how a toxic relationship healed me for the better
a story about what's missing in "toxic" relationship discourse.
This piece has been cooking for a long time, but today feels like the right day. It’s rainy, and I’m making peace with another relationship sailing away differently than expected. What better time to reflect on the past than when it’s time to move forward?
That may sound counterintuitive, but absurdity has been doing me well. And many things can be true at once, so here are all the reasons I am writing this today:
My gut told me to
My other ideas aren’t flowing
I’m avoiding other work
God, spirit or the universe told me it’s time
I just smoked a cigarette and remembered I have free will
I started a draft a while back, in which I used nature as an analogy for what we get wrong about “toxic” relationships. Essentially, I argue that we (as a society) act as though calling something toxic would keep us away from it.
Yet we love alcohol, drugs, reality TV, mind-numbing TikToks and obsess over people and things we claim to hate.
It’s no wonder toxicity, as a label, does nothing other than shame the person who participates in it. We dehumanize and “other” people who find solace in places that have consequences, yet partake in our own addictions with a sense of superiority.
Whether it’s my Indigeneity, spiritual view on life or Robin Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass—I love to look to nature when human constructs make no sense to me. So when questioning modern “toxic” narratives, I immediately thought about those random red berry bushes I was told to stay away from as a kid. The ones who are apparently healthy for birds but not humans.
This reminded me of an important lesson. Toxicity is not a label that applies universally. Something can be toxic to some while benefiting others. Much like allergies—it’s largely out of our control.
Toxicity is largely about how our bodies metabolize someone or something.
I’ve always considered myself a “good girl” and someone who wouldn’t necessarily end up in a “toxic” relationship, yet I found myself in one a few years ago. It didn’t start that way; they rarely do. But I found myself unable to let go, despite both of us very often bringing out the worst in each other.
So I did what most women do. I binged all the pop psychology discourse—he’s a narcissist, mentally f*cked up, undiagnosed psychopath, toxic, etc., etc. I went through a very long phase of being hell-bent on proving he was a villain and I a victim.
Instead, we were just two people unwilling to accept reality. Disconnected from our needs but trying to control outcomes. Two people projecting fantasy on an incompatible reality.
Modern pop psychology, especially the social media kind, preys on the villain/victim binary. Because it speaks to our void, our hurt ego and our emptiness. The algorithm—and marketing in general feeds off our insecurities. And I see this because whenever I go through a breakup or even a small relationship issue, I’m suddenly swimming in therapist content.
Which, to be honest, rarely helps.
Anyway, I spent about 4 years with this person on and off. We tried every way to make it work, and it never did. I tried no contact, I tried hating him, I tried friends with benefits, and even making friends with his ex. I tried telling every walking soul all the bad shit he did to me, and yet by a power greater than my consciousness, we kept making our way back to each other.
Not in some sort of romantic way but in this way where quiet moments of aloneness brought us to think of eachother. We knew the other would “get it," and so we would find a way to communicate. Yet it would cause the same feedback loop every time.
A push-pull dynamic of insecurity. Where both of us would get happy, fearful and then try to self-protect. It was messy, and I will spare the details. Just know this wasn’t a physically abusive relationship—more so a mentally taxing one. Where one of us would often fall in love again, and the other would have to face the truth.
I was constantly confused by his words not matching his behaviour, and my own actions not lining up with my values. Confusion is a fog that’s hard to lift.
My brain chews on confusion, like a puzzle.
Avoiding the simpler truth that relational confusion is not a problem to solve—but a sign of misalignment.
Sometimes I would see him in secret, and other times I’d tell people we were friends again. Regardless, it always felt like I was a little kid sneaking chocolate—I knew it was a bittersweet, selfish choice.
But this “toxic” person was reminding me who I was—often in my lowest moments.
The longest I ever went no contact was 7ish months. I was so sure that there was no going back—but an alcohol induced nap on the bus said otherwise. And the following morning, I could do nothing but laugh—it felt like something had dissolved. Forcing him out of my life and pretending I did not enjoy his presence was a lie.
