How Toxic Relationships Affect Your Mental Health
Toxic relationships can have a profoundly negative impact on mental health. Whether it’s a romantic partner, friend, or family member, being in a toxic relationship long-term can contribute to depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, and even post-traumatic stress disorder. Recognizing the signs of a toxic relationship is the first step to protecting your mental health.
- Toxic relationships contribute significantly to mental health issues like depression, anxiety disorders, and PTSD.
- Staying in a toxic relationship can damage self-esteem, self-worth, and emotional well-being.
- Leaving a toxic relationship can immediately improve mood, outlook, and mental health.
- Unhealthy coping behaviors like substance abuse often emerge in toxic relationships.
- Establishing boundaries and minimizing contact helps manage toxic relationships that can’t be eliminated.
What is a Toxic Relationship?
A toxic relationship is any relationship characterized by behaviors that are demeaning, abusive, controlling, or psychologically damaging. Common signs of a toxic relationship include excessive jealousy, dishonesty, manipulation, disrespect, criticism, and conflict. These relationships become emotionally draining and can leave you feeling confused, unhappy, depressed, or anxious.
While ending a toxic relationship is ideal, it’s not always possible if the toxic person in your life is a family member or coworker. In these cases, establishing boundaries and minimizing contact whenever possible is important. However, prolonged exposure to a toxic relationship will almost always negatively impact mental health.
The Mental Health Impact of Toxic Relationships
Many studies have confirmed that toxic relationships predict poorer mental health outcomes. People in toxic relationships have drastically elevated rates of depression, anxiety disorders, PTSD, and even suicide attempts:
- A meta-analysis of over 200,000 people found that toxic relationships were strongly associated with depressive disorders.
- Women in verbally abusive relationships had double the risk of developing depressive or anxiety disorders compared to never-abused women.
- Domestic abuse survivors are more likely to develop PTSD and exhibit more severe PTSD symptoms.
- Young adults with 4+ Adverse Childhood Experiences like abuse or household dysfunction were over 17x more likely to attempt suicide (Hughes et al., 2019).
Prolonged exposure to toxic behaviors like jealousy, dishonesty, criticism, and manipulation leaves psychological wounds. It erodes self-esteem, self-worth, and emotional well-being.
Victims become conditioned to walk on eggshells and suppress their needs to avoid conflict. Constant suppression of feelings and authentic self-expression takes a toll.
8 Side Effects of A Toxic Relationship
The Damaging Effects of Chronic Stress
Toxic relationships keep the body in a constant state of high alert. The ongoing hypervigilance and stress generate chronically elevated cortisol. Chronic cortisol elevation disrupts the body’s stress response system.
Eventually, the body can’t turn off excess cortisol production. This leads to impairment of cognition, learning, memory, and emotional regulation. It also increases inflammation and accelerates cellular aging.
Chronic stress depletes serotonin reserves which are critical for stable moods. Cortisol upregulates amygdala activity and suppresses the prefrontal cortex. This amplifies emotional reactivity and impairs logic and reasoning.
These brain alterations correspond with the range of physical and mental health issues that accompany toxic relationships:
Table. Physical and Mental Effects of Chronic Stress
Physical Effects | Mental Effects |
---|---|
Impaired immunity | Depression |
Sleep disruption | Anxiety |
Digestive issues | Emotional dysregulation |
Aches and pains | Impulsivity |
Frequent illness | Ruminating thoughts |
Weight changes | Hopelessness |
Increased inflammation | Low motivation |
The mental and physical consequences of chronic stress demonstrate why removing yourself from a toxic relationship or establishing better boundaries improves overall well-being for most people.
Toxic Relationships Promote Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Living in the stressful conditions of a toxic relationship commonly leads to adopting unhealthy coping mechanisms. This includes increased use of:
- Alcohol
- Tobacco
- Recreational drugs
- Overeating
- Compulsive behaviors like gambling or shopping
These provide temporary relief from the emotional anguish and loneliness of a toxic relationship. But over time they become maladaptive coping habits that contribute to worse mental health.
Someone in a toxic marriage may rely on drinking to unwind after work. A teenager with abusive parents might smoke marijuana to manage their daily stress. Unhealthy coping behaviors often become deeply ingrained and automatic.
