8 Common Elements the Most Toxic People in Your Life Share

Everybody deals with difficult people in their lives, to a greater or lesser extent. However, the in the end of the spectrum is a whole different psychological species, the toxic people. These are very negative, emotionally draining, unsupportive people-they are basically people who constantly bring you down. They can be close to you, family, friends, or coworkers, without you realizing it, but spending time with them makes you feel bad about yourself and the world. Maybe you wonder why this sudden change in your mood and attitude when you are with these people; after all, they are friends or family. The reason is that they are toxic. Here are eight common elements that the toxic people in your life share:

1. Toxic people are manipulative

The toxic person’s main concern is to get what they want, even at the expense of others. They don’t care about your feelings, desires, or needs. The world revolves around them. They will use you to get their needs met but you shouldn’t expect them to be there when you ask them to. For them life is a one-way street; no reciprocity, no paying-back favors, no sense of duty or camaraderie and companionship. It’s common if you start wondering what you ‘ve done wrong and the other person isn’t responding. The answer is you haven’t done anything wrong; the other person is toxic and manipulative and that’s their default behavior.

2. They consider others responsible for their feelings

Manipulative and toxic people will never acknowledge their feelings; you won’t hear them say “I’m sad” or “afraid” or anything related to emotions. Either they accuse you openly “it’s your fault that I was angry and I overreacted” (as if they don’t have control of their actions!) or they project onto you how they feel themselves: “well, you should be ashamed to be afraid!”

3. They are judgmental

Toxic people have an opinion for everyone and everything; nothing goes unnoticed, nothing goes uncriticized. They focus on the negative, on the problematic, and to them pretty much everything is “lousy,” “inferior, “unacceptable,” “deficient,” “no good,” “faulty,” “inadequate,” — you get the picture! They don’t see the beautiful, the positive, or the good. Rather, their comments focus on their personal opinions and ill-conceived assessments. As you may have expected, they never engage in self-criticism, though they are highly critical of others. If you make the mistake of saying what they did wrong or what they said and was inaccurate, they will attack you.

4. They don’t admit their mistakes

Never! And apparently they’re not apologizing for not recognizing that they made a mistake. They think they are infallible. It’s always the other’s person’s fault. Not acknowledging their mistakes doesn’t allow them to make amends. To them they ‘ve never done anything wrong. They don’t even see any room for self-improvement. With this type of notion, the one thing left to those around them is to avoid this toxicity without further argument. Simply it’s not possible to maintain a good and balanced relationship for a long time, because there is always tension, accusations and the sense of guilt on the part of the person who gets bombarded with the accusations of the toxic person.

5. They are unpredictable

Toxic people are mercurial; they change attitudes, persona, perceptions, preferences, and behavior very often. So often that they confuse you. You prepare their favorite meal and they look at it in disgust. You explain that this was their best-loved meal last week and they lie to your face “no it wasn’t, how dare you!” type of response. They end up getting mad at you with the slightest perceived provocation or for no good reason.

6. They blackmail you

They find different ways to blackmail you on a daily basis. “If you love me, you will do it for me” or “If you don’t come to my party, I won’t talk to you ever again.” And while many times they say things like that in a light-hearted manner, jokingly, almost teasing you, they are actually 100% serious. And if you don’t do what you’re told, then they punish you in some way.

7. They put you in the position where you have to defend yourself

Toxic people act as if they are supreme judges in their own court: they accuse everyone in their social circle and have them go through the process of apologizing for actions, preferences, desires, tastes, needs, even their thoughts and feelings. When in the company of a toxic person, you often get the feeling that you need to defend yourself; ultimately, you’re not yourself with them.

8. Toxic people don’t care about what’s important to you

Toxic people are notorious for being indifferent to your preferences, even to what’s significant to you. They often resort in mocking, ridiculing, belittling, degrading the things that are important to you, oblivious to your hurt feelings. Toxic people don’t encourage, don’t support, nor are they emotionally present for others- even if it’s their spouses, children, siblings, close friends.

Remember that toxic people feed on their toxicity and negativity. They engage in a game of toxic archery; they aim and shoot their poisonous arrows at anyone who’s within shooting range. Make sure you stay away.