Toxic people can be emotionally draining and can be difficult at times to recognize. It is important to cultivate your skill set and powers of discernment in identifying toxic individuals. In this post you will learn how to identify toxic people. You deserve to have people in your life that are supportive and mutually respectful.
When you are trying to identify a toxic person begin to think about how these people make you feel if you feel that spending time with these people feels one sided or draining this may be a sign that this may not be a healthy connection. If you leave social engagements with these people feeling worst about yourself then this may be another indicator that this relationship may not be nurturing.
Do you feel:
You feel like you have to fix or come up with constant suggestions to "help" this person along?
Do you come up with excuses not to see this person?
You emotionally feel drained after being with them?
You get angry, sad or depressed when you are around them?
Do they inspire a more mean or gossipy side of you when you are with them?
Do you feel like you are walking on eggshells around them?
Do you feel like you listen more to these people's drama than you do in sharing your own life and needs?
Do you feel instinctively emotionally unsafe around these people?
Here's how to identify toxic people:
1. Emotional Vampires
An emotional vampire has the tendency to suck the positivity out of you or bleed you emotionally dry. These are people who seems to always have something sad, negative or pessimistic to add to the dialogue. In conversations and relationships, the energy feels heavy and hard to navigate. Sometimes speaking to these people can feel like a knock down, drag out, boxing fight. These people usually are narcissistic in nature and are self absorbed. Emotional vampires are parasitic and over time you start to feel emotionally raw, exposed and deficient.
2. Addicted To Drama
Some toxic people are magnets for drama, pay attention to people who has some constant levels of chaos in their life. Once there are moments of peace another issue will then pop up. These people will draw you in with conversations about their problems, pulling from you your empathy, sympathy and support. When you try to give these people who are addicted to drama advice for proper problem solving they often pretend to take your advice but do not implement them. You offer help and solutions, but they never seem to want to fix anything. Instead, they complain continuously. In a relationship, people who are addicted to drama are victims and thrive in a crisis because it makes them feel important and it makes them feel heard. If someone is a magnet for struggle and adversity beware you may become apart of this drama one day soon.
3. Conversational Hog
Conversational hogs usually hogs the conversation. They may barely have you get a word in, or if they do it is specific to the topic they have introduced. Conversational hogs love to talk about themselves and will rarely ask you about your life and what's of interest to you. They don’t ask you any questions, they don’t wait for your responses it often seems as if they are simply not interested in anyone but themselves. In a relationship, these people will end up being completely self-absorbed, self- centered and never be attentive to your needs and your passions.
We often hang on to toxic people because they are family or long time friends. We may feel guilty in re-evaluating these relationships. Remember every relationship deserves a sporadic re-evaluation to determine if they are mutually satisfying, supportive and enriching. Trust your gut as you re-evaluate your relationships your gut will guide you to the right answers. If you have determined you are in a toxic relationship then it is up to you to decide the next steps in how you will continue the relationship communicating and maintaining careful boundaries or cutting these people out of your life.
You deserve a life filled with people who are empathetic, nurturing and giving. We as humans are wired for connection and inter-reliance. Toxic relationships can drain our center and make us feel worse about ourselves and bring our spirits down. Healthy relationships should inspire, infuse passion and make us feel more ALIVE rather than depleted.