How to heal from a toxic relationship

13 life-changing steps for deep healing

Have you just left a toxic relationship? Congratulations. I know from my own experience exactly how difficult it can be. It takes an enormous amount of personal strength to finally be able to walk away. A couple of months from now, you will look at this decision, and you will feel proud, maybe even happy. To heal from a toxic relationship is a journey. It’s a thousand small steps you take every day to become the person you were always meant to be.

How to move on

I’m not going to sell you the dream version of healing from a toxic relationship. It’s not going to be easy. To be able to finally leave this person in your past you need to face some harsh truths. You need to develop a lot as a person.

Getting to a place of peace and harmony is going to take a lot of work. Both inner work and fixing things in your outer world. You need to rediscover yourself. It’s a journey worth taking. The person you will be on the other side will be calm and confident.

1. Understanding the why

Time for some tough love; you are going to need it.

The more you understand why exactly you ended up in this exact situation, the more likely you are to truly heal from a toxic relationship.

If you don’t understand the “why,” you risk ending up in the same place with another person. Thus, this step of how to heal from a toxic relationship is crucial.

I know it sucks to have been victimized by someone you trusted.

But the reason you were drawn to this exact relationship has to do with you. You were the one who chose this relationship for yourself. You were the one who overlooked red flags.

Understanding manipulative behavior

I strongly recommend that you start your healing journey by reading my two in-depth articles about the subject: Love bombing and Manipulative behavior. By reading those articles, you will see more clearly exactly what your ex put you through.

You will also gain a deeper understanding of why you felt so drawn to him.

Subconscious comfort zone around chaos

Why did you put up with the relationship?

You have probably asked yourself that question a million times.

I’m going to give you the answer, and it’s simple and straightforward; you have a subconscious comfort zone around chaos.

When you are in a toxic relationship, the emotional rollercoaster is a form of chaos. You feel your inner mental landscape experiencing this chaos. The sensation is something you (and your subconscious) recognize well from your childhood.

Love and pain

The same mechanism holds true for other aspects of your relationship. If there was a lot of fighting in the relationship, you put up with it because somewhere in the past, you learned that love and fighting were connected.

I know it is a cliché to explain everything by blaming your childhood, but it’s a cliché because it is the truth. You didn’t have a healthy version of love modeled to you, and because of this, you simply didn’t have the tool to pick the right man.

Repeating the past

Quit the opposite; your past was eager to replicate itself. Your subconscious wanted a situation you were familiar with. At least you knew how to deal with destructive people.

Despite all of this, do not blame yourself. You are not responsible for your past traumas. You didn’t choose to be involved in situations that were hurtful for you, you were a child.

2. Treating yourself with love and respect

Don’t blame yourself, but realize that now, as an adult, you are responsible. This simple realization also means that you can fix yourself. When you fix yourself, you will never again be drawn to a toxic relationship.

You will have pulled out the poisonous flower, root and all.

You were the problem (I know it’s hard to hear.) But that also means that you are the solution.

Break free

I only tell you all this because by embracing this, I stopped repeating my own negative pattern of finding toxic relationships.

By staying in your toxic relationship, you didn’t treat yourself with love and respect. You were busy teaching yourself that you didn’t deserve love and respect. Now you have to reverse that process.

Listen to yourself

To heal from a toxic relationship do this step slowly over time. Building your confidence is all about listening to yourself. In every situation; ask yourself what you want.

In the beginning, the voice that tells you the answer will be quiet. You might not be able to hear yourself at all. Keep asking. Keep listening to yourself.

Give yourself space

Ask yourself how you would treat a wounded child, and do the same to yourself. Allow yourself to rest. To be still. To slowly find your place in the world again.

In a toxic relationship, we become consumed by trying to satisfy the other person. We lose our own voice. We even lose our own feelings. Instead of tuning into ourselves, we constantly tune in to our toxic person. We spend every hour of every day, trying to appease them.

Start journaling

The best way to heal is to start writing. When you write you get to know yourself.

Think about it as if you sit down with a dear friend and have a healing conversation. You tell them everything, you leave nothing out. You cry together.

Journaling is forming a strong connection with yourself.

Start meditating

By meditating, you tell your body and mind that you are indeed safe in the world. You are good enough for only being you. When you are still; meditating, you don’t have to be anything, or achieve anything. You just have to be.

