What are we supposed to expect when we decide we’re leaving a toxic relationship?

That is a huge, huge question that I will try to address in a few main points. These are by no means all-inclusive, but they are the ones that came to my head. I actually talked with some of my clients and got their perspective as well, so when I’m done I will read what they sent in as far as what you can expect when you decide to leave a toxic environment.

Again, wow! Huge subject. Even though all toxic relationships are different, the chaos that goes on when leaving a toxic person can be almost unbelievable. About the time you thought you’d seen everything, guess again.

When you’re in a relationship with a toxic person or an emotional abuser or someone with a narcissistic-type personality, you may believe that you have seen everything. The truth is that you probably ain’t seen nothin’ yet. I hate to be the one to break that news to you, but leaving a toxic relationship brings a whole new level of crazy-chaos-drama to what you thought was going to be the end.

I say this not to scare anybody or to talk them out of doing what they’re doing, but I am an educator. I honestly believe that the more you know, the less fearful it is. I tell you what to expect so that you are prepared. Again, every relationship is different, so if this doesn’t happen in yours…great. And on the other hand, I will probably have some people message me saying, “Oh, you thought that was bad? You should’ve seen mine!”

If you know what’s coming, it’s going to be a lot less paralyzing and a lot less overwhelming when it happens. Usually, the reason that the toxicity level goes up when you make the decision to leave or step out of the toxic environment is due to the toxic person losing their power and control over you. We’ve talked about it before: The degree of love is questionable. You are an extension of the toxic person, who is using you to get what they need. It’s not because they are losing their lover or their loved one; it’s because they are losing control over you. Their whole purpose in life is control, power, attention, and admiration.

When you decide you’re finished, they will go to any extent to regain that power and control. You making changes or choosing yourself will be strongly disliked by the toxic person. The toxic person in general (will never admit to this, by the way) is very insecure on the inside. When they can control their environment and the people around them, it makes them feel more secure because they are in control.

History has proven in your relationship that you are not the one that makes the calls. You are not the one that gets to decide anything, and you are not the one that is in control of anything. So you making the decision to step out or remove yourself will be no different. You don’t get to choose that either. Why in the world would you think that would be your decision? That’s their perspective.

If you decide to leave a toxic relationship, you are fearful. Chances are you have been fearful for a very long time, which is most likely why you are still there. Know that the day, the week, the hour that you leave will be extremely fearful. It will be scarier than probably anything you’ve done. You are going to be over-the-top anxious and perhaps almost debilitated.

But it’s okay! That, in my opinion, is completely normal. Your power comes in pushing through your fear. Once you decide to go, you need to feel the fear and do it anyway.

Now, some of my clients are able to say, “I want out.” Not that they don’t get harassed and accused of things on their way out the door, but they are able to walk out, get their own place, and work it out without quite as much chaos as some. But, in other clients’ lives and in the lives of some people very close to me, they didn’t leave; they ran away.

If you are in a situation that you are feeling like you are going to have to run away to get out, it is overwhelmingly scary. Just know that the fear usually comes from you moving from an environment that you are familiar in to unknown territory. Even though your environment wasn’t healthy, at least you knew what to expect. In stepping out, you have no idea what’s going to happen out there. The unknown is always scary, and the familiar is always easier to stay in. So be prepared to be scared! Because it is scary!

The next thing you can expect is to have feelings of freedom right alongside feelings of guilt. Toxic people have a superpower of making you feel guilty. Do you know what that superpower is called? Manipulation. With threats, punishment, accusations, and criticisms, they will make you feel bad about leaving.

Guilt is an emotion, just like happiness. No one gets the power to make you “feel” guilty. Do what is right and healthy for you. Because of the guilt, you will find yourself going back and forth with your decision. If you’ve left before only to go back, you know what I’m talking about. You need to know that the guilt is an emotional manipulation that they have put on you…that you have complete control over! Just because somebody makes you feel guilty does not mean that you need to change your action.

The other thing you need to expect is that people you thought were your friends may not seem so friendly. If I tell you this in the beginning, it wont’ be so scary when it happens. Toxic people are very worried about how they look to the public. They will want to make sure that all of your friends, their friends, and all the family members know their side of the story. Now, as we all know, their side of the story usually contains a lot of half-truths and untruths, which is going to make you feel as if you need to defend yourself. They want you to look bad. They want you look crazy. They want you to look like you’re the one to suddenly end this perfect relationship while they had no idea it was coming.

My recommendation here is to let them talk. You have way too much other stuff going on than to spend your energy on defending yourself against the same untruths you’ve been fending off this whole time. Easy for me to say, hard for you to do. But the truth will come out in the end, I promise. Don’t waste your energy on following up on all of these things you’re hearing they’re saying. They’ve had enough of your energy. It’s time to concentrate on you.

They will continue to stir up drama and chaos as you move forward, so do not fall for that! It will be one thing after another. It will feel like it’s never going to end, but just let it go on in the background while you keep moving forward, one foot in front of the other. Don’t feel like just because people aren’t supporting you now that it means they won’t be supporting you six months from now, or in a year and a half when the toxic person’s true colors come through.

You will also need to be ready to go into no contact, or very little contact mode. If there’s one thing that was hardest for me, for the people around me, for many of my clients, it’s going no contact. For some reason, we feel obligated to stay in contact with toxic people. Again, a lot of that stems from guilt or manipulation.

The safest and most effective way to leave a toxic situation…is to just leave. If you’ve decided to leave a relationship that is unhealthy for you, chances are you have already hashed out every reason for leaving and it has never gotten you anywhere. So contact beyond that point is going to be nothing but the twenty-seven different personalities the toxic person uses to suck you back in. They will do it because they’ve done it before.

