Sometimes it feels like there is simply too much water under the bridge. It feels like nothing in the world will allow you to forgive what they did. You can’t forgive him. You want to hold a grudge forever. We might do this for ourselves or because we feel like they should be punished. But who is really suffering? Maybe you just haven’t given it enough time, or maybe you just haven’t dealt with pain properly. You constantly wonder how it would ever be possible to move on and be friends so you just push it aside. You think of never speaking of their name again, but you shared so many memories you feel like you’re missing a huge chunk of your life. You know that holding onto the hate is consuming your thoughts and as much as you try and avoid it you just can’t seem to stop. Then you think about being friends with them to free yourself from that grudge and hatred. But the more you think about that, the more you feel like you’re betraying yourself. You feel like you are compromising what little shreds of self-worth you have left.

I want to hold a grudge but it just consumes me too much. It is really really exhausting hating someone. It’s exhausting trying to avoid them or the mention of their name because it sends you into a plethora of memories of chances, love, and adventures you once shared with each other. I don’t want to carry around the burden of hating someone. We carry these things around with us through life, titles that people have given us by either calling us these names or making us feel this way. We need to shed all those bruises and cuts from the way people have made us feel. We need to get rid of all of these experiences that have broken us piece by piece and eventually led us here. We also have to let go of personal attachments to certain toxic relationships in our lives. We have to realize that holding onto grudges and harboring hate for others is only going to hurt us more.

When you keep all that aggression and pressure inside. You start to lose your mind. Being in toxic relationships can be detrimental to our mental health. I know this because I studied it, I witnessed it, and I’ve lived it. I understand how a bad relationship can make your mind work. Your mind and thoughts become irrational. Your beliefs are negative and your outlook on life is compromised. When your thoughts are negative, you act negative, or chose to do negative things because of it. You chose to stay home, you chose to ignore. You subconsciously pull more negative scenarios into your life. You think everyone hates you, or that no one could ever love you. Your thoughts become your reality and that is the scariest thing. We need to be more careful with human relationships as they are the biggest components to our mental health.

When we are treated poorly by another human our first thought it is wrong with us. We perceive their actions to be a direct reflection of who we are. It makes us wonder what we did to deserve this. Why aren’t we prettier? Why aren’t we smarter? Why couldn’t we be worthy to them? Constantly asking yourself these questions changes the way you view yourself. These bad relationships will destroy your mental health. It will sneak up on your until you don’t even recognize yourself anymore. How do we figure out a way to mend the broken pieces? How do we find it in ourselves to forgive them? How do we convince ourselves that these words and actions others have shown us are not a reflection of us, but of them.

All we want is peace among the chaos but we lay awake at night with our mind racing for the right thing to do. What will make us happy? What will make us whole again?

“I cannot let you burn me up, nor can I resist you. No mere human can stand in a fire and not be consumed.”

– A.S. Byatt, Possession