We grew up with many manipulative and toxic people and sometimes our mind is constantly telling us that the person is damaging us but our heart is unable to believe that. Instead of recognizing those people around us, we tried fixing ourselves, made unhealthy compromises and it leads us to ruin our mental health. Toxic people do exist and chances are that you may have encountered them in your life. Toxic people are experts in putting other people down. They think of themselves as having the power to hold others and take control of them. Let’s dig deeper to know more about the traits of toxic people.
1. Toxic people play the victim:
Toxic people think they don’t have power or control over their life, so they constantly blame and complain about others most of the time. Let me make it more understandable with an example, your friend got low grades and you go to her to console her, she is constantly blaming and cursing the education system, the examination system does not do justice, and saying all this to gain sympathy and out blame on the system, and later on, ask you if you can bring food for them, and then asks you to help with another chore, then another chore, constantly trying to control you, consuming your energy, time and money.
Have you ever come across a situation where your friend talked shit about you behind your back but later on, when you tried to communicate about it, they put the blame on you that you deserve this and make you apologize instead of apologizing themselves. That’s a sign of toxic people. Toxic people blame you for someone else’s problem, put you down when you try to uplift them.
Small sensor signals help us recognize toxic people around us, keep track of them and remove them from our life instantly.
2. Verbal and emotional abuse:
Emotional abuse is the abuse from our loved ones, it can be in the form of depression, low self-esteem, lack of motivation, self-abuse, yelling, belittling, and accusing someone. If you are confused about it, ask yourself these questions: do other people put you down while talking, do they disregard your opinion in front of others, do they try to control you, do they make you feel a little, do they make you feel responsible for all the problems in their life.
3. Toxic people are manipulative:
Toxic people are masters in manipulating others. Have you come across your friends or partners or family members asking you where you were, what you were doing, or did they try to control you in front of other people? If yes, these are all traits of toxic people. Toxic people who are narcissistic and manipulative are unable to recognize that they are doing something wrong, they might be suffering from a borderline personality disorder or narcissistic personality disorder and sometimes they are unconsciously affected by it due to the controlling behavior of one’s parents.
4. They dont respect the boundaries:
Toxic people don’t respect the boundaries of other people. If you ask them to not talk about personal territory or your private life. They don’t repost and try to knock at your boundary to see how you react and make you feel belittled, powerless and awkward.
It can also be targeting your weakness after you have repeatedly asked them not to cross the boundary next time, but they enjoy this process.
Threatening you value like your choice of food, drink, your choice to go somewhere or your choice to stay at home. But they are confronting you and insisting you do what they like what they prefer. They put you in a compromising situation. If your partner or friend doesn’t respect your pattern of behavior and every time they knock at your boundary, it is time to say goodbye to them.
Healthy boundaries are important for every relationship to make them sustainable for a long time, however, they are unable to respect that, if the time to rethink spending your time and energy with those people.
5. Toxic people down play you:
Have you ever come across people who tried to put you down when you talk to them about your accomplishments, don’t clap for you when you win and instead of being happy about your success, they get jealous. They could not grasp that you have achieved this, and instead of congratulating you on your success, they downplay you.
Let’s say you wore your favorite dress and it’s clear that you are looking beautiful, and you ask your friend how you are looking, instead of giving a nice complement, they passed a comment saying: “ It’s all the power of makeup you put on your face”. This comment itself is enough to tell you how toxic they are. Toxic people who timely praise you with a pinch of negativity, don’t want you to feel good because it risks their confidence.
6. Trust your gut:
Another most common sign to identify toxic people is to trust your gut. Trust me your guilt intuitions are true most of the time. Just observe how do you feel when other people come to you, how do they make you feel, do they knock your confidence, do they try to threaten you or downplay. If yes, it’s time to check on them. Recognize the red flags in your relationship to live a prosperous and tension-free life.
Conclusion:
Toxic friends, family members, and relatives are common to find and with these sensory signals, it’s easy to identify them. Sometimes it’s difficult for us to recognize them due to a lack of awareness and knowledge. Do you ding anyone in your surrounding who is toxic, whose downplay, wh has controlling behavior, who is manipulative, and who is a pathological liar? Identify them and cut them off from your life, because you deserve to be treated a good way, and it’s not your responsibility to fix them.
