After Toxic Relationships: First Steps to Recovery

When you walk out of a relationship that drained you, the first feeling is often guilt and heaviness. Dr. Andris Saulitis is blunt: that guilt and everything attached to it — you don't need it. Toxic people and toxic activities are something to step away from, not to keep building your life on. But he flips the question of "what to do": you start not by analyzing your partner, but with yourself — with your own state.

First — recognize

The key first step is to learn to recognize. The doctor stresses: "you have to recognize the illness… and then simply treat it." This means honestly naming your condition instead of pretending everything is fine. Recognition is what sets all forward movement in motion.

Restore your mental health, not "settle scores"

By the doctor's logic, after failed relationships the first thing to restore is your mental health: sleep, homeostasis, your baseline state. First you regain your stability, and only then will everything else "fall into place." This is prevention and self-work — not an attempt to immediately analyze everything or prove a point.

The ignition effect: one thing pulls the next

The doctor uses the image of fire. It's enough to light a candle — the match catches, a fast reaction begins, and light and warmth appear. The same here: when you bring your state up to the level of mental health, the body "heats up like a stove" — and warmth and light then come on their own. You only need to start the reaction.

Small steps and through the opposite

Recovery is a skill, built gradually. The doctor offers a classic image: a child bitten by a big dog is given a small, gentle puppy — and the fear slowly fades. In other words, you approach new experience starting from the smallest, softest, safest step. The principle of positive reinforcement and moving toward the opposite — toward assertiveness instead of avoidance — works here.

Live it, don't play a role

A separate thought from the doctor: what you want from a relationship can't be acted out or explained in words — you have to live it. "If you want a partner or a friend to take something from you, you have to live it." And another key test: watch whether it "sticks" or not. If it comes together — good. If not — then go where you are received.

Practice

1. Name the state. Honestly recognize that you're struggling — don't excuse it and don't blame only the other person.
2. Let go of guilt. Remember: "that guilt and everything else — you don't need it."
3. Rebuild the base. First take care of sleep and your general state — your mental health, not picking apart your partner.
4. Start small. Take small, safe steps toward new contact — like the "small gentle puppy" after the big dog.
5. Use the "sticks / doesn't stick" check. Go toward people and places where you are received.