Real Talk About Toxic Relationships from Someone Who’s Been There
By Phoenix Rising
Let’s discuss something that’s been on my mind lately—something that’s often mentioned in conversations, memes, and advice columns, but I’m not sure people truly understand it. I’m talking about leaving when it feels like it’s “too late.” This topic is widely discussed, but is it truly understood?
Now, when I say “leaving,” I’m not just talking about packing your bags and dramatic door slamming (though sometimes that’s precisely what needs to happen). I’m talking about extracting yourself from any situation that’s slowly poisoning your soul—whether that’s a romantic relationship, family dynamics, friendships, work environments, or hell, even your relationship with your goldfish if that little swimmer is somehow bringing negativity into your life.
Yes, I made that comment about the goldfish. Because here’s the thing—toxic is toxic, no matter what form it takes or how small it seems. And we need to stop pretending like some toxicity is more acceptable than others just because it comes wrapped in familiar packaging.
The Octopus Monster Reality Check
Let me paint you a picture of what staying in toxic situations really does to you. Mentally and physically staying somewhere that is abusive can be exhausting and draining, right? That’s because these situations—these people, these environments—are literally draining you of who you are and filling you up with something you’re not.
Picture this: you know those big octopus monsters in movies that put a tentacle (yeah, I know I misspelled it before, but we’re keeping it real here) on your head and suck out your intelligence? That’s precisely what toxic relationships do. They’re like emotional vampires with eight arms, and they don’t just want your blood—they want your essence, your personality, your light, your ability to think clearly.
What that does is drain you from the loving, understanding, and caring person you used to be and turn you into someone you don’t even recognize in the mirror. Have you ever heard the term “people made me this way”? Girl, let me tell you—that’s not just an excuse people throw around when they’re feeling defensive. That’s a true statement backed by psychological research and lived experience.
Years and months of abuse—whether it’s emotional, physical, psychological, or that sneaky combination of all three—can drain who you are and turn you into a cold, heartless person that you aren’t at your core. It’s like someone taking your favorite sweater and slowly unraveling it, thread by thread, until you’re left holding a pile of yarn, wondering where your cozy comfort went.
The Transformation Nobody Asked For
I’ve watched this happen to people I love, and I’ve experienced it myself. You start as this bright, optimistic person who sees the good in people and believes in second chances. Maybe you’re the friend everyone calls when they need someone to listen, the family member who remembers everyone’s birthday, the colleague who brings cookies to work just because.
Then you enter a toxic situation—maybe it’s a relationship with someone who criticizes everything you do, or a family dynamic where you’re constantly walking on eggshells, or a workplace where your ideas are shot down before you finish speaking them. At first, you think you can handle it. You tell yourself you’re strong enough, patient enough, loving enough to weather this storm.
But here’s what nobody tells you about weathering storms: sometimes the storm doesn’t pass—it just gets comfortable and decides to set up camp in your living room.
Slowly, that bright optimism starts to dim. You stop bringing cookies to work because the last time you did, someone made a snarky comment about trying to buy people’s affection. You stop remembering birthdays because you’re too exhausted from managing everyone else’s emotions to keep track of celebrations. You stop being the listening ear because you’ve got nothing left in your emotional tank to offer anyone else.
Before you know it, you’re looking in the mirror at a stranger—someone who’s quick to anger, slow to trust, and faster to assume the worst about people’s intentions. And the scariest part? Sometimes you don’t even realize it’s happening until someone from your past sees you and asks, “What happened to you?”
The 50/50 Rule (And When Math Doesn’t Matter)
So before that transformation reaches the point of no return, you need to reevaluate your situation with the brutal honesty of a tax auditor. I’ve got the 50/50 rule: If the environment is 50% toxic and 50% understanding, then you might have a chance to make it work. Maybe there’s room for growth, communication, and positive change.
But here’s the thing about that 50/50 split—it can’t be 50% of the time they’re terrible and 50% of the time they’re decent. That’s not balance; that’s emotional whiplash. It needs to be that the relationship itself has genuine positive elements that can be built upon, not just periods of ceasefire between battles.
And let’s be honest about something: most of us are terrible at math when it comes to our own relationships. We’ll consider one good day equivalent to three bad weeks. We’ll weigh one sincere apology against months of repeated harmful behavior and somehow convince ourselves the equation balances out.
But if you’re in a situation where you’re knocking each other out every time you look at each other—metaphorically or literally—then honey, that math is already done, and the answer is EXIT.
The Grandma Chronicles: A Case Study in Necessary Distance
Let me tell you about my relationship with my grandma—Lord, forgive me for what I’m about to say, may peace be with her soul. We used to go at it like two roosters in a henhouse. And before you start thinking I’m being disrespectful to my elders, let me paint the whole picture for you.
