Some people hurt people around them, and these types of toxic people are the ones you should avoid at all costs. They seem to derive satisfaction from manipulating others or creating chaos and pushing people to the extreme.
How many types of toxic people have you encountered yet? You should know that there are different types of toxic people and different types of toxic personalities.
Toxic people defy logic. Some are blissfully unaware of the negative impact that they have on those around them, and others seem to derive satisfaction from creating chaos and pushing other peopleโs buttons.
As important as it is to learn how to deal with different kinds of people, truly toxic people will never be worth your time and energyโand they take a lot of each. Toxic people create unnecessary complexity, strife, and, worst of all, stress.
โPeople inspire you, or they drain youโpick them wisely.โ โ Hans F. Hansen
Recent research from Friedrich Schiller University in Germany shows just how serious toxic people are. They found that exposure to stimuli that cause strong negative emotionsโthe same kind of exposure you get when dealing with toxic peopleโcaused subjectsโ brains to have a massive stress response.
Whether itโs negativity, cruelty, the victim syndrome, or just plain craziness, toxic people drive your brain into a stressed-out state that should be avoided at all costs.
Related: 9 Types of Toxic People That Will Drain Your Energy: You Must Avoid Them At All Costs
Studies have long shown that stress can have a lasting, negative impact on the brain. Exposure to even a few days of stress compromises the effectiveness of neurons in the hippocampus, an important brain area responsible for reasoning and memory.
Weeks of stress cause reversible damage to brain cells, and months of stress can permanently destroy them. Toxic people donโt just make you miserableโtheyโre really hard on your brain.
The ability to manage your emotions and remain calm under pressure has a direct link to your performance. TalentSmart has conducted research with more than a million people, and weโve found that 90% of top performers are skilled at managing their emotions in times of stress in order to remain calm and in control. One of their greatest gifts is the ability to identify toxic people and keep them at bay.
Itโs often said that youโre the product of the five people you spend the most time with. If you allow even one of those five people to be toxic, youโll soon find out how capable he or she is of holding you back.
You canโt hope to distance yourself from toxic people until you first know who they are. The trick is to separate those who are annoying or simply difficult from those who are truly toxic. Then you decide which toxic people to avoid.ย
What follows are ten types of toxic people that you should stay away from at all costs so that you donโt become one yourself.
10 Types of Toxic People To Avoid At All Costs
1. The Gossiper
โGreat minds discuss ideas, average ones discuss events, and small minds discuss people.โ โ Eleanor Roosevelt
This is without doubt, one of the worst types of toxic people out there.
Gossipers derive pleasure from other peopleโs misfortunes. It might be fun to peer into somebody elseโs personal or professional faux pas at first, but over time, it gets tiring, makes you feel gross, and hurts other people.
There are too many positives out there and too much to learn from interesting people to waste your time talking about the misfortune of others.
Related: How To Stop Feeling Sorry For Toxic People
2. The Temperamental
Some people have absolutely no control over their emotions. They will lash out at you and project their feelings onto you, all the while thinking that youโre the one causing their malaise.
Temperamental people are tough to dump from your life because their lack of control over their emotions makes you feel bad for them. When push comes to shove though, temperamental people will use you as their emotional toilet and should be avoided at all costs.
3. The Victim
Victims are tough to identify because you initially empathize with their problems. But as time passes, you begin to realize that their โtime of needโ is all the time. Victims actively push away any personal responsibility by making every speed bump they encounter into an uncrossable mountain.
They donโt see tough times as opportunities to learn and grow from; instead, they see them as an out. Thereโs an old saying: โPain is inevitable but suffering is optional.โ It perfectly captures the toxicity of the victim, who chooses to suffer every time.
4. The Self-Absorbed
This is one of those toxic people you should definitely avoid.ย
Self-absorbed people bring you down through the impassionate distance they maintain from other people. You can usually tell when youโre hanging around self-absorbed people because you start to feel completely alone.
This happens because as far as theyโre concerned, thereโs no point in having a real connection between them and anyone else. Youโre merely a tool used to build their self-esteem.
5. The Envious
To envious people, the grass is always greener somewhere else. Even when something great happens to envious people, they donโt derive any satisfaction from it.
