Toxic Loyalty

Pouring Love Into a Bottomless Cup

Maybe the stone cracked in the firing.

Maybe the walls were too thin or

too wet maybe.

Maybe the hands that made it were

too strong or not strong enough.

Maybe the faucet rusted,

maybe the water had too much

oxygen in it or hydrogen,

maybe it evaporated before it hit

the drain, maybe the drain was

fitted wrong.

Start with patience.

Start with compassion.

Start with benefit of the doubt.

Start with second chances.

Start with rumination.

Go round and round and round and round

til you dry out.

Toxic loyalty starts with enmeshment. Toxic relationships require enmeshment because if you don’t know where you start and the other person begins, their joy becomes your joy and their joy is louder than the fact that they’re hurting you.

Ride-or-die is so romanticized in our culture that you have to wonder if we don’t all have an enmeshment wound. Maybe that’s why everyone’s so passive aggressive and afraid of conflict. Maybe that’s why no one can even admit a fondness for someone, or even a kind thought.

Maybe that’s why everyone runs from vulnerability.

I used to think my toxic loyalty was my best character trait. My bottomless capacity to stick around was a rarity in a human being—it’s what inspired people who couldn’t seem to love anyone to love me…

or so I thought.

The balance of give and take always seemed equal right up until I needed something. Sometimes it was as simple as a listening ear, or as heavy as a big favor. It didn’t matter. I was often left dripping wet, hanging out to dry.

I made over-giving an art form.

Every relationship I ever took part in was either Thelma and Louise or True Romance in my mind. I was Lady Macbeth. I was Samwise following Frodo to the ends or Mordor, man, and I was happy to be there. Limerence was a ways of life for me and it spread out in every single direction.

The blueprint of the toxic loyalty of my family of origin “blood is thicker than water” “what happens in the family stays in the family” and the way that I was shunned or punished any time I told the truth taught me that this was the highest virtue—the ability to keep my truth a secret, the strength to endure any mistreatment and still stick around, the oscar-worthy performance of keeping up appearances.

I got good at it.

I developed a dogmatic level of attachment to my toxic family. Though the enmeshment was heavy and cumbersome, though it caused me to go slow and fall often, I carried it through my life without complaint.

I was the emotional backbone of most of my relationships. I thought that was what I was supposed to do. I thought that was how I earned love.

The first time I ever asked for help was often the final straw in my relationships. The effort and trust and build up it took to make myself vulnerable and ask for what I need and the rejection that followed have amounted to some of the most painful moments of my life. But they have also been the greatest teachers.

Being a people-pleaser, codependent, an over-giver (however you look at it) is hard to heal, because in order to heal it you have to face your greatest fear. You think that you earn love by over-giving, and then you lay one little boundary and everyone you love leaves you.

It’s a nightmare.

But those who really love you will stick around. Won’t ask so much of you. Will love you for who you are and not what you can do or be for them.

Dr. Maya Angelou said

Love liberates, it doesn’t bind

Where are you bound in love?

And where are you free?

There is no virtue in harming yourself through another person. Release yourself from this paradigm and be loved for who you are, even if it feels like you’re the only one doing it. You loving you is better than 1000 people loving you for the wrong reasons. The road to authenticity is paved with many goodbyes. Loyalty in the face of harm is just another expression of emotional self-harm and self-abandonment. Love, loyalty, showing up, building community should feel more joyful than it does difficult, it should enrich you, inspire you, support you—not exhaust you, not disappoint you, not tear you down.

In a healthy attachment loyalty isn’t demanded, it isn’t shouted from the rooftops, it isn’t a chore or an expectation and it looks a lot different than in storybook romances. Everyone fights their own battles. Everyone is responsible for themselves. Grown ups don’t need a Brienne of Tarth or an Adriana La Cerva.

When you meet as equals,

the give and take need not be measured,

it just is.

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