In this post: I’m sharing 3 tips to help you judge if you have healthy relationships or toxic relationships that are ruining your self-esteem. Watch out for these warning signs!
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Hi there beautiful! How are you? It’s Sarah here from Proud Happy Brave and today I wanted to talk to you about 3 signs toxic relationships are ruining your self esteem.
So, I want to talk to you about these because, when you’re not feeling very good about yourself, or you’ve got a bit low self-esteem and low self-worth a bit already, it can be hard to judge whether a relationship is healthy and whether it actually helps you rather than hinders you.
(Side note: practising personal development will help to naturally build better relationships, but it’s also good to be aware of toxic relationships so you can protect yourself from people who may (even intentionally) be dragging you down.)
I know personally, when I didn’t feel that great about myself, I was a bit desperate when it came to relationships, I kind of was seeking out what I thought I needed from people, wanting them to like me and to connect with me. And while that’s not a bad thing to want, we definitely want relationships where we feel like we like the other person and we’re connecting with them, it’s not always easy to judge when we’re coming from a place of not feeling great about ourselves already.
So hopefully, these 3 signs will help you to judge whether your relationships are healthy or not. And whether you need to kind of step away a bit or be conscious of protecting yourself when you have to spend time with those people.
Psst: Struggling to feel good enough and like you matter? Join in the FREE 5-Day “I’m Worth It!” Challenge to boost your self-worth and start to feel good about yourself! Click here to get all the details!
1. You feel terrible after you spend time with that person
This one might be pretty obvious, unless you’ve lost touch with how you’re feeling about yourself, or if you feel terrible a lot of the time. Just check in with yourself about how you’re feeling after you spent time with certain people.
You’ll find that some people will make you smile and cheer you up and then other people will make you feel horrible (I’m sad to say!).
They’ll make you feel guilty, or make you feel like you made mistakes, or they make it clear that they don’t agree with something. It’s perfectly alright to have healthy disagreements, but when someone’s always putting your opinions down, or even putting you down, then that’s not alright, that’s, that’s not okay. And that’s really going to tear up your self-esteem.
So just check in with yourself, after you’ve been spending time with people and check in with how you feel. Do you feel happier and good about yourself? Or do you feel bad about yourself and like they were kind of tearing you down.
Related Post: How To Get Happy When You’re Feeling Sad
2. You don’t feel comfortable sharing your true thoughts and opinions
So the second sign that it’s a toxic relationship is when you don’t feel comfortable sharing your true thoughts and opinions with those who are close to you.
I say with those who are close to you, because sometimes we can be naturally shy (I know I certainly am!) and it’s hard for us to talk up when it’s a bigger group, or when there are people there that we don’t really know.
But if you find you’re holding back with those who are close to you, then it’s a sign that you’re not comfortable enough to share with them.
And maybe you’re a naturally reserved person, but generally, for a relationship to be healthy, we do need to feel comfortable sharing our thoughts and feelings with those other people to build a better connection and to build a healthy relationship.
So if you don’t feel comfortable sharing your thoughts and opinions because you feel like the other person or you know that other person’s just going to shoot them down and ignore your opinions or discredit them somehow, then that’s not a sign of a healthy relationship.
You can have healthy debates in relationships and that’s totally fine and you can agree to disagree. But if you find yourself not even broaching topics when you think that you might have a difference of opinions or thoughts, then it is a sign that you feel like you’re going to be judged by that person and that affects your self esteem.
Related Post: How To Flourish When You’re Shy
3. Feeling like you have to act a certain way
Now, the third sign is that if you feel like you have to be a certain person or act a certain way around certain people.
So if you feel like they have certain expectations of you, and you feel like you have to wear a mask around them, then that’s not very good for your self-esteem, because you’re feeling like you have to be someone else around them.
There may be some relationships where you do have to do that a bit. For example, I know with my grandmother, I did feel like I couldn’t be my true self. I did feel like she did expect me to act a certain way but I still had to spend time around my grandmother. But being aware of that certainly helped.
In your day to day relationships, in your closest relationships, you don’t want to have to feel like you’re wearing a mask. Otherwise, that’s going to make you feel like your true self isn’t very good and that you need to pretend to be someone else and that’s definitely not good for your self-esteem.
Related Post: Never Feel Good Enough? 10 Things To Remember…
Let’s recap!
So, to recap, the three signs that toxic relationships are ruining your self-esteem are:
- You feel terrible about yourself after spending time with particular people or a particular person;
- You don’t feel comfortable sharing your true thoughts and feelings with people who are close to you (and you feel like you should be able to share these things with people in close relationships with you, but you, you don’t feel that way);
- You feel like you have to act a certain way around a certain person or certain people.
I hope that me sharing these signs helps you to judge whether you do have unhealthy relationships that are ruining your self-worth and self-esteem.
You can try to move away from these relationships and spend less time with them and find healthier relationships instead, or at least be aware of this so that you can go in there with a bit of protection and give yourself a bit of a barrier around how they’re treating you or how they’re acting towards you.
Let me know if this has brought anything up for you!
I hope you enjoy the rest of your day.
I’m sending you lots of love,
Sarah xo
Don’t forget to join in the fun of the 5-Day “I’m Worth It!” Challenge! I’ll be sharing 5 keys to building up your self-worth and feeling good about yourself. And it’s totally FREE!! Click here to register!
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