To think it's never right to call someone "toxic"

[eyelevelgrill]

Just that really. I first heard the word about 6 years ago and dislike it just as much now as I did then.

Do you use it? What do you mean by it? Do you think it is a very strong word to use?

Some people are dehumanising. I think it is a very apt word to use sometimes.
Why does it upset you so much? I am genuinely interested in your reaction. Do you not believe that people can be damaging and poisonous? I have met a fair few people who are toxic. Some people are highly unpleasant.

All I will say is that when you meet someone who is toxic you know about it and it is definitely the right word to describe a particular type of person. It has to be said that people can be toxic in different ways. I feel I could write a book on the different types of toxicity - I had a difficult childhood with a toxic sister and as a result seem to attract toxic people.

I make no apologies in using 'toxic' to describe ex-h. I couldn't think of a better word actually. He he poisoned and wrecked lives. He is vindictive, manipulative and verminous. Even a spell at HM's Pleasure didn't give him any humility,humanity or ability to see that he had even done anything wrong. It IS a harsh word but for some people it's fair to use it.

"the people who are toxic behaved themselves like proper humans then they wouldn't be labeled as such."

I reserve the right to call my physically, sexually, emotionally and financially abusive father toxic he also favoured my sibling, told people we lied about the abuse going on during our childhood, blamed us for his abuse of our mother and ourselves.

Yes he's toxic. And I was first introduced to the term by a psychiatrist. As in 'your father was and is toxic, he will never be the father you needed or deserved.'

Being toxic is not a made up Mumsnet term, but a valid term used to describe a group of undesirable behaviours. In order to demonstrate such behaviours, the person has a toxic personality, if they did not, their behaviour would not reflect that. Harsh though it may seem, especially if you have never encountered a toxic person, that is the reality! In terms of my sister as I described earlier, I am NC with her, and have been for 13 years, but I hear through family members the drama, and the manipulation and nastiness she creates in her wake. I honestly think she is just like my great Aunt, talking to my mum, she certainly sounds like it. No wonder great Aunt loved her.

IMHE a toxic person is someone who emotionally/mentally/physically damages their victim, over a long time and delights and revels in other people's misery. They are the type of people who actively hate to see people happier than them. They are those who do have the capacity to change, but choose not to for various reasons and make stupid excuses for not doing so.

That is my take on the word Toxic and I'm simply basing it on my own experience with my mum, and I think it's an absolutely appropriate word to describe her and her poisonous behaviour.

I have been called toxic. Without going into the sordid history of it all, it was by someone who was a friend, until she decided that she didn't like me. I never did find out why, and once the insults started, I wasn't that interested in finding out. Oh yes, she also called me vermin.

In this instance I'm afraid I have judged her by the insults she throws about. I think she is projecting somewhat. I'm not proud of being judgey but I was hurt by her insults and I'm only human.

Therempt of course it can be inappropriately used, like other psychological terms, but there are people out tgere who warrant its use.

Scruffbag's description is exactly how I see it, and an accurate reflection of my experience of being on the receiving end of someone I would describe this way.

Some people are toxic, and deserve to be labelled as such! When someone's nasty, narcissistic and cruel behaviour chips away at someone slowly but surely with a smile on their face - that is like a poison. Gas lighting is toxic, many behaviours are toxic because they seep into a persons very core to the point where they are mentally debilitated. Toxic. That is toxic. I've called only a couple of people in my life toxic, now NC, and I still believe it thinking again and going over their deeply nasty behaviour.

It's not a word I use but I am closely related to someone who would deserve the label. I think you guys are giving them a damn sight more consideration than they ever gave any of us.

"Some people are dehumanising. I think it is a very apt word to use sometimes.
Why does it upset you so much? I am genuinely interested in your reaction. Do you not believe that people can be damaging and poisonous? I have met a fair few people who are toxic. Some people are highly unpleasant."

Thanks for asking. I think firstly it's a terrible thing to say of someone who is merely flawed. So that's a language problem.

Secondly it's that when I describe certain things about my parents -including on here - the word gets trotted out like someone handing me a sweet. I hate this: it is as if someone was hitting my parents, or as if none of their good points counted. My parents damaged each other, me and my brothers. They abused each other and I grew up hostage to mum's MH. But that doesn't mean they are irredemiably bad so the word upsets me.

Sorry, I fundamentally disagree with you. My mother is one of the most toxic, manipulative, horrible people I have ever had the misfortune to meet. Growing up with her as my mother has coloured my entire life, I've been on ADs for decades, in and out of therapy, etc.

My father is a horrible person, but he was never deliberately evil towards me. My mother, on the other hand, treated my sister as a fucking angel (she's almost as bad as my mother), and me as her personal punching bag. There's no comfort for me thinking that I wasn't the only one, I was. And she and my sister encouraged each other.

She's toxic. She deliberately absurd me physically and mentally, whilst treating my sibling like a fucking princess.

*abused

My mother has some very good points: she will go to the ends of the earth to rescue an animal in pain.

It's a shame she couldn't do the same for her own daughter.

OP - we are multifaceted beings and nothing is ever black and white. However, adults who continually cause harm to the minutes in their charge, minors whose very life depends on their guardians' benevolence deserved the label. Even more so if they continue the behaviour and seek no forgiveness once their children are adults.

I think saying someone's behaviour is "toxic" is not dehumanising. Referring to them directly as a toxin would be, though. But you never hear someone say "that woman's a toxin".

