We all know people who are toxic or self-centered. All they care about is #1 and don't give a hoot about anyone or thing else.

I like to say "They walk into a room, take all the oxygen and leave."  Who needs this?  Distancing yourself is a merely self preservation.

kk

People have the ability to draw energy from you, but I just don't let these people get close enought to do harm.

This is one of the hardest things to do so I am proud of you for taking the necessary steps. I have had to do it also so I know how tuff it is.

It is relatively easy to keep your distance from the obvious offenders.  It becomes ever more difficult to pull away from the toxic people who are already in your world: the damaging boss, the damaging client, the toxic partner...

Fascinating post my friend.  Scripture says to stay clear of those that are evil or would pull us away from our relatiionship with God.  This is why I left one of the offices I was with in 2002.  God calls us to love our enemies and be good to those that hurt us but we don't have to associate with them.  I hope you are having a marvelous day.

George:  I agree with you wholeheartedly.  "be good to those that hurt us, but don't associate with them".

AmState:  Thank you!  Letting go of the people we love is never easy.

Adam:   Smart!

KK:  Right you are!

Someone in my family is quite toxic - I used to say "poisonous" - At a very early age I understood this - I closed her out of my life - it was the best thing for ME - something we realize early on is ugliness, stress and poisonous relationships cause illness - we need to stay healthy to survive.

I recently had to let go of a toxic person, this is not the first time, there has been others.  Sometimes you don't recognize they are toxic...until they sting you...

Joan:  Congratulations for being strong!  It is so hard to let go, but as Dr. Laura said it:  "you can't make a pitbull into a poodle, even if you groom it as if it was a poodle"...  I so wanted this person to be a certain way.  I kept hoping that things would change, that he would change, but people are what they are; we have no control over that.  We can, however, control our proximity to them. 

...And yes, you are right, it is a question of survival!

Thank you for your candid comment!

JoLynn:  Right you are: it's hard to tell many times.  That's why it's damaging.  They couldn't affect you otherwise.  

Thanks for your comment, JoLynn!

Hi Mirela,

Excellent post!  I have discovered that toxic people will destroy me.  They are poisonous!  I cannot  associate with people who are toxic or unsafe. 

Safe people are able to give and receive love and can encourage and correct me and I can do the same for them.  They can disagree with me, but not be disagreeable.  I love to be challenged, but not in a destructive way that will kill me.  Safe people challenge me to grow into who I was created to be.

I hold myself accountable to be a safe person as well.  Relationships are based upon how I respond and how they respond.

I have had many toxic personal and professional relationships, but I don't have any now.  I will not associate with unsafe or destructive people.  I have learned my lessons.

Having healthy boundaries means I know when to say yes and when to say no and not feel guilty.

How about toxic clients

I've spent some time on this topic and have read quite a few books... of course I'm no expert. In the "old days" ... (internet time: the last few years) the buzz phrase was co-dependancy. This left me a bit wanting, as it seems to place the blame on people who allow others to control the relationship. It ignores the reality that there are toxic personalities in the lives of many... as well as a myriad of reasons that such persons will be an unavoidable part of our lives ... knowing this, the best we can do is to learn to live with them... better yet to understand them enough to alter the relationship positively. Two of the better books I've read recently are How to Hug a Porcupine: Dealing With Toxic & Difficult to Love Personalities and The No A**hole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't. The first deals on an interpersonal scale and the latter in business. My apologies for the second title- if you find it unsuitable for your blog feel free to delete this entry. However, title notwithstanding, it is an interesting read. On a side note... the sister discipline of this phenomena is under the description of "female bullying" ... a couple of my favorite books in this regard are "Reviving Ophelia- Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls" and "Odd Girl Out- The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls". Sorry for being so long winded here... you just happened to hit on a phenomena (outstandingly I must add) about which I have more than average interest... it can be difficult witnessing sisters, daughters or friends dealing with issues about which there is little understanding.

Don:  Wow!  That took my breath away! 

That was so well written!   So clear.  So concise.  Stellar, my dear friend; just stellar!

Chuck:  Outstanding comment and references!  I'm familiar with "Reviving Ophelia" and I will check out the rest of the books.  Than you so very much for that!

Balance and peace are very important for me.  Relationships affect us a great deal.  Difficult people are palatable enough and I am adept at navigating those seas.  Toxic people are simply people who affect you adversely, who impede your peace of mind, who consistently hurt you.  It is not one event, but many; actually a certain consistency of hurtful behavior, whether it's lying to you, stealing from you, being disloyal to you, or denigrating you...  It is not one event, but a consistency of such bad occurences, indeed a pattern of hurtful behavior someone will exhibit with regularity which garners them the "toxic" label.

Chuck, thank you so much for the comment and the info!

Steven:  Yes, that includes those!  Be careful who you do business with!  I am very selective with my clients, because I really like my job and my life is too short...  I have un-hired myself on occasion (translation:  I have fired clients before).

While I totally agree that toxic people have the ability to inflict harm and/or poison us, I do think that there is a karmic reason people are in our lives. This said, lessons learned do not mean we have to allow ourselves to be poisoned. Instead I feel it is important to figure out how to deal with them to reap the benefits of karmic lessons.  

This is the kind of blog that "juices" people's innermost convictions.  I am so impressed by so many of these comments!  Wow!  I'm certainly playing to the right audience.  I was banking on that when I dared to write about this sensitive subject.

