How might we reframe a traumatic breakup experience as the portal through which we heal and become the best version of ourselves? We have an opportunity to look at trauma and problematic relationships in the context of how they show up in our lives, and discover a new way to work with them instead of simply talking about them.
This won’t be a textbook that talks about the “what” of relational trauma. The time has come for us to do more than simply label trauma. We need to understand what it is, why it happens, and what we can ultimately do about it to stop hurting, start healing, and thrive. In this book, we will not only explore romantic relationships, but also consider the context of how the patterns we develop in our early formative relationships are reflected in our adult romantic relationships. In order to do that, we must look at where it all started: what happened, why, and how we can change course today for ourselves and for the generations after us.
This book is divided into three parts. In Part 1, I will talk about the essential steps a person needs to take in the immediate aftermath of heartbreak. Here we will discuss key concepts like hermit mode, the heart sabbatical, Pandora’s box, unconscious and conscious commitments, and external healing as opposed to internal healing. Once you are back on your feet, I move on to doing the deep work of internal healing in Part 2. Here we will discuss shadow and ego work, toxic shame, attachment styles, relationship archetypes, individual survival mode and relationship survival mode, and how understanding our internal selves helps us transition into someone who seeks out and sustains healthy relationships. Part 3 is my favorite. This is where we get to dive back into the dating world and use all our hard work. Here I talk about green flags, shared core values, intuition, response versus reactivity, and the new upper limit. Together, the steps, concepts, and exercises in these three parts are key to developing the necessary personal awareness and insights to catalyze monumental change in our romantic relationships. Along the way, I’ll share my own experiences and how I used these foundational tools to free myself from a cycle of toxic dating patterns. As someone who has been there, and as a psychotherapist who specializes in helping women break the cycle, I am here to guide you as you start your own healing journey.
You’ll learn about the different stages of healing, how to set boundaries, and how to manage difficult emotions. Most important, you’ll gain insight into how your formative childhood experiences continue to shape you and your current relationships. In the wake of a breakup, we all vacillate between feeling lonely, anxious, and optimistic, but that’s all part of the process. You may even go to therapy for a few months, tackle a few issues, and think you’re finished until more pink elephants materialize in your sessions showing you the other areas that need your attention. Pink elephant refers to a big, obvious problem that everyone knows about but nobody wants to talk about. It’s so obvious and strange, like a pink elephant would be, but everyone’s pretending it’s not there. It’s a way of saying, “Hey, we’re all ignoring something really important here.” As the journey continues, you’ll create healthier boundaries. But realize this also means you need to actually implement and stand by them.
This is what the “deep inner work” means. You’ll have days where you’re celebrating the brave decisions to walk away from the pain, and others when you want your old life back.
Somewhere along the line, you’ll think that if you just journal enough and read enough books, you’ll have fully done your part to heal. But eventually you will realize that healing isn’t linear; it’s an evolutionary process. As you come into this realization, it is also common to be bombarded by negative self-talk and ego-driven stories that try to derail your progress: “You’re weak for needing to take time to heal,” “If you don’t find someone else soon, you’ll be alone forever,” “You’re just wasting time.” But I want you to know that these are just stories that your ego creates because healing requires vulnerability and our egos didn’t sign up for that.
Unfortunately, we live in a society that encourages women to be soft and submissive for men. Then, when our hearts are broken, we’re told to get back out there and find someone new to get over the last one—as if our value as women lies solely in being in a relationship. We have to shake these beliefs off. Our value exists within ourselves, and it’s time to reclaim it.
Heartbreak brought me back home to myself, not only in my romantic relationships, but in every other area of my life. As long as I was still hurting and living in survival mode, it was difficult for me to heal and eventually thrive. The lessons were hard, and the journey has been bittersweet, but it has all been worth it.
We can change our narrative. This book is a guide to healing after toxic relationships and a guide to the rebirth of the best version of yourself. I’m here to shine a light on your path toward healing.
Part I
HEALING
1
My Story
My ex-husband and I met in graduate school in our early twenties, got engaged within eight months of dating, and married a year later. We bought our first home with plans to have children once we both were finished with graduate school. Because what else would we do other than continue to check boxes off our list of social expectations for young couples?
