Describing others as toxic people

Well the reason you didn't hear the word 'toxic' in therapy is because it's nowhere in the DSM 5. It's a buzz word, and a lot of people have written about how it's used as a label to "other" the person being labeled and allow people to create a victim mentality for themselves.

I find it predominantly used by people who want to avoid responsibility for their own behavior and blame it on others. Typically people with poor conflict resolution skills.

It never helps to label others in our healing because you can't do anything about other people or their diagnoses, nor can we diagnose other people. As you suggested, Eskie, we have to address our own behavior and make our own choices about dealing with people we don't like. These are our choices that we need to take responsibility for and not blame on others by labeling them. Why do we have to label a person toxic and make it about them instead of simply taking responsibility for how we feel and saying we don't like them? Same with jobs and other situations that get labeled toxic.

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I agree with both eskie and seesaw in that it’s important learn how to interact with others that may not have the social skills preferred. The idea of needing to win can result in further participating in engaging with another person that is unhealthy.

I know for myself that it’s pointless to engage with someone that has to feel they are the winner with every interaction. That is when one has to learn to develop better ways to deal with conflict where it reduces continuing the futility.

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Originally Posted by Have Hope But that's exactly what happens when you engage or interact with someone who is toxic - the toxic person causes a natural reaction of anger, rage, resentment by their poor treatment and behaviors. It is only natural to react to it and sometimes in a way that meets them at their level. After noticing the dance that then becomes even more toxic, since the toxic person doesn't know any better, the one who is on the receiving end then has to make an adjustment in how they choose to interact with that person. The only option is to remove oneself from that person and to no longer engage.

Now I am wise enough to see people with those kinds of personalities & never engage with them & now keep them out of my personal life. It is not everyone's natural response. Some know skills to deflect those kinds of people & not engage with them in the first place.....& some don't want to offend so they just quietly deal with it rather than engage at the other person's level & sometimes internalize the whole situation. Neither striking out or internalizing are good coping skills.

Some people will let you know what is expected of you by what they say and the key is Believe them. I have learned when someone says “oh and did I tell you this person is an X” they are telling you they are assuming you are supposed to see this other person in a negative way too. Sometimes the person may not even realize they are interacting with someone who has been nice to them but happens to be this X. This is even worse when doing online engaging. It’s showing no thought or respect of who may be reading or engaging that may be an X of some kind.

There are times we choose to maintain a relationship with a person who is chronically negative and abusive. They would likely be diagnosed with a disorder by a professional, if they would seek help, which they wouldn’t, and don’t even want to hear there is anything amiss with them. But, if they are someone important enough to you that you choose to maintain contact anyway, we need to have compassion for them. They may be ill. While we can protect ourselves so they don’t get to damage us, we can do what we can to be there for them and be kind to them. You wouldn’t abandon someone because they are ill, you can have some compassion. As for people we can leave and not have to deal with anymore, of course, leave when you can if they do nothing good for you and are only harmful.

I think in absence of actual diagnosis many things are subjective. A lot of is an opinion.

Some people describe some horrendous unacceptable events in their lives and claim it’s all good and dandy while I am mortified to hear such things and some describe events as toxic while I think it’s just everyday routine that everyone deals with on a daily basis. .

So it all depends. Much of it is a perception. Unless of course it’s an actual diagnosis or something universally unacceptable, which are very few things.

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Originally Posted by TishaBuv There are times we choose to maintain a relationship with a person who is chronically negative and abusive. They would likely be diagnosed with a disorder by a professional, if they would seek help, which they wouldn’t, and don’t even want to hear there is anything amiss with them. But, if they are someone important enough to you that you choose to maintain contact anyway, we need to have compassion for them. They may be ill. While we can protect ourselves so they don’t get to damage us, we can do what we can to be there for them and be kind to them. You wouldn’t abandon someone because they are ill, you can have some compassion. As for people we can leave and not have to deal with anymore, of course, leave when you can if they do nothing good for you and are only harmful.

