Hartzog / Aaron How to Identify & Navigate TOXIC Relationships

You Deserve More
1. Auflage 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77277-354-5
Verlag: 10-10-10 Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 143 Seiten

Have you reached a point where a relationship has constant negative energy attached to it? Do you feel sad, angry, or frustrated by those individuals and how they treat you? Are you unsure whether it would qualify as a toxic relationship? In How to Identify and Navigate TOXIC Relationships, a part of the You Deserve More series, Jill Hartzog gives you key identifiers to understand when a relationship has potentially crossed the line into toxic. Along the way, she shares examples of how these toxic relationships can negatively impact your life. Jill focuses on multiple relationships, from parentchild, friendships, romantic relationships, self-neglect and even random negative encounters. In each relationship mentioned in How to Identify and Navigate TOXIC Relationships, she shares identifying markers of the toxicity, as well as strategies to create boundaries and reduce the toxic elements of the relationships. Jill draws on her over 27-year experience as a registered nurse to give insight on both why the relationship may have gone toxic and how to address it in a positive way. With the warmth and empathy found in How to Identify and Navigate TOXIC Relationships, Jill delivers a guidebook to help navigate toxic relationships in all areas of your life while giving you the tools to address the issues head-on. Her goals are simple: helping you to live a fuller and richer life with those you love while eliminating the toxic elements that are holding you back!

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hartzog, Jill

Aaron, Raymond

Leseproben

My Story

My journey to understanding and appreciating the complex relationships between individuals started early in my career as a nurse. I have been a registered nurse for over 25 years, working in hospitals and community settings, in both Canada and the United States. During this time, I have encountered many different relationship dynamics, gaining insight and experience on how individuals interact with each other, as well as how they treat themselves.

During this time, I have used this knowledge within my own personal and professional life, helped others gain insight into these connections, helped empower individuals to identify their own goals and desires, and assisted people in creating strategies on how to cope with these relationships. I’m by no means a therapist, and I don’t aspire to be one, but I am a good listener and have a knack for empowering others to want more for themselves and to seek the means to do so.

In May 1991, I graduated from nursing school, in Ontario, Canada. By October of the same year, I was living in Hawaii while working in the neurosurgical unit at a local hospital. I had always wanted to travel and work abroad, but the extra push started with an emotionally abusive boyfriend that I needed to get away from. I can now recognize how controlling he was, and that he was trying to isolate me from my friends. This man had many issues, not the least of which included an overly inflated ego and a narcissistic personality!

In moving from Ontario to Hawaii, I literally crossed the globe to start a new life. I left behind all family and friends, starting over to build new social and professional relationships. Traveling so far away from home also presented a large culture shock, but one that I was determined to learn from and enjoy.

I met so many different people over those years, while working in a large hospital setting—locals from multiple ethnic backgrounds, and various injured tourists from around the world. I also had numerous colleagues who had many different upbringings and cultures, which played key roles in how they formed relationships with others. Adding to this were the challenges of working in a stressful health care environment with acute medical and long-term chronic conditions. I found myself learning and growing while gaining a deeper understanding of all the factors that played into how different relationships formed and carried on. By nature, I’m a people watcher, or people observer, which may be more accurate—and I saw a lot!

It wasn’t all amazing though. At times, I had to deal with some deep-seated resentments from island residents, being a Caucasian nurse from Canada. I was considered a “Haole,” which means a foreigner, often of Caucasian descent. In looking at the origins of this word, it’s been debated whether this word is derogatory or simply descriptive, but it didn’t bother me back then, maybe because I simply didn’t grow up in Hawaii and was now an adult. However, for the first time in my life, I experienced racism firsthand—sometimes at work, and other times when around the island.

After meeting my new boyfriend, a Navy man who later became my husband, I had to build even more trust from the locals. As a military wife, a common assumption from locals was that I HAD to go to Hawaii, and that my husband had been re-located with no choice. Locals and military have their own dynamics, and it isn’t always good. Although, initially, most military families love the idea of moving to Hawaii, after a short period of time, some become quite resentful at being situated so far from home, and they feel trapped on this beautiful island. Locals are rightfully very proud of their islands and heritage, with strong economic ties to tourism and military expenditures, yet also resentful of their presence at the same time.