In addition:

The get out clause of: oh but I did - insert decent act - so that cancels out the shitstorm I have reigned down on you is exactly the attitude that helps to perpetuate the cycle of abuse.

Not only the behaviour, but the person who instigates that behaviour. They are just vile and not very nice. Yes people can be not very nice, nasty, vile etc uncomfortable though it may seem.

There is one person I would use toxic for. She joined our group of friends and wheedled herself in.

I was on my guard from first meeting. There was something I couldn't put my finger on. I felt I couldn't relax or let her too close to me.

Then she was sacked for bullying! Then the bullying started to me. Messages telling me to remove things from Facebook. It got worse when I told her that no I wouldn't. She stood pinching my arm at one night out and pretended not to hear me telling her to stop touching me.

Escalated to everything I said she had to be rude or jump on me.

What I didn't realise was the others in the group noticed it. Someone confronted her about her bullying. She didn't like it and tried a smear campaign which has only had 2 people listen.

But her behaviour when she is focused on ruining someone is extremely toxic. She becomes obsessed with that person and smearing them! She has nothing in her life and she lives a fantasy world and often makes up stories which are never true but are to gain attention!

I call my family toxic and I stand by it. My mother beat and starved us and my grandmother allowed her husband to rape me when I was just 11. She also beat me as I was making her husband cheat on her.
I spent over 20 years punishing myself by still playing happy families with her. She forced me to speak to her husband and to send cards for birthdays and christmas. I couldn't eat or sleep. I was suicidal.
The whole family is messed up and innocent children were hurt and abused while every knew about it and did nothing to prevent it.
If a drug left you in fear of your life or stopped you from being able to live a normal life it would be considered toxic.
What my family did to me is in every way as toxic as an actual illness. I still have screaming nightmares and still don't trust people. I will never be whole or normal. I will never feel like I am a good person that deserves to me loved. They poisoned me with their bullshit. I am afraid to let anyone close as the only people that pretended to love me abused me in every way possible.
Can you imagine knowing you are a monster and knowing you need to protect others from your evil ness. Every day I punish myself because I was treated so badly. I still can't understand what makes me so evil to deserve this.
I try to be a decent person and do anything for anyone but under it all I know I am just this horrible monster because I came from them. I don't even accept christmas presents from people as I am so dirty and disgusting.
Some people are so bad they can destroy others. I feel destroyed. Completely and I will never be a real person. If something or someone can destroy a human being this much they are toxic. If it makes me an even worse person for using the word toxic I will live with that like I live with the rest. Be assured that I will never have a peaceful moment for not being able to accept the abuse.
The only way I have managed to survive this shit is with my children, friend and partner. They make me keep going even in my darkest moments.
I am sorry this is such a ramble but the whole thread has made me feel like shit. Abused people carry enough guilt without having others judge them for using mean words.

Face it op, some people are just that, toxic!

Little miss I am very sorry you feel that way.

Scruffbag described my PoisonousSIL to a T... ToTally Toxic.

It isn't just how she behaves, it is how she think, how she chooses to interact with people, how she chooses to do things that are intended to hurt, to dismay, how she play the victim, hard done by, misunderstood, best friend, generous benefactor , depending on who she is aiming at.

She conducted a decades long campaign of gleeful undermining of me and she enjoyed every moment of it, every last little snark, glance, smirk and triumphant grin.

That she has her own issues if obvious but utterly beside the point. I don't care how unhappy your life has been, you have no right to deliberately set out to make mine an absolute fucking nightmare - especially when we have never met, only know each other because we are dating brothers and need have no contact whatsoever.

She is toxic. Damages anyone she aims herself at and even damages those she supposedly loves! She just can't help being what she is.

www.aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?4&TheScorpionandtheFrog

My father was toxic. He literally had no redeeming features. He pursued my mother when she was practically still a child. He stripped away her family, her friends, her pride, her self worth - everything with words, actions and fists. He did the same to his children. One of my earliest memories is of my father hitting my brother with an iron for some trangression.

He beat us - we were taken by my grandparents when I was 7, but I still remember knowing that school holidays were coming and being scared for them because during school terms he could only hit or whip you around the body or back of the head, but when there were weeks to heal anywhere was fair game to him.

He used to build us up by being nice for a few days before Christmas. He'd let clueless relatives come to visit and bring us gifts. Then when we just about believed him he'd smash them. Or sell them. Taking them from us because we didn't deserve them and because he could. I can remember my sister crying because she was made to watch him play with the toy that our Aunt had bought her. She wasn't allowed to touch it. Then she had to keep her eyes shut as she wasn't good enough to look at it, but she had to listen to him play with it.

Our maternal grandparents were forced to agree with him that their daughter was a useless piece of scum if they wanted to see us. He drove them away by laughing at them because they were too weak to protect their child.

He stripped everyone around him of every ounce of self worth and dignity. He once assaulted his own mother on the hall landing and called her names because he believed she was pregnant when she married. He destroyed my mother - from the age of 13 until she died at 30 she was assaulted by him in some way that took her to the point of being so scared she'd hit us to stop him hitting her.

He still impacts us because my siblings have picked each other apart. Each needing to be the 'good' one because the good one is the safe one. His father died young having been put through untold stress watching his son become a monster and fearing for all our lives.

How else do you describe a person like that other than toxic? Sometimes it fits. Sometimes people deserve dehumanising terms applied to them because they are monsters.