My grandma was 5’2″ of pure attitude wrapped in a floral housedress and orthopedic shoes. Don’t let that sweet little old lady appearance fool you—she could verbally body slam you faster than a WWE wrestler, and her emotional finishing moves were legendary. This woman could make you question your entire existence with one strategically placed comment about your life choices.
Now, I loved my grandma—don’t get me wrong. However, love and toxicity can coexist in the same relationship, which is what makes these situations so complicated. You can love someone deeply and still recognize that your interactions with them are damaging your mental health, your self-esteem, and your ability to function in other relationships.
Our arguments weren’t the normal grandparent-grandchild disagreements about curfews or dating choices. These were full-scale emotional warfare sessions where both sides came armed with a lifetime of grievances and the willingness to use them. I’d walk into her house feeling good about myself and leave questioning whether I was a decent human being.
The crazy part is that we both knew we were toxic for each other, but we kept showing up for these verbal boxing matches because… family. Because that’s what you do. Because walking away feels like giving up, being disrespectful, or admitting defeat.
But here’s what I learned the hard way: sometimes the most loving thing you can do for someone—and for yourself—is to create distance. Sometimes respect looks like acknowledging that you bring out the worst in each other and choosing not to keep feeding that dynamic.
Recognizing the Angry, Hurt People (Including Yourself)
The hardest part about toxic relationships is recognizing when you’ve become one of those angry, hurt people who are spreading the poison instead of just receiving it. Because here’s the uncomfortable truth: hurt people hurt people, and sometimes we don’t realize we’ve crossed the line from victim to perpetrator.
I remember the moment I realized I had become someone I didn’t recognize. I was in an argument with a friend—about something foolish, probably what movie to watch or where to eat—and I heard myself saying things that were designed to hurt, not to communicate. I was using information she had shared with me in confidence as ammunition in our disagreement.
I stopped mid-sentence and thought, “Who the hell is this person coming out of my mouth?” Because that wasn’t who I was raised to be. That wasn’t who I wanted to be. But that’s who I had become after years of being in situations where verbal combat felt like the only way to protect myself.
That’s when I realized that the people who had hurt me had succeeded in their mission—they had turned me into a version of them. And that realization was more devastating than any insult they had ever thrown at me.
The Soul Rest Phenomenon
You know what I call it when you finally extract yourself from a toxic situation? Soul rest. It’s like that feeling when you finally take off shoes that have been pinching your feet all day, except it’s your entire being that gets to exhale.
When toxic people exit your life—or when you exit theirs—your soul literally gets to rest. You stop walking around with your emotional guard up all the time. You stop analyzing every conversation for hidden meanings and potential attacks. You stop feeling like you need to defend your right to exist as you are.
But here’s what nobody tells you about soul rest: it can be scary at first. When you’ve been living in survival mode for so long, peace feels foreign. You might find yourself creating drama where there isn’t any, or waiting for the other shoe to drop, or feeling guilty for being happy.
That’s normal. That’s your nervous system recalibrating after being on high alert for extended periods. Give yourself time to remember what it feels like to exist without constantly bracing for impact.
The “Too Late” Myth
Now let’s address the elephant in the room—this idea that it can be “too late” to leave a toxic situation. I’m here to tell you that’s garbage wrapped in fear and tied with a bow of learned helplessness.
Yes, leaving gets more complicated the longer you stay. Yes, there might be financial entanglements, children involved, social pressures, or professional consequences. Yes, you might have invested years of your life and feel like walking away means admitting that time was wasted.
But you know what’s worse than leaving “late”? Never leaving at all. You know what’s more expensive than starting over? Staying in a situation that’s slowly killing your spirit.
I’ve seen 70-year-old people leave marriages that were suffocating them and find joy they didn’t know was still possible. I’ve watched people in their 40s walk away from family businesses that were destroying their mental health and build something beautiful from scratch. I’ve witnessed individuals extricate themselves from friend groups that had become more like mean-girl cliques and discover genuine friendships for the first time in decades.
It’s never too late to choose yourself. It’s never too late to say, “This isn’t working for me anymore, and I deserve better.” It’s never too late to stop accepting crumbs from people’s emotional tables when you deserve a seat at a feast of genuine love and respect.
The Art of Strategic Exits
Leaving toxic situations isn’t always about dramatic confrontations and burned bridges— sometimes it’s about strategic, gradual extraction. Sometimes it’s about the slow fade, the gentle boundary setting, the polite but firm “I’m not available for this type of interaction anymore.”
Not every toxic relationship needs to end with a Jerry Springer-style blowout (though sometimes those are necessary and cathartic). Sometimes the most powerful exit is the quiet one, where you stop showing up for situations that diminish you.
