Hi Anita,
That’s a good question. It has been brought up, and although origionally I did pin that to be the starting cause, I’m starting to believe that was a point of manifestation of anxieties that I had developed over time.
I’ve been able to realise the core of my anxiety to be low self esteem, and when the relationship became toxic, my self esteem and perspective of myself contributed to it, by not walking away when I should have walked away. By allowing myself to be treated poorly, I was subconsciously affirming my own perspective of my worth and feeding that cycle of low self esteem.
This revelation is honestly very new, and can be hard to get my head around sometimes!