Detoxifying Toxicity

Covid-19 hurt, in a lot of different ways. I had to take in a roommate because bills were getting tight and I had to find a way to make ends meet. I had made friends with a coworker that I thought I had gotten to know really well and asked her to move in with me since. When she first moved in, it was great, we got along well and she treated my daughter really well too. Soon, I had found out that she actually had a crush on me and wanted to be in a relationship with me, though she had never been with a female before. I didn't really feel the same, and she used that against me and started to treat me differently. She asked me why I asked her to move in if I wasn't interested in her like that, which left me baffled because I didn't think I had given her any indication that I was interested in her that way.

After living together for about a month, I had decided to give her a chance romantically and started a relationship with her. It seemed like it was the right thing to do, and it felt like it was a good idea at the time. As the months went on, things started changing slowly. I gained a lot of weight, which I am now struggling to lose, and the cleanliness of my house suffered. It seemed like every time I tried to do something to change the situation and clean things up, or try to get out and do something, she would get mad. She always told me that she would take care of the house on her next day off and to just sit down and spend time with her. I wanted to go for walks or go see friends, but if I didn't immediately invite her, she would be mad that I wasn't spending every second of my life with her.

I tried to address things many times, just for us to end up getting in a fight because she didn't agree or feel the same way, and she was treating my child poorly as well. After a while, I chose to stop speaking up because I was sick of fighting every time I said something. Eventually, I started doing to her what she had been doing to me and starting a fight with her every time she said something I didn't agree with. I was actually trying to get her to break up with me because I knew that was the only way to get her to actually go. We spent so long in this cycle that my depression spiked so hard and all I wanted to do was sleep all the time. I finally ended the relationship and she begged me to stay with her, and not to kick her out because she had no where to go. I let her continue living in my apartment because I didn't want to be the cause of someone being homeless, but I knew the relationship could not continue.

The final push, after about 2 more months of her living in my apartment and begging to take her back, was when I left my daughter in her care so I could get an hour to myself to get a hair cut. When my stylist was about done with my hair, I got a phone call at the salon because I was sick of my phone ringing since every one I knew decided they needed to text or call me in the time I was at the salon. The phone call was from a police officer telling me that I needed to report home because my neighbor found my daughter wandering around outside on her own. My roommate went back to sleep when I left instead of watching my child. That was my ticket to getting her out, and lets face it, I didn't want her near my child anymore either. After pressing charges and filing an order of protection, she was finally out of my house! I finally thought the toxicity was out of my life!

I was so wrong! She came back to my house asking if we were "ok" and telling me it was all my daughter's fault. After being kicked out again and again, she finally is staying away from my house, but that hasn't stopped her from sending me gifts almost every day. She doesn't know that I have the gifts, and I don't say anything to her about them because I don't talk to her at all. Her court date is in a few months and hopefully that stops all of her attempts at getting back into my good graces. Though I am working on detoxifying my life, I haven't gotten all of that toxicity out.