Friend, colleague, spouse, relative… Everyone can have a toxic person around them, so invasive that it harms our development. Typical signs and how to deal with them with the advice of our psychologist.
Particularly popular right now, the expression “toxic person” is commonly used in the series or in the books, but yet, it is not new. “The notion of toxicity dates back at least to the 1980s I would saysays in the preamble Dana Castro, a psychologist we interviewed on this subject. Although in fact, there have always been toxic people. We hear more and more about it, perhaps because relationships or modes of communication are more complicated, with a sense of urgency a little sharper than before“. But concretely, what does “a toxic person” mean? What are the signs to look out for ? And above all, how to detach oneself from it so as not to suffer any longer?
Definition: what does it mean to be “toxic”?
“We are toxic to someone when our behavior becomes intrusive. To say that a person or a relationship is toxic, there must be a chronic character and that it has deleterious consequences for the well-being of others. These consequences are then similar to toxins who ultimately harm to health“. A toxic person can be anyone around them: someone from work, a friend, a parent, a spouse… And everyone can, at some point in their life, be in contact with a toxic person. “In effect, it’s not just naive or vulnerable people who are affectedbut potentially everyone. Toxicity is a personality issue that can show up in all walks of life“, confirms Dana Castro.
5 signs to recognize a toxic person
“A person’s toxicity does not occur acutely. On the contrary, it is a insidious, long-lasting, progressive and repetitive process. It is a kind of slow poisoning which reinforces our internal disorganization a little more every day“, illustrates our interlocutor. There are several signs suggestive of a form of toxicity:
1. The toxic person is egocentric: for her, nothing is free (if she offers her help, she will charge you for it one way or another). Also, his needs take precedence over those of others and the frustration of his needs can lead to toxic behaviors and attitudes (guilt, belittlement, manipulation, etc.)
2. The toxic person exhibits externalization: the problems or disagreements cannot come from itself, it is necessarily the fault of the other or that results from an external cause.
3. The toxic person has a form of rigidity: she does not know how to listen or take into account the opinions or the needs of the other. She acts or thinks as she has decided. She has a central need to control everything and tends to intervene in your decisions or interfere in your personal affairs. The relationship is necessarily unilateral since only the needs of one of the two parties are really considered.
4. The toxic person is guilt-inducing and belittling whether by behavior (for example, she no longer invites you to her events to punish you) or by words (she criticizes you, reproaches you, only points out your faults, minimizes your feelings, ignores your feelings…). This leads to a questioning in the person who suffers: he begins to doubt and no longer feels up to it. She thus develops fears and a fear of acting badly or even of losing the other.
5. Caution, the toxic person is not “just” bad. “Precisely, this is what is pernicious since the person can be benevolent at times, endearing or with qualities that we appreciate“, wishes to specify the psychologist.
The feelings may differ depending on the person but overall, in contact with a toxic person:
- We feel helpless, mentally tired
- We show a lot of empathy, we excuse our behavior
- We constantly question ourselves
- We feel guilty for acting badly, for not being up to it
- We feel stressed in front of her
- We have the unfounded hope that the person can change (for example, we are going to organize a trip in the hope that the relationship will improve, when fundamentally the person cannot change. Some people even go so far as to have children in the hope that the other will change).
- We tend to idealize it and keep in mind only the good times or the good sides.
Is there a test to know if a person is toxic?
No, there is no official test to make the diagnosis of “toxic person”. Only a qualitative assessment can make it possible to judge whether a person is toxic for oneself. “From the moment when the behavior of a person around them is intrusive (we feel suffocated, we are uncomfortable, we don’t know how to act…) or interferes with our development, it means that ‘there is a problem“, continues our interlocutor.
What to do with a toxic person?
Luckily, it is entirely possible to confront or detach from a toxic person.
A toxic relationship ends when one of the two people no longer fits into the other’s game.
► 1st step: become aware. To get rid of a toxic person, you still have to know how to identify him and become aware of the problem. “Awareness depends on the limits of what one is prepared to bear. It can be long because some people have very high tolerance thresholds. The click does not happen overnight. indicates our interlocutor.
► 2nd step: do not self-flagellate. “Above all, don’t feel guilty for not realizing it right away. At first, we don’t notice that the other is toxic. We forgive him and find excuses for him., observes Dana Castro. Especially since the toxic person is skillful and knows how to act to achieve his ends, this is called manipulation and it is very difficult to detect. “Then, we gradually realize that we have to “save” ourselves from this relationship which is not healthy and which is hurting us”
► 3rd step: say “no”. You have to gradually learn to oppose the other, without being afraid of the consequences, with the conviction that you are capable of facing your fears.
► 4th step: consult a shrink to clarify his ideas and protect himself. “This is obviously not an obligation but it is a precious help to have the tools and to be as armed as possible in your separation process.“, wishes to clarify our expert.
► 5th step: manage to escape physically and mentally. “Faced with a toxic person, the radical solution would be to run away and cut ties as quickly as possible, but in reality, it is not as simple as that. You can be geographically far from a person and have your mind completely taken up with them, and in that case the toxic relationship persists. So, before fleeing in the physical sense of the term, theidea is to demerge psychically and gradually of the toxic person“, advises the psychologist. In concrete terms, you have to distance yourself, no longer act according to her. It’s a real work of self-persuasion and here again this work of recovery is necessarily progressive. A toxic relationship ends when one of the two people no longer fits into the other’s game and leaves no room for manipulation.
Thanks to Dana Castro, psychologist and psychotherapist.