Have you ever felt psychologically trapped in a relationship?

You may know a person for a long time, even your whole life, but something about your relationship just doesn’t feel right. You feel inferior, underappreciated, and uneasy. You may even say that when you’re near this person, you feel intoxicated.

We’ve all had such relationships in our lives. Often it’s a friend or an acquaintance, and sometimes it’s your close relative – a parent or a sibling. With these people, you have a relationship with repeated patterns of abuse, both physical emotional, conflicts, manipulation, and discrimination.

Soon you realize that you’re suffocating in this relationship. It’s impacting your quality of life, your self-esteem. You’ve become a victim of toxic people, and today you’ll learn how to spot them and deal with them.

Subconsciously, we all know who a toxic person is. But when urged to define such a person, too many broad adjectives come to mind, such as passive-aggressive, abusive, narcissistic, negative, etc.

There is no definition for a toxic person.

Some people compare toxic people to malignant narcissists – a term for people who have a narcissistic personality disorder with a mix of aggression and antisocial behavior.

But these traits don’t necessarily describe every toxic person. You can’t say that every toxic person is aggressive, and not all toxic people are antisocial. Sometimes they are very calm and friendly, and yet, when you’re in a relationship with such people, you feel used.

How to find a toxic person?

Despite the lack of definition and research on toxic people, this is the most popular topic during therapy sessions.

Depending on their practice and cases, therapists identify five main types of toxic people and their main qualities, which you can use to spot them:

Type 1-Green with envy –

Their main characteristics are-

jealous of your achievements /overly competitive, sometimes in an aggressive way /compare themselves to you /downplays your achievements

Here’s the situation. You won a prize in a debate competition at school. Proudly holding your trophy, you walk up to your friend and start telling them how happy you are. In response, you hear something like ‘Well, at last, you’ve achieved something!’, or ‘My trophy looked better than yours last time!’ etc. This toxic person is a green monster, green from jealousy, trying to downplay your victory.

Type 2 – The Nihilist

Main characteristics: overly negative /dismissive and angry /sometimes aggressive /unable to share happiness

So, let’s say you are a young bride, excited about your upcoming wedding. You share your excitement with your friend, who, in return, tells you something like, “No matter how happy you are, it doesn’t change the fact that 9 out of 10 marriages end in divorce.”

Type 3 –The Slacker

Main characteristics-have no motivation /have no ethics or respect for other people’s effort /manipulative /egoistic

Here’s the typical situation when you might have met this type of a toxic person.

You’re in a classroom and working on a test. Suddenly, someone pokes you in your back and whispers, “Hey, can you help me with that? I heard you’re the best at this, and I’ll make it up to you!”

Or, you are working on a project, when suddenly, a “friend” from your class comes to you and says, “Can I join you? We’re friends, remember?” After you work nights on the project on your own, they get the credit for it, as their name is on the project as well. And, after it’s over, gone is your friend and their friendship.

Type 4-The complainer

Main characteristics: self-absorbed/ill-natured/thriving on self-pity/playing the victim

“Oh, my job is the worst!” / “I’m not successful enough!”

“Why doesn’t he love me the way I deserve it?”

This type of toxic person enjoys being a victim but never takes responsibility for what is going on in their life. Such a person would complain about being in an abusive relationship instead of getting out of it (because they secretly like the pity and the attention from other people).

Or, they would tolerate an abusive boss or colleague instead of changing the job or reporting the abuser because they like playing a victim.

Disclaimer. Not every person suffering from an abusive relationship is a complainer.

Some people can’t get out of these relationships because they are afraid for their life. The only difference, in this case, is that a complainer nags about the situation, while a victim of an abusive relationship is often silent out of fear for their life.

Type 5 –The verbal Absurd

Main characteristics: hypocritical/always puts others down/enjoys attacking other people to make themselves feel superior /holds back other people

“Oh my God, what an ugly dress!” /“Did you see that horrible haircut?” /“She shouldn’t wear this colour, look how fat it makes her look!”

If you have a verbal abuser in your circle, you may have heard such comments. But it’s a matter of time until these comments start targeting you.

What are these people doing it

They don’t want to take responsibility for what’s going on in their life. They are unable (or unwilling) to change their life situations, that’s why they will put you down to make themselves look better. These people often have low self-esteem, and the only way for them to feel better is to be condescending.