ft. Yolanda

How to spot a toxic relationship:

Toxic behaviours our listeners have experienced (name calling, lying continuously)

Yolanda shares her toxic relationship story- how it started, toxic behaviour she experienced and how she got out of the relationship

Toxic relationship red flags

The lovely Yolanda, the host of Speak On podcast, talks to us about toxic relationships. (TW: emotional abuse, coercive behaviour and gaslighting.)

We begin the episode by hearing the most toxic things that have been done to our listeners, including name calling and lying continuously. We discuss how often these behaviours go unnoticed, and might seem like not a big deal at the time, but build up over time to erode trust in your relationship.

Yolanda then tells us her toxic relationship story. She tells us what a toxic relationship feels like, and red flags of a toxic relationship. She explains that it's hard to recognise you're in a toxic relationship and to leave it as you're often hoping it will get better, but it's hard to know if a toxic relationship can ever get better. We discuss how to get out of a toxic relationship when you live together and how to help someone in a toxic relationship based on what she thinks people could have done to have helped her if they had known more about what was happening. We also cover healing after a toxic relationship and what a toxic relationship can do to you in the long term, such as making it difficult for you to trust others and to be in relationships further down the line.

It can be hard to see the signs of a toxic relationship, but ultimately, we learn, putting a label to the actions is helpful in identifying that you're in a toxic relationship. There is so much victim blaming when it comes to those who are stuck in toxic relationships, too, but it's important to change how we discuss and learn about them so that we can know how to help someone in a toxic relationship and help them move on once they're able to break away.

We love you all so much! Remember you can always reach out to us to discuss something, even though we're not professionals, and if you're in a relationship where you notice a toxic dynamic, or even if you're in a relationship where you're unhappy, leave it. You deserve happiness and you deserve to be loved for who you are.

You can find more of Yolanda on her podcast Speak On- we recorded an episode with her over on her podcast about sex education, so go have a listen to that and all the other episodes! Find them on Instagram on @speakon_ or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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