Why you need a strategy against toxic people
Toxic people don’t always mean to harm people, but they do. Sometimes just by being around, they can cause a loss of energy that results in mental en physical health problems for other people. In the long run, toxic people have an effect on others that can be compared to an allergic reaction. One feels a rejection-response to the toxic person, one wants to push the toxic person away, sometimes on a subconscious level. The psychic immune system becomes active and that results in a stress response. When this rejection and stress response lasts too long without a course of action, it becomes a chronic state of being and will have an exhausting effect on our health.
Sometimes it’s not possible to set effective boundaries towards toxic people because this will trigger the toxic person to more toxic behaviour and conflict. Conflicts will then result into more stress for the victim because nothing gets resolved from these conflicts. There is a strategy that can be applied. Awareness of the dynamic that plays out within the toxic relationship, noticing your own part in this toxic interaction and taking your power back can help restore your health.
Strategy to deal with toxic people:
- Trying to understand/ convince the other person without results causes loss of energy
- Endless overthinking the situation to get answers causes loss of energy
- Walking on eggshells for a long time causes loss of energy
- Keep contact with the toxic person short and superficial
- Communicate with nothings, limit yourself to generalities
- Do not confront or hold long conversations, set a time-limit.
- Do not cherish false hope for change
- Maintain an attitude that speaks indifference
- Keep physical or emotional distance
- Hide your vulnerabilities/insecurities, these will be used against you
- Don’t feel guilty or ashamed about anything
- Realise that, hiding underneath the outer ‘strong’ appearance of the toxic person is a very confused and disturbed human being. Not a healthy individual.
- The toxic behaviour is a survival-method for the toxic person to cope with their own dark side.
- Recognize the tactics that are used to draw/ seduce you back into contact or make you respond in an emotional way.
- Stay alert and aware that the interaction is not real, it’s very often a ‘game’ to the toxic person.
- Empower your own strenght/ selfconfidence
- Withdraw your input from the relationship
- In case of inevitable contact, YOU determine the rules on what’s acceptable and what’s not
- Do not be the garbagebin of someone else’s emotions
- Do not resolve/ fix anything or bring solutions for the other person, give back their responsibility
- Pretent to be more naive or ignorant than you really are, you have ‘no idea’ what the other person is talking about.
- Do not defend yourself
- Visualize a ‘bottomless pit’
- Visualize a non-stick layer around you, everything just slides off you
- Reassess your values like; I have to be patient/ understanding/ caring/ kind….etc.
- Don’t take anything personally
- Agree to disagree
- Do not let anyone’s ‘truth’ be forced upon you
- Make your intention to protect yourself stronger and stronger
- Make your sense of self worth stronger, do not hold it up to anyone’s approval
- The toxic person often triggers our old wounds from the past. It is possible to heal these wounds from the past (with therapy)
- Sometimes it can help to do an assertiveness training.
- Give yourself permission for closure of the relationship or the emotional connection
- Give yourself permission to walk away or hang up on the toxic person
- Give yourself permission to break the contact/ connection for ever, if needed
If you feel that these tips were helpful or could be improved, please leave a comment!
