When I began to write this book, I decided to start with a nine-day sabbatical, from Friday to the following Monday. I cleared my slate: no clients, no chores, no responsibilities. Nothing but the book. I was anxious to concentrate on pulling together the months of research and reading, thinking and praying that I had done.
Thursday night, I had one more client to see. As I stepped out of my home office into the waiting room, the look on Connie’s face told me something was very wrong. She gestured down the hall.
“Um, I think you have a leak or something,” she said.
I turned and saw a large pool of brown water creeping toward us. My initial thought was that the washing machine from upstairs was overflowing, but unfortunately the problem was not so benign. As it turned out, my septic system pipe was clogged and had begun spilling foul liquid waste into my office, waiting room, and surrounding storage rooms.
Initially I stayed calm. After all, I wouldn’t want one of my clients to think I couldn’t cope with stress! But my nine-day book-writing sabbatical turned into a stinky, toxic, overwhelming mess. This was no simple cleanup! After the calm gave way to frustration, I mostly just wanted to move out.
Instead I took the first step and called a plumber to unclog the blockage. Next, I received the bad news that all the carpeting in the entire downstairs would have to be ripped out. I am still at this stage as I write. All desks, books and bookcases, computers, couches, suitcases, file cabinets, and boxes and boxes and boxes of storage had to be moved. After that was done, the cement floor had to be scrubbed and detoxified. The contaminated items that had been on the floor had to be thrown out or sanitized. After the new carpet is put in, I somehow have to figure out how to put it all back together, like a 5000-piece jigsaw puzzle.
But as I reflected upon this change of plans, I realized that everything is as it should be. For as I write about toxic relationships and the damage they cause, I will experience firsthand just a bit of the stress of living in a toxic environment, even if it is only for a short time. And as much as I wish it would all go away, it won’t. There is no quick or easy solution, and the mess has turned my entire life upside down. From this vantage point, I don’t know when life will ever feel normal again.
Many people feel so overwhelmed by the mess of their painful relationships that instead of taking the appropriate action, they allow the toxicity to spill all over them and their children. They feel helpless and powerless and don’t know what to do. Even if they make some initial efforts, the difficulty makes it easier to give up and close their eyes to the obvious destruction all around them.
Please, don’t do that. I understand that right now, surviving your destructive relationship feels impossible. I know it’s painful and scary to think about what it will take to clean up the mess. But you cannot change something that you will not face.
I can’t promise that if you read this book, the destructive person in your life will change.
But I can promise you that if you apply what you read, you will grow and heal and become a healthier individual, which is a good start toward building more loving and healthy relationships.