Toxic people are everywhere, but what does toxicity mean?
Mainstream psychology gets rid of one definition of toxicity because this is a widely used term.
However, psychology defines a lot of behaviors as harmful to oneself and others, and this is exactly what most people understand as toxicity.
Toxic people manipulate others, drain energy,bring them down, and chisel away at self-esteem.
Therefore, there are a lot of behaviors that can define a toxic person, and only some of them are caused by well-defined psychological conditions such as narcissistic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, and psychopathy.
Let’s move on from definitions and look at actions, because it is what people do that defines them as toxic to others.
To help you identify them, here are seven signs that you are dealing with a toxic person, according to psychology, and one that you should consider letting go of your life.
1) they are passive-aggressive (or just aggressive).
Aggressive people are easy to detect because of how obvious their behavior is, but this does not make them less toxic.
These are people who will do their best to push, bully and hurt others. They will deliberately generate anger and frustration in others and try to spread a bad mood.
I’m sure you’ll recognize all of this as toxic behavior.
Is passive aggression any better?
When a person is passive-aggressive, he feels some deep frustration or anger and yet does not express it directly. They are either afraid to face others directly or they are just an extra deceiver.
When someone yells at you or stands up to you, you can be sure that this will happen.
But with passive aggression, things may not be so obvious.
It’s hard to prove who keeps throwing your shoes in the bushes because you left them in the wrong place. Is someone ghosting you, or is their phone messed up as they claim?
This behavior can have toxic consequences because it is indirect, difficult to prove, confusing, so it is almost impossible to deal with it directly and effectively.
2) it drains your energy.
There are a lot of people out there who will drain your energy and make you feel like you are putting more into them than you are into yourself.
Narcissists are especially known for draining your energy because of all the demands they place on the people around them.
These are people who feel that they deserve special treatment and demand excessive admiration. Not only attention-they need to feel admiration and praise.
Such people always need to do things their way and constantly make demands on you. They need to be in the center of attention at all times, and when they are not, they get upset and require more attention to please them.
If you have this type of toxic person in your life, you will notice that you have less and less physical and emotional energy over time.
You will have less time to take care of your own needs because this toxic person is always demanding that you see him for their needs.
3) they behave like a victim.
In all our lives, we experience being exploited or hurt.
But there are many people who either greatly exaggerate these kinds of negative experiences or completely invent them.
Why?:
They are looking for attention and sympathy, or they are manipulating to try to get some benefit. People can play the victim by exaggerating their injuries or simply by remaining silent until it is assumed that they were injured because they were part of a group of people who were victimized.
This behavior is wrong and misleading. Moreover, it takes attention and resources away from people who were real victims.
Imagine that you have two co-workers who have both been accused of stealing from the office. If one of them plays the victim and enlists others to believe and hold on to them against what they say are false claims, it could mean that the other person will be fired even though they are innocent!
This behavior is toxic and is designed to manipulate your trust and play on your empathy.
4) they judge you and others.
Life is hard enough without people telling you that you are not doing well at it.
But this is exactly what many toxic people do.
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Whether they do it to you or other people around you, the results can be very negative.
People who are quick to judge have to think they are better than the people they are judging to feel justified in doing so, right?
Very often, this is exactly the case.
Sometimes, though, their judgments are based on jealousy, malice, and spite directed at people who seem to be more socially or professionally successful than themselves.
So if someone gets a promotion that he wants, he may start to be evil and be judged for cheating, licking shoes, or even falling asleep on the way to the top.
Likewise, if you are happy with your job, even though you don’t make a lot of money, they may judge you as a loser or someone too lazy to chase more rewards.
Such a judgment is generally spiteful, jealous, not constructive, something that you do not need in your life.
5) they gang up on you.
A lot of people have no qualms about getting others to do their dirty work.
This is especially true for narcissists who, like the evil witch of the West in the Wizard Of Oz, will recruit an army of flying monkeys to do their bidding.
These people may or may not know that they are in use.
They can be recruited to help the toxic person because they were manipulated into believing that they were infected by you. They may also be shooting at you themselves but they won’t dare to do anything about it on their own.
But when there is a toxic gang leader who is ready to push them into action, they can feel that they have strength in numbers and must be right and justified in their actions.
You can suddenly find yourself shunned, ignored, or even hated by a group of people for no good reason.
Of course, this does not have to be addressed to you. You could be one of the people they are trying to recruit as a flying monkey to gang up on and hurt someone else.
Unfortunately, this is something that many toxic people get carried away with and the danger of always being on the lookout for.
6) they gaslight you.
Gas lighting is a form of abuse.
It is based on actions designed to sow the seeds of self-doubt and eventually make a person doubt his judgment and perception of reality.
This behavior can be incredibly harmful because it attacks a person’s self-confidence and depletes their self-esteem.
How is it done?
Gas Workers change history by retelling stories in ways that promote themselves as good and their victims as bad or unreliable. They tell their victims that they remember things wrong or even accuse them of lying when they manipulate reality themselves.
Why?:
Their ultimate goal is to control their victims by being the only person who has the correct version of reality and history.
Gas lighting is often used by people who also engage in physical and sexual abuse as a tool to calm and weaken their victims.
This is a very toxic behavior and a sign that you should get away from this person as soon as possible.
7) they put you down.
People who attack your self-esteem are toxic.
While you may think that self-esteem depends only on how you feel about yourself, in reality it is reinforced by how others perceive and treat you.
So when you feel like a good and valuable person, but others keep telling you otherwise, it can undermine your self-esteem.
Here’s how toxic people do exactly that.
They insult you directly, saying things like “you’re no good” and ” no one likes you.”
They also negatively compare you to others to make you feel inferior with phrases like ” even so, you could do it. Why can’t you?”Or” you will never be as good as your brother.”
Why do people underestimate others in the first place?
In general, people who disappoint others do it because they feel insecure and have low self-esteem themselves. They feel threatened when they see others succeed and behave confidently, so they try to tear them down so that they don’t look so bad in comparison.
This underestimation can have long-term negative effects on people’s self-esteem, which is why it is so important to stay away from toxic people who engage in this type of behavior.
Final thoughts
Do these seven signs you’re dealing with a toxic person, according to Psychology, sound familiar?
If so, you should immediately begin to reevaluate your relationship with anyone you have identified as toxic.
Such people will only add pain and discomfort to your life, and it is better to stay away from them as much as possible.
