I recently made a conscious evaluation about my dark past and how I related to the people around me and I ended up concluding that I was a great example of what they call “the toxic one”, this is something that I am not proud of and I am sure that I still have many of those toxic behaviours in my life, but as I do with all aspects of this discovery process and serious thinking, I am trying to improve it with a lot of patience and a lot of self-care, one thing at a time, one day at a time..
Today’s photo are celebratory balloons because this week it was 2 years since we left home, sweet and tropical, home. It has been 2 beautiful years and it is worth celebrating.
I want to focus on that moment in my life in which I was a great example of “the toxic”, the intense one who wanted instant responses, the one who got angry at a last minute cancellation, the one who felt that “the drama” was part essential and natural of any real relationship (because obviously if they are not jealous, it is because they do not love you or because it is completely valid to escalate a fight for an emoji at the wrong time), the one who considered as an act of the highest treason that my friends had other friends and spend less time with me, the one who talked about the physical appearance of another person and criticised for no reason, an a fairly extensive list of behaviours that were never openly rejected by anyone and that I was never call out of how complicated it could be interacting with me at times⁰ and that in hindsight I see and am a bit embarrassed to admit it, but here we go one day at a time, one toxic behaviour at a time.
As an important note, the term “toxic” to define a person generates a lot of internal conflicts, on the one hand it seems to me that it is a great word to define those attitudes and beliefs that we consider to be not positive and also have a very negative impact in our environment and in consequence it makes it easier to communicate but on the other hand I find it very problematic to classify a human being as “toxic” even when we all know someone who the term describes perfectly, you know who you are, macho who reacts with “Ha-ha” to publications about feminism and who shares macho jokes.
The whole process to change these behaviours began indisputably with the awareness that started to be generated in social media, with the multiple and very long conversations that I have with M. and with that general “awakening” of society to give a name to these negative behaviours that we were used to BUT we could change and it was not necessary to continue them any longer. Among these resources I remember very clearly following the first accounts of Latin American feminists who introduced me to words like “sisterhood” and “empowerment”, and people on Twitter explaining why nobody owed you their time and they weren’t obliged to respond immediately, to some other characters who began to publicly discuss what romantic love meant and the negative connotations that laid within the whole idea, from podcasts of women speaking to women about countless topics from mental health to trendy music and all expanding that vision that I had of the world in which I grew up and in which it is so normal to have these behaviours without anyone making you notice them.
So, how have I managed to reduce a bit my toxicity and begin to be a less complicated person with the world? Well, after “realising” about this, I began to have even more conversations with the world on this topic and began to act more accordingly. I also started my turtle plan to remind each friend who apologises to me for not answering me quickly that I understand that they have their own complex lives and that there is nothing wrong with not answering quickly and even if they do not want to answer me at all it is also fine and they do not need any excuse; It even makes me feel bad to think that I am making someone uncomfortable because they have a need to answer me or that they have some kind of negative feeling, remorse or guilt for answering me late, I do not like to think that I am causing any kind of stress (completely avoidable) to people with whom I interacted, you know who you are, friend who is helping to save the world one patient at a time and cares about answering me, don’t worry <3 here I will be hete after your rotations and your weeks without sleep.
I have also thought and tried to internalise a lot the definition of “entitlement”, defined as “having the certainty of having the right to something”, it is a word that seems spectacular to me to define the reason behind many of these toxic behaviours, the feeling of believing that we have the right to be answered quickly can make us upset when someone does not answer us quickly without considering even for a second that the person on the other end also has a life. The feeling of believing that we have the right to be the favourite and inseparable friend 24/7 can lead us to get angry and feel bad when that friend has more friends without considering that you have more friends yourself (I hope, support networks are really important) and there is nothing wrong or does not mean anything catastrophic. That idea of believing that we have the right for our life partners to be unconditional support and swear fidelity to us above all things when many times even we cannot be completely faithful to ourselves and to our ideas and convictions and because life and human relationships are far more complex than the ideas we have about romantic love. That same feeling of believing that we have the right to our freedom over the freedom of others is what makes things happen like countries that have very high contagion rates of the who-must-not-be-named because apparently wearing a mask when you do groceries hurt deep and indisputably the precious freedoms that come included in the nationality (like having a gun or being openly racist and sexist and having the support even of THE PRESIDENT), shout out to the US.
