Toxic people negatively impact your life, whether through words or actions, and cause you to feel worse about yourself. When we think about why toxic people act as they do, it can be hard to understand or fathom the process behind severely negative behaviour. We first understand that our comfort matters in relationships instead of putting people who are harmful to us first out of guilt. Ultimately, what matters is detaching ourselves from people who make us feel bad.
Which of our treatments can best help you to deal with toxic people?
- Guided Meditation can enable us to look critically at those around us, and try to understand their perspectives. Ultimately, it can help us to decide whether we should continue our relationships, or detach ourselves from them.
How to Identify Toxic People
Toxic people negatively impact your life. Do you have people in your life who say wild and rude things to and about you? Who are deceitful or two-faced? Who seems to tell various versions of the truth to multiple people? Do you feel some people are purposefully sabotaging events in your life or creating crossed wires to damage your other relationships? Sometimes people do these things without us even noticing it. One way of identifying toxic people is to confront them about their toxicity. Look out for false or manipulatively emotional apologies, intense denial and aggressive behaviour. All three different responses indicate that the person is aware of what they are doing.
The effects of toxic people can be far-reaching, ranging from complete emotional collapse to destroyed sense of self-esteem and problems with processing events due to gaslighting. We may find ourselves stressed and angry after a brutal encounter with a toxic person.
The Cause
What makes toxic people toxic? It’s a question that is hard to answer, as there is no definitive answer. Sometimes people who act toxically have themselves been victims of toxic behaviour from their parents or friends. Other people are harmful out of a need for control or a desire to manipulate social situations without a definitive reason. What can be hard to understand is that despite the shortcomings that make toxic people toxic, and while you can express sympathy for them, you have no obligation to contact people who mistreat you or create your life worse.
The Opposite
When we think about the opposite of toxic people, we may consider a healthy grasp of their emotions, a lack of need to control others and a generally more positive mindset than other people. These are traits we can all have which we can all work on for ourselves. Learning and growing are essential, and toxic people can certainly do this, but behaving warily towards those who claim to have grown is perfectly rational. Surround yourself with people who make you want to be a better person, whose company you mutually enjoy, and who make you feel good about yourself.
