Toxicity: Trust Your Gut

 A year ago, I learned of the death of someone who had once been important to me. It’s weird— but I wasn’t sad. Instead I was relieved. She had been a professional in a health related field who had messed-up/ abusive boundaries, and I had been hurt by her lack of judgment for years years before I could see what was going on.

It also took me the better part if this year to make sense of my feelings about her death. At first, I was relieved that she could no longer treat other clients the way she indoctrinated me. I felt so guilty for the relief, but it allowed me to step back and understand more about how the toxicity had come to hurt me so.

In honour of her passing, I just want to put out a word to folks: trust your gut. If you feel like someone is taking too much power over you or making your decisions for you, step back. Get a second opinion. If someone is trying to define you or put down your identity, step away. Only you can define you.

If someone makes threats or calls you “hopeless” and tells you that you need them or else bad things will happen, step away fast. This is not the way a true helper acts.

I want to keep living my life assuming good intentions. Ideally, it was her aging and health issues that caused her to be so irrational. Hopefully, she really meant well.

But with my emotional youngness and depression way back when, I fell into inappropriately controlling grips. If it happened to me, it can happen to anyone.

There are great helpers out there. There are also people who can take advantage of their power or your weakness.

Stay informed.