We endured the kind of stress that only hustle culture approves of. Our egos simply had to prove that we were good enough to our respective families. We were highly focused on achieving our way out of childhood trauma, and we both had something to prove as first-generation children of immigrants.
Our road to “success” was a roller coaster, but I convinced myself it was worth it to check off those boxes. I can now see that we were trapped in a cycle of emotional addiction that kept me in a never-ending cycle of love-bombing, withdrawal, make-ups, breakups, unpredictable behavior, and physical, emotional, and verbal abuse.
I remember the first time he slapped me in the face. Yes, I was upset and shocked, but we had a trip to see our parents the next day, and I had to pull it together. I turned to MAC Studio Fix and Naphcon to conceal my black eye. I worried my makeup would melt and reveal the truth of what I was hiding. Embarrassment. Shame. Guilt. I felt I was betraying the woman inside me who was screaming out for help. The woman who knew this wasn’t the kind of life or marriage she was meant to have. I still remember constantly checking the mirror to make sure that my concealer was working.
I held on for what would be years. The reality was that I needed help and didn’t know how to ask for it. I’d spent so much time being a rock to everyone around me both personally and professionally that I didn’t know how to allow someone else to do that for me.
But every story, no matter how bleak, often has a turning point. For me, that moment arrived unexpectedly on a rainy Tuesday evening. I was outside, drenched from the rain and fumbling with my keys. As I stepped into the dimly lit hallway of my home, I heard a phantom sound that stopped me in my tracks. It was the sound of my younger self, from a time before the chaos, laughing without a care in the world.
I slid down the wall, buried my face in my knees, and let out a guttural scream—a blend of pain, frustration, and desperate longing for that lost version of myself. Right then, I realized that I had surrendered my joy, my identity, and my peace to a relationship that didn’t value me.
On that day, I made a promise to myself: no more hiding, no more justifying, and no more self-betrayal. It was time for me to reclaim my voice, to take back the reins of my life, and to rediscover the strong, vibrant woman who lay buried beneath years of suppression.
I never spoke up about the abuse I faced from my husband. My family didn’t know. My closest friends did not know. Not even my couples’ therapist knew. During that period of my life, I felt more shame than I even knew was possible. The shame of being a therapist, and seeing another therapist for help with my marriage. The shame of telling her that the strong and determined woman I cast for her was also being hit and slapped around? I just couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t share the truth with her. And at the time, I saw nothing wrong with that. That’s how deep this was for me. I was going to hide the truth regardless of the sacrifices, regardless of the cost.
Around this time I remember a friend saying to me, “You’ve changed, and I don’t like it. It’s like you’re this different person. No more light. No laughter. You’re not enjoying life. I know it. You know it. But we don’t have to talk about it. Just know that I know and when you’re ready to talk, I’m here.” So, I grinned my way through that exchange while crying inside.
The last time my husband physically assaulted me, I was bloody, bruised, and had a cracked rib. I knew I had to call the police, but it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I knew that if I did, my life would change irrevocably. It meant giving up the mask. Still, another part of me knew I couldn’t keep living like this. There was no forgiving this. There was no way to unsee this. I was locked out of my home, bloody and bruised for my neighbors to see. There was no way that I could hide what had happened. I didn’t want to keep living like this; I deserved better.
I sat outside our door, crying on the phone with the 911 dispatcher. She calmed me down long enough for me to give her my location. The police arrived and took pictures of me exactly where they found me. On the ground, in the corner, hysterical and crying. Part of me was relieved I didn’t have to hide the truth anymore, but mostly I was embarrassed.
Pressing charges against him finally gave me the permission to leave.
The officer assigned to my case assured me that my ex had been apprehended a few blocks away and that I was safe. They called my uncle, who came over, and they gave me a safety plan as well as what to expect over the next few days. They arrested my ex, and I was issued a temporary restraining order for seventy-two hours. The officer would later call and visit to make sure I was okay in the days after the incident and leading up to the court date. When I saw him again in court, I gave him a note thanking him for everything he’d done on that day. There are so many different people that help us on our journeys to healing, and he was one of them.
After the divorce, I started seeing a new therapist. I remember asking her, “When will I know that I will be okay after all that I’ve been through?”
