Hello, welcome to, or welcome back to, trying not to care.
If you're new here, my name is ashley and i upload every single monday.
I give you all my thoughts opinions, advice on friendships relationships, navigating life.
You name it.
I'd probably talk about it.
And today we're going to talk about detaching from toxic people.
I have definitely been that person who struggles with letting go of people, even people who have treated me extremely poorly.
People that I definitely should have let go of earlier on, but I didn't all because I loved them or I wanted to be with them, or I wanted to be their friend, or I just saw their potential and really believed that they could be that person for me, completely ignoring who they actually were.
When you are that kind of attached to someone where they could quite literally do anything to you and you won't leave because you want them so badly in your life or, even worse, you feel like you physically cannot live without them.
You are giving them so much power over you and you are putting them on this really fucked up pedestal.
Regardless of how much you love someone, I don't think anyone deserves that type of treatment or idolization, especially not toxic people who disrupt your peace.
With that being said, this is my step-by-step guide to detaching from toxic people, whether that be a friend, a friend group, a significant other, a situationship, even your family.
If you feel like you have this unhealthy attachment to someone who's causing you some type of suffering, but you're having a hard time letting go of them and the connection this episode's for you.
So let's just get into it.
The first thing that you need to learn how to do is stop making excuses for them.
One way that we tend to keep toxic people around and continue their cycle of hurting us is making excuses for their bad behavior, whether that be for ourselves or to other people.
You almost learn to validate their repeated actions as a way to not hold them or yourself accountable.
I had this friend who just had a really bad attitude and had no intention of hiding it, no matter who she was around or what we were doing.
She was the type of person who, if she didn't like you or if she was annoyed by something, she would let you know.
She had no filter.
And if she was in a bad mood, she would make sure to make it everyone's problem.
But this person was a lifelong friend of mine, someone who definitely was still in my life because of our history rather than our shared interests now.
Like.
I wouldn't necessarily say that we were aligned at that time and place, but we had been friends for so long that she was kind of grandfathered in, if that's the right term.
You know, when you have a friend who doesn't want you to have other friends like when you meet someone new instead of being happy for you, they find reasons to dislike them, kind of like when you're younger and you don't want your best friend to have other best friends out of jealousy.
That was definitely something that was going on.
So when I would make new friends, talk about those new friends, she would always have something negative to say.
Or if I brought them around her, she just wouldn't give them a chance and wouldn't give them the time of day.
So, knowing how she was, I would kind of prep my friends before bringing them around her, kind of to lessen the blow.
Or if one of my friends had brought up how she spoke to them or the weird standoff vibe she would give, I would make excuses and be like that's just how she is.
She didn't mean it like that.
She'll warm up to you.
Eventually, like you two will get along and you'll love her, rather than looking at how she was treating these people who meant a lot to me.
We tend to make these excuses and say, you know, they didn't mean that.
That's just how they are.
They're probably going through something or I'm reading too much into this.
This is not a big deal to avoid the very obvious problem that needs to be solved, which is holding someone we love accountable for hurting us or hurting others.
It's especially hard to hold them accountable when you know that trying to scold them or even just make them aware of how their actions are affecting others can very easily result in them retaliating against you or even leaving you.
The same thing would happen with ex-boyfriends of mine, where my friend would come to me with a concern about said ex-boyfriend how they didn't like how they spoke to me or to them, or they just call out strange or very disrespectful behavior that this ex would do.
And I would make excuses for them because I knew.
If I acknowledged what this ex was doing and I agreed that it was wrong, my friends would most likely try to hold me accountable and expect me to break up with them, which I wasn't ready or willing to do because I was attached.
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The same thing happens with ourselves.
We put these blinders on to avoid seeing what's actually happening.
We intentionally ignore the red flags or we try to make sense of them so we don't have to do something different about it.
It's one thing for someone to cause you pain.
It's another to see it and excuse it and allow it to continue to happen.
At some point or another, you need to take accountability for adding to the pain that you're enduring.
By not holding others accountable, you are essentially signing off on the mistreatment and you are teaching others to disrespect you.
You're saying, I see it, I feel it, I don't want it, but I'm not going to do anything about it.
And to someone who is already okay with hurting you them, knowing that there is no consequence.
They're just going to take the opportunity to hurt you more, because why not?
