How Many Toxic People Do You Know?

Remember Mr. Yuk?  He was the face of a campaign launched by the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh to help parents label household chemicals that are poisonous when ingested.  These green stickers were placed on common household cleaning products to indicate to children that they shouldn't drink them, play with them, or touch them.  The Mr. Yuk campaign has probably saved a lot of children from harming themselves with poisonous substances.

Wouldn't it be nice if toxic people had to wear a label?  They would be much easier to spot and we could know, at a glance, that if we mess with them, we will end up getting hurt.  Unfortunately, we have to learn how to identify toxic people on our own, and they aren't always so easy to spot in the beginning.

There are two types of toxic people who end up in our lives: the ones we choose, and the ones we are born into.  The chosen people in our lives who are or can become toxic influences include those people we date and/or marry, friends, and in some cases, bosses and co-workers.  The unchosen toxic people can be our parents, our siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, step-parents and even adult children. The term "chosen relationship" in the context of this blog is not meant to indicate that one has "chosen" to be in a relationship with a toxic person; it just means you chose that relationship and you have the option of unchoosing it in order to free yourself from it's poisonous effects on your life.

More complicated are those "unchosen" relationships with toxic people.  Often we feel we have no choice but to continue to include such people in our lives. After all, they are family, and family sticks together. You can't un-choose your parents or siblings, right?  Well, partly right.  You can't make them NOT be your family anymore, but you can limit their influence on your life by limiting your contact with them.  Often poisonous family members are as difficult to spot as poisonous strangers.  Toxic behaviors are not openly discussed as such, making them much harder to spot, identify and distance ourselves from.

The aim of this blog is to help people who are trapped in unhealthy relationships with toxic people.  It is not a resource for helping you figure out how to change the toxic people in your life (or detoxify them) but to detox your life.  There is a way to rid yourself of the negativity and pain that comes from living your life in the shadow of toxic people, but it will require you to work on yourself, make some tough decisions, and learn to create healthy personal boundaries that are consistent throughout all your relationships.

The first step in ridding your life of poisonous people is to identify who they are.  Whether you've just met someone who is giving you that "something's not right" feeling, or you've been struggling to get along with you sister for years, these are some signs that the difficult people in your life are, indeed toxic:

• He/She has a way of making everything about him/herself.  An example of this would be the person who has a seriously ill relative, but rather than allowing the attention and focus of others be directed at the sick person, the Toxic Person (TP) will put on a show of great emotional distress, make his/her role as caregiver into a heroic effort to be praised, or turn their role as caregiver into a picture of Martyrdom.  If you have a problem, the TP will have a bigger problem.  If you are sick, the TP will be sicker. If your husband is toxic and you lose your job, he will complain about how the lack of income affects HIM, rather than how you might feel about having lost your job.
• Toxic people complain a lot.  You will rarely have a conversation with a TP who doesn't have something to complain about.   At a restaurant, they are never pleased with the food, the service or the bill. She will rarely order something off the menu "as is".  Even on the most pleasant of days, he will complain about the temperature, the humidity, or the pollen levels.  
• TP do not generally notice the good things about you.  They are nit-pickers and criticizers.  No matter what you do for them, it's usually not enough, or you didn't do it the right way.  Their criticism doesn't stop at judging the things you do for them.  They will also criticize your personal choices, your appearance, the way you manage money or keep your house.  Nothing is off limits.
• TP are not good at giving sincere compliments or praise.  Some Toxic People will excessively talk about how "wonderful" you are to the point that it makes you uncomfortable and feels very insincere.  That's because it IS insincere.  Others will simply never have anything good to say about you, while expecting unlimited amounts of praise from you about them.
• TP' feel entitled to special treatment, even when they haven't earned it.  
• TP  will talk poorly of others to you, and will talk poorly of you to others.
• TP see the world in black and white.  It is not uncommon to be in the TP's good graces one day and find yourself totally disowned the next.  This black and white thinking comes as a result of the TP over-idealizing certain people, and then finding out that that person cannot live up to his impossible ideal.  In the eyes of a TP, you are either perfect or horrible.  There is no in-between.  Black and white thinking also extends to issues of morality.  There is no grey area in life for a TP.
• A TP cannot accept that you have different ideas and opinions and that your differing perspectives are just as "right" as his.
• A TP finds it hard to apologize.
• A TP expects others to apologize to them, even when apologies are not warranted.
• TP try to control everyone and every thing around them.  By maintaining a sense of control, they maintain the illusion of power.  They are unaware of or are unconcerned with the personal power of others.  They want the last word in arguments, they will brow-beat you until you agree with them, they will make demands on your time and will expect you to be fully accountable to them for all your actions.  
• TP resent your autonomy.
• TP resent any demands that another makes of them.  A TP may willingly give of his time, affection, or money if and when he decides he wants to, but the minute you ask him for something he will balk, complain and/or refuse to give it to you.
• TP interfere in your other relationships.  A Toxic husband may try to keep his wife from spending time with her parents, a toxic friend might demand that you not be friends with someone else that she doesn't like, a toxic co-worker may spread rumors in the office in an effort to alienate you from your colleagues.  Toxic grandparents or even step-parents may criticize the way you parent your children, undermine your authority with your children or speak poorly about you to your children.  
• TP want to be the center of everyone else's universe.  That is why it is important for the TP to isolate you from all your other friendships/relationships.
• TP want you to feel dependent upon them.  For a TP, being loved is not enough.  They need to be needed as well, because being needed gives them a sense of security in the relationship.
• TP make you feel tired, confused and defeated. If you can think of someone in your life who leaves you feeling drained after having spent time with them, you have likely been in the company of a Toxic Person.

Now that you have a few descriptions of toxic behaviors, try to think of the people in your life who are Toxic.  How do you feel when you've been around them?  Is there more than one?  Are most of the people in your life of the poisonous variety?

If so, don't despair.  Recognizing unhealthy relationships is just the beginning of the beginning of change.  You cannot affect change until you figure where to start.  If you've determined that toxic people are stealing your joy, it is time to identify and begin the work of taking your power back.