You deserve to experience healthy, loving, reciprocal relationships with the people in your life whether it be with friends, family, or a romantic partner. Even the smallest bit of abuse and disrespect should not be tolerated. Sometimes, unfortunately, there isn’t hope for the other person to change and the only choice you have is to completely walk away and cut off all further contact. Here are seven reasons it only works if you go completely no-contact with a toxic person.
- It gets you off their radar. For whatever reason, that person chose you at one point. What they did after that and however they dropped the ball is another story. But that doesn’t take away from why you were and still are attractive to them. As much as you want and/or need to move on, the other person may not be done with you yet, so to speak. You already potentially wasted time during the relationship and don’t need to give any more of your life to a toxic, no-good individual. You don’t want to get stuck in an endless on-and-off dead-end cycle. If they can even get a whiff of you, likely they’ll still feel like they have a foot in the door. But as the saying goes- “out of sight, out of mind.”
- It does you a favor. Toxic/criminal/generally ill-intentioned people tend to go for easy targets. It’s much more convenient to steal from your car if you accidentally forget to lock the doors than it is to force entry. The sooner you end all contact the faster you’ll lose an accessible place to them. Cut off their point of entry so they’ll try other locks and let you go. These people are craving something, and if you stop feeding their supply, they’ll demand it elsewhere where they can get it faster and easier. Don’t be a toxic person’s instant gratification. Becoming useless to them is the best thing for you.
- It allows you to be available. Having someone lurking in your life, toxic or not, is not a good way to invite karma for new beginnings. No one wants to talk to someone just to find out they’re still keeping tabs on or spending time with their ex. Can you really say someone is in your past if they still have a present role in your life? You need a clean slate if you’re serious about having space in your life for someone new. It’s also not fair to anyone trying to get to know you to have to unknowingly compete with someone you had more history with and who knows your mannerisms and preferences already. If the relationship is over, keep it ended and give someone else a fighting chance.
- It gives you a clear perspective. It’s hard to see a situation for what it really is while you’re in it. You have to protect your heart and may be subconsciously stuffing emotions just to cope with the reality of how wrong someone is for you. You’re also under their constant influence and may have fluctuating feelings depending on how consistent they are and how often they come and go from your day-to-day. Breaking it all off 100% gives you a constant so you can now reflect on what was really happening the whole time you two were dealing with one another. The longer you’ve had time away, the more you may start to remember or piece together about how off your connection was. Sometimes it takes time and distance to see the full truth.
- It’s better for your health. Toxic relationships and stress can make you physically ill. The constant uncertainty and walking on eggshells will weigh on you. You may find yourself sick more often or dealing with unspecific random symptoms. Your fluctuating emotions and uneven mental state will send chaos signals to your body and begin to wreak havoc on your entire well-being. The sooner you fully get away from the source of the strain, the better your long-term bodily healing will be.
- You get yourself out of harm’s way. Aggressive, potentially even violent, people typically don’t get better with time. That’s why it’s advised to leave immediately at the first sign of abuse. The dangerous types tend to either put on sheep’s clothing for a bit and lay low until their next strike or simply continue their path of destruction with or without you, taking down anyone in their way at a moment of frustration’s notice. The only way to stay protected from the line of fire is to remove yourself from their circle entirely and hope the best for those still sticking around.
- It helps you recover from trauma sooner. You can absolutely get PTSD from a toxic relationship. It’s not realistic to think it’s possible to completely forget about that person and what you went through with them but keeping a small piece of them active in your life is only simultaneously leaving wounds open. It can be hard to imagine doing this if you’re not ready yet, but the best thing to do for yourself is to think of that person as being gone forever even though you know they’re still alive. Your relationship and the person you once had or who you thought you knew are essentially dead and you have to treat it as such and put the entire thing to rest to begin an authentic grieving process for the loss. It’s only after that you will be able to come out stronger from the experience.
