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?

At the end of the day 'toxic' people are human beings and it is completely achievable to feel compassion for them. That being said the only person that is responsible for their behaviour is themselves - they have no right to expect others to put themselves in the toxic line of fire just because the toxic had a shit life.

Compassion doesn't mean one has to crucify oneself on the toxic's cross.

I am very very sad to hear those stories from Lala and little miss.

Consider judgment retracted ladies

My mother is toxic for sure. She poisons every relationship she's ever had.

Friends, family, every neighbour she's had, every boss she's ever had.

She can't keep a friend for more than two years, always a massive falling out, of course always the other persons fault!

No member of the family is in touch with her. She's taken every boss she's had to an industrial tribunal. Major neighbour disputes involving police at three different houses over twenty years.

She falls out with sales assistants, hotel workers, people she sees out on dog walks, people in the supermarket.

She's the nastiest person who walked the earth but she thinks she's perfect and everyone else is in the wrong. She spends her life putting people down and trying to make their life miserable.

eyelevelgrill
I would always think worse of someone who called another person "toxic" than the person they were describing

Then the problem is yours. To paraphrase a PP, you are lucky that you have never had to suffer such a person in your life.

Someone also said that they considered the term to mean that the person was not responsible for their actions. I don't consider this the case.

In order to be truly "toxic" in my view, they know exactly what they are doing and do so to inflict as much suffering as possible.

Well, it isn't really, because you've not read my responses.

"Toxic" isn't really a more offensive label than all the other names that people use to describe others. Clingy, insensitive, mean, nasty, bitchy, two-faced, domineering, weak, mousy, depressing, miserable, sad, lonely, unstable and so on. "Toxic" just means poisonous; I take it to mean that somebody has a trait that pollutes other people, such as being around someone who is unjustly critical all the time makes people anxious, or the laziness of one person breeding laziness in others.

I rarely use "toxic" to describe a person, but use it to describe a situation. However I can understand why people use the term, it is basically just a more polite version of saying "X is a cunt". People who get offended by the word "cunt" might not be offended by the T-word.

My mother is toxic. She ensured that I didn't get to exams and told everyone I'd failed. She ensured that I didn't get to interviews and told people I was lazy. After I'd left home she chucked my sister in a boarding school and fucked off, but she told the school that I was a drug addict and alcoholic so I couldn't visit. My sister thought I'd abandoned her.
She would buy me school uniform for my birthday and socks for Christmas. She would continually set me up to fail. She would beat me all the way along the 20 foot long hallway if she didn't like her birthday present. She tried to carry it on with my twins by sending one a birthday present and not the other. These are some of the nicer things she has done.

You live a very, very sheltered life If you think No one can be described as toxic. Do you read newspapers, other threads or watch tv. If you do I'm surprised you've never come across anyone that can be described as toxic

Just to say that I am reading all posts about other people's lives and learning from them, thank you for posting.

I will ignore folk that don't rtft though

I once applied (and took up) a job at a company I'd worked for before. At the interview the engineering manager asked me what my memories of working for the company were. I replied that I enjoyed my time and regarded it as a happy if occasionally tough time. Then he proceeded to read my leaving statement to me "a toxic environment not conducive to good engineering standards"... it continued for a side and a half of A4!
However I got the job so I think it must be an acceptable part of my vocabulary.... perhaps one if the less offensive or critical phrases!

It's a powerful and very loaded word. While I don't doubt that it is very apt on occasion, I tend to be quite wary of people who use it liberally and easily as an accusation.

Everyone I have ever known who has used 'toxic' to describe their (ex) friends, partners or family have been people who have been borderline unbalanced and quite hard work themselves, which tells you quite a lot.

Have you read some of the stories of survivors of toxic relationships described on this thread, Slotted?

If you have I feel it's pretty unfair to use your personal experience to cast aspersions of all people who use the word 'toxic' to describe a relationship that they found difficult as 'unbalanced'

eyelevelgrill "Little miss I am very sorry you feel that way."

See, now, I feel about patronising, dismissive and reductive insta-responses to horrific experiences such as Little miss described in her post as you do about using the word toxic to describe people. Couldn't you at least have said "I'm very sorry you went through all that?" How else would she feel? How else other than toxic would you describe the people who did those things to her?

Well those are my experiences Banty and I think they are as valid as anyone else's. I did say that I don't doubt it's a very apt description on some cases.

But, for example, the last person I heard use the word 'toxic' to me was describing a mutual friend as 'a toxic bitch'.

The person who said it is lovely, but frankly highly emotionally unstable and inclined to be a bit paranoid and imho possibly has a personality disorder and maybe Aspergers.

