5 things dealing with toxic people taught me
(1) Trust your gut!
If something feels off about a person, trust your instinct! While it can be hard to figure out if someone is toxic, your gut often senses stuff is weird before your brain can figure it out
(2) Nobody is going to protect me but me
While I always wished someone would understand my situation and help me out of it, that never happened. The only way I got away from toxic environments is because I decided it was time. Nobody else will do that hard work for you, but the good news is you have the power to do it yourself.
(3) Get support as often as possible
Support can look like a lot of different things. The main idea here is that you can talk all the weird stuff out with someone trustworthy while going through toxic environments and after you have removed yourself from them.
(4) The healing process lasts long after the toxic person is out of your life.
It is a huge relief to get away from toxic people, but the truth is there is still plenty of hard healing work to do once they are gone. It is immensely helpful to get toxic people out of your environment because they are no longer adding to the big heap of things you need to process; but, that moment of liberation from them is really just a beginning of a new phase of healing.
(5) Navigating toxic people was horrible, but it did produce some good things for me.
Today I am stronger and have a unique perspective on the world in part because of all the toxic people I've survived. No one should seek out toxic people, but for those of us who survive the experience, we really come out the other side more developed than we would have been without those experiences.
