Toxic Relationships
Removing Toxic Relationships from Your Life
Toxic relationships are defined as any type of relationship that causes negative effects on your life. These relationships can be dating relationships, marriages, friendships and even between family members. The most important thing is to learn how to recognize that a particular relationship you have with another person is negative and toxic to your general wellbeing, and then take the appropriate steps towards fixing the problem. In some cases this may mean terminating the relationship entirely.
Similar to the way a toxic substance can enter a health living organism’s body and slowly but surely poison it until the body begins to die, relationships among people can also become toxic. Human interactions and relations are extremely important parts of the human social network, and the desire to be loved, to love and be among friends is a necessary part of the human experience. Sometimes however, these relations can cause more harm than benefit to a specific person. Based on everyone’s natural desires to love and be loved, it is often hard for people to recognize that a relationship may be toxic to them, as human feelings and emotions can block their insight and judgment. A toxic personality is often described by experts as a person that makes you feel negative thoughts and emotions on a regular basis. This can mean feelings of anger, hurt, resentment, confusion, sadness and isolation. Often other people will attempt to tell you that you are with a toxic individual by saying that they are not good for you or they aren’t right for you. Many times the best indication to yourself that you may be involved in a toxic relationship is the general feeling that overall, sometime is just not right.
Many toxic relationships occur in dating or married couples. Some signs that you may be in a toxic relationship are that your partner is controlling of the little things in your life, they belittle or insult you regularly and often they will perform helpful things for you and them claim that you owe them. They may also attempt to keep you from seeing friends and family or make you feel that you must constantly walk on eggshells to avoid making them angry.
Toxic relationships also occur between friends and family members. Many of the signs and symptoms are the same as in relationships; they may insult you or put you down, they may constantly control everything that you do, or they may create situations that cause drama or fighting. Certain personality types will create problems around social situations or how they feel you should act towards them. Often referred to as ‘drama queens’ or something similar, these people with be a constant source of unhappy and negative feelings in your life.
When you have discovered that a specific person in your life has a record of constantly creating a negative and unhappy atmosphere around you, it may be time to consider them to be a toxic influence in your life. Often the ability to recognize the problem is the first and hardest step, but the next steps may be equally as hard. Deciding on the right course of action against a toxic person can be difficult. You may love them or enjoy their company most of the time, but a change needs to be made. In some cases the only course of action may be to separate yourself from this person completely. This may be extremely difficult. In other cases, you may wish to talk it out with the person, explain the problems and come up with ways to fix them. Toxic personalities may see this as an attack and react negatively. The most important thing is for you to make a decision and stand by it not matter what. Seek help from non-toxic friends and family to get through the difficult process of removing a toxic relationship from your life.