My husband was in the US Navy and was stationed at Pearl Harbor. Once I became a military wife, I had yet another huge culture to learn and navigate through. During those early years, I ran into men and women who were dealing with long separations from family and friends, having no idea how to care for themselves. Marrying too young when they missed girlfriends back home, then having children before they were even close to being ready—19 to 22 years old—they themselves were still essentially kids. I became a big sister, the professional, someone they could turn to for advice—someone who looked like they knew what they were doing—though I myself was still learning and only in my mid-20s by then.

Basic life skills were virtually non-existent for many of these couples, who often were very poorly educated as well. I remember visiting the homes of some of my husband’s married shipmates, seeing food spoiling on the counter, crawling with maggots, simply because they had no idea how to prepare meat safely, particularly in a hot climate. Unlike being stationed on the mainland, where you could drive to see your family or have them come to visit, leaving Hawaii for a trip back home was an expense that few could afford.

Spouses were deployed away for six weeks, or even six months at a time, and mental stress built up. It was not uncommon to find individuals dealing with depression or anxiety from being so isolated. Without the relationship skills to address these issues, I saw young people floundering within their marriages, and feeling so completely overwhelmed. Yes, the military advertises support for families, but I never found it very supportive. Men don’t have a say in where they go, what they do, or for how long. Their spouses had to shoulder much of the burden of everyday decisions with finances, home management, single parenthood, and being the good military spouse—a very tall order for those so young and inexperienced.

When men were away on tours of duty, it became incredibly lonely for many partners. Most of the military wives I knew didn’t work. The men themselves missed home and were lonely too, though they formed a tight bond amongst themselves. My military lady friends and I would go out for evenings in Waikiki, which was full of restaurants, shops, and beach walks, but that wasn’t really the draw for most. It was to see all the undeployed men that descended on the bar areas from any of the four military stations around the island, and flirt, to feel young and remove some of the stress from their everyday lives.

My husband and I somehow survived those days and stayed true to each other, but I believe there were several factors working in our favor (I had a career that provided decent income, I kept myself busy, and I had built some good friendships at work and via the military). Sadly, we knew that there were many marital relationships struggling and imploding around us.

Emotional needs weren’t being met in many relationships, so affairs by women were common—not that it was accepted in any way. When we moved into military housing, one next-door neighbor would actively spy on other wives through her window, watching if men were being brought home when their spouses were away. This caused even worse feelings amongst some of the women, and a truly toxic environment ensued. These affairs were the unspoken reality for many military marriages, and often had tragic emotional and mental consequences for those involved.

As men and their families are often moved to other military stations, we would lose touch but would hear of couples we knew getting divorced years later. We were not surprised.

Over time, I noticed patterns in the relationships of others, and how different challenges created toxicity within any type of relationship—romantic, friends, acquaintances, children, work. Remember, I was continually exposed to a very large turnover of people, both at work and through my personal life; I met an enormous number of people over those years. In my personal life, I was often looked upon as the spouse that knew how to navigate life and the military system, since I had a career and was older than many of the spouses I met.

Throughout my years, friends and new acquaintances have come to me for advice and help, both through my personal and professional life. Somehow, I was able to look like I had it all figured out, even though I didn’t think I did; but I’ve always been a great listener for anyone that had problems to share. Likely that was what people picked up on. I became a mentor, sharing life skills and sometimes a good dose of guidance and direction.

As a long-time health care worker, working at various institutions and work settings, both in hospital and community settings, I had to learn how to navigate many aspects of people’s personal relationships and support systems, as well as care for them medically. Home care is not just working with the patient, but also working with their close interpersonal relationships, which impacts how they function and their ability to attain goals. It is not always easy, and those challenges mean that health care workers need to have more than just medical knowledge of the body. They also need to develop some intuitive skills to assist in navigating the emotions of sick individuals, while supporting their emotional and mental health.

Over the years, I have discovered a strong passion for encouraging others to identify their personal wants and needs, then empowering them to make it happen. One recurring theme that holds many people back from attaining them, is when constantly dealing with a toxic relationship. Let’s start exploring some of the different types of toxic relationships people deal...