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I am surrounded by toxic people in my life, I realize that and I am working to fix it, by fixing myself. I have been spending a lot, I mean A LOT of time reading, anything and everything I can, lots of time thinking and digesting what I read so that I can get through this mess I am in. I came across this article, it struck me, and I wanted to share it. It struck me, especially in the first part, where it says how your body's memory is frozen after trauma from a person, and will remain hard wired to consider them a hazard after they have hurt you. It reminds me of my horses, whose natural response to everything is flight. They do not think, they do not hesitate, they run, because in their primitive brain, in their world if they don't they very likely will end up dead. Its how their world works. As they are growing up, as they experience things in their day to day life, they test everything. They touch it with their nose, look at it, smell it, test it. Like the laundry hanging on the line. They touch it with their noses, if it doesn't strike them or bite them, or hurt them, and they learn its harmless. Yesterday the laundry was blowing around like crazy on the line because of wind and my filly reached out her nose to touch/test a hanging towel. At that moment, a wind came up and the towel flew right in her face. She ran away from it like it was the clothesline of death, as if the towel wanted to tear her to shreds, not coming near it for the rest of the day. She didn't think, she didn't hesitate, she just GOT AWAY from it, and watched warily from a safe distance. Today, its still windy, and she gives the clothesline a wide berth as she comes up to the house for water. I wish sometimes that I was hard wired like my horses, so that the first time my ex hit me, etc, I had RUN AWAY, not looked back til I was far enough away and safe where I could gain some perspective. Instead, like this article says, I did all these things that humans do, tried to "help" him, because I love him and felt obligated or whatever and ignored that primitive response that even humans have when facing danger.

Letting Go of Toxic People | Psychology Today