Rich:  I am impressed by your comment!  I would very much enjoy a bit more elaboration from you on the intricacies of this, or at least refer me to some good reading material that delves into the point of view you espouse.  You have my attention.

... And, thank you!

Chris:  Yes, the payoff is RESILIENCE!

The distancing from toxic people (not unpleasant, those are not the ones I'm referencing here, I'm talking about toxic people) is called SURVIVAL!

Chris:  ...Will catch some ZZZZZ's now.  Good night!  Thanks for coming back into the rain!

What I am referring to is perhaps a bit more esoteric, in that the people (even the toxic ones) that we meet or that impact our life, present an opportunity to work through issues that impact our path to nirvana. The concept of karma, does not assign values like good or bad or toxic. Rather karma, to my way of thinking, seems to value all experiences, as all experiences move the individual closer to enlightenment. It is up to the individual to decide whether the lessons of the "toxic" person is something they want to deal with at that time. Unless such karmic lessons are learned these same types of toxic people will present themselves in your life. There is much truth in the statement, "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. - George Santayana" A good author to read is Sangharakshita, a British man who founded Friends of the Western Buddhist Order in 1967.

Mirela, This is a very open, honest and genuine subject... Who didn't deal in their life with "toxic" people???  I do believe that Karma is at work here.

Either "toxic" people come into our life for the purpose to teach us a karmic lesson - or - God gives us, from the get go, a family member who is designated to be in our life for higher karmic purpose... a karmic debt we have to pay to balance our .... spiritual universe.

The "toxic" people coming into our life is easier to deal with (if I can say that...) as we have our will power and wisdom to eliminate them (the survival mechanism)... but not before the karmic lesson was learned! If not! they will come up in your life over and over, every time challenging us in the same area of feelings and deep emotions... Those people, who come and go, can be anybody from all facts of our life (professionally or personally) and challenge us over and over... if we don't brake the circle of bad karma by learning the lessen we've been given! an move on!!!

More difficult is to handle the "toxic" people that are forever part of your life, given by God as close relative (mother, father, sister, brother.... ) How can you protect yourself from the deep damages they can do to our soul and mind ? To me that is the supreme karmic challenge.

I have to thank Chuck for his insidefull comment and Information... I marked down the books!

Arina:  I did too.  Chuck must have delved into it before.  As we seek answers in life, we delve deeper and deeper.  Some are just more elevated in their understanding of the basic human condition...  Without asking the questions and seeking the answers, we will never know, nor attain the level of understanding which will take us to the next level. 

Karmic lessons are fine, I understand the concept, but I am a survivor first and foremost.  The easiest thing for me to do once it becomes obvious that a person is toxic (and I don't mean unpleasant; I mean TOXIC.  I've explained it more in some comments above), is to remove myself from the person and keep my distance.  It is just self preservation. 

By the way, one of the people eliminated recently was a close family member.  She is just too much drama for me and has done some very hurtful things to me over the course of MANY years.  I finally had to say:  this person is just using me.  She is always taking advantage of me.  She humiliates me.  She denigrades me.  She is too outlandish and has no respect for me.  She doesn't even see me.  She is so wrapped up in herself that she sees no one else.  Still dear to me, but I just have to stay away from her for self preservation! 

I have learnt much by posting this blog!  I thank all of you very much for your valuable input! 

Mirela... I wanted to see the other comments on this one. I checked into this topic a few years ago- mostly because I've been confused by what causes people to treat one another with contempt. Also, as a person who grew up with many sisters (four) and daughters (five) I've noticed that they seem to have to deal with this much more that I have. Here's an experiment... ask a boy if he ever got into a fight when he was younger it's likely he'll remember it but won't necessarily “carry it with him.” Ask a girl if she's ever been bullied by another girl and chances are you'll begin sharing stories about friendships gone south... one day you're friends and the next day everyone hates you- and you may never know why. This sort of rejection can linger for years… it pains me how much suffering can come to those who are on the receiving end of such treatment. This topic is the premise to the studies behind “odd-girl out”. It's too much to elucidate in a comment section but this one book sent me searching through another book and then another. (I go off on these educational tangents every once in a while.) Sad to say- I still don’t know the best way to deal with toxic people. I can only say that those who’ve been hurt are best helped by having understanding and loving friends from whom to receive soothing words and kindness.

Chuck:  As a child I was always hanging out with the boys.  I did not care much for playing with the girls; I understood the boys much better and liked the intense activity and adventure better.  The girls seemed so political.  There was too much protocol and they had rules I did not understand. 

It served me well; in my adulthood I was invariably the only woman at the table in most of the organizatins I've worked before Real Estate. 

I understand women a lot better now though.  I think there is an automatic drawing to your own gender sometime during puberty...  and the tomboy became a girl.  

I think missing that portion of the female ritualization might have served me well.  Only two girls tried to bully me during childhood.  I gave them fair warning, but when they did not stop, I made them stop and I think they got hurt pretty badly.  I really felt bad for it too.  It just seemed so unfair to fight girls.

My daughter is very different from the way I used to be.  There seems to be a lot of drama going on between these girls. 

With all the reading I've done, I still think that distancing myself from toxic people works best for me. 

Soon toxinated by great depression.

Chuck:  I am very sorry!  Is there anything I can do to help?

i recently had a girlfriend who was a toxic person with emotional issues and was self centered and only cared about bring pain to the people who cared about her.
it really pains to let her go as i thought i could share the burden with her.
some times toxic people hurts those who cares the most. we should not look down on them but pity them.