Maybe it’s stopping answering phone calls that you know will leave you feeling drained. Maybe it’s declining invitations to family gatherings where you’re guaranteed to be criticized or belittled. Perhaps it’s looking for a new job instead of trying to fix a toxic workplace culture on one’s own.
The key is recognizing that you have more power than you think you do. You don’t have to accept every invitation to argue. You don’t have to engage with every provocation. You don’t have to justify your decisions to people who have proven they don’t have your best interests at heart.
Building Your Exit Strategy
If you’re reading this and recognizing yourself in these words, let me give you some practical advice for planning your escape from Toxicland:
Start small. You don’t have to burn down your entire life in one day. Begin by setting small boundaries and see how people react. If they respect your boundaries, that’s a good sign. If they escalate their behavior or try to guilt-trip you into backing down, that tells you everything you need to know about their investment in your well-being.
Build your support network. Toxic people often isolate you from others, making you feel like they’re your only option for connection. Start rebuilding relationships with people who make you
feel good about yourself. Join groups, take classes, volunteer—do whatever it takes to remember that healthy relationships exist.
Document the patterns. Keep a journal of interactions that leave you feeling bad about yourself. Sometimes we gaslight ourselves into thinking situations aren’t as bad as they are. Having a written record helps you see patterns and validate your own experiences.
Practice saying no. Start with small things and work your way up. “No, I can’t stay late again.” “No, I don’t want to discuss that topic.” “No, that comment wasn’t okay with me.” Your “no” is a complete sentence that doesn’t require justification or apology.
Plan your finances. Many people stay in toxic situations because they feel financially trapped. Start setting aside money, research your options, and establish a financial safety net that gives you the freedom to make informed choices.
The Aftermath: What Happens After You Leave
Let me be honest with you—leaving toxic situations isn’t an instant cure-all. You might feel worse before you feel better. You might question your decision, feel guilty, or even miss the chaos because it was familiar to you.
You might also discover that some people in your life were only comfortable with the diminished version of you. As you start healing and reclaiming your authentic self, some relationships might not survive. That’s not a bug—it’s a feature. You’re filtering out the people who need you to be small so they can feel big.
However, what also happens is that you start sleeping better. You stop having that knot of anxiety in your stomach all the time. You begin to remember what it feels like to laugh without checking to see who’s watching. You rediscover interests and dreams that got buried under years of just trying to survive someone else’s emotional storms.
Most importantly, you start to like yourself again. You remember that you’re actually pretty good company when you’re not constantly defending yourself or walking on eggshells.
Moving On to Something Better
The final piece of this puzzle—and the most important one—is believing that you deserve something better. Not just thinking it intellectually, but feeling it in your bones, in your soul, in every cell of your body.
You deserve relationships that feel like coming home, not going to war. You deserve people who celebrate your successes, not minimize them. You deserve environments where you can be authentically yourself without fear of punishment or ridicule.
You deserve love that doesn’t require you to shrink, connections that don’t drain your energy, and spaces where your presence is genuinely valued. And here’s the beautiful truth: that kind of life is possible. Those kinds of relationships exist. That kind of peace is available to you.
But first, you have to be willing to let go of what’s not working to make room for what will. You have to be willing to disappoint some people to stop disappointing yourself. You must be willing to be uncomfortable temporarily to achieve truly lasting comfort.
The Bottom Line: Leave and Don’t Look Back
So here’s my message to anyone who needs to hear it: if you’re in a situation where you recognize yourself becoming someone you don’t like, where your mental and physical health are suffering, where you’re constantly walking on eggshells or fighting for basic respect—it’s time to go.
Not tomorrow. Not next week. Not after you try one more time to fix things or give them one more chance to change. Today. Right now. This moment.
Because here’s what I know for sure: those angry, hurt, toxic people who are draining your life force? They’re not going to suddenly wake up one day and decide to treat you better. They’ve shown you who they are—believe them.
And to those toxic people (because some of you are probably reading this too): his soul rests in you, need to LEAVE IT ALONE! Leave people’s peace alone. Leave people’s joy alone. Leave people’s self-esteem alone. Work on your own issues instead of making them everyone else’s problem.
The people who are meant to be in your life will celebrate your growth, not punish you for it. The relationships worth keeping will survive your boundaries, not crumble because of them. The love that’s real will feel safe, not scary.
Everything else? Leave it behind and move on to something better. Because better is out there, waiting for you to believe you deserve it.
Trust me on this one. Your future self—the one who’s sleeping peacefully, laughing freely, and loving authentically is counting on you to make the hard choice now.
So make it. Your soul is waiting to rest finally.
Phoenix Rising is a 26-year-old mother of two who is currently incarcerated. She writes about relationships, personal growth, and finding strength in difficult circumstances. This piece reflects her personal experiences and insights about recognizing and leaving toxic relationships in all their forms.