The only way you can truly be free from them and the anxiety and worry they inflict on you is to have as little or no contact as you can. Ask of my clients, or myself for that matter…once I did not have contact or association with them anymore, that’s when peace, freedom, calmness, and happiness started to show up. But every time there was contact, it felt like the world was caving in again. You will gain your strength the less you have to be in contact with them.

Now, I understand that there is a large portion of you that have children. In the case of children with a toxic person, you cannot go no contact. You need to promise yourself, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the only thing you will engage with them about are things that include the kids: activities, school schedule, visitation schedule…those kinds of things. In doing so, make sure that you stay as boring as you can. Don’t fall into the trap of giving them too much personal information; no contact or very little contact makes them angry. They are going to try and get every little bit of personal information from you during that five-minute window while you are meeting to pick up the kids, or during those five seconds at the soccer field. Keep things very boring when you leave.They will want to continue to know whatever they can about you, and the only reason they want to do that is so that they can throw it in your face later or use it against you for something. Don’t. Give. Them. Anything. It’s the kids, the weather, or “I’m sorry you feel that way.” “I don’t have time to talk.” Those are your four answers.

I think the bottom line is no matter how scared you are, you have already survived everything you thought that you wouldn’t. You will be fine. You just need to keep moving. You don’t have to see the whole staircase; you just have to see the first step. And when you get to the first step, the next step will become visible shortly after. Everything ends up working out. Not that there aren’t ups and downs! There are definitely ups and downs. And there are going to be days that feel as if there are more downs than ups. Don’t go back to questioning your decision on leaving if they were indeed unhealthy for you.

I asked several of my clients to give me some other ideas and perspectives to share with you regarding leaving their toxic relationships. These people are from all different levels in the process, but, looking back, they all say they should have done it sooner. And most of them will say they didn’t leave because of fear. Most of them will say they didn’t leave because they didn’t know how they’d make it.

The first one comes from a lady whose toxic relationships have claimed over two-thirds of her lifetime. Leaving a marriage, a family business, and her family after forty-five years was the most difficult thing this strong woman has ever done. This is what she says about the day that she left:

“I was extremely fearful. I had very high anxiety. I could no longer sleep. It took almost two weeks after the day I left just to settle down enough to get my thoughts together. I was alone. My children are grown but involved in the family business, so I was cut off from all of them, all of my grand kids, and all that I knew. Upon leaving, I lost my job and my total identity. But I had my dog, so that helped. I did not feel safe for a very long time. Now, a year later, I still have moments of fear and anxiety that overwhelm me.”

In that case, she has pushed through for a year and has had ups and downs and ups and downs and ups and down, but she knows that each day…she’s getting a little bit farther.

We didn’t get this way overnight. We were programmed this way by them.

The next one comes from a professional peer of mine that went through my program. She went through my program, but she also did an immense amount of self-study on her journey to healing. And aside from the toxic relationship that she was leaving when I met her, she has found a lot of other toxic people who had entered her life through her past that she would not have even realized were that unhealthy for her. Now she is moving on to a different career in another location and is completely changing her viewpoint on life, and I am so proud of her. This is what she has to say about leaving her toxic relationship:

“Expect to develop a very healthy relationship with your technology. Meaning, it is the quickest way to reconnect to the pain. Because you’ve been in it, you’re probably addicted to the pain. Block them on all social media, text, e-mails, calls, etc. Block their friends, block their family. Anything that you know will trigger you and anything you know they will use to get to you, block it. Block it. Cut it out. Shut it off. Understand that there will be a void that exists; it’s human nature. You want to fill it with someone or something that is familiar. But in my case, rather than filling it with the familiar, I filled it with the things I have always wanted to explore. Try something new! Get a different job! Do anything that you have been to afraid or unable to do! That is where you will find ‘you’ again. You will not find ‘you’ in the familiar.”

The next one comes from someone who I have known for a very long time. I have personally seen her struggles and how they are continually popping back up as triggers as she moves into her adult life with hopes of healthy relationships for herself. Hers is a little bit shorter:

“When you finally get out, all you want to do is go back because things outside no longer seem normal. You feel very out of place. Things are uncomfortable and unfamiliar, so it draws you back in. Be strong! Stay strong!”

The last one comes from a lady that I have known for about a year and a half. She has struggled unending-ly with hoovering from her toxic person. She says:

“Once you leave a toxic environment, you will feel as if a ton of bricks are lifted off your shoulders. For all the times you’ve walked on eggshells, your nerves will feel settled as you feel instant relief. For all the times my head spun as I listened to all the negativity that drained my emotional happiness, leaving a toxic relationship is the one thing that made me feel alive again.”

This lady is a rock. And even though, like the rest of us, she was sucked back into the familiar, she used her knowledge to gain her footing, her self-worth, and her confidence. She is seriously understanding what it is she deserves.

So, to all of you who have removed yourselves from a toxic environment, way to go! It is the hardest thing I have personally ever done. I seriously have tears in my eyes. Be proud of yourself! You won, if you did it! And it is fantastic! Surround yourself with people who get it, because there are more people that don’t get it than people who do.

If you don’t follow me yet on social media, my Facebook and Instagram are @coachingwithdrheidi. Right now, you can reach me through the website or through those platforms.

On my website is something called the Toxicity Profile Analysis. This is an assessment that gives me an idea as to whether your toxic situation is mild, moderate, or severe. I can tell which of the 21 characteristics that your life has been mostly affected by. So, if you’re wondering if you’re in a toxic relationship, this is a good way to do a “self-check.”

Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, feel free to reach out through the website or though my social media!