The mutual friend she described as 'a toxic bitch' is one of the least toxic, least objectionable and most empathetic women know.

I can pretty much guarantee that this 'toxic bitch' will be one of a long list of other 'toxic bitches' who have figured in her life,whereas some of us manage to navigate life without ever finding toxicity at every turn.

I didn't say your experiences weren't valid - however, to use your limited experiences to label anyone who ises the word 'toxic' to describe their experience as 'unbalanced' is not valid.

And please, don't bring disability into the mix as a way to discredit someone's experience.

Obviously you know this person but just because you suspect this person has a disability does it make it so. Nor is using disability to reduce a person's experience to something that is irrelevant an acceptable thing to do.
My 'mother' always thought there was something 'wrong' with me and used that belief to belittle me and marginalise my thoughts, experiences and opinions - perhaps she's right, perhaps there is something 'wrong' with me, but the childhood I experienced whilst she used my 'difficulties' as a means to excuse her frankly vicious emotionally abusive behaviour doesn't render the effects of her behaviour towards me into naught.

But I quite clearly said 'everyone I have ever known who has used ''toxic''.....has been unbalanced'. At no point did I label anyone or everyone.

If you or anyone else wished to conflate that as meaning all people everywhere including people I have never met, then that is your/their problem not mine.

It'sAllAboutMeMeMeMeE I thought it was patronising too and very dismissive. I don't want pity but some understanding about not putting abusers first as their feelings might get hurt because of mean words would be good. Being beaten, starved and sexually abused hurts too.

Comments like this Everyone I have ever known who has used 'toxic' to describe their (ex) friends, partners or family have been people who have been borderline unbalanced and quite hard work themselves, which tells you quite a lot. are not very helpful. All that comment did was make me feel like it's my fault and I'm mental. I know I am hard work but I never go out of my way to physically or mentally abuse anyone.

This thread has shown me how I'm not dealing with my past that well at the moment. I am a very strong person and tend to bottle things up as it helps keep me sane. My walls are not too strong at the moment so I will be taking a mental health break for a while until I can be strong enough to read about how calling people toxic makes me a worse then the abusers.

It hurts having to fight this hard to cope with something that wasn't my fault. Every day it's a bloody struggle to try and not hurt myself in some way to punish myself. And yes I am hard to live with and I am difficult. I often wonder if it would be better to leave to protect my kids and better half from being dirtied and harmed by being around me. I don't leave because I'm selfish at heart. I love them and they are the only people that have ever loved me back. I have friends and I volunteer. I try so damn hard to live a normal life. It's hard to hear i'm unbalanced. Maybe I am

The person who said it is lovely, but frankly highly emotionally unstable and inclined to be a bit paranoid and imho possibly has a personality disorder and maybe Aspergers.

Your medical experience is?

Anyone who has been abused has the right to call their abuser whatever the fuck they like frankly.

If you think your abuser was toxic call them toxic.

Some of this does read like victim blaming and that's just not on.

littlemiss, this part of your post made me cry:
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 know you probably won't believe me, but that's so so far from the truth. You are nothing like them, you just have the misfortune of sharing DNA with them.

I thought the reaction was patronising too, as was the tone of a lot of the OP's posts. Oh, these poor people being called toxic and being dehumanised. What about those whose lives they have destroyed? You're sorry a victim of horrific abuse who thinks she will never be able to rebuild her life 'feels that way'? I'm more sorry that her vile excuses for family members were ever born to be honest.

OP, has someone thrown the accusation of being toxic at you? It's a nuclear-level word, to be used with care, and if you've been hit with it it can feel like a few megatons, especially if it's unjustifiable. But it's still a very valid descriptor, and is only offensive when used wrong.

The person who said it is lovely, but frankly highly emotionally unstable and inclined to be a bit paranoid and imho possibly has a personality disorder and maybe Aspergers. The mutual friend she described as 'a toxic bitch' is one of the least toxic, least objectionable and most empathetic women know.

The fact she misused the word doesn't mean it's not a word to use--nor does it qualify you to diagnose someone as having autism. (Unless you are trained in such matters, in which case, I retract.)

My medical experience is none DawnDonna* which is why I said 'IMHO she possibly has....'

As opposed to 'Even though I am not qualified I can definitely diagnose...'

HTH

You also said you 'tend to be wary' of anyone using the term based on your limited experiences

Slotted - HTH

No, it doesn't help. You choosing to label someone with a disability and use it as an example of why people who use the word 'toxic' should be disregarded as invalid is about as unhelpful as it comes from the POV of the disabled.