Yes! Good points

Sometimes we stay until the harm they do is more than we can continue tolerating or we learn better skills to handle the situation we choose to stay in. I know personally if I had stayed in my marriage I probably would not have chosen to survive staying (that would have been my choice) cause even with the skills I have learned I know living in that situation was not something I could tolerate even if I was the most compassionate person in the world. (Someone else may have been able to but not me)

Sadly he has run his life into the ground & is still messing me up financially even after divorce. Never figured that would be possible.

What I have found is that I stay clear of anyone who even on first meeting shows any similarities to what I lived with for too many years. Will be nice but definitely not allow into my own personal space. Probably a protective wall I build so I NEVER end up in that same place again.

We definitely make choices on who we allow to stay in our lives & how we handle the situations we find ourselves in.

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Originally Posted by divine1966 I think in absence of actual diagnosis many things are subjective. A lot of is an opinion. Some people describe some horrendous unacceptable events in their lives and claim it’s all good and dandy while I am mortified to hear such things and some describe events as toxic while I think it’s just everyday routine that everyone deals with on a daily basis. . So it all depends. Much of it is a perception. Unless of course it’s an actual diagnosis or something universally unacceptable, which are very few things.

Totally agree.

Also, Perception is relative to our own personal skills of being able to handle certain situations. I know certain situations I find myself in it is just a matter of figuring out what action I need to take while for others it would be totally overwhelming.

Even with a diagnosis or universally unacceptable behavior sometimes the way we react to someone keeps those types away from us because they KNOW they won't get the response they want & go looking for another place they can

Absolutely 100% agree.

I’m not sure I agree. Knowing a person is “toxic” to me - basically poison to physical, mental, and/or emotional health - doesn’t make me a victim at all. It empowers me to make wise decisions to distance myself from that person for my own safety. It has absolutely the opposite effect to creating a victim mentality for me; it helps me make wise choices. That ability to make and hold healthy boundaries so that those individuals don’t continue to hold that power over me is perhaps the healthiest skill for living sanely and safely.

I don’t get into labels either, but I don’t see this so much about the label as it is in knowing that sometime there are people or environments that we have to separate from in order to be healthy.

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Originally Posted by ArtleyWilkins I’m not sure I agree. Knowing a person is “toxic” to me - basically poison to physical, mental, and/or emotional health - doesn’t make me a victim at all. It empowers me to make wise decisions to distance myself from that person for my own safety. It has absolutely the opposite effect to creating a victim mentality for me; it helps me make wise choices. That ability to make and hold healthy boundaries so that those individuals don’t continue to hold that power over me is perhaps the healthiest skill for living sanely and safely. I don’t get into labels either, but I don’t see this so much about the label as it is in knowing that sometime there are people or environments that we have to separate from in order to be healthy.

I agree....it is IMPORTANT to know personally when a person or environment or situation is something we need to get out of. Labeling implies to me that the person "labeling" expects others to see it as toxic also where in reality the perception should only be a personal one.

The personal view of things is fascinating. Growing up when someone told me I couldn't do something, it pushed me to prove them wrong & I pushed myself to excel, not be a victim of their words. While other people I know, when someone told them they couldn't do something, they rolled over & believed every word they were told.

Individual personalities seem to determine how we respond to what we are told.

You are correct in that our personal reaction to a situation will make a difference whether to fight back in the best way possible or walk away....but whichever, not holding onto a victim mentality about whatever it is.

I think these catch labels are an effort to get the many to agree and define behavior problem individuals that create unnecessary obstacles in healthy communication and problem solving.

Human beings like structure because it is conducive to how the brain is set up where it’s designed to navigate. Unfortunately some individuals develop poor navigational skills and may end up expecting and even demanding others navigate around their needs and problems and likes and dislikes.

It’s important to understand that most individuals navigate based on what they know and personal life experiences That means the person may not know how to show respect for things others consider of value and importance. This doesn’t always mean there is no value in what the person does know.

Often we don’t get the responses we prefer from other people. And sometimes another person resists learning how to navigate with others that resist unless others do things the way they expect. This can be a challenge to navigate. That is when a decision needs to be made to distance rather than trying to get this other individual to change how they navigate.

Assuming others understand how to work through navigational obstacles like we do can lead to problems and disappointments. And sometimes this lack can deeply affect us on an emotional level. That is when our sense of safety and well being can be deeply affected. This can take place even before we have enough life experience to know how to understand our feelings and what to do about these feelings.

