To not like to hear people being described as toxic?

[Wanttosleep92]

Am I the only one who feels a bit sad at the tendency to describe people as ‘toxic’? I seem to be seeing it all the time - I follow a social media account promoting ‘positive mental health’ and they just shared a quote about cutting toxic people out. I do get not speaking to certain people for your own self preservation but I just hate the word toxic in that it seems to imply that a person is irrevocably bad/irredeemable. It just doesn’t seem very charitable or forgiving or nuanced. It also makes me dwell on my own past mistakes, I hate that there are people out there who would probably describe me as toxic... maybe I’m being naive but I just wish people could be a bit more forgiving and loving to one another instead of dismissing people as toxic for any bad behaviour

Labelling anyone - "she's a bully", "he's toxic" - shuts down any possibility of them changing.

That's nonsense though. 'Labelling' someone does not in any way stop them from changing. Why would a label from someone else make you think you had to stay like that forever?

If you’re feeling do Jesus-y go and do some volunteering at a food bank or homeless shelter or something useful. Stop naval gazing about people accurately describing people in their lives - you feeling irritated by it and wanting everyone to ‘play nice’ achieves Jack Shit & hurts people who are already struggling to cope with the feelings of being ‘less than’ due to toxic people.

Couldn't agree more with IncrediblySadToo - volunteering is such a good suggestion to funnel your Jesus-y feelings; as well as food banks and shelters there are nationwide volunteering opportunities to help convinced sex offenders in your community.

I haven't got enough nearly enough zero compassion for the latter but maybe you're a better person than me.

If somebody behaves terribly and is told that they are simply toxic and this behaviour is inherent for them, there is no incentive to be better, as another poster said it is as though they are simply rotten to the core

Only if your only incentive to be good is convincing people that you're good. You could just be good for the sake of it. You could decide to prove people wrong. You could acknowledge that your behaviour had hurt other people, and that the best thing for them would be if you left them alone, and you could go and make new relationships in which you behaved better.

I kind of agree with you OP.
But I do know some people who are ‘toxic’ and truly will never be able to redeem themselves.
I do think the label is thrown around a bit too much nowadays though

YABU and naive. Calling someone toxic does not preclude them being able to change, and the implication in your OP is that you yourself have changed when people might have considered you toxic in the past, so of course you know this.

If anyone tries to use labels or name calling as a way of them not being able to change, they are making excuses and more than likely just don’t want to/can’t be bothered to.

People can change, but only if they actually want to, if they care to. They have to be incredibly strong and to be quite honest, these sorts of people are usually like this because they are weak, which is why they rarely do change.

I think it's an unhelpful and lazy label. You're actually deciding that someone is, objectively speaking, poisonous, like a death cap mushroom, when, realistically, some people behave incredibly badly towards some other people. I can think of someone I did experience as poisonous, in that her behaviour towards me was bullying and intimidating and aggressive. Yet for other people, she's a valued friend and good egg. I experienced her as toxic and don't get me wrong, I think she's absolutely awful and would take enormous pleasure if she got her comeuppance but I only get to pronounce on her behaviours that I've experienced and know about. The rest of the world does not share my opinion of her -- she's not objectively poison.

Chocolate is a delicious treat to humans and toxic to dogs.

People can change themselves... but only if they see the problem and want to change themselves. Too many good people waste their time, energy and life on trying to change foul people who have no interest in changing and often play the victim.

There was a toxic family member in my family. She's been dead for decades, but her poision is still felt because of her influence on golden childing/ scapegoating and ignoring a generation of young siblings and the pain and division that carried on long into adulthood. That's very difficult to simple personality clashes or isolated poor behaviour.

Chocolate is a delicious treat to humans and toxic to dogs.

Well, that's not particularly helpful unless you're suggesting that toxicity in behavioural terms is species-dependent? And in fact some people who behave appallingly towards most humans can be tender and caring towards animals. Just as there are trainee psychopaths pulling the wings of flies and tormenting small animals but who don't (yet) extend that to people who can speak out and fight back.

I experienced my grandmother as toxic, and I can see the influence of her awful behaviour on my mother and her siblings. However, my sister, who is six years younger than I am has only rosy memories of her, while I can't remember a single word or action of hers that wasn't cruel and unpleasant. Who's right?

You can't change another adult's behaviour so ditching people who aren't good for you (toxic) is a good thing imo. A toxic person can change or not be toxic towards another person but sometimes there is too much water under the bridge. Personally it shocks me how many people are doormats to badly behaved people. I'm not perfect but my friends and family shouldn't expect less than a certain level of behaviour from me because that's what they deserve.

But it precludes somebody being able to change doesn’t it? If somebody behaves terribly and is told that they are simply toxic and this behaviour is inherent for them, there is no incentive to be better, as another poster said it is as though they are simply rotten to the core. Whereas if they are treated with compassion/as a flawed human being surely anyone can get better? But then I suppose it’s difficult in where to draw the line, not sure I’d want to be compassionate to a serial killer or serial rapist or something but... I don’t know. I feel quite Jesus-y.