Her answer might be unsettling for some, but it’s what I needed to hear at the time, and I deeply feel there is wisdom in confronting this uncomfortable truth: “When you can look at all of this and see the lesson to be learned.” She helped me see that, yes, the marriage had to end, for obvious reasons, but the woman who had married that monster had to evolve as well. It took a long time, but I can now call that old version of myself a friend. My lessons were in learning how to let go so that I could grow. Had that day not happened, I cannot say I would have found the strength to leave on my own. I’d talked about leaving, even fantasized about it. But there was no concrete plan in place until that day.
I’d convinced myself that by hiding the truth, I was focusing on the good in the marriage. I didn’t understand the emotional somersaults and the resulting wear and tear on my psyche until I was out of it. My health was deteriorating, and I was only in my late twenties. Read that line again. My twenties! But once I filed for divorce, I never looked back.
By leaving him, it made me work harder to break the cycle of emotional addiction, starting my own journey toward healing in all my relationships.
Part of the work I needed to do on my path to healing was to find out why I had stayed in the relationship for so long. In my work as a psychotherapist, I’ve come to understand it as a pattern of self-abandonment.
Growing up, I was trapped in a tumultuous world of emotional abuse. The constant fighting and physical violence between my parents made me believe that this type of conflict was just a normal thing that happened in relationships. I was drowning in a sea of emotions that I couldn’t understand, let alone control. This led me down a path of emotional extremes, and I became addicted to the highs and lows of unhealthy relationships. My marriage would be one that eerily reflected this dynamic.
My struggles with codependency only made things worse. I found myself drawn to partners who were obsessed with me, and if they weren’t, I found them boring. This was my anxious attachment at work, sabotaging my relationships and seeking out intense sexual chemistry that could distract me from my trauma. I was in love with the idea of potential, always looking for someone who could fulfill my needs, instead of realizing that it was up to me to fulfill them. It took a long time, but I finally realized that I needed to love myself more. It was a hard pill to swallow, but once I did, everything else fell into place.
The road to healing was bumpy, but it was necessary for me to take a break from the toxic relationships that were dragging me down. I had to reconnect with myself, to heal my nervous system, and to examine my own attraction to these kinds of relationships, based on my own unresolved emotional wounds. I will discuss all of this in Part 1: Healing.
Above all else, I had to take ownership of my role in the situation and make a decision to change. It wasn’t easy, but it was worth it.
I see the process of healing after an abusive, toxic, or simply tumultuous relationship as a journey of self-discovery, one that asks us to dive deep into our unconscious minds and take responsibility for our own healing. It’s about becoming more self-aware and empowered to make conscious decisions that align with our values and aspirations.
As you embark on this journey, be prepared to encounter situations and relationships that challenge your newfound sense of self. Your ex may try to creep back in, your family may continue to make inappropriate requests, or new partners may show up with their own issues. You’ll start to realize that toxic relationships can show up in all forms, not just romantic, but in this book I will primarily be focusing on how toxic romantic relationships affect us and how you can heal from them. That said, keep in mind that much of what we will be covering also applies to non-romantic relationships.
On this journey, you may even question if you are truly finished with the past, ready to set boundaries or stop playing savior. But at the end of the day, you have to remind yourself that you deserve emotional peace, mutual respect, and emotional safety. You have to own your power and continue to make conscious choices that serve your highest good.
HEALING ISN’T LINEAR
Healing is a journey with twists and turns, meandering through dark valleys and up bright peaks. It’s an odyssey that can take you to unexpected places and bring you face-to-face with parts of yourself that you’ve long kept hidden away. You may experience a flood of emotions and awareness that can feel overwhelming. You may realize that the way you’ve always understood your life and relationships is no longer true.
It’s often painful to unpack your old beliefs and reshape them to fit an updated understanding of the world. Like unearthing an ancient artifact that has been buried deep within the earth for centuries, it’s a slow and delicate process, but when you finally uncover it, the beauty is breathtaking. For so long, you’ve kept your past traumas and unresolved emotions tucked away in your very own Pandora’s box. It can be frightening to confront them and let them go, but it’s essential to your growth and healing.
