10 Ways to Spot a Toxic Person in Your Life

The scary part about trust is that you might not always end up trusting people who are good for you. The person you call your lover, your mom or your dad, your boss, or the role model you’ve always looked up to —ultimately, they’re all just titles. And titles don’t necessarily guarantee safety, love, or respect. Sometimes, because they play such an active part in your life, you may not realize just how toxic they can be. How can you when we all want to be convinced that the beliefs we hold close to us are good and true? But, if they’re so good, why does it seem like they hurt you more than bring you happiness? Psych2Go shares with you 10 ways to spot a toxic person in your life:

1. They make it difficult to set boundaries.

Boundaries exist for people to establish a healthy sense between themselves and the world. A toxic person is well aware of that, which is why they do whatever it takes to make sure you don’t have any. This is a way for them to gain the upper hand and remain in power. When you don’t have boundaries, it makes you vulnerable. In other words, it makes it incredibly convenient for the individual to attack and win each time.

You may find it hard for yourself to say no, or express the discomfort you feel because that entails setting boundaries. I’ve developed habits like this throughout my life. I never knew where it came from and didn’t think it was connected to toxic behavior that was affecting me so much. But now that I know, I make it a conscious effort to draw the line where it needs to be and try not to be flexible to the point where I’m bending backwards for others all the time.

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  1. Hi! Reading this makes me feel very sad for those who are struggling with toxic people in their lives, as sometimes it’s hard even to come to terms with how flawed the relationship is.

    Everything here was well written, but a couple of the points (such as point six) were a little sparser than some of the others and could be developed more.

    For point eight, I think you could develop this further by explaining the role of passive agressive behaviours within toxic relationships.

    Finally, for point three I think it’s also important to remind readers to make sure that avoidance of texts and emails isn’t due to an underlying condition e.g. depression, before concluding that this person is toxic. Often with certain mental illnesses people can avoid all forms of social contact with others out of a need for escape. I’m personally guilty of this, and I think it’s important to mention this so that readers don’t misunderstand or come to the wrong conclusion about somebody.

    Ultimately, I enjoyed reading this even if it made me re-ananyze my friendships and relationships for a while! Great job.

  2. Sometimes the other person could be going through a difficult period in their life & nothing more, but toxic, but just being your love… Too many over look that as well & this article feeds into the ‘oh I’m a victim mentality’… Too many snowflakes out there… Wish your parents spanked you as children!

    1. showing emotions does not make you a snowflake stop acting like everybody has to bottle up and take mental and physical abuse or else they are weak. people like you are usually beta males who think they are tough shit because they can bench 65 pounds