This is because they measure their fortune against the worldโs when they should be deriving their satisfaction from within. And letโs face it, thereโsย always someone out there whoโs doing better if you look hard enough.
Spending too much time around envious people is dangerous because they teach you to trivialize your own accomplishments.
Related: 7 Reasons Why You Are Attracting Toxic People In Your Life (And How to Fix Them)
6. The Manipulator
Manipulators suck time and energy out of your life under the faรงade of friendship. They are one of the worst types of toxic people. They can be tricky to deal with because they treat you like a friend.
They know what you like, what makes you happy, and what you think is funny, but the difference is that they use this information as part of a hidden agenda.
Manipulators always want something from you, and if you look back on your relationships with them, itโs all takes, take, take, with little or no giving. Theyโll do anything to win you over just so they can work you over.
7. The Dementor
In J. K. Rowlingโs โHarry Potterโ series, Dementors are evil creatures that suck peopleโs souls out of their bodies, leaving them merely as shells of humans.
Whenever a Dementor enters the room, it goes dark, people get cold, and they begin to recall their worst memories. Rowling said that she developed the concept for Dementors based on highly negative peopleโthe kind of people who have the ability to walk into a room and instantly suck the life out of it.
Dementors suck the life out of the room by imposing their negativity and pessimism upon everyone they encounter. Their viewpoints are always glass half empty, and they can inject fear and concern into even the most benign situations.
A Notre Dame University study found that students assigned to roommates who thought negatively were far more likely to develop negative thinking and even depression themselves.
8. The Twisted
There are certain types of toxic people who have bad intentions, deriving deep satisfaction from the pain and misery of others. They are either out to hurt you, to make you feel bad, or to get something from you; otherwise, they have no interest in you.
The only good thing about this type is that you can spot their intentions quickly, which makes it that much faster to get them out of your life.
9. The Judgmental
Judgmental people are quick to tell you exactly what is and isnโt cool. They have a way of taking the thing youโre most passionate about and making you feel terrible about it.
Instead of appreciating and learning from people who are different from them, judgmental people look down on others. Judgmental people stifle your desire to be a passionate, expressive person, so youโre best off cutting them out and being yourself.
10. The Arrogant
They are one of the worst types of toxic people.
Arrogant people are a waste of your time because they see everything you do as a personal challenge. Arrogance is false confidence, and it always masks major insecurities.
A University of Akron study found that arrogance is correlated with a slew of problems in the workplace. Arrogant people tend to be lower performers, more disagreeable, and have more cognitive problems than the average person.
How To Deal With Toxic People Once You Spot Them
These ten types of toxic people drive you crazy because their behavior is so irrational. Make no mistake about itโtheir behavior truly goes against reason, so why do you allow yourself to respond to them emotionally and get sucked into the mix?
The more irrational and off-base someone is, the easier it should be for you to remove yourself from their traps. Quit trying to beat them at their own game.
Distance yourself from them emotionally, and approach your interactions with them like theyโre a science project (or youโre their shrink if you prefer that analogy). You donโt need to respond to the emotional chaosโonly the facts.
Related: 5 Ways to Stay Sane Among Toxic People
Maintaining emotional distance requires awareness. You canโt stop someone from pushing your buttons if you donโt recognize when itโs happening. Sometimes youโll find yourself in situations where youโll need to regroup and choose the best way forward. This is fine, and you shouldnโt be afraid to buy yourself some time to do so.
Most people feel as though because they work or live with someone, they have no way to control the chaos. This couldnโt be further from the truth.
Once youโve identified a toxic person, youโll begin to find their behaviour more predictable and easier to understand. This will equip you to think rationally about when and where you have to put up with them and when and where you donโt.
You can establish boundaries, but youโll have to do so consciously and proactively. If you let things happen naturally, youโre bound to find yourself constantly embroiled in difficult conversations.
If you set boundaries and decide when and where youโll engage a difficult person, you can control much of the chaos. The only trick is to stick to your guns and keep boundaries in place when the person tries to cross them, which they will.
Now that you know what sort of toxic people to avoid, make sure you never fall for their sick games and manipulations.ย
Want to know more about the different types of toxic people you should look out for and avoid? Check this video out below!
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