By meditating, you teach yourself to be present with yourself.

3. Cleaning up your inner monologue

Imagine if someone was always walking beside you and telling you how ugly you are, and what a loser you are, and that no one will ever love you.

You would have a hard time feeling happy and content. Right?

Yet, having this negative inner monologue is what many of us do to ourselves. We are our own worst critics.

Having a hurtful inner monologue was one of the reasons why you stayed in your toxic relationship. Abolishing this treatment of yourself will be how you heal from a toxic relationship.

Listen to how you talk to yourself. For many of us, how we talk to ourselves reflects how our parents talked to us.

Decide how you want to talk to yourself, moving forward.

Set clear Thought boundaries

This concept was life-changing for me. I simply decided not to allow myself to have any negative thoughts about myself. Every time one shows up, I tell myself; cancel. Cancel. I replace the negative thought with a more positive one.

The new thought doesn’t have to be crazy positive, just a little bit more generous than the previous negative thought.

Observe your inner monologue

It also helps to journal about your negative thoughts. Get that negative inner monologue out of your head and onto the paper. This process is in itself healing.

Don’t skip this step. It is absolutely crucial that you change how you view yourself and how you talk to yourself. The person you will be on the other side will be pure joy to have walking next to you. She will be your partner and best friend. And she will have been there all along, rooting for you.

4. Go no contact

To heal from a toxic relationship, you need plenty of time and space for yourself.

All of the things I mentioned above will take months, maybe even years. (In fact, 1-11/2 years is a realistic time frame.)

Don’t kid yourself that you can have any contact with your ex whatsoever. Toxic people always want to control you. They achieve this by staying in contact. Every time he reaches out means that he is trying to regain control.

No contact = No control

It is really that simple.

You need time to heal

The period you go no-contact should be a period of intense healing for yourself. Instead of thinking about your ex and what he is up to, think about yourself and who you are.

Knowing that you are absolutely not allowed to contact him will give you the space you need.

If you stay in contact, you keep the wound open. There is a reason why everyone recommends no contact. This strategy is the only strategy to truly move on.

Don’t go to any places where you might run into him. If necessary, move to a new city.

Yes, no contact also means deleting them from social media and not checking their social media. At all.

5. Feel your feelings

Feelings are here to guide us. They give us constant feedback. Yet, many of us, myself included, suppress those feelings.

I grew up in a world where I was taught to be tough. My teachers told me; don’t cry. My parents told me; don’t whine. The whole of society told me; don’t listen to your suffering.

By pretending everything is fine, we get disconnected from our authentic selves. We become a stranger to ourselves.

The feelings manifest themselves in other ways, for example, over-eating, drinking, or shopping.

Be really fucking sad

To break up with someone is to lose them. Allow yourself to cry. If you feel angry, punch things, go for a run, scream. Let out your anger.

Be sad about his good parts. You lose them too.

No person is pure evil. Instead, your ex is also a frightened child. Have empathy with him. Be sad about the fact that the two of you can’t have a relationship.

The more you get out your feelings, the quicker you will move on.

6. Find your own closure

Many people who leave a toxic relationship feel like they don’t get closure.

They want to understand why their partner treated them badly. They might want an apology.

I wrote a whole article about the subject How do I deal with a breakup without closure?

Expand your knowledge

Instead of trying to get closure from your ex, you have to try and find your own closure. For many people, it’s very helpful to read about how abusive relationships work.

I also recommend that you find a couple of good spiritual books, dive in. I know you want to.

Reading about healing is in itself healing. Learning new tools to help you achieve harmony will tell your body and mind that you are worthy of harmony.

Start therapy

Another great path for finding closure is to work with a therapist. A good therapist will help you see why closure is not necessary, they will also help you forgive yourself.

If you can’t afford therapy, I recommend checking out this lady, for insights into psychology.

If you keep going back to a toxic relationship, read my article How to stop going back to a toxic relationship.

7. Find yourself again

When you are in a toxic relationship, you lose yourself. There is no other way to put it. Everyone who has been in a toxic relationship knows what I mean.

When you have a toxic partner, you constantly adjust your whole personality to them. You do what they want to do. You try to be who they want you to be.

