Some thoughts about "toxic" people

[flippinada]

I've read and contributed to a couple of threads where people are having to deal with what I would describe as toxic friends and family and the distress that it cause. I've had issues in the past with people this myself and it's really got me thinking.

Once thing that struck me from these threads, plus my own experience of toxic types is that there seems to be common "themes" - the one that immediately comes to mind is that the toxic person needs an enabler - usually a husband or wife who panders to their awful behaviour and colludes with them.

I know there's already a wonderful support thread (stately homes) but I thought it might be helpful to have a general discussion about how to identify these people and cope with them, plus a kind of support thing so folk know they aren't alone in having to deal with it alone?

AndTheBand I think you are right.

I wish my Dsis would stop persisting with her attempts at a final confrontation that will somehow fix everything. It won't. It's sad, and unfixable. Sometimes it just is.

When I was moaning to my sister about her she said "well it was always coming wasn't it, it could be 7 minutes, seven hours, or seven years in between Mum Performing but you know it's in the post".

She managed to disengage years ago though. My mum is quite scared of dsis actually as she just won't play the game. I wish I could be like that.

akaemma I have tried to get my Dsis to disengage. She says she will. Then there is always one more email, one more letter, one more phone call.... and our mother sucks her back in and then bam the bile pours out again in a torrent and Dsis is left completely bereft.

akaemma

...and still no one confronted her. Not surprised. Awful woman. Scared of the fallout like you mentioned.

Has anybody ever tried, like me, to confront their mums but found it hard to get the words out that they want to say, rooted to the spot? I often think its shock, that somebody could say such awful things, that we develop brainfreeze and not be able to say what we really think, or just totally stunned into silence? Do I make any sense at all?

does your sister have her own dc? Sorry if you've said earlier in the thread. I found it was a lot easier to not take do much on board once I had my own children.

aka you can be like that. You have the strength, trust us.

We'll hold the hands of anyone who wants to take that step.

I've thought of another horrible nan story but it affected my aunt. When my aunt was diagnosed with diabetes they went through blood types. She realised she didn't share a blood type with either parent, so my grandad wasn't her Dad.
She confronted my nan a couple of times but nan always changed the subject or even ignored her.
My nan died without my aunt ever finding out the truth.

Yes! I have been like that. So stressed that you just can't get the words out. And when you do it sounds petty and of no big deal because you can't form a coherent train of thought. I think since we were born they've scared us so that fear is laid down as actually part of our brains wiring. I remember arguing with my Mum on the phone in front of my boss once (she was a mate too). After it was over I was shaking and couldn't even stand up. My friend said that I looked like I was going to pass out. She gave me fag which I took and smoked and I had been given up for 10 years!

God that's awful. Those stories about fathers not being fathers and not telling the truth about it are just horrific. They are worse than anything. Everything you've believed and your own self knowledge smashed to smithereens in an instant .

One tactic sister will try when she knows she is "in the dog house" is to lie low for awhile (as if her silence to us is punishment-if she only knew ) and then try to pick up the relationship where it left off just like nothing happened. She then proceeds to the apology: nay, non-apology. The first one was something like this: "I am sorry that you are offended. I just can not figure out what I said or did that offended you, I am really scratching my head over this." I did not respond. The second one, years later: "Can we get past this? I truly apologize for whatever I did." I responded with: "Truly apologizing for "whatever" is an exercise in dismissiveness, so that's a no."

Sounds bitchy. But in her black and white world, I'm either a bitch or a doormat. I've done the doormat for over 4 decades and I'm just not doing that any more.

Linerunner: Imho, one day your sister will get it. She will get to the point of enough is enough-even if it does take years.

goodjam, I truly feel for your aunt. I always think our roots start with our parents, but if the roots are fractured in some way, then we are fractured

I hope so, AndTheBandPlayedOn. But I think this one could go the distance for my Dsis.

I am very conscious myself that the lack of a mother's love is dislocating.

LineRunner-my oldest sister is in limited contact with the 'toxic' one. She knows the deal and sets boundaries. I believe she had awareness of the dynamic long before I did and thus the damage was mitigated somewhat. I was completely engulfed (sort of like being the golden child to my Middle sister after mother died...crazy making!!)

Here I am venting again, and I was thinking I was over it. I am not participating with her anymore, so that's progress. Hopefully there is a way forward to making peace with it so I can kick it to the back of the shed dump it in the landfill and leave it there.

Sad, isn't it? I don't know if it ever really goes away.

My mother's latest madness (when I last spoke to her) was her burial position in the family graves.

Firstly, so sorry to hear of some of the very sad experiences of people here, especially double and lemon.

I?ve been following this thread as I have suspected for years that my mother is ?toxic?, at least as defined here. It has caused lots of heartache for me and others, and has definitely affected my approach to life and my self esteem. I have wondered if she has a personality disorder .

She presents initially as charming and friendly. As people get to know her, she puts on a weak, passive 'hard done by' act. She acts the martyr ? doing ?favours? you never wanted her to do in the first place, moaning how hard it has been and making you to blame for it

Only to very close family does she act in a cruel way, or tantrum. Then she alternates being cruel and being kind, to keep you hooked in. Then she makes the ?incredibly rude personal comments that are made out of the blue and leave you going wtf?!

She lies to people about how others behave, to keep herself from blame.
She's very nosey / intrusive - doesn't respect privacy
She?s always angry with someone, or has fallen out with someone. She tends to have one 'target' / victim at a time. She also alternates who she idolises, often on a quite spurious basis, e.g. their nationality ?
She sulks ? for years she used sulking to punish my Dad after an argument, and to control all of us by having us all tiptoe around her
I have a few embarrassing restaurant stories, too!

