Seeing Through the Toxic-Gaze
An Uncomfortable Truth about Toxic Relationships
The concept of toxic relationships is dangerous: once you get to thinking in those terms, it’s easy to see toxicity everywhere –
People meet new people and get obsessed, they find careers paths and become swamped in work, they suffer losses and shocks, get into new habits, they grow, they change —
If you’re watching them with your own emotional bank account in mind — counting each withdrawal and deposit and crying TOXIC! when there’s a deficit — you might be the proud possessor of a toxic gaze.
Like the Midas Touch, which turns everything it touches to solid gold, this gaze has a habit of turning everything it sees toxic.
Learning from (new) life
The birth of my second son 15 days ago was traumatic. He was rushed to a specialist hospital’s intensive care unit where he stayed for five days, sedated in an incubator. They thought he was having seizures caused by a breathing problem that meant his brain wasn’t getting enough oxygen.
It lasted for 5 days and it was horrendous. During that time, though, one comfort came from the people who I would have called the most toxic friends in my life.
