How Toxic Relationships Rewire Your Brain

Nobody talks about how your brain physically changes when you stay in a toxic relationship too

long. After six months of walking on eggshells around my ex, I noticed I couldn't

make simple decisions anymore. Turns out chronic stress floods your brain with cortisol

which actually shrinks your hippocampus. That's the part responsible for memory and decision

making. I'd stand in the grocery store for twenty minutes unable to pick between

two cereals. My friends thought I was being dramatic but my therapist explained that constant

hypervigilance rewires your neural pathways. Your brain gets stuck in survival mode even when the

threat is gone. It took me eight months after leaving to stop flinching when someone raised