Truth is we learn to navigate all our lives. What one may consider toxic behavior may be something another person developed more skills to navigate where they learned not to absorb on a personal level where it becomes an ongoing obstacle.

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Truth is we learn to navigate all our lives. What one may consider toxic behavior may be something another person developed more skills to navigate where they learned not to absorb on a personal level where it becomes an ongoing obstacle.

We must also know that the mind has neuroplasticity & just because we haven't developed the skills not to absorbed on a personal level, the mind is never too old to not be able to learn new skills that counter the old ones that cause us problems. Just like stroke victims can relearn what they lost from a stroke, our minds are fully capable or relearning skills that will make us more functional in tough situations

Agree and it’s important to recognize that if another person doesn’t respond and isn’t interested in doing so then walk away and distance.

I know for myself when it came to my older sister. I had to make some very, very difficult choices as it was affecting my mental health badly. Sometimes another person can behave in such a distorted way that it’s essential to reduce interactions as much as possible.

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I know for myself when it came to my older sister. I had to make some very, very difficult choices

Making those choices was your own mind's neuroplasticity having to change what you thought about your sister too. We have to be open to the fact that it is more about what we are willing to do than about them.

@ArtleyWilkins, I completely agree with you on this. I also disagree that knowing someone is toxic to you creates a victim mentality. However, at the same time, people DO become victim to some people's more toxic behaviors and treatment, and IF the victim chooses to engage in it, it becomes a toxic dance that then plays out, whereby the one person is constantly victimized.

As you stated, one of the healthiest skills I think a person can develop is to learn how to exit from interactions with toxic people and/or extricate oneself from continuing the dance. It is for the health and well being of a person to do so, and I would say that is a survivalist mentality vs a victim mentality.

Yes, yes and yes. I believe in evolving and redemption.
No matter how screwed a person might be. There’s always an opportunity to evolve and learn.
Maybe, there are limitations because of brain functioning that have been researching currently, but out of these few cases, I do believe in the capacity of human being to have compassion and empathy towards others and the ability to see in the other much more than someone who doesn’t validate us, but on the contrary, constitute a challenge for us to learn.

This is why I disagree with labeling people this way (or any other way). When we label people we are making it a "them" problem and a "them" solution. It does create a victim mentality of what is done to us. "So and so is toxic and they always make me feel bad." When it's all about other people it does create a victim mentality. When you flip the script to "I don't like so and so's behavior, so I'm not going to be around them that much or I'm going to limit my exposure to them" we make it about our behavior and it gives us control.

Even calling the behavior toxic is not very useful. What exactly are you saying about the behavior? It's more useful to say "this behavior makes me uncomfortable or hurts my feelings or frightens me etc" so you actually know what you're feeling or what your response is versus the label of "toxic" which doesn't really give you much information.

I agree 100% with you. Maybe there aren’t even exist so many of what are called as toxic behaviour either. I rectify when I pretty much named toxic behaviours to faults we have.

I was always taught that it was not appropriate to point out with my finger onto another person. I’m so grateful to my parents for giving me this lesson.

I see as labelling a person has been taken to an incredible extreme nowadays. It seems everyone is “toxic” for one or another reason, or vampires, or narcissists or femi-nazis ( another term that put me on guard, too)... It seems as if as soon as we put a label all is fixed up. We feel more secure. We don’t have to make an effort to see what it’s beyond.

You hit the nail on the head.

^Now we’re beating up on nails?! Joking!

Tricks are for kids you silly wrabbit! 😀🤪

I didn’t get this.

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Originally Posted by AzulOscuro I didn’t get this.

Ah, one of those crazy American idioms. When someone gets something correct, the saying is "You hit the nail on the head" ....but if you take the idiom literally, we are beating up a nail because we are hitting it on the head.

Lol....Spanish idioms were the hardest thing for me to learn.....& my T always uses great Italian idioms.

And I was making a pun because we were talking about being too hard on people by calling them toxic, then when the expression about hitting the nail on the head was used, it was funny to say that we shouldn’t hurt nails (but nails are made for getting hit with hammers!)

Chatting on this forum is educational!