The ladies of Tyler Perry’s #SistasonBET often find themselves in relationships that aren’t ideal, especially our girl Andi. So this week, Black Love is getting relationship advice from relationship expert, television personality, and founder of the DOUX Consulting Group, Dr. Ally to explore various types of toxic relationships, how we can prepare to exit, and healing from childhood trauma.
Black Love: The characters often find themselves in toxic relationships, especially Andi who’s in an on-and-off relationship with her married boyfriend Gary. Her friends often try to convince her to leave, but they’re met with resistance. While this is a scripted show, can we help our own friends if they’re in toxic relationships?
Dr. Ally: I think the role of a friend is to help the people we’ve chosen to be in our lives see the parts of themselves that might not be sparkling the way they should; as we say, iron sharpens iron, right? And as a friend, I think a part of our role is to help sharpen their iron while also being that soft place to land. I’d have a conversation with your friend one good time, and she doesn’t listen, you move on and support them. And if it doesn’t work out the way they want, just be there for them.
Dr. Ally: It depends on the type of toxic relationship because there are relationships on the far end of the spectrum that are violent. And with the violent relationship, there might be more that you have to do to secure your safety by changing your phone number, moving, changing your home address, finding a physically safe space, etc. Then you can begin to work on some of the more internal reasons. Because there’s external reasons why you might not be able to leave, and things might be physically keeping you from going or doing something like that. But in Andi’s case, it seems like it’s more of internal reasons why she doesn’t want to leave. It’s the emotional connection. It’s the love connection. And when it comes to those types of reasons, I think sometimes making a good old-fashioned pros and cons list and figure out, is this relationship more positive or more negative what’s the balance of this relationship? Am I actually getting my needs met? Am I actually getting my wants out of this relationship? And if you’re not, then you can begin to figure things out.
Also, find a safe person to call when you want to talk to them. Like, for example, when you want to call this person because that’s what happens a lot, right? You’ll be lonely, you’ll be at home, you’ll be in that quiet moment, and you want to call this person that you love, call somebody else. Have a designated safe person that you can talk to in those moments when you want to reach out to that person that is toxic and bad for you. So that’s one thing, using your friends to support you, keeping yourself busy doing things that glorify you and uplift you and expand your knowledge base, put you in contact with things that are beautiful. Do things to grow yourself personally so that you don’t feel like you always have to be connected or reach out to the person who is not good. And then, at some point, when you feel ready, obviously going in treatment, finding a therapist, finding someone that can help you rebuild some of those parts of yourself that may have been torn down in that relationship because we can get ourselves torn down. We can’t have our sense of relationships torn down with others, which can impact how we relate to future relationships.
Black Love: There’s a moment in the series when Andi’s friends tell her that this isn’t the first toxic relationship she’s had and that she has a pattern of dating men who are abusive. How do we internally tell ourselves to stop accepting this type of treatment, and how do patterns like this happen?
Dr. Ally: Humans are pattern machines. We form these patterns and habits early on in life, from our caregivers, the way we grew up, the environment, and the folks around us. And we begin to build ways to cope with every one’s personality and these circumstances. And it works for a lot of us, even if those mechanisms that we learn don’t work when we get older, because humans are really good at adapting. But sometimes, we get so good at doing what we’re doing that we don’t realize that it needs to change now. So when we find ourselves in these repeating patterns, you have to ask yourself, how did I find myself here? That question is the first step. When did I first form this pattern updating somebody that was emotionally unavailable or dating somebody that was actually unavailable because they’re married, so I can’t have full access to this person? Why am I okay with not having full access to this other person? What in my life made me feel like I didn’t deserve a full experience of love? That awareness is huge. Then after we begin to make this awareness, because that’s not the only piece, because now we have this habit that we’ve been doing for 30, 40 years. But now we have to change.
So every time we have an urge to engage in a pattern or a habit, we have to pivot and change it to something that’s more effective. So even like I said before changing the phone call structure, whenever you feel like reaching out to this person, you get quiet, and ask yourself, why do I want to reach out to someone who is not good for me? You write down all the reasons why this person isn’t the person for you. And then you start to look forward to the person that is for you and the you that you will be. So you begin to pivot the perspective instead of chasing after someone who doesn’t want you or chasing after someone who’s bad for you, focusing on developing the parts of yourself that make you feel good so you can be good for that person you’re envisioning.
Black Love: Is it true that our romantic relationships can mirror the relationships that we have with our parents?
Dr. Ally: Absolutely. There’s a lot of evidence that supports the caregiver relationship. It could be anyone that took care of you, foster parent, adoptive parent, grandparent, whoever we build these patterns with those people and throughout our lives. The experience of trauma with that person, maybe even an unresolved trauma, builds the most ingrained patterns for us when we have a relationship that didn’t go well. So on some unconscious level, we attempt to fix that initial relationship. And the way they’re trying to fix that relationship is with the next person. So let’s say you have an abusive father. So now you’re looking for a man that has the same type of abuse of tendencies so that you can fix those tendencies in him, which will make you feel so good because in a way, you unconsciously fixed your Dad.
That’s why some people find themselves in these relationships again and again and again because they’re saying, if I could just get it right, then I’ve made everything else make sense. But what we’re doing is creating more wounds for me and more injuries in the same exact area. And so, we have to begin to tell ourselves this isn’t an appropriate way to solve that wound.
