You may encounter many people in life, some are good for you and some are not. Let’s take a look at the 8 types of toxic people you should cut from your life without feeling guilty.
Toxic people attach themselves like cinder blocks tied to your ankles, and then invite you for a swim in their poisoned waters.― John Mark Green
Everyone has their share of vices. Some people are annoying while others are difficult to deal with. But a toxic person is someone who blissfully creates a mess with your head, surprisingly unaware of the destruction and chaos they bring along with it. Truly toxic people are not worth your feelings, your efforts or your company for that matter.
Whenever you encounter or spend time with a toxic person, you feel emotionally and psychologically drained, you get filled with pessimism and your intuition tells you something’s not quite right. A Toxic person is anyone who is manipulative, unsupportive, abusive and unhealthy, leaving you feeling drained of your positive life energy.
So, where do you find these toxic people?
You find them everywhere around yourself – home, workplace, while dating and in academic settings too. Maybe at this point of time, you know someone, who you are thinking of right now as you read, who might be toxic for you.
Toxic people are master manipulators, skilled liars, and great actors. They can be hiding everywhere. – Thomas
They do not come with a “I am toxic” placard; ironically, they are the ones who draw our attention the most. They come off as the most decent, innocent, charming, intelligent, kind and optimistic people. And that is how we get drawn to them even before knowing what is happening.
Why avoid toxic people?
Researchers from Friedrich Schiller University in Germany shows just how damaging toxic people are for our mental health. The research concluded that exposure to stimuli that cause strong negative emotions, the same you get when you are exposed to a toxic person—caused subjects’ brains to have a massive stress response. Toxic people activate your stress response – be it through their egoism, their rudeness, their cruelty or through their stealthy manipulative techniques.
Several studies have shown the impact of profound stress on our mind and body. Even a temporary exposure to stressors or stressful situations can make notable changes in the neural connectivity, now wonder what this conflict arousing, stress provoking people might be doing to your brain for over months and years.
Chronic stress can lead to atrophy of the brain mass and decrease its weight.(1) These structural changes bring about differences in the response to stress, cognition and memory(2). Of course, the amount and intensity of the changes are different according to the stress level and the duration of stress (3).
Related: The Psychology Of Mean People And How To Deal With Them
Weeks of stress cause reversible damage to brain cells, and months of stress can permanently destroy them. You see, toxic people don’t just make your life hell but also are hard on your brain.
Constantly being in a conflict as to whether or not you should take a step to drive these toxic people away or try changing their mindset and keeping them, erodes your mental peace. You will be driven to think that life is a lot easier with these people outside the door.
As William Gay puts, “There’s folks you just don’t need. You’re better off without ’em. Your life is just a little better because they ain’t in it.”
Identifying toxic people:
Before you avoid toxic people you should learn to identify them. Here are some of the traits of toxic people. You will come across people who have personal issues like anger issues, people whose mindset don’t match yours, emotionally immature people, rude and mean people, people who are disrespectful but toxic people are ahead of all these.
Related: 9 Traits of Manipulative People To Watch Out For
Here are 8 types of toxic people that you better lose to save losing your mind:
1.The gossip monger
Why are these people toxic? Ain’t it fun discussing the life and misfortune of others?
Gossiping for some is a great way to pass one’s time. But what one doesn’t realise is that these people are habitual gossipers and will not take a moment to gossip about you, as soon as you turn your back.
If they are having fun time by bavardaging with you, stay rest assured, they will smear campaign you at your back too.
Someone who smiles too much with you can sometimes frown too much with you at your back. ― Michael Bassey Johnson
When there are so many available opportunities to welcome positivity and learn interesting things in life, why pay heed to these people?
Treasure people who lift you up and not the ones who pull you down.
2. The Jealous-Judgmental People
These one can be spotted from a distance. If you are connecting to a person who is always critical about other people, watch out for trouble.
These people have so much self-hate inside themselves that they hopelessly end up projecting their insecurities on to other people. They always have to point out other people’s negative qualities, their faults, their failures and their loopholes. Doing these gives them immense pleasure.
If you are talking to them about the things you are most passionate about they will ruin your mood by making you feel terrible about it. Instead of respecting individuality and learning from others, they choose to be critical about others.
