Let’s start with a powerful quote from John Mark Green, “toxic people attach themselves like cinder blocks tied to your ankles, and then invite you for a swim in their poisoned waters.” “Toxic relationships” just sounds serious and pretty bad, isn’t it? Did you ever experience anything like the quote above? Do you have a toxic friend in your circle?
You might be thinking about the questions and trying to find whether you are also trapped by a toxic friend or not. Many of us continue our toxic friendship. Some of us realize, and some of us do not. No matter what type of relationship you have, rather, it’s important to focus on how you feel being in the relationship.
There are quite a few significant signs of a toxic friendship that we will be talking about in this article and how that would help us to deal with such relationships. So, without wasting time, let’s dig into the topic.
Always Try to Put You Down
Generally, when you share your achievements or success stories with people around you, they indeed become happy seeing you succeed. But in the case of a toxic friend, the person may show traits of being jealous. In this case, they may show happiness for your success in your presence but may not be happy from within.They may try to do something that may dilute your confidence by doubting your capabilities and making you think that you do not deserve the success.
In this case, all you have to do is, generously ignore your friend’s hypocritical gesture, have faith in yourself, and keep a positive mindset that your success is the reward for your diligent efforts and do well in the future.
Isolate You from Others
One of the most common things you’ll find in a toxic friendship is that they might want to control you. Toxic friends might want to keep an eye on all your activities. They might also prevent you from making new friends and isolate you from your loved ones. You may also be driven far from doing the right things at the right time.
In this case, try to be careful and do what you feel is right to do. Disregard everybody for a second, trust only on your instincts, think deeply to analyze what would be the right thing to do, and take your decision. You should always take space for yourself, open up with others, make new friends, and try to reunite with old friends.
Humiliate You Publicly
Another sign of being in a toxic relationship is going too far with teasing. Among friends, it is common that one will laugh upon you, and then you make a joke out of the other person, so everyone starts laughing on him/her and vice versa.
All these are fine, but when the joke starts humiliating the person, then that might be a toxic attitude. They may intentionally open all your secrets publicly that you have shared only with them and may pretend that they didn’t do it intentionally.
Toxic friends might overlook the humiliation one is going through and tend to make a joke out of them persistently. In this case, you have no other option but to laugh along with them or ignore the situation. If you want to prevent such situations in the future, then stop sharing everything with such friends and instead share only the necessary details with them. Your attitude should be polite and generous so that your friend could overlook your avoidance.
Not Helpful when needed
Anne Frank once said, “No one has ever become poor by giving.” Toxic friends when they need help, they manage to take it from others, but when others need help, they may disappear.
You will find yourself helping them when they are in need but might only sometimes find them helping you when needed. In this case, the wisest decision would be to stay reserved and only help them occasionally and learn to smartly give a miss as they are simply trying to get advantages from you.
Harsh competition
Instead of feeling happy for you, toxic people may put up an unhealthy competition where their main objective will be to win the race. They might rarely feel happy about your achievements.
Real friends will always be happy for your accomplishments and will show you a path to do even better. They might put up the competition with you, but their main motto will not be to win but to mutually learn something new during the journey.
Emotionally blackmail
Toxic friends may always tend to gain affection, support, and attention. They may use every opportunity to become an apple of your eye. They might tell lies and fake stories for the sake of gaining attention. In case you do not agree with them or give them attention as required, they might fill you with guilt, which will eventually lead to depression.
A real friend never seeks attention. He/she is happy with the quality time that you spend with them as per your convenience.
In this case, the simplest solution is that; don’t take everything serious about whatever your toxic friend says and only give worth attention that they deserve. Focus on each and every valuable relation around you and try to focus on your loved ones who love you unconditionally. Try to maintain a healthy lifestyle and learn to maintain your social life efficiently.
