Little things can change someone's life whether good or bad. I think for me the biggest impact on my life was discovering who I am. Pointing out the flaws and searching deep to see me for who I really am. I decided to open my mind and see everything that made me great but also confronted parts of me that were the most toxic. I searched my whole mind to see what caused me to be me. I pulled out the parts of me that proved to me that I was a great person. I am a great listener, I listen to people and what they have to say. I observe the situation around me and get a feeling of what the atmosphere is before diving in. I try to make everyone happy, I strive to make everything perfect. But in the end, there are toxic traits. I did not have to search too far to be able to spot the negativity. For example, I am self-loathing. I am full of self-hatred, the hatred that comes and devours me whole but instead of fighting the hatred, I let it take control. I also blame myself for things that are not my fault. Every little inconvenience, every little problem makes my brain believe that it is all my fault. For everyone's bad day, I was the main reason why. I thought and believed that I was a burden to people that I cared about. I knew I wasn't, but my brain didn't let me believe that. The next toxic trait I knew I had that I wholeheartedly believed that was protecting me was the walls that I built up. These walls were walls I built up years ago. When I first felt the dreadful effects of sadness. I hated that feeling, and I never wanted to feel it again. But I kept feeling it, it would creep into my soul like a snake slithering in the grass; you couldn't see it at first until the moments before it bites you and it hurt so bad. I kept feeling this pain over and over again and I wanted nothing more than to stop the pain. The pain of betrayal and the pain of abandonment. The fear of being rejected and never being loved again. There were so many people that have left me in the past and this pain was so unbearable. So in order for me to never feel this pain, I built up walls so high that even I, the one that made them, couldn't tear them down. I stopped letting people in so quickly, I never told anyone how I really feel, I stop taking friendships too seriously and I started distancing myself away from everybody. I felt happy. I felt that nothing in the world could help me. This feeling made me believe that everything was finally okay, the pain wasn't coming back to hurt me. But these walls that I trusted were also the same walls that kept me from being who I wanted to be. The walls that I trusted would help me, ended up restraining me from life. Those walls became almost impossible for me to tear down and I ended up being in more pain than I was ever in before. My toxic traits began becoming more and more like my only traits. I began blaming myself more and hating myself even more. I never told a soul what was happening on the inside. I felt more suffocated than ever. I realized that these traits were doing me nothing but complete harm. I was not feeling any better than I did before I built up the walls I claimed were the fix to my pain. Friends began leaving me because I was becoming something that they couldn't deal with. At that point, everything I had ever fear to be started to come true. I started to be a burden to people because I was acting completely different. I was becoming more distant and more self-deprecating. And I started to hate myself for it. I decided enough was enough and to make myself better. I identified what these toxic traits were, and began breaking down pieces of the tower that I had created. I began treating myself right and decided that these traits weren't going to tear me down any longer. I started forgiving myself more and fixing my mental state. I started letting people in, pushing toxic people out, I did things that made me happy and abandon the things that hurt me. I stopped blaming myself for peoples hard times. I tried to reassure that everything was going to be okay. Although I still am trying to break down that tower, I know that everything will be okay. I still do have moments that I feel like everything is just a complete waste of my time but I know that these feelings will pass and everything will be worth it at the end. That pain can never leave but it is a pain that we can work on healing. Friends will come and go but you have to stay you. I have many people that have greatly impacted my life. Some were negative and some were positive but they all shared something in common, they all taught me a lesson on how to take things. My toxic traits will always be a way for me to learn from my mistakes. These toxic traits do not define me and I will not let them suffocate me again. This experience made me understand that toxic traits are not easy to handle and they take time but I am willing to take as much time needed. At the end of all of this, time was what I needed to heal.