What is a toxic person?
A toxic person is a person that takes more than they give.
This type of person is someone that causes discomfort, uncertainty, and judgement. A toxic person gives off a negative environment and can leave you feeling negative about yourself.
When we are faced with a toxic person in our lives, we are usually left feeling drained and let down. This person can be abusive, not supportive and create an unhealthy emotional response. It can be someone that you feel dependent on, that you cannot have in your life, but that is the unhealthy emotional response, to the uncertainty in the relationship. This is done with intent.
Toxic people have abusive characteristics within their personality, these characteristics do not have to be violent, but still provide an emotional imbalance, that is lined with an offense. Toxic people try to gain as much power and control over a situation as they can.
Why might we not see a toxic person right away?
There are multiple reasons as to why we might not see a toxic person in our life right away. This is not to say we cannot read the signs or feel the emotions, but there are some forms of denial at play. It is also relevant to what type of relationship we have with this person.
Romantic Relationship
Toxicity is a romantic relationship might take years to realize. Physical abuse is an obvious form of abuse, emotional is underlying, dependent on what our psyche is ready to admit.
Frequently is romantic relationships there is a form of denial, that the way someone treats you is not wrong, eventually when you begin to feel emotionally burdened every day by your romantic partner, you will realize that forms of toxicity they bring to your life.
This is where an assessment is necessary.
Platonic Relationship
Platonic relationships can be just as abusive and toxic as romantic relationships.
Just as in a romantic relationship there are the first stages of denial, where our new friend couldn’t possibly be the one causing this discomfort and emotional unease.
Toxic people in friendships or family are quite damaging to one’s center. These relationships are supposed to be safe environments, where one can express themselves with ease and be judgement-free; however, that is not always the case. There can still be forms of manipulation and emotional damage set by these individuals.
What are the tell tale signs of a toxic person?
There are a variety of tell tale signs that a toxic person has, usually a combination of the qualities below. These are the qualities that a toxic person encompasses in their personality, and signs that will help you determine if they are causing your emotional unease.
Nothing is Good Enough
No matter how hard you try, or how much you give this person, it is never good enough for them. And they won’t pretend it is either.
Playing Victim
When told they are doing something wrong, this person will play the victim. Instead of admitting to a mistake, they will pretend that they are being targeted.
Guilt and Shame
When someone angers them, instead of talking through the concern, they will make the other person feel guilty and feel ashamed of themselves in order to gain control and power over the situation again.
Silent Treatment
They might try to make you feel guilty and ashamed through the silent treatment. Completely ignoring your presence in order to make you feel as broken as possible.
However, when they need something from you, the silent treatment is instantly over and they are back to caring about you.
Critics
There are always going to be people who critic your work, your personality or the way that you do the dishes. A toxic person however will constantly critic you, as if you can never do anything right.
Again, this is a way to gain power and control over a situation and over a person. It is a sign of insecurity.
Boundary Violation
As human beings we need to set proper boundaries for others to understand our comfort and discomfort in a situation.
Toxic people will not respect those boundaries and continue to push in order to make us feel uncomfortable and emotional insecure.
All About Them
There are moments where someone needs to talk about themselves and only about themselves, that is what therapy is for.
A toxic person however only cares about themselves. This means that, not only do they need to talk about themselves, they are not concerned, at all, about the other person’s needs.
Manipulation
All of these tell tales combined create a manipulative person.
A person who tries to take control of the situation in order to feel powerful and undermining of others.
What can you do to help yourself?
There are lots of ways to deal with a toxic person. Sometimes you are lucky enough to sit down and talk to them about how you are feeling. Come up with a plan in order to salvage the relationships.
Sometimes you have to look at the people that are valuable to your life, and the people that are not. A toxic person is not valuable to your life, they are causing more harm than good, which means that you might have to let go of the relationship. This might be hard, and it will feel uncomfortable at first, but eventually, your heart will start to mend. You will become stronger.
Sometimes these toxic people are people from your own family. When we let go of a relationship, it doesn’t entirely mean that you will never see this person again. It just means that you no longer let them have power over your life, your emotions and your choices.
This post is so informative and helpful. It is so important to realize who are the toxic people around us and distance ourselves from them.