If someone is hurting you, they're consistent with their actions and you have shared how you feel, or you've tried to set a boundary with them, but they've ignored that.
You need to get real with yourself about what's happening.
Identify the behavior, identify why it's wrong or why it upsets you, and stop making excuses for it.
Put yourself in their shoes.
Would you treat you or someone else the way they're treating you?
Are you going through something hard as well?
Are you struggling with your mental health?
Probably.
I mean, we're all going through something and you're sitting there being like well, you know they're going through something like that's why they're acting this way.
Like, I feel sorry for them.
Why is that an excuse?
If you wouldn't treat them that way and you're going through something hard, why do they get this pass?
Looking at this and answering those questions should make it clear as day that there is no reason, there is no justification for why this person acts the way they do and why they should get this pass for making you feel the way that they do.
Once you come to the realization that how this person behaves, how this person treats you or treats other people, is not okay and cannot be explained away by their struggles or the good heart you know they have.
It's time to accept the relationship for what it was and accept the person for who they are.
That does not mean normalizing toxicity.
That does not mean accepting that they are a bad person and being okay with it.
What I mean by accepting it is taking off those rose-colored glasses and seeing it as it is, whether it's good or bad.
A lot of attachment comes from romanticizing the relationship or the friendship you thought you had and feeding the connection with nostalgia.
Kind of like what I was saying before about my friend.
A lot of friendships and relationships that should have broken up a long time ago continue, not because they're healthy or happy by any means, but because of how long they've been in each other's lives, the history they have with one another.
You need to look at your relationships and ask yourself are they only in my life, because we've been friends for 10 plus years.
We've been dating for four years.
We're family by blood.
If the only thing that is keeping two people together is the history they have and not the love they have for each other or the respect they have for each other, that is not a healthy friendship or relationship.
Just because things were good at one point doesn't necessarily mean they're good now.
Just because you have history, just because you've been friends or in a relationship for a really long time, it does not mean that it has to continue now.
Seeing the friendship or seeing the relationship for what it is is another way of getting rid of these bullshit excuses that you give for these people.
When considering if this connection should be severed, instead of making a list of all the pros for why this person should stay in your life where you're like.
We were so happy, they were so nice to me and they were so in love with me at the beginning of our relationship and we had so much fun together 10 years ago back in high school.
You can make a much longer list of why this person or why these people don't deserve to be in your life.
The cons of keeping them in your life.
They don't respect me.
They constantly put me down.
They talk bad about me to other people.
They never follow through with their promises.
They make me feel bad about myself.
I don't have a good time when I'm around them.
Your focus should be on how things are going now, how you feel now and how or if this relationship or friendship can continue.
And if it can't, then it's time to cut them off.
Now that you've come to the conclusion that you are ready to cut this person off and detach from them, you now need to remove their access to you.
One thing that you will find when you try to cut a toxic person out, no matter how badly they treated you, no matter how consistent they were with making you feel like you were worthless, no matter how much they made you feel like they didn't want you or they didn't want to be around you.
The second that you try to pull away and cut them off.
They will do anything and everything to keep you from leaving.
They will try to change your mind.
They might even make you feel like it's unsafe to leave them.
And the reason they do this isn't because they've had a change of heart and they just woke up one day and realized that you deserve better and that they want to be better for you.
The reason they do this despite making you feel like they had no interest in you, the entire connection is they don't want to lose the power they have already.
When you give someone so much power over you, when you allow someone to walk all over you again and again and you make them feel like they're the king of everything, they're not going to want to let go of that, especially if if you're one of the only people that makes them feel that way, and that is why so many people stay in these terrible relationships, because once they build up the courage to leave these people, they're being showered with love and compliments and everything that they've wanted and they're like oh, this is what i've been asking for.
They are going to change.
Maybe i should stay and they stay And nothing changes.
It fucks with your head.
And I've been there.
But because I've been there, I can confidently say that their words hold no value.
Their words hold no weight.
And they aren't going to change.
These people are grasping at straws to keep you around and to keep you attached to them.
I know when you love someone, when you love someone so much, it's hard to break the attachment you have to them.
But in this moment, you need to remove their access to you.
That means going no contact, no texting, no calling.
Matter of fact, block their number.
If you're serious about detaching from them, you need to cut them off entirely.