Many people in toxic relationships change their whole personality; they fall out of contact with friends and family. Their whole identity becomes wrapped around trying to please their partner. Because of this dynamic, it does take a long time to heal from a toxic relationship.

You will feel lost

When you are stuck in a toxic relationship, you try to keep the peace by constantly violating your own needs. Eventually, you completely lose track of yourself.

When you finally leave a toxic relationship, it takes time to find out who you are, and what you want. Don’t expect to know what you want immediately.

Instead, expect to feel lost. That’s normal.

Who are you?

The best way to get to know yourself is to ask yourself deep questions. You can do this by journaling. Do a couple of questions every day. This exercise alone will help you heal from a toxic relationship. Here are some examples of questions to ask yourself.

You can also try different new things and see if you can find something you like.

Think back to all the things that used to give you joy before you entered the toxic relationship. Revisit some of those things.

8. Reach out to friends and family

If you have been in a toxic relationship, you have probably not been good at staying connected to friends and family.

Toxic people always make a huge effort to isolate their victims. Your toxic person probably pointed out all the faults of your friends and family. (Some of them are undoubtfully true, after all, no one is perfect.)

Re-create the bond

When you leave a toxic relationship, you usually experience a lot of shame and guilt. You pushed people away in order to be able to satisfy your toxic person.

To break free, you have to overcome the guilt and reach out to your family and friends again.

Don’t expect family and friends to be super supportive at first, they might have been hurt by your withdrawal.

Open up an honest conversation and hope for the best.

9. Create a new life for yourself

Toxic people also isolate their victims by taking away everything that gives them joy and identity.

They also act jealous towards your other interest and passions. They want you to be totally dependent on them.

If you were in a toxic relationship, you probably stopped doing everything you previously thought was fun. Now you have to create a whole new existence for yourself. This process takes time. You might not like the things you liked before your toxic relationship.

Pour yourself into exercise

Ok, it doesn’t have to be exercise; it can be anything that allows you to forget and just be. But exercise is good because it releases endorphins. Exercise will help you overcome the worst of your sadness.

Building a stronger body for yourself will also help make you feel better.

Make new friends

If your old friends are acting cold towards you, don’t push the situation. Instead, make new friends. Read my article How to make new friends in your 30s, the tips work regardless of your age.

10. Write your own journey

The people who survive trauma the best are the people who find meaning in their pain. In some ways, if your trauma leads to profound healing, it is worth it. You can make sense of the injustice. This is one of the most important steps to fulfill when you ask how to heal from a toxic relationship.

Find the things that are important to you moving forward. Write a story of your own empowerment. List all the ways your toxic relationship made you wiser.

What did you learn?

Abuse is terrible, but it also makes us more empathic. Overcoming abuse can help us connect deeper with other people.

What has your toxic relationship gifted you that has made you a better person?

In what way have you grown despite your trauma?

For you to heal from your relationship, it’s important that you see all the ways it served you.

12. Work on feeling safe again

One of the realities of a toxic relationship is that you don’t feel safe. This issue is fundamental to address now when you want to heal.

Do consider all the ways you felt unsafe in your relationship. Ask yourself how you can reverse them and make yourself feel safe again.

Improve your health

To feel healthy is important for feeling safe. Deal with your health problem. Get professional help when needed.

Decide a couple of ways you can improve your health.

Organize your apartment

The same principle applies to your physical space. Put on some music and make your home look beautiful. Get rid of old stuff and buy something new and beautiful for yourself.

Improve your finances

Your financial situation is another important part of feeling safe in the world. Because of this, toxic people often sabotage your finances. Now when you are free, you need to be a grown-up and take responsibility for this area of your life.

13. Start dating again

The last and final step is to start dating again. Only do this when you are ready. There is nothing wrong with taking years away from love and dating. Your life is about you. For many people, it’s easier to work on themself if they are not in a relationship.

But when you do feel ready, this last and final step can be very healing. You have come full circle. You have addressed all your issues, and you are ready to find your next big love.

A Final Note

After reading all of this, it might feel like there is a lot to do when healing from a toxic relationship. This is because a toxic relationship wreaks havoc in all areas of your life. That is how abusive people work. They leave no stone untouched in their mission to destroy you.

Now when you finally have your life back, you have to be a great architect and rebuild every aspect of your existence. View this as an opportunity to create an amazing life for yourself.