How to cut out Toxic Relationships
By: Joshua Samuel
Tags: Emotional Intelligence, Emotions, Relationships

Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash

Here I am staring at a blank document at midnight with nine windows open, one of which being a Chrome tab open with it’s own plethora of unfinished projects but here I am penning this essay: How and should I say Why you should: identify and cut out toxic relationships. I want to be perfectly frank with this article, I am bipolar. I prefer the term manic-depressive but it’s my cross to carry, and I understand what comes with the territory. I have realized in the past that I have a habit of being very social in my manic periods, and signing up for social responsibilities that I don’t need.

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Not even a hour ago I was laying in bed about to doze off and mindlessly tapping on my phone while half watching Tehran on Apple TV doing an emotional checklist and something wasn’t adding up. Despite it being the heart of COVID-19 and relationships are already strained as it is, and for us university goers it being finals seasons, I noticed I had a lot of outgoing attempted calls to the same few people and not a lot of returns. It just dawned upon me today that these were completely toxic relationships. For instance these relationships did nothing for my productivity in my career as a musician and coder, and if anything robbed time from me every week.

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I’d find myself hanging out with these said people playing video games like League of Legends, Valorant, Destiny 2 etc. online. I mean these things are fine in doses during your leisure time but when you realize none of these things are something you’d do by yourself there’s a big problem. I’ll be honest .. I don’t like video games. I find it a huge drain on me mentally and emotionally and adds nothing to me as a professional. I’m fine with people playing it, but just not something I’d really do alone. So WHY? am I uninstalling like twenty to thirty social apps and games at midnight across my laptop and phone, because I realized all these people are drawing my attention from what I really care about to things I don’t. If you wonder why you are awake in the middle of the night feeling unfulfilled in your career and professional life reassess the relationships in your life, because that is at the crux of what you are mentally and emotionally facing on a day to day basis. Aside from being a freshman at Full Sail University, and having a fully booked schedule, I don’t have time to really kill. I’m trying to make it a musician and code as a side hustle. I mean my former friends they’re great people sure, but if they don’t really care about you or where you’re going in your life they are not your friends.

I just want to make the next few paragraphs specifically clear I am not a professional, if you want to cut out a toxic relationship, I’d tell you consult a mental health professional or at least pick up a book by a psychologist with a Doctorate preferably. Regardless these are my steps:

1.Identify and root out stressor relationships

2. Remove and replace these relationships (by getting closer to family and better friends, look to meetups or even find a psychologist to help you solidify a plan)

3.Add things to your leisure time which YOU enjoy doing NOT what your friends enjoy doing.

4.Try to uninstall a few Social Media apps or block said toxic relationships across these social media applications or toss your sim card and phone (in more serious cases) to a trusted individual for a couple of days.

The success of this process lies solely in removing and replacing these relationships with healthier options.