I don't care how evil it feels to block someone when they're pleading for you to not leave them.
You've given them enough chances.
You've given them enough time and you've given them enough excuses.
You need to stop thinking so much about them and think about yourself.
Remove them or block them on social media.
I would go as far as to have your close friends and family do the same.
When my ex and I had broken up, I had blocked him, but I didn't think to have my friends and family block him.
And he ended up texting my friend to wish me a happy birthday, which just sucked me back in, because here I was thinking like oh, he remembered my birthday, he cared enough to reach out.
Like he knew he couldn't reach me, so he did what he could to like make it work and to reach out to me the bare minimum.
It really just messed with my head and it was a way for him to have control again.
If you're serious about letting go, you need to block them, because they will try to contact you in an attempt to suck you back in.
They do not need to contact you or know anything that's going on with you, just like you do not need to know what's going on with them.
Which leads me to number four.
Stop feeding the attachment.
More times than not, it's better to not know, and i know.
For someone like me, who is just nosy and wants to know what's going on at all times, even when you don't even care about a person like i, i do want to know what someone i went to high school with is doing.
Like i not that i, like really care, i'm just nosy and i want to see.
Like Do you have a family now?
Are you married?
Like what are you doing?
Like I'm stalking their Facebook.
That's just what I do.
And I'm also someone who, when I care a lot about someone, it's hard to just pretend that this person, who I spent so much time on, doesn't exist anymore.
So I do want to know what's happening.
But If you want to move on, if you want to detach, that is the worst thing you can do for yourself.
Ignorance is bliss.
You don't need to know what's going on in their life to get over someone or to get over what happened between you.
You need to spend as little time as possible thinking about them out of sight, out of mind.
So no checking their social media, no stalking their friends or family to see what's going on.
No reaching out to their mutuals or asking your mutuals how they're doing.
And no rereading old messages with them whether that's a good message, you know, because doing that is just going to romanticize the relationship and confuse you.
And no rereading the messages where you fell out with them, because that's just going to fire you up and have you spending way too much of your energy on them.
And also it might fire you up to the point where you're like you know I'm going to reach out and give them a piece of my mind and tell them how I feel.
We don't want to do that.
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I would also make it very clear to your friends and family that you do not want to hear about them or hear about what's going on in their life.
Like I know as your friend, if they see something like that your ex has a new girlfriend or your ex best friend posted a cryptic video about you they're going to want to tell you.
Although it's done with good intentions, it can very easily set you back on moving on.
Every time you check up on them or you hear about them, your brain gets emotionally pulled back in.
And that is the opposite of what you want if you're trying to detach.
Next, number five, be okay with no apology.
Part of the reason so many people can't get over a friendship breakup or a romantic breakup is they never got closure.
They never got an apology from that person.
And without that proper apology or even acknowledgement, for what they did.
It feels like there's unresolved tension or something that needs to be handled, and they can't move on until they know that it's really over or that person owns up to their wrongdoings.
People think that once the apology comes, they can finally shut that door and move on.
They think it'll fix everything and they'll finally heal.
But the reality is they did what they did even if they admit to it or not.
Them saying sorry or saying that you didn't deserve what they did to you doesn't change what they did.
It doesn't change how it made you feel.
All it does is give you validation from that person which you don't need.
Waiting on an apology just keeps you in that loop of thinking about them and keeps you holding on to that person.
It's a way to keep the story going, because without an apology or without that final conversation, the story isn't over.
The thing is, you don't need them to decide when the story is over.
You can close out whenever you're ready to.
You don't need their permission to be able to let go and move on.
Waiting around and thinking I will finally move on and I will get over this person.
I'll get over the situation once they apologize to me and they give me closure is just putting you through hell and delaying the detachment process.
For all you know, they may never apologize.
This person may never come to terms with the gravity of what they did to you and how they made you feel.
They may never have any remorse for their actions.
And here you are thinking about them, fuming over what happened and waiting for this day.
That's never going to come.
You're going to be attached to them for life if you wait around for this person to come to their senses and apologize to you.
Some closure never comes.
Some conversations never come and some apologies don't never come, and you need to learn to be okay with that.
You don't need an explanation or a final conversation with them for closure.
Having neither of those is your closure.
You're allowed to remove them and come to terms with what happened on your own and make sense of it on your own and be able to say that was messed up and I didn't deserve that, without them having to say it.
