How To Deal With Toxic People In Your Life
Want to know how to deal with toxic people around you? You’re in the right place.
Dealing with a toxic person is one of the most painful things in life, especially when it’s someone you care about.
Unfortunately, we can’t always be surrounded by good people or at least people who are good for our mental health and wellbeing.
If you’ve been dealing with a toxic person, trust me you’re not alone. Toxic people drain your energy and make you feel bad about yourself.
Surrounding yourself with a toxic person is very unhealthy, which is why looking for ways to deal with toxic people was the right thing for you to do.
According to WebMD, a toxic person is anyone whose behavior adds negativity and upset to your life.
Most of the time, toxic people have issues they’re dealing with or experiences that make them hurt those around them. However, this should not be your excuse to stay in a toxic situation.
I used to excuse my ex-best friend’s toxic behaviors because of her own personal issues, which only left me even more hurt before I ended the friendship.
If you’re not really sure whether some people in your life are toxic, here are some signs of toxic people.
Signs Of Toxic People
You can always tell whether you’re dealing with a toxic person or not depending on how they act and how you respond to them.
For example, if you constantly find yourself feeling uncomfortable around a certain person and you don’t know why this could be your reaction to their toxic behavior.
How Toxic People Behave:
– They downplay your achievements: When you achieve something, they always start talking about some other person who got a better opportunity than you, or that you just got lucky.
– Toxic people make everything about themselves: When you’re going through a hard time, toxic people make the conversation about themselves by making you feel like what you’re going through is nothing compared to what they had to endure.
– Toxic people compete with you: Toxic people are never happy for you. They get jealous and try to one-up you every single time. If a friendship or relationship starts to feel like a competition, you may be dealing with a toxic person.
– Toxic people force you to give up your values: When toxic people don’t share your values, they do not respect them. If you find yourself being forced to do something you clearly stated that you don’t like, you may be dealing with a toxic person.
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When You’re Around Toxic People:
– You find it hard to be yourself: Because you’re probably trying to not upset them.
A good example of this could be giving up wearing a certain outfit you like because your friends always say that you’re trying so hard to stand out. So you find it hard to be yourself around these people.
– Thinking twice before sharing the good news: Do you ever find yourself feeling uncomfortable sharing good news or your achievements with certain people?
This is most likely because these people always have something negative to say when something good happens in your life, or that they’re never happy for you.
– You ALWAYS Feel off about meeting up with them: or you find yourself coming up with excuses to avoid being around them.
How To Deal With Toxic People: 5 Smart Ways To Deal With Toxic People
1. Decide To Put Yourself First
The first thing you’ll have to do if you want to properly deal with toxic people is putting yourself first.
Decide that anyone who drains you and who hurts you does not deserve to be in your life.
Find all the excuses you’ve been making for that person who keeps making your life a living nightmare, and decide that you deserve the best.
One of the excuses may be that you’ve been friends with this person for a long time. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been friends, recognize your worth, and own your power.
You’re worth more than painful comments, jealousy, and being held back from achieving your full potential in life. Therefore, decide to put your happiness, and mental health first when it comes to your friendships and relationships.
One thing that has helped me leave my toxic friendships is practicing positive affirmations.
So if you find it hard to put yourself first and if you can’t seem to find the strength to cut off toxic people, affirmations will help you a looot!
Here are some positive affirmations that will help you put yourself first in your friendships and all other relationships:
- I deserve the best. Anyone who doesn’t make me happy or who stops me from moving forward doesn’t stay in my life.
- I’d rather be alone than be surrounded by people who don’t respect me or make me feel like my best self.
2. Talk To Them About The Situation
Another thing you can do if you want to deal with toxic people is talking to them about the situation.
Sometimes cutting someone off right away without talking to them may not be the best decision.
This is because this person may not even be aware of their toxic behaviors or how they’ve been hurting you.
So take time and discuss your feelings with them. Talk to them about all situations in which they showed toxic behaviors, and express to them how they hurt you.
Being able to tell someone that their behaviors or words have been hurting you is part of owning your power, recognizing your self-worth, and not settling for less.
You’ll also be able to confirm whether you’re dealing with a toxic person or not when you talk to them about their behaviors.
Toxic people will try to gaslight you, get defensive, or try so hard to manipulate you during the conversation.
If it’s a good person you’re dealing with, who wasn’t aware of how their actions were hurting you, they will apologize and make an effort to change.
3. Cut Them Off
If you talk to a person about their toxic behaviors towards you and they don’t recognize their mistakes, or make an effort to change, cut them out of your life.
I know how hard this step can be, but you got this! Send them that last message that they’re not good for you, that staying around them hurts you, and that you’re not seeing them anymore.
You’ll be surprised by how relieved and at peace, you’ll feel.
If you feel like cutting them off directly is too much for you, and you keep being around toxic people because you find it hard to cut them off directly, I have an effective tip for you that WORKS!
If you see these toxic people more often or if you hang out with them almost every day, start by declining a few invitations here and there.
If you text them more often, don’t reply right away, and start fading out of their lives like that.
The less you meet them, text them, or facetime them, the easier it will be for you to leave them.
After some time of doing this, you won’t even be talking to them anymore. They’ll also get tired of trying so hard to be around you.
4. Move On From Them
Okay, so you’ve finally cut off a toxic person out of your life. Now what?
Help yourself move on from them. When you end your friendships or relationships you may feel lonely. Especially when the people you decided to let go of were the closest to you.
When you leave a toxic person, create new memories. Do things that don’t remind you of your past relationships, or the people you just let go of.
Try all those things you’ve always wanted to try, and go out and meet new people.
I personally struggled after ending my toxic friendships because we had a lot of mutual friends. So everyone else I was close with was friends with the people I had just cut off.
This made things awkward and hard because I couldn’t fully live my life without being reminded of them or seeing them on someone else’s Instagram.
So I really had to find new hobbies that allowed me to do things I had never done before. So go out there and try new things, and create new memories for your new beginning.
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5. Embrace Alone Time
The final tip I have for you is embracing alone time. I know that most people make it seem like spending time alone is a bad thing, but it really isn’t.
While it’s important to connect with other people and to have your loved ones around you, enjoying some solo time is the best thing ever.
Be comfortable with having fun by yourself, and enjoy the little things in life on your own.
Especially if you’re someone who depends on other people to be happy, and you find it hard to have fun on your own, embracing alone time will help you deal with toxic people in your life a lot easier.
Most of the time it’s the fear of being alone that forces us to hang around toxic people. So make it a priority to find things you enjoy doing alone.
This could be having a self-care day or trying new things on your own. For more ideas on fun ways to spend time alone, this list will help!
Final Thoughts
I know that dealing with toxic people is not easy and painful, but you got this!
Remember that recognizing your self-worth, and putting yourself first in all your friendships and relationships with other people will help you a lot.
It’s okay to come to a decision that certain people aren’t helping you in life, and it’s definitely okay to decide to leave a toxic situation.
My advice to you is to be the bigger person throughout the entire process. Trust me, it will save you a lot of drama.
I hope that these tips have helped you understand how to deal with toxic people in your life.
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This post showed you how to deal with toxic people in your life. Do you have any other tips on how to deal with toxic people? Let me know in the comment section below!
