This post is specifically about missing someone who brought toxicity into your life.

Firstly, don’t beat yourself up, you are allowed to mourn the loss of someone you once cared about. It doesn’t matter if it was a LTR or a quick fling, you have a right to your feelings. However, please do not reach out to them. Don’t forget every time they made you cry or feel like you weren’t good enough. It is so easy to remember how happy they once made you, but you are chasing a ghost. The person they are is the same person that treated you poorly at the end. There are a lot of variations of toxic personalities that are very good at pretending to be someone’s perfect man/women. It is surprising how long someone can put on an act for, but sooner or later their true colors show. Do not tolerate someone you hate in hopes that they will become the man/women you initially fell for. Reframe it in your head: you are not just losing the great guy/girl you first met, you’re also freeing yourself of the toxic person that they revealed themselves to be.

Also, if any part of you feels that you are losing this great person and that they will go on to treat somebody new better, please realize that that is a lie. Even if you two were just simply not a good match, a quality person would just end it, not treat someone the way they treated you and/or lead someone on. A toxic person is a toxic person. No matter how much they might like someone, they will be who they are. Someone can only change if they actively choose to, not just because they fall in love. The reality is that the next person they move on to is inevitably going to go through the same process you did. It’s not because you are not enough, it is because some people are truly incapable of caring about anyone besides themselves.

I thought to write this because a guy (m21) I dated on and off for the last year just reached out to me tonight. He led me on and is a compulsive liar, but it took months for me to finally let him go. It’s been a month since and at first I was tempted to reply, but remembered all of the chaos he brought into my life. The small amount of happiness I could get at the start of talking to him again, isn’t worth forfeiting the calmness I’ve gained in letting him go.

My overall point is that keeping a toxic relationship alive is only delaying the pain you will inevitably experience. No matter how mentally strong you are, time will have to pass for you to get back to a neutral state, so don’t beat yourself up and try to embrace your feelings. Emotions are temporary, but they feel very real. Remember that much of your judgement of this person is influenced by temporary feelings. Plus, being in quarantine gives us all extra time to overthink and wish for better days. Go spend that time on someone who actually gives a damn, because life is all too brief.