Toxic Shock

"Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing. Use the pain as fuel, as a reminder of your strength."

- August Wilson (1945-2005)

There are people on this earth who, no matter how much credit you try to give them, constantly disappoint. But not only do they disappoint, they also have the destructive potential to wreak havoc on your life, and cause grave harm and hurt to you and others you care about.

Naturally, we'd love to give people the benefit of the doubt in every instance. Most people would like to think the best of others. I think that's so. But much life experience has taught me otherwise. Not everyone is good. So many are selfish, deceptive and awful no matter how much we'd like to think well of them. Some people are simply toxic to the soul.

In some cases it may be that it's a certain combination of individuals that makes the toxicity, that there's something about the mixture of the two that turns corrosive, no matter how hard they may try to get along. Separately the two are fine and good but together the mixture is awful. Or it could be that one of the individuals is just a genuinely bad person. It can be hard to discern the difference when you're in the midst of it all; it's only afterward that you can look back coolly and rationally and see how it really was.

There come times in all our lives we find we have to break from people who have the capacity to destroy us, from these toxic people who would be ruinous to our lives if we let them be. Especially those of us with a self-destructive impulse, we have to be even more vigilant because it isn't in our nature not to be self-shielding. It's much more dangerous in cases like this, and much more crucial to break the cycle. And it's better not to go this alone, without help from caring people who honestly have our best interests at heart. Discerning who these good people are can sometimes be a challenge, but they are out there.

I had to break from a toxic person recently, from someone who seemed intent on destroying me through a series of manipulations I didn't even see as manipulative for so long it's almost embarrassing. I have my share of blame, too. I'm not saying I don't. Nothing is ever just one person's doing, but it's usually one person who has to stand up and say ENOUGH. This has gone on too long. It's been a difficult and emotionally draining thing, but with every day that goes by I feel that much stronger, more certain I've taken the right action.

Life has so many rites of passage, some we know to expect and others, like this, that are unpleasantly unexpected bumps in the road. Like everything that happens to us, the important thing to take away is how you'll use the experience going into the future. What's past is past. You can't change any of that, no matter how much wishing and wanting you do. All you can do is look at what positives you can draw, and how you can use the experience to go forward with your life.

The positives won't always be obvious. Sometimes you'll have to dig for them, but they'll always be there in some form. At times the only positive you'll find is the added wisdom the event gave you, the lesson being the lesson in itself. Though it's tough, that may be the only take-away grace from a really bad experience.

But in any event, grace it is.