I’d built such a case against him, yet here we were having breakfast laughing at a diner because the elderly woman beside us kept farting.
So, like an modern day idiot, I left thinking “this time will be different.” Only miraculously, it was different.
Because this time we knew ourselves better and we promised that instead of disappearing, we would tell each other when we were annoyed, needed space or whatever came up. We promised to communicate truthfully. And it wasn’t easy, we got triggered often and had to have many conversations, breaks and honest conversations about the hurtful things we both did.
We lived some real “tower” moments, and both have been through some dark knight of soul type shit. Where all our friends probably thought we were crazy and maybe we were?
I can’t remember the exact moment that I started to study our dynamic under a new lense but it had a lot to do with Sighswoon’s podcast on crush psychosis.
I realized that there must be a reason that I keep going back—something beyond the predictability of the highs and lows. So I asked myself—what do I find here with him that I am not getting in my friendships? What am I getting that I cannot access alone?
Because clearly, whatever he was bringing me wasn’t being found elsewhere.
In compiling a list of what I loved about him and what I enjoyed about being around him—was this.
He has levity—he’s funny, playful and jokes a lot.
He’s always inspired—going off about something creative.
He’s a storyteller—brings me into his world easily.
He cares about me—my life and insights.
He’s fun—spontaneous and turns little moments into adventures.
This might not seem like a big deal, but it’s precisely what made me realize that many of my friendships were lacklustre. Missing levity, humour, drive and creativity.
Many of my relationships were serious and safe.
This made sense to some degree because I’d recently lost a slew of friends when I closed my business, and most new connections were made through Hinge. We bonded over being new to the queer world or because we were going through big life pivots.
This led to a lot of talking, catching up and reflecting on life. Hence hangs could easily end up feeling like mutual therapy sessions. But I’m also a driven person full of ideas and always curious about what people are up to or dreaming about. But I realized over time, not everyone was as comfortable sharing their world with me.
I’m someone who shares naturally and expects others to do the same, but when they don’t, I go digging—I ask questions and get curious. But that dynamic led to a lot of imbalanced relationships.
I didn’t realize that I genuinely NEEDED to be around people who are also open books. Not just about their relationships but about everything. Conversations to me are collaborations—collages of not just “what we’ve been up to” but things we notice, enjoy, or are reflecting on from consuming in the world.
Unfortunately, I found myself with some friends who leaned fearful, cautious and private. Maybe mistaking my curiosity for pressure, which made for its own “toxic” dynamic.
I end up overworking to get what I want from the relationship. Asking questions, leading, prying to find out what the hell they are up to, but then taking too much space. All I wanted was the same energy I was putting out.
All I wanted was to be met. Yet I struggled to accept that we speak different languages.
This is why it felt like such a relief when I’d tiptoe back to my ex. I could fucking relax and be met with someone else whose mind moves a mile a minute. I didn’t need to ask—he would just tell. Then I would tell back, and it would create this mutual feeling of hope and aliveness.
I’m also someone who easily takes life too seriously. I get caught up in efforting because I find a lot of self-confidence in my work ethic, but I realized over time that I was misplacing this effort in people. Accidentally treating friendships like another responsibility, not realizing they could be a place to play and let go.
And that’s exactly what this “toxic” relationship helped me do. It helped me tap into my true needs—even when it made no sense to anyone else. I also realized that by being around him, I could be those sides of myself too.
I just had to let go of the fantasy that he was “my person”. Instead—acknowledging where we align and where we don’t—brought me closer to myself and reality.
Now we’ve been friends who don’t fuck for almost two years. We’ve since fallen in love with other people and have been able to healthily share our lives without spiralling into a push-pull pattern. Hell, he even single-handedly helped me move last month.
It took me a year of secret friendship to feel safe telling anyone. Not solely out of shame but because I needed to make sure I was doing it for me and didn’t want to be influenced by anyones else’s approval or opinion.
It hasn’t been easy, and I have lost other people since letting him in, but most importantly, I haven’t lost myself. If anything, I’m closer to my needs.
I just wish I didn’t have to take such a detour to get here.