Yes, you sound quite hippy dippy. Were you one of those MNers who wanted to “talk to ISIS”?

Some people conduct their interpersonal relationships in a way that is entirely poisonous. Unless you know enough to get out of their way and accept that they won’t change, they can do you great, and ongoing harm.

You’ve obviously been lucky never to meet one. So perhaps you shouldn’t nitpick over the self-help terminology of those who have?

I think that you are naively assuming that if you tell someone that their behaviour is hurting you then they will modify that behaviour. Toxic people don't give a fuck or are outraged that you can't see why their needs trump yours.
In my experience most adults don't change and changing doesn't mean that you deserve to be forgiven. If you change for the better then the best that you can hope for is healthy future relationships.

For me, whether it precludes someone changing or not is irrelevant -- I agree, @pikapikachu, that often your best option is to stop having any contact with the person, and yes, there are depressing numbers of posts on Mn where people tiptoe around enabling other people's appalling behaviour. For me, the problem is that you can't legislate for how that person is perceived by and interacts with other people.

My grandmother's relationship with me, her eldest grandchild, was toxic and very damaging, and her relationship with her three children was toxic in life-alteringly damaging ways I can see being passed on to the next generation -- but my mother and uncle, for instance, would not recognise my description at all. For them she was a beloved mother. For my younger sister, she was a lovely, warm granny figure.

Do I conclude that I'm right and they're wrong? That my younger sister was simply too young to understand the dynamics, or that I came in for most grief because being the eldest girl, that my grandmother was casting me in the role of dutiful handmaiden, like she had my mother? That my mother and uncle don't have enough self-knowledge to understand how damaging she was to them, and to me?

It's messy and complex, like most human relationships.

It depends.

Some people are genuinely toxic. I have no problem with people referring to toxic people as such under these circumstances.

But then I see people who seem to confuse the word 'toxic' with 'people who don't always agree with my morally repugnant actions and have the audacity to question my bad and selfish choices', and that gives me pause.

@poignet IMO if someone is abusive towards one person, the evil of that is not lessened by the fact that they were pleasant to someone else. Good people are not abusive to anyone.

But then I see people who seem to confuse the word 'toxic' with 'people who don't always agree with my morally repugnant actions and have the audacity to question my bad and selfish choices', and that gives me pause.

There are always people who will misapply any terminology in self-serving ways @AzraiL

It doesn’t mean the terms aren’t valid.

I do agree about us all being kinder but, at the same time, I do think there are some people around who are truly toxic. Thankfully I don't think I know any in real life.

I guess the word does get overused on MN though.

I agree entirely @toomuchtooold. My point was that there's a difference between saying 'My grandmother was toxic in the way she treated me/in her behaviour towards me' or 'I experienced my grandmother as toxic' and 'My grandmother was toxic' period.

Because I can see other people in her vicinity who did not experience her the way I did. It doesn't lessen my sense of her corrosive poisonousness in my own life for one second or lessen the fact that I was delighted and relieved when she died but I can't make a total claim about her relationships with other people.

Op, there is a difference between someone making bad choices and having regret vs toxicity.

My ex MIL has 4 children and on the rare occasion she is around her family she has to have a management plan in place. This includes her grandchildren knowing that if told to leave by their parents they have to just go immediately...this is because their grandmother is likely to blow up and be verbally and physically abusive. It is like dealing with a highly dangerous liquid so toxic describes it very well.

At 70 I doubt she can ever change. I was naive at the start and assumed she needed compassion but she perceived that as a weakness which made me more of a target.

I have only known one other toxic person before in a work environment and he was likely to be a psychopath. Would you prefer terms such as sociopath, personality disordered or psychopath to toxic?

I am all for greater awareness of damaging people as abuse survivors mostly wish they had known more. If you want greater compassion get involved in charities that support victims. It is what I do now to stop feeling powerless when you hear of abuse.

My mother is toxic. She's truly poisonous and has made me and my sister nervous anxious wrecks as adults because of her wildly unpredictable moods and narcissistic rages when we were children.

DB, is that you??

My mother is a horrible, vicious, narcissistic person and she ruins everything she touches, but she is so fucking self involved she is convinced the world is out to get her. It couldn't possibly be that she's a total arsehole and brings it on herself

@techway would you call somebody with a recognised personality disorder toxic then?

TottieandMarchPain

Never said it wasn't a valid term, hence the first sentence of my post. I actually use the term myself.

Or first half of my post, more accurately.

A person with Narcisstic personality disorder can be toxic and it is on the rise in society. Kindness is the antidote but so is awareness about abusive behaviours. It has to be a dual strategy.