“Toxic” has become one of the most casually used words in modern psychology and wellness culture: toxic relationship, toxic family, toxic workplace, toxic person, toxic body. I understand why the language emerged and it gives people a vocabulary for experiences that may genuinely be hurtful and damaging. But I do increasingly wonder whether calling people toxic sometimes closes down a much more interesting conversation.
In toxicology, the substance alone does not determine the outcome. Dose matters and duration matters, as does the route of exposure, the resilience of the organism matters and context matters. The same substance may be tolerated in one circumstance and harmful in another or tolerated by one person and not another.
Could relationships sometimes be viewed similarly?
Perhaps a person does not have to be inherently “toxic” for a relationship to become unhealthy as two perfectly decent people can create a destructive dynamic. A relationship may demand constant adaptation from one person while requiring very little from another and someone may continually suppress irritation to maintain harmony. Someone else may become permanently vigilant around another person's unpredictability and a child may learn to become exceptionally compliant because compliance keeps the family ecosystem stable whilst another becomes the loud child, the difficult child, the anxious child or the funny child. These behaviours can look like personality but sometimes they began as adaptation.
This is where health becomes interesting. Human beings do not leave relationships at the door of the clinic consulting room or the zoom waiting room; we carry them physiologically.
Think about everyday physiological responses - a difficult conversation can alter heart rate within seconds, anticipation can change appetite, conflict can destroy sleep, feeling unsafe can change muscle tension, digestion and attention.
Conversely, the presence of someone we deeply trust can change our physiology almost immediately. This however does not mean every disease is caused by relationships and nor does it mean leaving a difficult relationship cures illness.
Human biology is far too complex for such neat equations, but perhaps functional health sometimes becomes so fascinated with biochemical exposures that it overlooks relational ones.
We investigate mould, pollutants, nutrient deficiencies, infections and inflammatory triggers often appropriately, yet what about environments in which somebody never fully relaxes? What about relationships requiring continual self-suppression? Or what about the energetic cost of constantly anticipating another person's mood?
Homeopathy has always been interested in these details because the meaning of an experience to the individual can matter as much as the event itself.
Two people can inhabit the same household and experience entirely different realities and therefore perhaps the question is not simply: Is this relationship toxic?
Perhaps a more revealing question is: Who do I have to become to remain in this relationship or perhaps even more importantly: What does it cost me to keep becoming that person?
This is why I don't believe we can completely separate physiology from the environment in which that physiology exists. We can investigate nutrition, digestion, nutrient status, energy and the many functional factors influencing health, but we should remain curious about the wider ecosystem too. Relationships, responsibilities, work, family dynamics and the places in which we spend our lives all form part of that ecosystem.
My work through functional nutritional therapy, homeopathy and lifestyle mentoring allows us to look through several lenses at once: what is happening physiologically, how does this particular individual respond to their world, and what within everyday life continually asks their system to adapt? The aim isn't to label people, relationships or experiences as the cause of illness. It is to understand the whole person more completely — because health never happens in isolation.
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Best wishes