i literally just had one of the biggest self realizations ever about why i choose to have toxic relationships with people. i’m reading this book that says that people are drawn to you and vice versa because you see something in them that you see in yourself and that the things you don’t like them can be a reflection of things you don’t like about yourself.
i’ve always had really toxic friendships and relationships and luckily i cut those people off before they brought me down with them but i wanted to analyze those relationships because i always questioned why i was there for them in the first place.
there was a long period of time where i was miserable with my life and i was projecting my anger and sadness onto my boyfriend at the time and looking back it was completely unacceptable. but when i was going through it i felt like the victim because i was the sad one and i was the one who felt like i wasn’t enough or being enough or doing enough with my life and instead of taking action i pouted about it and cried and let my depression swallow me whole and my boyfriend would give me tough love by saying that i needed to do better or that i needed to stop complaining about everything and start taking control of my own life. and at the time instead of trying to take control in my own life i tried taking control of his life because i felt that my life was so off the rails that it was a lost cause so i tried controlling his life. and it ruined our relationship.
when we broke up i lashed out and things got wild and my behavior was something i’d never seen from myself before and it was still completely unacceptable but it was the point i got to. right after that i became friends with a really toxic individual who made me feel like those behaviors were normal and acceptable and i now realize that i became friends with her because of that. until i started to better myself and saw that those behaviors were really wild and weird honestly and that i didn’t want to be like that anymore. i didn’t want to be short-tempered or angry or out of control anymore and she was going through her own journey that just didn’t match up with mine anymore. so i cut it off. and now i realize that i miss her during times where i feel like i’m retracting even slightly back into those bad habits because i know she’d make those habit feel acceptable.
another friend i made was extremely toxic as well and i let her live with me for awhile because i felt that she was trying to turn her life around and get away from her toxic boyfriend. and at the time i felt i could really relate to her because my ex and i were going through similar things and it made our situation feel normal because someone else was going through the same thing. once again, she validated my behaviors and they were completely unacceptable. with her it might have been a little different because i tried to take my mind off of my ex by making her my new project. i felt that if i could fix her, it would take away my karma for how i treated my ex and that if she learned to stop being toxic then it would take away my toxicity as well but honestly it just got worse. i saw how her and her bf treated each other and it was terrible but it also gave me an excuse to act out as well and now i realize that’s the part she played in my life.
another friend i have has this really annoying habit of repeating the same experience or expressing the same complaints to me every time we talk and i realized that i don’t like that about her because i don’t like that about myself. my ex used to tell me all the time that i complained about the same shit over and over and that he was tired of talking about it if i wasn’t gonna take action afterward. i used to think he was being an asshole but i realize it was tough love but more importantly that he was right. there’s no point in repeating the same shit when you’re not gonna try to change it after venting because all that does is force you to relive those negative emotions and drown in them more and more every time you talk about them.
lastly my relationship with my ex. it’s more complex than “i see in him what i hate about myself” but i remember feeling out of control in my life so i tried gaining control over his. and i can see how that’s resentful now and how that can cause someone to be distant and turned off by their girlfriend. i felt that if i could control a little more of him that it would help me feel secure when all i needed to do was just take those same steps and apply them to myself. if i feel secure with myself then other people who are secure with themselves will gravitate toward me. most of our problems when we were together led back to me being a control freak. my anger stems from the fact that i cant control other people. i realize that now and i hate certain bad habits in other people because i hate the control freak in myself.
so how can i move forward from that? the book says that in order to change you have to write down false rewards from your bad habits. by being a control freak i get to blame others for not conforming to my standards. then i change that by saying that by being in control of my own life, i become powerful and other people who are secure will gravitate toward me and surpass my standards.
i cant force people to be like me and i cant force them to change those habits i don’t like about them that i see in myself but what i can do is stay so in control of my own life (in the healthiest and happiest way possible) that it inspires others to take control as well and grow with me or until those people eventually branch off.
that’s my self realization of the day.