Toxic relationships are battlefields that are confused with what is considered love in which those with personality disorders and those without personality disorders come together, intersect, interconnect, and add to each other’s pain and suffering no matter how hard they try to make things work. (Sometimes both parties in a toxic relationship have a personality disorder.)
The dynamic is such that it is enveloping and penetrating in its patterned ritualistic familiarity. Each person involved in a toxic relationship is an individual, of course, and yet to the observer of the fundamental patterns of these relationships, the twists and turns are so predictable that they might as well appear as if they were written and read by all. the same type of book.
Many people do not realize when they are involved in the painful chaos of this type of relationship that it is the very familiarity of that pain and that chaos that paradoxically attracts and repels you, encourages you and exhausts you, attracts you and pushes you. out
The legacy of toxic relationships has its roots in the unfinished business of childhood.
This legacy lives on for many years into people’s adult lives and relationships due to what is known as repetition compulsions. People in reality, often without being aware of it, through the repetition of cyclical behavior based on distorted ways of thinking and perceiving interpersonal relationships, are trying to resolve the dynamics and emotional and psychological problems of childhood not resolved through the continual repetition of these tangled, often abusive, toxic patterns in friendships and adult relationships.
For those with personality disorders, it is the only way they know how to relate. For those who don’t have personality disorders, but do, most often have codependency issues that are just the tip of the iceberg of what are deeper unresolved issues from childhood, the adjustment between them and behavioral disorders. Personality is a ready-made psychological mold that just awaits your jump right into it.
And jump to what people do. There is an adjustment between those who were raised in toxic dysfunctional and abusive homes who do not develop personality disorders and those who were raised in toxic dysfunctional families and develop and are diagnosed with a personality disorder. After all, what is the essential difference between people with personality disorders and those who engage in the toxic and often trauma-bound and fantasy-bound dysfunctional relationships that are more the norm these days?
The only difference in the field of toxic relationships between people with personality disorders and their partners is the personality disorder itself. Background, home life, unresolved past issues often have many common themes and common manifestations of hurt to varying degrees.
This is why the dance is such that many people with or without a personality disorder will go through a series of these types of toxic, dysfunctional, and chaotic relationships. The legacy of unresolved childhood pain and attachment issues is this dance of codependency that reflects toxic love, not healthy love. Often, those in these toxic relational dynamics don’t really have a mature understanding of what healthy love is.
It is familiarity that truly breeds contempt.
The contempt that people with personality disorders and those without personality disorders develop for each other as each returns to unresolved past issues. did with each other (which really has to do with the issues each couple has with a parent and the reality that they are relating to that parent and not even seeing each other) to the point that the past is so prevalent in the present that the now is totally lost. Who each member of a toxic relationship is is lost on the person they are relating to as if he or she is that father figure. While this is very central to Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and variations of Narcissistic Personality Disorder to a lesser degree, it also manifests itself in those without a personality disorder. For the person without personality disorder involved with someone with BPD, they are known as loved ones without limit, or BPD.
The legacy of toxic relationships begins before we even realize there is a devastating problem or untold emotional pain and further abuse and psychological wounds. So many people carry the legacy of toxic relationships from the past now that what you see when you meet and start to “fall in love” isn’t really about “love,” it’s really about that familiarity with a parent whose “love” you love. was never able to reach. That’s what the chase is all about. That’s why it all feels so compelling and the rush to “love” (actually it’s love/hate) is on to get into a relationship (that’s really going to be very painful and emotional warfare).
The other facet of the legacy of toxic relationships, of course, is the damage done and the unspeakable pain suffered in these relationships as adults. If you are in a toxic relationship now, or have been in one recently, and are still hurt, angry, or grieving, ask yourself what it was that was so familiar to you that it hooked you so completely that you ignored your own instincts, your own intellectual he. reasoning, his own spiritual knowledge—what was so compelling? What was so convincing to you that you ignored all the red flags?
What is it in your own past that led you to become entangled with someone in a situation where you simultaneously gave up your be towards another person and threw his be far? Are you afraid of being alone?
When you find the answer to that question, you will discover the true nature of the legacy of toxic relationships from your past. You will also discover how and why you made the decisions you did. You will make a connection to the pain that you can become more aware of, grieve with, express yourself in healthier ways, and learn to let go. Then you will know better.
When you know better, you will do better. A lot has been fought for your understanding and you will learn what you need to learn, in time. Much of what people have to learn to break free from toxic relationships and their legacy includes boundaries, the difference between abuse and respect, the difference between reciprocity and broken reciprocity. Surrender to the reality that the only person you can change is yourself.
The reality for those who are the non-PD side of toxic relationships is that there was something in their life experience that caused them to make what they now know were self-defeating and self-defeating choices. Many people without personality disorders end up trying to rescue the toxic person in their lives because they are trying to prevent their own loss.
Too often, the legacy of toxic relationships gets wrapped up in what becomes a blame game. The dilemma of escaping is really what should be of paramount importance. Only after these types of relationships have ended can each person go their own way and really do their own healing work.
The legacy of toxic relationships is one that compounds what is already unresolved pain from your past, whether you are aware of it or its roots in your life or not. The reality of this composite legacy is that as you try to escape the relationship and its pain, you seek relief while, paradoxically, you need to get in touch with the source of your unresolved pain.
The legacy of these relationships is very painful. The legacy of these relationships beyond the endless and equally compelling pain, drama, and chaos (many people become addicted to chaos without realizing it) is the reality of the lessons to seek in living your questions so that you can find the answers. what you need to heal what you need to heal so that you can find healthier relationships and so that you can really come up with a reasonable working definition of what love is versus everything that it is not.
The legacy of any and all toxic relationships runs deep, deep, and can be long lasting if not actively healed and recovered. In order to heal and recover, both those with personality disorders and those without personality disorders must look inward and stop blaming each other.
The legacy of toxic relationships is that the love perceived and sought, it was not a healthy love at all, it was a toxic love. this toxic love he speaks out loud about the intrapsychic wounding of the young inner child in both the personality disorder and the non-personality disorder.
Each must do their own work to heal and recover. They each have issues that while similar are not exactly the same, but then when mixed together they surely create an intensity that is toxic by its very chaotic and dramatic nature, compelling to the point of all-consuming and extremely dangerous. Toxic relational dynamics include a high degree of codependency that can even be addictive. Addictive in the sense that concentrating on and trying to change or rescue another person is not only self-defeating, but also self-sacrificing in ways that will leave you emotionally and psychologically hurting and off balance.
Toxic love is abusive and is about control, not healthy love. It is painful. It can get addictive. It erodes the self, both of those without a personality disorder and, to any degree, if at all, those with a personality disorder have an intact self, also those with personality disorders.
© A. J. Mahari
