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I am fortunate to have few "toxic" people in my life and have developed approaches for limiting the effects of their negative behavior on me. For our own self preservation and ability to thrive and so we can put our own oxygen mask on first it is important to make an effort to identify the toxic people in our life and figure out how to handle them.
Probably the easiest to identify and the hardest to handle are family members. Growing up with people you did not choose to have a relationship means you have many years of unavoidable potentially negative interaction. But like it or not there seems to be something primal in us as humans that makes it difficult not to feel love for these people no matter how painful our relationship might be with them. And it is that proximity, conflict of emotions and build up over time that can make those relationships spring to mind most readily when thinking about who is toxic in our lives.
Another common source of toxic relationships can be romantic partners and friends. These are relationships we seek out and choose to make. But the emotional bond can be strong and therefore cloud our ability to see the toxicity that might be present. Think about how often victims of domestic violence forgive their abusers, return to them and refuse to support their legal prosecution. Or read Lauriewrites classic BlogHer post on the sadness of friendship break-ups.
Even relationships that are not necessarily deep or chosen can be a source of difficult-to-avoid toxicity. Think co-workers or neighbors. If you can't contemplate changing your job, an especially difficult thing to do in this economy with every industry slashing head count and the increasing need to hold on to healthcare, a relentlessly negative, complains-about-everything, Debbie Downer of a cubicle neighbor whom you cannot escape can create stress and misery for you regardless of how much of a positive-thinking optimist you might be. Or worse, you can get sucked into their vortex and land in a black hole of funk yourself. And if you are stuck in a house you can't sell now that values have plummeted and you've got the neighbor from hell that there is no privacy fence high enough to block out of your life, moving away is not an option. Plus there is no guarantee that even if you do move that the Michael Keaton character from Pacific Heights isn't going to move right in after you.
OK, enough of the thinly-veiled, names omitted to protect the not-so-innocent scenarios. What do you do? In my experience the only thing to do is to cut them off and out of your life. Except when you can't.
It can be painful but you can cut off friends, family members and romantic partners. I've done this with toxic characters from each of these categories. Doing so has caused me some of the greatest difficulty in my life. But not only has it been the right choice for my mental and emotional health, in some cases it has been good for the other person, too. In one cases someone I ended a friendship with emerged years later much healthier and happier after losing many friends over his destructive behavior.
In other cases, like with parents or siblings, ending a relationship is not a possibility. So you have to figure out ways to create some distance in order to protect your heart. Try to focus on letting them own their issues. Even if they are projecting their negativity onto you, you don't have to accept it or take it on. Work on learning how to recognize their patterns and attempts to get you to pick up their baggage. Don't take the bait. It is not easy but very worthwhile to build a force field to deflect the toxic.
And for the negative co-workers and neighbors, similar strategies might work. Recognize that they might have a back story that you aren't aware of (like dealing with their own set of inescapable toxic forces) that is leading to their behavior. It isn't about you so don't let them fool you into thinking it is. Also, you can gently try to turn conversations to neutral subjects or offer a positive counterpoint. Plus, be on the lookout for your own contributions to the negative buzz. Try not to egg the other person on or give them permission to use you as their own personal waste dump.
But most important is that if someone is physically,
