My Freedom from Toxic Relationships

In researching for this article, I looked up the word “Freedom” on the Wikipedia website expecting to find some grandiose definition of the word. Instead, I found the following: “Freedom is understood as either having the ability to act or change without constraint or to possess the power and resources to fulfill one’s purpose.” The article then goes on to use a Norman Rockwell image titled “Four Freedoms” depicting the four core freedoms the United States fought for in WWII: Freedom of Speech; Freedom of Worship; Freedom from Want; and Freedom from Fear.

To that I would like to add my own by way of this little article: Freedom from Toxic Relationships.

I was born into a toxic environment, even to the point where it affected me before I was even born. My parents had four children before me, but there was a 10 – 16-year gap between me and any of those siblings. I was considered to be a mistake and even in my mother’s womb I was mistreated. My mother didn’t believe in abortion; yet it seemed to be OK for her to starve herself for days on end while she was pregnant with me, effects of which I am still dealing with 53 years later.

Growing up was no different, while my parents eventually came to accept me as theirs because they had to, it was not the same with my four siblings. They all blamed me for my mother’s health problems, even though I found out she was sickly before I was even conceived. My brother was upset because he was no longer the only boy, and I had a sister was upset because she was no longer the youngest, all of which they all carried well into adulthood, some to this day.

In the late 1970’s, they all moved out all within the same year span, with none of them ever coming back, and during that time, I saw my brother maybe six times before he died, each time he showed such an unadulterated hatred towards me that I didn’t even want to be around him.

With my sibling out of the house, and both of my parents being very sickly, I was “volunteered” to look after my parents when I turned 16 by my lovely siblings. I figured OK, my mother was already in her 60’s and was sickly, so I figured that it would last for 2 - 3 years, then that would be that. But that 2 – 3 years turned into 23 years. During that time the toxicity from my mother never truly went away, during which time I was told that she was my mother, and I have to deal with her toxic behavior. [Yes Valarie, she was my mother, and I was pretty much the only person who was even remotely “willing” to deal with her for any length of time because of her toxic behavior.]

When my mother died, I thought it would be the end of the toxic environment, but even on her deathbed, my mother was so toxic to me that it haunts me to this day – 16 years later. Where most people spend their last hours making amends or some major confession, she spent the last hour of her life simply reiterating all of the toxic things she told me throughout my life all packed into one hour of power. When she died, it was all the end of it, though, right? You are so wrong.

My brother (who was still alive at the time) and my oldest sister, both of whom had seen one too many of those old movies where someone dies someone else miraculously inherits millions, if not billions of dollars, and they wanted me to have no part of that. There were no millions, or billions of dollars, in fact they quickly learned that they couldn’t even sell the house at a loss without paying off certain debt. Oh yes, Aunt Karma came to pay a visit, because guess what, I was still no part of that, nor did I want to be.

But at 37 years old, I would finally be able to get on with my life and put the toxicity of the previous years behind me, right? Right? My brother was still alive and a factor for another five years, but two of the other sisters I no longer associate with, that left me with one sister, the oldest one, the one I associated with the most was still there, and little known to me, she was eventually going to become the most toxic person of the bunch.

Because of being volunteered to look after my mother, I started working a little late in life, oh granted, there were a few short-lived jobs, but nothing that I would call substantial. I was finally out of my parent’s house and in my own apartment, and a job. While what happened with that had nothing to do with a toxic environment, it was one of the things I learned NOT to do. I had made the mistake of working for a restaurant and renting an apartment from them that was located over another place of business. It had made it a little too convenient for where I worked to call on me on the fly, and the owner of the business below my apartment to accuse me of stuff I had nothing to do with; it had more to do with the landlord needing to do things rather than me, but I digress.

When I left there (the apartment and the job), I found myself going into a series of shelters, the first two didn’t work out as expected, but the third place turned out to be the best thing that happened to me in my entire life. I was there for about a year, had a place to sleep, got connected to a few jobs, did my paperwork which finally got me connected to nice housing (in which I’m still in).

While all of this good stuff was happening, I was actually on friendly terms with my older sister for several of those years, where she seemed to put that toxic behavior towards me aside. But somewhere along the line, she had a near-death experience that changed her, it was something that would bring that toxic mentality she had long subverted back for one final blow.

Two years ago, she pulled a doozie with her toxic behavior by accusing me of something that I was supposed to have done to somebody when I was 14 and it was supposed to have been a major hot topic item. Now, what it was I was supposed to have done, I have no idea, but I’m supposed to automatically know what I did when I was 14 with some vague description of it. There are two things about that which I will quickly point out. I am 53 years old, so I am supposed to recall something that someone is being extremely and intentionally vague about from 39 years ago? Now, if it was such a major hot topic item at the time, why wait almost 40 years to bring it up?

No answers, not to me, but OH, my sister and her shrinking circle of friends do talk about it. They talk about it amongst themselves, they pass the topic back and forth like a game of Whisper Down the Lane that keeps on getting more and more twisted. You know the game; it goes as such.

Player 1 says: I like M&M’s

Player 2 then says: Tim likes M&M’s

Player 3 says with a mocking lisp: Tim likes Eminem

Player 4 second guesses what was said: I think it’s “Tim likes Eminem”

Player 5 says definitively: I think Tim likes Eminem

And so, goes on around until the final person in the circle hears “I think Tim really likes Eminem in a certain way, woohoo-hoo!” But the original quote is simply “I like M&M’s”, yet somebody goes around spreading something that they only heard whispered down the lane. And that can become toxic to poor old Tim, because it took something that was completely innocent and turned it into something perverse and an out and out lie.

So, with that said (and was more or less what was done with different wording), I was done with my family’s toxic behavior.

What did I do about all of that to give me freedom from Toxic relations?

First of all, I’ve separated myself from all family members. Is it harsh? It is, but one thing that is true about toxic people, is that they usually have a warped sense of reality, and you probably shouldn’t play into that reality. They probably don’t even realize that they are doing it or are going by what they have been told about you, not realizing that the events they are being toxic to you about didn’t happen the way they think they did, if at all. They usually justify that toxic behavior towards you as being the right thing to do.

While I tolerated what my family was doing to me for over 50 years, I finally drew a line and said “this stops here”. Will I ever see my sister again? Probably not, while we do live in the same city, emotionally we are like strangers to one another. Is that bad? In a way, yes, but if you look at the light of it being “the lesser of two evils” then it’s not so bad. I don’t wish her harm, and if she contacts me and says she was wrong, I’ll talk with her. But in knowing how toxic she can be and has that “I’m always right” mentality, I don’t think that’s going to happen. Now, a lot of times what they said and did still echoes through my head, but I don’t let it hang around for very long.

Right now, I am in a place where I am safe from toxic behavior from the residents where I live, outside that community, not so much, but it’s toxic behavior from people I only encounter for a few moments--. I just remember, they don’t know who I am, I don’t know who they are, and why they feel they need to be toxic to total strangers, is anybody’s guess. But you know what, at the end of the day -- that’s on them that’s something that will turn around and bite them in the ass. You see, for them, Aunt Karma’s coming. When that shit happens I just turn some music on my cellphone on that makes me feel good, turn it up high and tune them out. And the ability to tune toxic people out is one of the greatest freedoms you can have.

You are allowed to terminate toxic relationships.

You are allowed to walk away from people who hurt you.

You are allowed to be angry and selfish and unforgiving.

You don’t owe ANYONE an explanation for taking care of yourself.