Toxic People Are Emotional Vampires Who Can Destroy Your Life

Photo:askdro.com

By Woman to Woman


There is no way around it. We need to rid our lives of toxic people, or they will destroy us, one strand at a time. Whether it is the Sneaky Passive Aggressive Silent-But-Deadly Erupting Volcano, the Instigating Backstabbing Meddler, the Emotional Refrigerator, the Socio-Psychopath...the clock is ticking away on that relationship. It is only a matter of time before the moment of ultimate destruction.

Who are toxic people? They are emotional vampires. They are those who you can do without, period. They add no measure, no cubit, no square foot to your existence. In other words, they serve little or no positive purpose in your life. It can be a boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse, co-worker, boss, or anyone connected to you in some way or the other.

The Wives Tell-All

A group of wives were talking about their relationships, as they met at Starbucks for coffee, one Saturday afternoon.

Jessica complained that her husband constantly nags and puts her down. He’s the Jealous Competitor, constantly jealous of her abilities and her accomplishments. Nothing she achieves is good, at least not in his eyes. He either directly diminishes her achievements or talks about his as being superior to hers. She said he makes her feel as if she’s not as good as she really is.

Martha too is married. She and her husband, Jack, started off their relationship with a bang! Before long, she came to realize he was an Emotional Refrigerator. He would stop talking to her when he’s upset. This would go on for weeks on end. To add salt to her wounds, he is in the habit of withholding sex, and his affection. Nothing gets done during this period. They just go about their daily business as if each other is invisible.

Gwen cringes when she hears about Martha’s plight. But she has worries of her own. Her husband turns out to be a manipulative, pathological liar. He’s so good at it, he couldn’t tell his own truth apart from his lies. His truths have become his lies, his lies, his truths.

She can never get a straight answer from him, and he turns every issue around to re-direct the blame to her. For him, everyone has hurt or been bad to him. Nothing is ever his fault.

Julie jumps in and says that Gwen’s husband reminds her of Jim, her husband, only he’s a worst case scenario. He is a true socio-psychopath. In addition to being a manipulative, cheating-liar, he is abusive, verbally and emotionally, and has no remorse whatsoever. He makes threats to harm her and others if he doesn’t get his way and uses people to achieve his selfish goals. He’s emotionally devoid, despite he would speak of love and affection or even cry. The truth is, he has no sense of connection with his emotional side, much less to emotionally connect to anyone else. He knows Julie’s weaknesses and uses them to his advantage. He gets her every time!

Lisa is all ears, by now. She’s shocked that she’s not the only one having issues with their husband’s behavior and attitude. She swore she was married to Mr. charming, all-smiley-goody-two-shoe-can’t-do-no-wrong. She was utterly fooled by John when they met. He fools everyone else too, especially his colleagues at work. They believe he wouldn’t harm a fly. Okay, maybe he won’t harm a fly but he would harm a human being, and he does harm her, emotionally and physically. Lisa bites back tears as she reveals some of the behavioral traits of her Casanova. This Casanova turns out to be the Sneaky Passive Aggressive-Silent-But-Deadly Erupting Volcano. When this ‘silent volcano’ erupts, he would grab, slap or punch her in the face.

Olivia is stunned. Lisa’s husband is the nicest guy she knows! She jumps into the conversation to get her pound in. She says, “I love my husband, he’s a sweetheart, but he’s is easily influenced and controlled by the thoughts, ideas, and opinions of others. His mother, his entire family, and his friends, even his co-workers are always telling him what to do and how to live his life. Essentially, they live our lives for us. Boy, am I’m disgusted by that? He never gets anything done, procrastinates eternally, and is never sure about making commitments about important aspect of his life.” Lillian Glass, PhD., has a name for him. The Wishy-Washy Spineless Wimp. Glass documented the 11 toxic personalities in her Toxic Men: 10 Ways to Identify, Deal with, and Heal from the Men Who Make Your Life Miserable.

As the women continue to chat about their love and marriage lives, they realized they were actually in relationships with toxic men. Some of these guys displayed traits resembling Seductive Manipulative Cheating Liars, Angry Bullying Control Freaks, Instigating Backstabbing Meddlers, Me-Myself-and-I Narcissists, and Self-Destructive Gloom-and-Doom Victims, to name a few.

People with these kinds of personalities are usually dubbed as abusive in one or more forms because, in their general day-to-day conduct, they do or say things, which are synonymous with people who have abusive personalities. It’s their life pattern.

Around their toxic men, these women felt frustrated and belittled, helpless, hopeless, depressed, fearful, angry, guilty, ashamed, regretful, emotionally exhausted, oppressed, repressed, trapped, unenthused, and the list of negative emotions these men educe from them goes on.

Now, both men and women can have toxic personalities. The ironic thing about being in relationships with toxic people is they might not be toxic in the eyes of another. You may have heard the saying, “One man’s meat is another man’s poison.” (more like one woman’s poison is another woman’s meat). Similarly, “one person’s thrash is another person’s treasure.”

Such inconsistency comes because of personality clashes. Where two persons would clash, those same two persons would individually jell with another. One person may overlook toxicity in his or her partner, or have a greater tolerance for it compared to someone else, and this can explain the inconsistencies in the proverbial one person’s trash, the other person’s treasure saying.

At the end of the afternoon meeting, the group of women decided that the only way to experience pleasurable living and ease their daily burdens and issues with their spouses was to declutter. They knew they had to remove themselves from these relationships, one way or the other, in other to be able to feel themselves again.

In many cases, toxic people do not change. This is because their behavior is a direct result of mental disorders. A trained and professional psychologist would be able to detect these personalities and be able suggest appropriate therapy.

Finally, people might tell you to change yourself to suit ‘toxics,’ but what’s the point? Why should anyone have to compromise their own personality in order to suit someone with a toxic personality, or to sustain an already bad relationship? Isn’t it like telling someone they should stay in an abusive relationship, or that they should change their behavior to appease the abuser? Would that stop the abuse?

You may like How to Deal With Toxic People (external link)

How to Fight an Emotional Vampire

 http://www.peopleskillsdecoded.com/how-to-deal-with-toxic-people/

How about taking the toxic people quiz? Follow the (external) link below

 http://www.drlillianglass.com/quizzes/toxic-people-quiz/

Can you think of any toxic person in your life? How do they affect you? Isn’t it time to recognize and rid your life of toxic people? Feel free to leave your comments below.

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