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Black Love: After you have that level of awareness, how do you heal and then date with intention moving forward?
Dr. Ally: Once you have a pattern that’s so deeply entrenched and unconscious, I always recommend people go back to the source, deal with that relationship with your Mom, deal with that relationship with your Dad, deal with that relationship with your caregiver if you can. There are many circumstances where we are estranged from that person for the right reasons or they’ve passed away. But we don’t need them for this healing to happen. This is an internal transition. We have to make an internal pivot so you can do it by writing letters to this person by beginning to process in our own mind, through reading, maybe some literature that helps us process—also going into treatment and doing, what we call empty chair work where you will talk to a chair where nobody is sitting. Those conversations can be healing. They might not seem like they can be. Still, they absolutely can be so beginning to work on the actual relationship that you’re needing to heal instead of trying to kind of heal it by proxy with this new person that has similar issues and habits because we’re all drawn to familiar people.
Black Love: I want to pivot back to toxic relationships for a moment. You said before that toxic relationships are on a scale, and so with them being on a scale, are there some toxic relationships that are salvageable?
Dr. Ally: Yes, there is. However, like I mentioned earlier, physical abuse is never okay. I believe that any relationship that has had physical abuse enter into it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to salvage. Those are the types of relationships where you need to part ways. Nobody should put their hands on anybody else in anger. So I am not talking about those types of toxic relationships when I say that there is something salvageable. But other types of toxic relationships can be salvageable. But the key is both partners have to be very invested in fixing it, and both partners have to acknowledge their responsibility and role in the toxicity because it typically takes two to tango. You rarely have a relationship where one person is 100% toxic, and the other person is these things. There’s always a dynamic of toxicity. Somebody might have more responsibility and might be more harmful than the other. But both people need to take responsibility for their actions. Here’s the other thing, if someone is super toxic to you, you often become toxic to them.
So the first thing is both partners have to be 100% invested in fixing it. Two, they have to take accountability for their role. Three, they have to be willing to get help from somebody who’s outside of the relationship because you get in your own pattern of communication, and it is very hard to break free. Then, you need to be open enough to acknowledge and take that help and apply it to your relationship. You have to be open enough to hear your partner say, okay, when you just communicated with me that way, I did not like it and not get defensive because defensiveness is toxic. Negativity is toxic. Name-calling is toxic, not trusting someone, not respecting someone like, there are so many things that can be toxic. And to get that pushback from your partner in love, hopefully, they’re saying it in an effective and loving way, and you should be able to be like, okay, how do we pivot? How do we go back to where we were? And then, at the end of the day, the last thing is to make sure that you do not hold on to resentment and keep present in the relationship. Do not go back to the toxicity. Do not call back the horrible things that happened. Focus on the present moment so you can both grow for the future. But that is only if all the other things before have happened. Do not ignore the past.
If you have a partner who refuses to acknowledge their role, if you have a partner who refuses to work on it, that is a sign that this is a toxic relationship that is not improving. But if they are willing to work, they’re putting in the effort. You’re seeing this other person; they’re acknowledging their role. They’re working on it. They’re opening and honestly taking in the information. And then now you can make sure that the resentment isn’t fitting in and that you’re able to move forward, then that relationship can be helpful.
Black Love: So for the people who have tried to work it out and realize it can’t happen, what’s next? We hear all the time take time to heal, get to know, and know ourselves. What is that process like, and is there a time frame for staying single?
Dr. Ally: There is no one size fits all. I think the key is no matter how long it takes, you have to do the work to reassess who you are now because every experience we have, even the conversation that you and I are having right now, the two of us are fundamentally changed. After the end of this conversation, every interaction we have, everything that we do leaves an impression on us. If we were in a relationship, particularly one that was toxic, toxic memories stick very tightly in our brains. Thanks to our amygdala, we are going to be a little different. And we’re going to have to get to know ourselves again. And so some people get to know themselves faster than others. Some people heal faster than others. And so you just have to know yourself. And so this is a part of the process. So you sit down. I’m a big fan of writing things out. So sit down and Journal. Who am I today? What do I enjoy now? What do I not enjoy? What do I look forward to? What do I not look forward to?
All of us at some point have gotten lost in a relationship and have those moments like oh, my God, I did use to love that. And I just totally stopped during that relationship. Do I still like that thing? Should I go back into it? What have you learned? Because as humans, we love to make patterns, and we also love to create meaning. And so one of the ways we heal through bad experiences is to make meaning out of them and figure out what this means for my future? Can I now educate others about this, or is that even something I want to do? Who am I now that this situation has ended? And when you are in that process, some people stumble upon other people. They happen to be in a similar place where they are. Some people don’t. That’s one thing about relationships, like, a lot of people ask me, like, how do I get married? How do I do this? How do I get in a relationship? And I’ve got to be honest with people; a part of it is luck.
A part of it is in the right place at the right time, with the right amount of self-awareness and preparedness. It’s kind of like getting that really great job. It’s like you got to be ready on your side. But that job also has to be there.
Do your work and be kind to yourself, because, after bad relationships, we tell ourselves I’m never going to find love. No one’s ever going to want to be with me. I’m too this; I’m too that empathy and love and kindness are the ways to really work your way through it. So that when you find yourself in a position where possible partners are in front of you, you can say I’m ready.
Tune in to Tyler Perry’s “Sistas” on Wednesdays at 9/8c on BET.
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