Toxicity comes in many forms. Sometimes it’s overt: the physical abuse of an alcoholic father. Sometimes it’s subtle: a spouse who never says those three most important words. Sometimes it’s both: a mother who struggles with her own sorrows and yearns for a permanent end to her pain. And sometimes it’s invisible to all but yourself because it’s you, tearing yourself down from within. Of course, relationships aren’t as simple as just toxic or healthy. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference, especially when you’ve never had a healthy relationship for comparison.

The closest thing I had to a healthy relationship growing up was with my mother. To this day I still think of her as a saint of a woman. The perfect mother. Even if I’m more willing to admit to her faults now. She was passionate. Stubborn. Highly intelligent. All traits she ensured my brother and I developed. She was empathetic, caring, and kind. Traits I hope I inherited, but I’m not always certain that’s the case. She was sad. Depressed. Lost. Traits I know I did. I sometimes wonder what she would think of me, if she were around today. If she hadn’t succumbed to her sorrow. Would she be sad, knowing my struggles? Would she be proud, seeing how I’m trying to regain my footing? Would she regret not being here to hold me as I cried when it all became too much? She was my best friend and the source of the greatest pain I’ve ever felt.

Her death left me scarred. Damaged in a way I would never recover from. Even now, fifteen years later, thinking about her causes a hollow ache in my chest and my eyes to burn from tears. I occasionally try to remember what her hugs felt like. What her smile looked like. How she laughed. But all those memories, both good and bad, are tainted with how she left this world by her own hand.

My father, for all his many faults, wasn’t completely bereft of goodness. In the aftermath of my mother’s death, he tried his best to help me. Poor though this showing might have been after years of violence, drinking, and manipulation. His love language was money. Something I suspect he inherited from his own parents. He offered to buy me things. A new TV here. A small kitchen appliance there. Over time, I came to see his only use as money. And I hated both him and myself for it in equal measure. Deep down, I didn’t want money, I wanted a father. No. I wanted a dad. But we can’t always get what we want.

We could go months without talking. It probably would have been years if I didn’t take the initiative to call him for holidays. I’m pretty certain he didn’t remember much of those calls, since I could hear the drunken slur in his voice during most of them. The few times he did call me, it was usually to wish me a happy birthday… three weeks late, because he’d forgotten when I was born. Which, of course, in his mind meant that he was the one putting in all of the effort to stay in touch. This led to an ultimatum from him, that he wouldn’t call me again. I had to bite back the desire to tell him that suited me just fine, and instead promised to try harder. He didn’t call for my birthday last year, late or not. The man couldn’t remember any of the times I reached out to him, but he would never forget a grudge.

 He died in the hospital last year after having a stroke. It was difficult to process. On one hand, he was my father. My only living parent. On the other, he was my abuser. The dark figure looming in my psyche. The source of trauma that still makes me flinch when a man raises his voice.

Maybe it wouldn’t have hit me as hard if my partner of nearly two decades hadn’t chosen that same moment to tell me he was leaving me.

It struck me out of the blue. He hadn’t said anything to me before, about wanting to end our relationship, but there it was. I knew he’d been feeling more depressed of late, struggling at work. But he’d said nothing about wanting to leave. Instead, as per usual, he said nothing and just dropped it on me like a bomb.

He was a terrible communicator. If anything bothered him, whether it was at home or work, he would shut down and just quietly fume. An equally bad quality in a partner or a boss. And he never forgave. If you messed up once, that was it. I recall a specific incident when I’d started the laundry and forgot to change it over. The next morning, he was seething. He didn’t yell, or break things. He wasn’t violent. But I could tell he was furious. He told me not to bother doing the laundry again. Over the course of our relationship, I did less and less. Not because I was lazy, or didn’t want to help, but simply because if I messed up once, he never trusted me again. And over time, I lost trust in myself.

For a woman who’d never had a strong grasp of self-esteem, this loss of trust broke what little inner strength I had.

In the aftermath of our shattered life together, I blamed myself completely, believing myself to be a failure in every sense of the word. I didn’t think I could continue. Didn’t think I wanted to. But somehow, in that oppressive darkness I found myself hurled into, I discovered a spark of light. I suppose it might seem silly to some people, but I know others will understand perfectly. Two small, furry, little specks of joy. My cats.

Vex and Vax.

Through all the pain and upheaval in my life, they were what made me hold on. I couldn’t abandon them the way my mother had abandoned me, though I certainly came close at times. Even as I write this, the pair of them are sitting next to me: one sleeping and the other gazing out the window, watching for birds. The furry terrors are my juice cleanse for the soul, flushing the toxicity of turbulent relationships out and filling what remains with wholesomeness and love. Even if their idea of love is a paw to the face at 6 AM because they want their breakfast.