Like the underlying relationship dynamic, these habits can be very difficult to change. They may ultimately require professional counseling or therapy to overcome.
“Prolonged exposure to childhood adversity creates persisting emotional deregulation that is a core component of diverse psychiatric disorders. These include mood disorders such as depression and anxiety, personality disorders (i.e borderline personality disorder), substance abuse disorders, somatoform disorders, eating disorders, as well as dissociative identity disorder and other trauma-related disorders.”
Improving Mental Health After Leaving a Toxic Relationship
Ending a toxic, abusive, or dysfunctional relationship is often the only way to protect mental health. The benefits to well-being after leaving a toxic relationship are usually rapid:
- 83% of abused women had improvements in PTSD symptoms within 6-12 months after leaving their partners.
- 75% of people who left emotionally abusive spouses saw “significant increases in self-esteem within a week. (Craig, 2013)
- Hospital admissions for women with diagnosed mental health conditions dropped by 11% after leaving an abusive partner. (Oram et al., 2013)
However, the trauma and chronic stress from prolonged toxicity can leave lasting impacts. Anxiety, depression, emotional regulation challenges, and PTSD may persist for years without proper treatment.
Ongoing work with a counselor or therapist trained in trauma can be essential to fully overcome the damage. Group therapy with other domestic abuse or trauma survivors may also help some people transition to healthy relationships.
Establishing Boundaries in Unavoidable Toxic Relationships
Removing a toxic person from your life isn’t always feasible. You can’t abandon certain family or in-law relationships. And ending a toxic friendship means losing an entire friend circle.
In these unavoidable toxic relationships, managing your exposure is critical. Setting clear boundaries limits your contact with emotionally damaging behaviors.
Boundaries help shift the power dynamics and reduce opportunities for manipulation or abuse. Saying “no” becomes easier over time as you detach and regain self-worth.
Example boundaries with a toxic family member could include:
- Refusing requests to borrow money
- Not answering calls/texts outside of certain hours
- Having other plans when guilt-tripping occurs
- Ending conversations that turn hostile
With practice, enforcing boundaries helps release guilt, anxiety, and perceived obligations. It also minimizes exposure to the most destructive and upsetting behaviors.
In Conclusion
Research conclusively shows that toxic relationships contribute to poorer mental health through psychological abuse, emotional manipulation, and chronic stress. Developing anxiety, depression, PTSD, or substance abuse disorders is common for people stuck in dysfunctional relationships.
Leaving a toxic relationship is often necessary to protect mental well-being. However, establishing strong personal boundaries can be helpful when cutting off contact is impossible. With good self-care and proper treatment, the damage from toxicity can be overcome.
FAQ
What are some common signs of a toxic or unhealthy relationship?
Some clear red flags include controlling or manipulative behavior, frequent lying or dishonesty, extreme jealousy and possessiveness, disrespect, verbal abuse, and physical abuse. If your partner constantly puts you down, violates your boundaries, or makes you feel like you’re walking on eggshells, it’s likely a toxic relationship.
I’m in a toxic relationship but don’t want to end it. What are some healthy boundaries I can set?
You can set boundaries like taking time for yourself, not responding to certain behaviors, and clearly expressing what you will and won’t tolerate. Say no to requests that cross your boundaries. Surround yourself with a support system. Seek counseling to gain coping skills and perspective.
What are some unhealthy coping mechanisms people use when stressed from a toxic relationship?
Unhealthy coping habits include substance abuse, emotional eating, gambling, risky sexual behavior, social isolation, and compulsive behaviors like shopping. These provide temporary escape but ultimately worsen your mental health.
I just left an abusive relationship. How long will it take my mental health to recover?
It depends on the duration and intensity of abuse, but most people see a rapid improvement in self-esteem, anxiety, and depression within weeks or months of leaving. Work with a counselor specializing in domestic abuse recovery to process the trauma. Joining a support group also aids healing.
My family member is toxic. How can I minimize the damage during holiday visits?
Practice self-care like meditating before interactions. Set and enforce strong boundaries if they become abusive. Socialize in groups to avoid isolation. Confide in one supportive family member. Limit visit duration and have an exit plan if you need space.