Toxic people: characteristics and how to treat them

Who has not ever had to deal with a negative and manipulative person whom everything It seems wrong to him and that instead of helping us to grow and be positive, they sink or wear us down psychologically? These are the so-called "toxic people" and although on many occasions, the fact of having to deal with them in some context is inevitable, be it at work, in the family or in our social circle, it is very important to know how to deal with their behaviors and attitudes to prevent them from influencing us excessively and harming us emotionally. In the following Psychology-Online article, we are going to show which are the main characteristics of toxic people and how to treat them So that, in this way, you prevent these types of people from damaging your self-esteem and making you feel weak or insecure.

Index

1. What are toxic people in psychology
2. Characteristics of toxic people - how to identify them
3. How to treat toxic people

In psychology, it is called "toxic people" to those people who have a negative mentality and who have behaviors that are harmful to those around them, but also to themselves. They have the ability to manipulate others, limit their actions and personal development, in addition to continually causing negative emotions.

However, it is important to note that toxic people can change and modify their behavior, since absolutely everyone can make changes with respect to our character and habits.

Next, we list what are the characteristics of toxic people so you can identify them and stay away from them or know how to act when you have to deal with them in your daily life:

1. Egocentric and selfish: They are people with a high degree of self-centeredness and selfishness. They continually talk about themselves, do it excessively, and completely forget about those around them. In an unconscious way, they feed their ego and are indifferent to the needs of others. Your problems or concerns are always above those of the rest and force others to attend to all your needs, even if they are insignificant or banal.
2. Pessimistic and negative: This is another distinctive personality trait of toxic people. His speech is always negative, built basically from complaints and pessimistic thoughts. Complaints and criticisms are permanent and they always see the dark side of things, focusing their attention on the problems and not on the solutions.
3. They continually victimize: they position themselves in the role of victim quickly and easily. In this way, they try to be the center of attention, avoid taking responsibility for their actions and make others attend and satisfy their needs.
4. Envious and jealous: Toxic people tend to take away your illusion about any positive event that happens to you, downplay your achievements, or simply act indifferent to them. They tend to try to discourage the other, always finding a fault or a but to their ideas, plans, decisions, etc. Other attitudes that denote their high degree of envy is that they try to get the merits of others and tend to constantly criticize third parties, so it is very likely that when he is with other people he will also speak ill of you.
5. They take advantage of the effort of others: they do not have much initiative, they make excuses to do anything and they put themselves in a comfortable position to be others who make the efforts, although later they are attributed, as we have commented previously, the merits and achievements. They are also people who tend to take advantage of the goodwill of others.
6. Unable to be happy for others: They are unable to rejoice when someone in their environment achieves or happens something that to that person makes you happy, because rather they tend to rejoice in the evil of others and feel envy when everything else is going well.
7. Lack of self-criticism: they never stop to analyze the situations that they themselves provoke or their behaviors, so they do not see their mistakes nor if they have acted well or, on the contrary, have been wrong or have caused harm to the people who have their around.
8. Vanity: Another characteristic of toxic people is that they are arrogant and arrogant, they always praise themselves and show off their physical, intellectual, etc. qualities.
9. Ignorance: On many occasions, the fact of believing themselves superior to others and having an excessive ego makes these people do not learn anything from other people, which can lead them to have a certain ignorance on some subjects.
10. Unhappy: despite externally showing otherwise, toxic people are said to be really unhappy, since their negative thoughts and attitudes do not allow them to live in peace and harmony with those who surround.

Have you identified the characteristics of toxic people in someone in your environment, whether in your family, at work or in your circle of friends? If so, please pay attention to the following tips on how to treat toxic people, will help you know how to deal with him / her and what to do so that their attitudes and behaviors do not end up affecting your emotional well-being:

• Set your own limits and learn to say no: It is very important to always respect others, but also make yourself respected. So that this toxic person does not affect your psychological balance or make you feel bad, it is essential that you establish healthy limits in your relationship with her and that you mark some red lines that you do not allow her to cross, and in the case of what she does and exceeds the limit, let her know and do not feel guilty about it.
• Be clear that the problem is yours and not yours: When you have to deal with a toxic person, try to keep in mind that their behavior is not like that because I have something personal against you, but it is due to her personality, how she is until the moment. If you assume that there are people who criticize everything and have such an attitude in general with all or most of the people around them, you will prevent their attitudes or opinions from affecting you excessively.
• Try being compassionate with him / her: When we feel attacked by someone, we usually see that person as an "enemy" and negative feelings towards them surface, but instead of this, we try to develop thoughts of compassion towards that person, we can ensure that his pessimistic attitude and his bad energy do not affect us in excess.
• Avoid taking a similar attitude: You can defend yourself from her attacks or tell her what you think in an assertive way, avoiding falling into attacks or adopting an attitude similar to hers. In the following article, we show you in detail how to resolve a conflict assertively.
• Get away: If, after putting the above advice into practice, the relationship with that person is untenable for you and damages your emotional well-being of significantly, it is best to distance yourself and stay away from her, as otherwise you could end up severely damaging your self-esteem.

And if you find yourself in the situation of having to deal with a toxic colleague or superior in the work environment, we recommend that you consult the advice in the article How to deal with toxic people at work.

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to Toxic people: characteristics and how to treat them, we recommend that you enter our category of Personality.