6 Signs Of Toxic People

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

How can you tell if a toxic person is around you? In reality, this is not a scientific concept, and there are no clear diagnostic criteria. If a person, in your opinion, poisons your life, it is rather a subjective feeling and, accordingly, each of the criteria can be expressed in the interlocutor to a greater or lesser extent

So how do you understand what is toxic to you in a relationship with a particular person?

A person perceives his life as a complete failure - any attempts to change something are futile, it is impossible to get out of this deep hole, bottomless hole. Moreover, he in every possible way convinces you of the same. Any failure or negative situation of yours is interpreted by him as a "global catastrophe". Such negative conversations are repeated quite often, and over time you start to think: "Maybe he is right?"

Often this behavior speaks of some acting out - the person is bad inside, so he dumps all the negativity. A great example is two monkeys from the cartoon "Madagascar", which all the time said: "Right! Let's throw poop at the lecturer! " Relatively speaking, this person throws poop everywhere. This is a kind of primary children's mechanism of protection against pain.

A person will try to control you all the time, crush you psychologically ("Where are you? Why are you there? Where have you been?"). If at some point you miss the thread of the conversation or get lost, he will think that you are cheating - accusations and manifestations of mistrust will begin. Doubt and suspicion are also associated with a child's primary defense mechanism called omnipotent control.

In addition, this person will often criticize your resource places in which you receive support (this can be relationships with relatives, acquaintances, friends), trying to find something indecent in your friends and convince them of a bad attitude (“Why is he Did you say that? How did she look at you? And do you often see them? "). Sometimes they even step on the boundaries of psychotherapy ("Your therapist is somehow wrong! He says the wrong things!"), Often this happens in zones when you are trying to protect your boundaries. In those places where you will set boundaries (especially if this is done with the help of friends or a psychotherapist), you will encounter negativity (“Vasya thinks that we’re building relationships in the wrong way? No, this is your Vasya wrong! stop communicating with him! "). As a rule, if it is a long-term relationship (for example, a married couple), after a year, two, five you will be left without friends, acquaintances and support. The only support you will have in your life is this person. However, if you do not provide him with a full account of your actions, in return you get tantrums, accusations, offensive curses, humiliation, a stream of passive aggression (he is afraid to show strong and open aggression), and as a result, you feel compressed and crushed in a relationship.

Constant grumbling, crying, complaints that something is missing - such people demand to spend with them as much time, money, attention, resources, care as possible, make complaints about cleaning the apartment, washing dishes, making more money, etc. relations, there is a feeling of a "vicious circle" - you have already done everything you could, but the partner's dissatisfaction only "rolls over like a snowball." As a result, your energy will be depleted, your emotional state will resemble a "squeezed lemon" - you try, do and do, but nothing is appreciated, all your actions are simply devalued. This is also the primary level of the defense mechanism.

A person often criticizes, speaks out sharply in your direction, condemns, directing his aggressive statements directly into your Ego, into the most sore spot of your psyche. Usually such people are very clever at finding painful points, hitting them mercilessly, devaluing you without thinking about anything, 80% of their time are tuned in to the fact that everything is very bad in life. Moreover, they often compare themselves with other, more successful people (naturally, at a loss to themselves, for example: “You have rich parents, that's why everything worked out”), as if they did not make any effort to achieve the desired goal.

A person always shifts the blame onto someone else, unable to admit his own mistakes, to take responsibility for his actions (this is, in principle, impossible for their psyche, so small it is - relatively speaking, the development of the psyche stopped at the age of one year). I cannot yet take responsibility, so I can only blame - everyone around is bad (the president is not the same, the government is not the same, the country is not the same, the working conditions are not the same)!

This person cannot change anything, take control into his own hands, do something on his own in his life, is not able, for some reason does not. There may be another situation - he takes up some business, but does not finish it to the end (irresponsibility is our everything!). Quite often, such people sincerely promise to change, theatrically and beautifully fall at their feet, cry. Naturally, you will be pleased to hear such promises ("I will pull myself together! I will correct myself, I will change!") And sincere apologies, but keep in mind that the person's behavior will not change - he will continue to do the same, will bring you the same pain … This behavior is typical of people-alcoholics, drug addicts - their psyche is at an early level of development, they really want to change, but they do not have enough internal resources.

A person all the time names his life, but as soon as you try to help him, he refuses to help, refusing that he cannot (“This is not for me, not exactly what I want in life”). In his transactional analysis, Eric Berne cited the game "Yes, but …" as an example, and this "Yes, but" is inherent in these people ("Yes, but I will not succeed", "Yes, but this is not for me", "Yes, but I have the wrong conditions," etc.). This behavior will cause you unbearable powerlessness and anger - you are trying to help a person, you want to do something for him (there is a way out!), But nothing works, as a result you will already feel annoyed and disappointed from fatigue. Not accepting help is called negotism and is also considered a fairly early form of defense mechanism.

To summarize all of the above signs - next to toxic people, you lose energy, inspiration, excitement. It would seem that they have come up with a new project that needs to be tested, but after sharing the idea with this person, in response you will hear: “You still won't succeed! Life is a continuous streak of failures, why are you trying to do something? Sit still and do not twitch! ". Near a toxic person, your energy charge will always decrease, you will experience chronic fatigue and irritation. Even if you "charge" somewhere on the side with inspiration, but share your ideas and desires with him, he will "chop off" you in some most illogical place.

It is almost impossible to change the situation, because a person is so firmly convinced that life is bad that nothing can be done about it.

However, you should not hang a label on a person ( That's it! This person is a sadist and psychopath, narcissist! I will not communicate with him!), He also wants some kind of human relationship. It is important to understand where this toxicity comes from. In fact, these are people with a weak psyche (weak mental nucleus), exhibiting the behavior of an infant who was not consoled by the mother (he is always bad and anxious, he needs to be consoled - “Everything will be fine, don’t worry!”). At some point, it is possible for a person to hear, but in general, such individuals need a rather long therapy so that they can get on a stable track. Alternatively, you can limit yourself in dealing with such people, not get emotionally involved in their pessimistic world, not merge with them. However, the most important thing - just understand that this is a person who most likely had a difficult childhood, especially in infancy, and his psyche did not have time to form, so he does not have the ability to take resources from life. He sees only the negative in this life.

If you fall under the influence of such toxic people, there is a hook in your psyche that they hook you on. Think what it might be. It is important to figure out what you got involved in, what kept you in the relationship with this person.