1. Mental Health Plummets

I never had any mental health concerns until about my freshman year of high school. This is where my relationship took an unhealthy turn. First I developed an anxiety disorder that got so bad I’d have panic attacks nearly every other day. This steamed from gaslighting. If you're not familiar with the term it’s basically when someone makes you question your own reality. An example could be when someone says “it’s not my fault you think I hurt you”. Next it was depression, you start to feel a sense of loneliness when you’re even questioning yourself and reactions. Mental health is a serious issue and should be talked about more when discussing unhealthy relationships.

2. Physical Health Declines

As mental health takes a turn, so does physical health. With anxiety and depression your sleep, eating and hygiene habits all change. Weight loss was my worst physical change. My appetite revolved around the relationship. If the relationship was doing good i’d eat if not my appetite was nonexistent. That was the same with sleep and my hygiene. My old best friend experienced the same physical changes while in her abusive relationship. Watching the scale drop and watching yourself wilt away is the worst feeling. How you present yourself is so important and if you aren’t proud of the person you are on the outside you can’t love yourself on the inside.

3. Social Life becomes Isolated

I feel like this is the most known side effect of a toxic relationship. The isolation. Isolation from friends and/ or family. Being in a relationship you don’t even notice yourself withdrawing from your friends or family. The person you’re with is all you care about and just being with them. Both my friend and I experienced this. It starts with ditching your friends to hangout with your boy/girlfriend. Then it’s always being with them to the point your friends get annoyed and start to retreat. Your social life disappears like a Houdini magic trick. Social life is so important because without it you start to feel alone and become dependent on only your significant other.

4. Can Lead to Addiction

Personally I didn’t experience any addiction but I did have to watch my friend go down this path. As any other life stressor or trama, an unhealthy relationship can make someone turn to drugs or alcohol as a coping mechanism. People turn to drugs and excessive drinking to numb pain or take a break from their reality. Addiction is a problem and needs more attention as an illness and not a looked upon sin. Even after leaving her relationship she still has the addiction and puts herself and body at risk.

5. Effects Future Relationships

As humans we learn from past experiences on how to behave. As a child you probably touched a hot stove and learned not to touch a hot stove again. You also probably learned what behavior you'd be rewarded with or punished with. This is the same logic in a toxic relationship, you learn what not to do and what you can do within the relationship. You learn what certain behaviors mean and what the outcome will be. It’s hard to relearn everything you learned in a past relationship and relearn the healthy way. This has a serious impact on yourself because it translates into your future relationships.

6. Personal Growth is Paused

Personal growth is so important in everyone's lives. Learning about yourself and taking care of yourself should always be a top priority. It’s hard to focus on yourself when you're constantly trying to focus on a roller coaster relationship. Your needs disappear because you don’t think of it as a priority anymore. All your time and effort goes into one person that you’ve made yourself dependent on. From isolating yourself from friends and family, mental health roadblocks and physical decreases there's so much going on to focus on before you can be in a place to work on improving yourself.

7. Emotional Changes

When someone is causing you stress you tend to become more uptight and become annoyed easily. My Emotions when I was in a bad relationship tended to lean more towards the always agitated side. I would get annoyed with everyone and not always be the nicest when the person did nothing wrong. Being able to express how you feel to people is an important part of life. When you become numb to emotions it’s hard to make friendship connections and other life connections. It’s especially hard when you're always annoyed and don’t want to talk to anyone. Without being able to express emotions you'll find yourself bottling everything up and exploding.