Everything escalated very quickly, I know, but going back to what brought us here, my toxicity and the belief that the world owes us things, understanding and internalising that it is not true that the world and other people owe us something is a big step in this detoxification path, it is also a great emotional relief when you assimilate that you have expectations that are not real and you adjust them little by little and suddenly you are no longer angry because someone left you in “seen” and on the contrary you can appreciate much more when someone gives you a bit of their time and you really appreciate the attention they give you, it doesn’t bother you that your best friend always hangs out with other friends (except if it’s during quarantine, stay home!) and on the contrary, you are very happy that he a support network with which he makes all the plans that he cannot or does not want to do with me and this is very good, and suddenly you realise that it no longer makes any sense to escalate a fight with your partner BECAUSE OF AN EMOJI and on the contrary you are thankful because you can sleep peacefully every night or also that it is not so scary to have honest and open conversations about what free love means and understand that if we cannot demand that our friends fulfil 100 different roles in our lives, there is no point in demanding this from a couple and on the contrary you can live peacefully with the idea that a real and healthy relationship does not look at all like what we see in the movies and it is perfect for it to change, adapt, open or close as many times as necessary. Entering a field that I do not know much about, I would dare to say that this is the true secret of happiness, landing expectations and living calmly, what is that need to fight for everything?
Finally, there is another point that I would like to talk about (and I recognise that I am speaking from privilege and my intention is to share an experience and help other people to access part of these reflections and also benefit in some way) and that is that there was another very important factor for me to be able to realise many of these attitudes and begin to change and that was to leave my known environment and the society in which I grew up and was educated initially, to start living from one day to the next in a a very distant and colder place and with completely different people from those I was used to live with, this helped me find many answers and realise that there were entire societies that could live without people being offended because you did not greet them with a kiss every time that I saw them (shocking), or that they could have completely healthy and solid relationships without including a dose of drama “to keep things interesting and because if he is not jealous is becase he don’t love me”, that they could openly call out people when their comments were sexist, xenophobic or homophobic without breaking up families or friendships and not being interested at all in what school or university you went to, what do you work or how much money do you make, can you imagine the madness of not defining who you are based on what you studied or your job?
For me it was very shocking (positively) to realise that my environment and the situations to which I was used were not the only option that existed, for me everything made sense very quickly and it was much easier to detach myself from many beliefs and behaviours that I had once, I stopped having the pressure and expectations about my life and my behaviours. Although traveling is not the only way to realise that there are many other realities and that the world is much more complex than we think, for me it was a shock therapy that changed me forever and I appreciate it every day of my life because it helped me low a bit my toxicity and because I have the opportunity to share these reflections with the world so that together we can chill a bit or at least think a little more about the matter.
I still have many aspects of that dark past that I would like to share with you, such as my relationship with my physical appearance and my diet, the expectations about how a young lady “should” behave, the myths of romantic love and even that so unnecessary culture to speak about the life and appearance of other people, but that will be at another time. And now that I’ve told you about my dark past and how I’ve tried to change it little by little (and without being too hard on myself, another great topic to discuss later), I would like to know what you think about the word toxic to define a person and about the ideas that came up with this post, did you identify with a story and feel like the toxic friend? At what point have you been toxic? Did you have a friend, partner or family member who told called out your actions and did you realise? And as always, I’ll wait for you in my inbox with all your ideas on the subject.
See you next time
Annie.
⁰ I Want to disclaim that it is not the responsibility of other people to call out my mistakes, I understand that it is my responsibility to take charge of my actions and the consequences, it is just a note that has no intention of blaming other people
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