Judgmental people oppress your desire to be passionate, expressive and successful in life through their pessimistic attitude towards everything. You will be better off losing them.
3. The Drama Queen
For these people, drama is cake and your attention is the cherry on top. Their lives seem to be so full of struggles, hurdles and adversity that they constantly need your attention, approval, sympathy and pity – not your advice. Never try advising them.
Once you have given them the solutions to their problems – attention, they will have to look forward to another way in which they can create a melodrama. Every single problem in the world is theirs but they somehow don’t want to fix any of them. They thrive on crisis because they are experts at extracting importance from others through it.
When you entertain these drama queens, you end up approving their behavior and become a part of all the drama. Life gets easier when you ignore these people altogether.
4. The Energy Vampire
Just staying a few hours with an energy vampire in the same room can suck you out of your essential life energy.
Lacking the very crux of empathetic understanding, they will always try to find flaws in you, making you feel worthless and small in front of them. Energy vampires will literally feed on your psychic energy. They feed of the energy from higher energy levels and consciously or unconsciously evoke emotions in others specifically to feed on the triggered emotional energy.
As a result of constantly interacting with an energy vampire, one might feel chronically frustrated, fatigued,upset, anxious, irritable or angry. But you have a choice to stay away from these people.
An energy vampire can never “steal” energy from us unless we consciously or unconsciously permit them to. -Mateo Sol
Related: 6 Types Of Energy Vampires That Emotionally Exhaust You
5. The Victim
Victims are the most tricky ones to identify as you initially try to empathize with their problems. But as time goes by, you will realise that they are intentionally choosing pain and suffering to churn pity and sympathy out of people.
Victims will always avoid responsibility and accountability for what they do by giving the excuse of their suffering. Suppose you tried to be assertive with them and politely reject their request for something, they might respond like “I have always been rejected in my life. Nobody understood my needs. Anyways, no issues.” And there you are, left drenched in guilt for turning them down, feeling like you are the most wretched being on earth.
The longer you are connected to these people, the more will you be denied of the support, understanding and approval that you deserve. It will always be about them and their sufferings.
Related: 5 Ways To Spot A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing
6. The Fibster
Not to mention, these people are here to steal your mental peace and haunt you, even in your sleep. When you constantly need to be apprehensive and doubtful about what someone is doing at your back, you cannot live a normal life.
You will keep spiraling in the circle of lies and doubt as these people keep being dishonest with you. Whether it is a major lie or a little falsehood, if your intuition bells are ringing, let these people go.
There are plenty of innocent people out there who have the self integrity to be trustworthy in any kind of relationships. Choose them over these fibsters.
7. The Manipulator
A manipulator always has an upper hand with their intricate knowledge about the human psyche and how they function. Manipulators say what you want to hear, show what you want to see and do nothing other than take take take advantage out of you.
They are people to whom you would get instantaneously attracted and the friendship will initially build on false promises. Remember, they are always with some motives. Once their motives are fulfilled by you, they will dump you.
Move out before they take you to the junkyard!
8. The Self Absorbed Person
I tell you, they do not need you to be there with them in the first place. What they need is a tool to fix their self-esteem. And you are that tool!
Self-absorbed people will never look beyond themselves. So if you choose to be with a person who is self-absorbed, be ready to sacrifice every emotion just to satisfy theirs or else your existence will be denied by them.
Choose wisely.
Your self-respect and mental health is way more significant than anyone else in this world – be it a family member, an acquaintance, a colleague, your contemporary life partner, your child or whoever under the sun, always put your needs at per other’s.
Save your skin from the corrosive acids from the mouths of toxic people. Someone who just helped you to speak evil about another person can later help another person to speak evil about you. ― Israelmore Ayivor
References
Sarahian N, Sahraei H, Zardooz H, Alibeik H, Sadeghi B. Effect of memantine administration within the nucleus accumbens on changes in weight and volume of the brain and adrenal gland during chronic stress in female mice. Modares J Med Sci: Pathobiology. 2014;17:71–82.
Lupien SJ, McEwen BS, Gunnar MR, Heim C. Effects of stress throughout the lifespan on the brain, behaviour and cognition. Nat Rev Neurosci. 2009;10:434–445.
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