Toxic Relationships Are Highly Addictive, Here’s Why

Breaking patterns is much harder than we’d like to admit.

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Unfortunately, like many others, I know a thing or two about toxic relationships. Let’s be brutally honest here. There’s something captivating about toxic relationships. You want to leave, but you can’t. You know it’s not good for you, but at the same time, nobody has ever made you feel this way, either. So what is it? What overwrites reason, and why are toxic relationships so addictive?

The crazy thing about toxic relationships is that they aren’t toxic from the start. Like any other relationship, they start out innocent enough. Charming, intense, and full of promises. However, over time, there are signs that things might not turn out how they should. Maybe a happy-ever-after is not around the corner — or, if it is at a very high cost. So why did I, along with so many others, stay in toxic relationships way too long? What about these relationships makes it so hard to walk away?

The highs are exhilarating, the lows crushing.

To this day, I still say that I have never loved a man as intensely as I loved my ex-boyfriend. It’s not easy to put in words what I mean by that — I guess you could say that there were times in my life when I felt like I couldn’t…