Now that you have removed this person from your life, you've gone no contact.
You're no longer seeing them or hearing about them.
You're probably going to be sad.
I would be concerned if you weren't.
I mean, if it took you this long to cut them off, I would think you probably didn't want to do this, but you had no choice.
It is okay to be sad.
It is okay to be angry and it's okay to be struggling really hard right now.
What you need to do is just let all of that happen.
Give yourself time to grieve. and give yourself grace while grieving.
When you end a connection, especially a toxic one, it can be scary to show how badly it's actually affecting you.
It's hard to admit how badly they hurt you and it's hard to show how badly you're hurting to those around you.
You want to act like everything's okay and you're better off without them, and you want to put on a brave face to your friends and family, because acting not okay just makes things feel even more abnormal, which it's going to feel that way for a little.
You might also be scared to admit how badly you're hurt, because you feel like part of the reason you had to detach was because they held so much power over you, so it's like now that they're out of your life, they still have this power over you.
They're still disrupting your peace.
It's going to feel like that for a little, not forever.
This is all a part of the grieving process.
To detach, you need to purge all of those negative feelings that you are left with.
If you don't, they're just going to linger inside of you for much much, much longer and you'll never detach.
You are human.
Showing emotion, showing how much you care, showing how hurt you feel is not weak.
Feeling all of these things shows how invested you were.
And it also shows your strength that you're willing to feel these really awful emotions.
Because you know you deserve better.
You're choosing yourself and you're choosing discomfort in order to have better.
Allow yourself to feel all of these emotions.
Allow yourself to feel uncomfortable adjusting to a new routine where this person's no longer a part of it.
Feel everything without feeling the need to contact them and to try to get rid of this feeling.
Feel the feelings.
You have to feel the feelings.
And then lastly, number seven, stay busy and keep yourself distracted.
There's going to be moments where you do feel really sad and you're reminiscing on the past, or you get really mad about what happened and you want to give that person a piece of your mind and blow up their phone and just ruin their day.
And honestly, that's part of the grieving process.
It happens.
I've been there.
But if you truly want to detach and just be done with this person, You want to avoid doing this at all costs, because any communication with them will pull you back in.
To avoid this from happening, you need to keep yourself busy and stay distracted.
Fill your life with joy, with purpose, with good company, so you don't feel the need to go looking for something else.
Make your life more interesting, so that talking to your ex or talking to an old friend sounds boring or dreadful.
The less time you have to sit and think about this person, the easier it will be to not feel the need to reconnect with them.
Hang out with your friends, get a hobby, find a side hustle volunteer, spend time on yourself, just pour into yourself and the things that you love, so you don't have any time to think about involving yourself with them again.
I would also make a plan for things that you can do or people that you can talk to when the urge to reach out to them or to check up on them comes along.
For example, instead of calling your ex, call your best friend, call a sibling, call a parent, call someone that you actually love and you know loves you.
Instead of stalking their Instagram, put on makeup and do a cute little photo shoot for yourself.
Instead of texting them, go get your nails done, so you literally can't use your phone.
Just distract yourself and the urge will pass.
The longer you go without contacting them and the more time that you spend without them, the better you will get at existing without them.
You literally just need to build a new routine and adjust to life without them.
Eventually it will happen and you will be so happy that you've stuck to no contact and you followed this guide.
I know that detachment feels impossible when you're so emotionally invested in someone and you've spent so much of your time and energy on them.
Starting over feels like the end of the world, but a little discomfort is the best thing that you can do for yourself long term if someone is not treating you the way you deserve.
So if you're serious about detaching from someone, if someone is not good to you or for you, I hope that you follow this guide and stick to it, for yourself and for your future.
I will put a quick step-by-step guide in the show notes to go back to if you don't want to listen to this full episode.
But if you ever do need some help getting through detaching, this episode is here for you.
I hope you enjoyed it.
I hope that it helped you.
And I hope that you feel a little understood and a little less alone.
That is everything for today's episode.
I hope you enjoyed it.
If you did, make sure to give Trinidad to Care a rating on Spotify and Apple if you haven't already.
Make sure to follow me on social media if you haven't already.
Those are in the show notes.
That is everything.
And I will talk to you next Monday.
Okay.
Love you.
Bye.
