It can be challenging to identify a person in your life who may be toxic – and it’s even harder to let these people go. Especially, if that person is a family member or has been a part of your life for a long period of time. However, if someone is manipulating you, lying to you constantly, abusing you in any way, or being intentionally wicked towards you, this may mean that they are toxic to your life. During recovery from mental health issues, it’s important to only have people that surround you that are supportive, trustworthy, and safe. This way, you can feel motivated to reach your mental health goals. So, it’s important to be able to identify and remove toxic individuals from your life. But, since that’s hard to do, it can be helpful to know what to do when it comes to mental health and relationships that aren’t good for you and your mental health journey.
The first part of removing toxic relationships from your life in order to give you a better chance at mental well-being is being able to identify people in your life who aren’t good for your mental growth. While this may seem easy enough to do, some people find it challenging to recognize harmful behaviors from others because they may be used to being treated unfairly or because they may feel like these people are, overall, a good part of their lives. However, anyone who is treating you poorly and doesn’t support your mental health recovery journey, abuses you, criticizes you at every turn or attempts to manipulate you is showing you toxic behavior and not love. A good way to identify toxic relationships is to identify how you feel around certain people. Do these people make you feel down about yourself, anxious, or down when you’re around them? If so, they may be a negative influence on your life and you may be better off moving away from them.
Once you’ve recognized the toxic relationships in your life, it’s time to cut ties. But, toxic people can sometimes make this step in letting go more difficult. They may try to tell you that you’re not better without them, harass you until you speak again, or keep showing up in your life without your consent. So, it’s crucial to be upfront and clear about your intentions when you are cutting ties with toxic people. This involves telling them that you no longer want them to be a part of your life, being clear about why you need to remove yourself from them, and stating that you need to make changes in order to have a better chance of mental well-being. Don’t be afraid to tell these people how you really feel. And, while it may seem better to do so, neglect sugarcoating your feelings in order to really get your point across about what is going to happen moving forward.
Boundaries are things you can do to ensure that you’re not letting people change your expectations. This is very important when it comes to cutting toxic relationships from your life as these people may try to make you feel bad or get you to continue allowing them to manipulate you or use you. Some boundaries can include not calling or texting these individuals back when they reach out. Or, simply removing these people from your social media platforms or even from your phone address book. When you set boundaries, you’re more likely to stick to them no matter what happens.
It can be even more difficult to remove toxic people from your life if you don’t have anyone else to rely upon, especially if you’re working on your own mental health. So, it can be helpful to establish your own community of support. One way to do so is to find other people who are dealing with the same things as you – like people who are working on bettering their own mental health. Outpatient support groups and treatment centers bring together people from all over that want to work on establishing better mental well-being. So, taking part in these types of programs can help you to establish a community of supportive people who will have your back without being toxic.
Dr. Rodriguez founded the Delray Center in 2003 and built it on a foundation of core clinical, professional, and ethical principles that are adhered to still to this day. Dr. Rodriguez founded the Delray Center in 2003 and built it on a foundation of core clinical, professional, and ethical principles that are adhered to still to this day.