Humans logo

My Toxicity Ruined My Relationships

I have only myself to blame.

By Kayes RigsbyPublished 5 years ago 6 min read
Like
Photo property of disolve.com

There is no beating around the bush, I was the downfall of my own relationships...

I'd met him in October 2017 following the destruction of my last relationship with someone from another country. I hadn't been expecting to find someone that I would connect with for another several months, perhaps years. 'S' came into my life at a point where my mental health had began taking a turn for the worse and has carried on into my present day life.

Flashback to 2016 and I had just been professionally diagnosed with Bipolar 2. After years of trying medications and mood stabilizers that caused me to withdraw, failed relationships with friends, and one hospitalization due to suicidal thoughts I was finally free to understand that it came down to my chemistry. I hadn't asked to be this way, an accumulation of bad circumstances and a shoddy roll of the dice had landed me smack-dab in the middle of the lowest point of my life. I would soon face losing my parent just a month later during the middle of my last semester of high school.

Come back to October 2017, everything had been going well with this new admirer. He was a god-send in the form of an attractive, handsome, and loving man that had been through his own previous bouts of a bad relationship. What had originally started as a friendship that consisted of nights just complaining about my ex had turned into something of a security net. He was open about his gratitude with my presence in his life. Distance didn't stop us from expressing long phone calls and being introduced into his friend group.

I was by no means the perfect girlfriend and had just gotten through another new round of medications to find a suitable match. Everything had been looking up due to finding a doctor and therapist that I admired and worked well with. I boasted to my friends and family about my boyfriend and how happy I was. My best friend at the time was more than delighted by him and approved heavily of our relationship.

With every whirlwind romance, it was short-lived and the beginning of my ultimate downfall. My moods became more erratic and my temper would flare at the smallest of things. I've always been known to be able to make people feel guilty and used it to my advantage when situations weren't 'going my way'. I've driven away countless people from my life simply because I always took minor situations so personally.

Then, the anxiety attacks came. Nights spent up crying on the phone with panic attacks and suicidal ideations as I hurled verbal slander and emotional guilt-tripping to my partner that had been sitting on the phone for hours listening to me cry. I had been due to visit him in just a matter of weeks and was so lost in my own emotional sandstorm that I was willing to back out of a $700 plane ticket he'd worked hard to purchase for me. Eventually, it lead to him having to plead with me to calm down and to at least come see him in person before I made any split-second choices.

The week that I was there was wonderful. His roommates were kind people and I felt welcome - he was always the gentleman. Attentive, kind, and affectionate as he'd been online. The thing with mental illness is that even in the happiest of moments, it is easy to be caught off guard. Lack of attention would make me turn on my other side away from him, impatience at the slow check out lines had me bouncing up and down annoyingly, and my verbal lash outs were still a thing. I was less of the person that I seemed online, if not even worse.

The relationship ended when my mental health had become so bad I would no longer engage in online games or socialize. Phone calls were hard to maintain, we didn't talk as much, and we would argue every night. It had come to the point where his friends' trying to get to know me made me have an anxiety attack.

That's right - too many people that were just trying to be my friend made me anxious. It had lead into several arguments among them, my boyfriend, and I. Warnings of my already frail mental health and the onset stress of just wanting to be left in my own bubble drew the line.

I demanded that he stopped talking to his own friends for my personal benefit...

As if the verbal assaults hadn't been enough, or the guilt tripping, maybe even the childish arguments that had grown so common.

I demanded my partner of only four months stop speaking with his group of friends that he had known for up to several years prior. People that he had known before me and cared about - close friends that made him happy.

It was easy to accuse them as being the scapegoat, leading to conversations about how they were only heavily dependent on him for online games because he was easy to take advantage of. The easiest point to argue about was that I had alerted them several times of my chronic anxiety and forewarned that I didn't like being crowded, until inevitably I blew up at them. My boyfriend was subjected to hours and hours of rants and ravings about how terrible his friends had been to not take my mental health into consideration. My wants and desires weren't being met.

I left behind my best friend of five years, got blocked by my other real-life friends, and ultimately have been in the same position for almost a year...

I had restarted medication and therapy after the break up, which was messy.

Things looked up as I was becoming more social, had made the honor roll, and was at a new job that I enjoyed with a wonderful client.

The thing with happiness is that you can only pretend to be something you're not for so long until another thing comes along and if you aren't prepared for that, then you're right back to square one.

Three months ago I turned away from my best friend of five years because I could no longer handle the mental stress that came from having a close friend or someone caring about me. I felt burdened by having someone love me that much, a person that had been a sister to me and my shoulder to cry on for months and months.

My other close friends were subjected to the same treatment - I would frequently cancel plans, tell them that I didn't want to talk, and then become jealous when they would find things to do together without me involved.

Online friends have become hard to maintain. Strangers across the internet find it hard to connect with me. People I don't even know sometimes won't even chance talking to me because of my outwardly terrible attitude.

I've been to counseling and have tried to find the light at the end of the tunnel through medication, therapy, meditation, and a vast source of other types of things.

Nothing has worked. So, I spend my days alone. I travel to concerts alone, I go see movies alone, and I frequently dine out to eat by myself. Instead of spending time in the prime years of my life out having a fun night out on the town with my girlfriends, I will hole myself up instead. I do not communicate with others openly. I see everything as an ulterior motive that can be used against me.

My own toxicity has ruined my life.

breakups
Like

About the Creator

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.