Toxic behavior is the action of interaction that is harmful, manipulative, and detrimental. And toxic people are simply those who possess toxic characteristics. They drain other people’s emotions & manipulate situations in their favor. Toxic people lack empathy & take advantage of others. Some very common toxic behaviors are gaslighting, criticism, gossiping, playing victim, etc.
Here we’ve discussed 10 common types of toxic behaviors that you should be aware of:
- The Energy Vampire: This type of people always has something sad, depressing, negative, or pessimistic to talk about. And this type of person kills the energy of the people around them. Whatever you are talking about or excited about, this type of person is ready to ruin that excitement with some bad comment or example. For example, you are excited about something upcoming or something that happened to you & you shared it with them. As soon as you share it with them, they are always ready to kill your energy by saying something depressing or negative about that matter. They will bring up some past bad examples where it didn’t go well & discourage you.
- The Manipulator: They have a strong desire to control others. They want to have power, control & influence over others. They use different tactics to manipulate others. They can over-praise you, criticize others, or gaslight you to take control over you. It’s really important to understand which tactics they are using to manipulate you. There is a fine line between convincing & manipulating. Convincing people is a positive behavior, but manipulating someone always has bad intentions to serve. So be careful who is leading you in which direction.
- The Silent Treater: People with ego are very harmful to be around. Sometimes we build a very close bond with this kind of people without even realizing. They serve their ego in the name of self-respect where self-respect & ego are completely two different things. For example, someone stopped talking to you without letting you know what you did. You don’t have a clue about that. Then you listen from someone else the reason. And when you go & try to talk, they bring the “Self-Respect” term to defend themselves. Remember, there is a fine line between SELF RESPECT vs EGO. It doesn’t matter that it only should happen to you, any of your close friends might also do this to others. It’s better you stay away from them from now.
4. The Conversational Narcissist: This type of person only loves to talk about themselves. They always turn any conversation onto them. They want to dominate the stories with their achievements, experience, perspective, feelings & often use conversations as a platform to talk about themselves. They have a tendency to upmanship themselves & outdo others. For example, if someone is sharing their high-school story, they will bring up their own story & want to control the conversation by telling their own. They lack giving space to others to talk.
5. The Jealous Judgmental Type: This type of person has so much self-hate in them that they can never be happy for other people. According to them, everyone has shortcomings. Their behavior exhibits jealousy, envy, insecurity & criticism of others. They always focus on the shortcomings of others. They feel threatened to see other people’s success & happiness, leading them to envy & become judgmental to cope up with their own insecurities. Dealing with this kind of people is very challenging because their behavior is rooted inside deep-seated insecurities. Try to avoid this type of people as much as you can because you never know what they talk about you behind your back.
6. The Enabler: An enabler is a person who supports the toxic behavior of others out of fear, guilt, desire, or to maintain status. They try to make excuses & justify bad things in any way possible. For example, a cheater is more likely not to defend another person’s cheating out of fear that they feel like they are judging themselves. But the truth is, every sin is a sin. It will ultimately not stop until people stop themselves from becoming an enabler. The enabler minimizes the effects of others’ harmful actions to protect them from accountability & shield them.
7. The Drama Magnet: Something always keeps happening in their life. They don’t need your solution. They only need your sympathy. They seek attention & validation from others & use dramatic situations to get that. They find difficulty in establishing healthy boundaries with people. They involve themselves in other people’s problems & share personal information which causes an unhealthy situation in their own relationship. If you have anyone around you like this, Be aware of them. Always maintain a distance & assertive conversations Otherwise, one day you will become a part of their drama without knowing.
8. The Gossip: The gossiper carries rumors, hearsay, or negative information about others. They engage in gossip with a view to get attention, spread new rumors, or manipulate something. They seek to create a situation to share the gossip & they over-ornament the stories to become more entertaining. They often use gossip to attract interest & become established among the social circle. They may spread hurtful information without acknowledging the consequences.
9. The Fibber: The fibber means people who lie a lot or just make up a lot. You know that they are just making up stories but can’t say anything. They can tell small lies to an abundance of lies to impress others or to gain sympathy. Over time, they blur the line between truth & lies, which makes the other person believe which is truth & which is not. Their conversation is often found to be inconsistent. They use their lies as a tool to manipulate others to gain trust, favor, or control. Keep distance from these kinds of people in the first place because there is very little to do to control them. When you try to correct them, they become defensive & bring disrespect into the conversation. Trust your intuition before they mess something up in your life.
10. The Victim: We can mostly see this type of person on social media. Everything wrong that happened in their life is the cause of others. They always did the right thing but in return, they’ve only gotten misunderstanding & hurtful returns. They constantly play the victim & refuse to take responsibility for their actions. They manipulate others’ sympathy to avoid their own accountability.
These descriptions are the overall overview of any toxic person’s characteristics. Toxicity in general has no limited definition. A person can be into multiple characteristics of toxicity. Always be aware of them & maintain a safe distance. Sometimes you might like a person who possesses all the good characteristics but is into any toxic behavior. Our suggestion would be to not be an enabler to them thinking that this toxic behavior can be accepted by considering their other bright sides. We should encourage everyone to become better. And lastly, we want to say, always maintain YOUR PERSONALITY according to your family & institutional lesson. Avoid doing anything that knocks your soul before you do it.
