. Of course he isn’t going to be the one that tells me he is toxic.

I thought us sharing location was normal but looking back it’s actually weird and controlling. The sharing of the location was his idea and I just went along with it because we were together most of the time anyways. Sharing location wasn’t a ‘step in the relationship’ as I thought it was, but more of a way for him to keep tabs on me whenever he wanted to. Of course this might not be toxic in everyone's situation, but it became so in mine. He knew where I was always. Yes, I knew where he was too, but I was just conforming to what he proposed. Sharing location with one another was yet another way I was giving in to whatever he wanted.

I gave him 110% of my trust … until I didn’t. I knew he was hiding something from me, but he wouldn’t be honest with me and tell me. When I would confront him about his dishonesty he would turn the blame to me. He would say that I was being crazy and obsessive. Of course. He just had to pull the crazy girlfriend card. He pulled it so much I began to think that I was indeed crazy. Turns out all the things I would confront him about were actually happening. I wasn’t crazy, but he wanted to make me think I was so he would be in the clear. This is a blatant example of manipulation and toxicity. If only I had known then.

Before I began University I got really depressed. I was not myself as depression does to people. He told me to basically medicate myself and get over it. Hearing this was not very helpful because I couldn’t just get over a chemical imbalance in my brain. And I wasn’t too fond of medicine because previous medications I had taken did not help anything. But since he wanted me to take medication, I did.

One of the sign effects of Zoloft is increased thoughts of suicide. I tried to kill myself two days before my brother’s birthday. While contemplating taking the pills I was on the phone with him. I told him what I had done and he said he had to go because he had work in the morning. I drove myself to the hospital. The morning after, when I was still alive, I asked him why he didn’t come to the hospital or make sure I was okay. He said it was because he knew I would be okay because I am strong. I should have dropped him then, but I was so brainwashed into believing everything he did or said was normal.

A few months after my suicide attempt I started to realize that my relationship wasn’t great anymore. I was falling out of love with him, but I still did not cut ties with him because I felt like I owed him. At this point we did not have a title per his request, but were still together. Nothing between us had changed besides our Facebook relationship statuses. He just ‘did not want a girlfriend’ but he wanted me to stay in his life, so I did. I began googling signs of toxic relationships, which is a sign within itself, and my relationship would match up with a lot of things, but not 100% so I thought I was fine. I was so blind.

It wasn’t until he texted me that he wanted to try something new that he was no longer in my life. As much as it hurt me to have our relationship end, I realize now that it happened for the better. The year and a half I was with him was detrimental to me on many levels. I stopped caring about myself, I wrecked my relationship with family and friends, I performed poorly in school as well. I became a different person.

So when someone tries to set me up with someone or a guy shows interest in me I am going to be defensive and probably reject them. Not because I don’t really want a man, but because I am fearful that I will experience the same thing over again. I don’t know if I would survive going through what I went through again. So yeah… I will reject or turn away as many guys as I feel necessary until I can confidently get in a relationship without holding such large amounts of fear.

Moving on from my toxic relationship has not been easy, but I like to think I am trying to. The fear is still there. I do not know how to make it disappear. I do not know how to tell guys I like that I am still scarred from my previous relationship; part of me thinks they won’t care… but that’s the fear of toxicity sneaking into my mind.

I hope that one day my fear will exit my body and I will be able to fully love someone and trust that they will treat me well.

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