Antonia || Sweet Passions
Freeing yourself of people with these toxic qualities. It’s hard and sad, but a must.
You make some good points. Toxic relationships are difficult to navigate and, sometimes, it just means you need to let it go. It’s a big challenge when you’re dealing with a toxic family member or someone you will need to somehow still deal with. Thanks for the insight.
A couple of years ago there was a toxic person in my life who I actually met through my blog when I first started blogging. She DMed me on Instagram complimenting my blog and said that she had experience working with the special needs community too (my blog is a special needs advocacy blog). After that we befriended one another and she eventually began cyberstalking me. She wanted all of my time to herself. She never said that and would deny it if anyone said it to her, but showed it the way she constantly lacked boundaries. If I said I wasn’t available, she would say, “That’s ok”, but then immediately continue to message me repeatedly no matter how many times I called her out for it. She would say that I was ignoring her if I wasn’t answering her but was posting on social media saying that wasn’t important implying that she was more important than my blog. If I wanted to self-care which is actually how I cope as part of my anxiety, she would say that “I cannot be friends with someone who constantly needs ‘time to myself'” and said that something was wrong with our friendship if I gave up talking to her temporarily for that when mental health always should come first before anything. She would say that she was an advocate for special needs too and “selfless” and wanted to become a teacher, but she wasn’t. She worked in multiple childcare centers and was always job hopping because she could not take constructive criticism when its meant to help you not be cruel to you. No matter how many times that was explained to her though it just wouldn’t work. She never took “no” for an answer from anyone about anything. If she was told she had to take initiative she would refuse to because she “don’t feel like it” or would say it is “lead teacher’s job to do that” when it was every teacher’s job responsibility. She was very unprofessional and would gaslight. She made helping the special needs community all about her too. Selflessness is supposed to be doing things for others without expecting things in return, but if I or anyone else got something in return for what we did and she didn’t, she made it all about her and would say “I’m jealous” or “That’s not fair.” Yes, we all get jealous but she would never show praise and just constantly say she was jealous. One time she told me she was jealous of an opportunity I recieved and when I said “I am so excited about this opportunity!”, she said, “You’re excited that I’m jealous?” and I said “no, the opportunity” and she said “oh” and she laughed. If the special needs community got attention for things at the special needs events we volunteered at and volunteers didn’t she would get mad when it wasn’t about us. She had some learning differences too but she was mainstream and would say, “But I have special needs too so I should be acknowledged too”, but she was a volunteer not a guest so it wasn’t going to be made about her and if she was so “selfless” why was she making it about her? Another time it was NYE and I posted my “Best 9 Instagram Posts” using the Best 9 Instagram app. For those of you who may not know what that is, it’s an app that selects the 9 posts that got the most likes in one year and it selects it for you. That year she just so happened to not be in any of them and she said “I’m not in any” and didn’t think it was fair when that is not under my control. The app selects it for you and it’s based on what 9 posts got the most likes in one year. So I can’t control how many likes a photo got. Another time we were attending a Lip Sync Show for the students with special needs at my high school and I invited her. The night before I made a post and tagged all of the Life Skills students shouting them out and she commented that I didn’t tag her when the post was not about her. She always made everything I did about her and if I had any innovative ideas about doing things for the special needs community she always had something negative to say about it. She was always trying to dictate everything I did when my life was up to me and my family. She would constantly copy me too. I am so relieved that she is out of my life.
Thank you for sharing this experience. A relationship with toxicity in it is always a struggle.
I am glad to hear that you no longer have that toxicity in your life.
Hey Abigal!!
Thank you for writing this, and breaking down how to identify a toxic person.
The signs are always there, but often, when our hearts are entirely invested, especially in a romantic relationship, being in denial causes one to make a poor judgment by staying with this person.
Well written post!
xoxo,
Widster
Great article! You bring up some good points.
This is a great post! In my past, I constantly attracted toxic people into my life… There were always the same signs but it was like a trap I fell into again and again. When I finally realized, that this is not “happening to me” and I’m letting people do this to me, it finally started to change. Now I can smell toxic people from a distance. xD
It’s so important to raise awareness of this! Thanks for sharing this! 🙂