Another thing is ? she tries to spoil or hijack my ?happy days?. My wedding day was a good example of this ? she ended up in tears because we ?hadn?t invited enough of her family? (we had invited the ones we knew and were in contact with).

Her behaviour, particularly when I was a child, has impacted me. Mainly it has made me a rather insecure person - I'm never sure if I'm OK, or if I'm a good person. I instinctively fear that other people might be secretly angry with me. I also have the fear that I will screw up my children, that they'll hate me.

So a question for the people here ? how do you think your toxic person?s behaviour has affected you?

Andtheband - I know what you mean about never really getting over it.I went to counselling after mum died but it was too soon and I was still grieving and got really angry with my counsellor. I have an appointment booked again (first time since she died in 2005!) this month. I think birth of DD and a few other things have triggered me thinking of her and 'mummy nature' and not wanting to pass it on. I think certain situational memories will be bought up as I go through life but the trick is to see how it made you feel and avoid/feel proud you won't ever do that to your DC, or if you do then you at least acknowledge it and apologise.
Radish I am also very insecure. I constantly feel people don't really like me and have a lot of friends as a family substitute. I think this kind of desperation is why I picked controlling friends; it's only now I feel healthy enough mentally (thank god for my poor memory, some things really do fade with time!) to see that I only need a few really good friends. The rest are just fluff and I waste time and energy running about after them, just like I used to with mum.

RadishRobin, my mother's carry on through the years has chipped away at my self esteem, mental health and confidence. Reality for me has been a problem, actually knowing what is real and what is not...literally...creates anxiety and often hallucinations.
I agree also with the idea of confrontation and ending up a dribbling wreck because everything sounds petty and small. there is no point continuing the confrontation as mother sits there with this "look" amused and titillated by it all.

My mother's hypochondria is 2nd class attention seeking. she has had a litany of problems from day 1. I have had countless surgery since the age of 3, still ahve a big scar over my pubis where a cyst was removed. My father died when we were young so she crucified herself on that since then. no one else suffered but her. She starts stories with "When your father died", never "my husband" or Daddy or P...somehow it was our fault. our father.

In honesty, sometimes I meet myself coming back. i am sick of her misery and lack of joy in life and have vowed never never to lose the capacity for happiness and to not treat the drubbing of innocent people as a sport. Avoid other people's drama

Lola, love your last comment on avoiding other people's drama.
Sometimes I liken my family to a zombie film, now that I've been reading up on various forms of toxicity, I.e. narcissism etc, they seem to be popping up everywhere.
I always thought I had some fundamental flaw which meant I got the bad experiences I deserved. My parents are both dead, my father was a narcissist, my mother a codependent, my dsis breaks all the rules on narcissism though. She was diagnosed with MS over 15 yrs ago and never took any medication. She is in a wheelchair and needs 24 hour care and harasses all and sundry. As I'm the only close family left I bear the brunt of her toxicity. She channels our mother sometimes in her desire to rope in my son too to do her bidding. It it worse than any horror film.
I sacrificed my youth to cater to my mother's whims, she wants me to continue sacrificing to serve her. Literally.
I married my first dh to escape the tyranny. Only to face another narcissist! Divorced him and had a great life as single mother for 8 years. Went back to school, on top of full time employment, never dated for fear of the same.
Married again 3 yrs ago because everyone was telling me to get a life, including ds, whom I was probably smothering. At 11 he wanted more freedom I suppose. Dh has 2 kids from his previous marriage and though we look normal
WE ARE NOT. His ex is a sociopath, her dd the golden child, her ds the scapegoat. My dh has own issues I see now and these have brought on new waves of anxiety. I can't cope and feel I need drugs to carry on. I can't carry all these people with their unbelievable problems. Thank God my ds appears to be a well grounded teen. Do I need a psychiatrist? Sorry for long rant.

quilts, I have created a whole world in my head to where I go of an evening in bed. no one gets in on it. I have a house, pets, solitude in there and it feels safe and home.
That in itself sounds mental but it helps me cope and gives me a journey to look forward to each night it also helps me sleep. I am the person I want to be in there, not the version everyone tells me I am. Hopefully in a matter of time the person up there will start to emerge out here.

If your sister has help and care provided by someone else,then don't play the game as everyone above has said. Though I need to do the same. Be prepared for an almight kick off though. that is a given but if you can weather it, keep going. Start small, like a space in your mind for yourself. it really helps, believe me.
do think about counselling though, it can only deflate those memories and feelings once you disown them in the open air.

Thanks, Lola, you sound like a lovely person.
I am making a bit of progress, otherwise I would not have recognized myself here and spoken up. I recently insisted on getting a small couch for a corner in the kitchen I am now curled up on and writing this. It is my space and only the cat shares it.
I know flu goes round every winter but sometimes I think I get ill when I'm down much more easily.
Dh and I are getting some couple counseling sessions, its helping but they don't have a magic wand. I have to learn to become stronger or get taken advantage of. I'm sad that a romantic partner would do this, but yeah, they do.
I suppose I find all the disillusionment weakening. I read a lot of self help books and think I've cracked the code to better living with each one. Maybe there is no code and we simply need to eke out the best conditions we can simply to survive? Xx

I constantly feel people don't really like me and have a lot of friends as a family substitute - atouch, yes that is exactly like me. It has taken me years to build up a really good circle of friends but I am so glad I have. They are my safety net, proof that I can't be the bad person my mum makes me out to be, or I wouldn't have so many.

Reading this, I believe my case isn't as severe as some. Maybe because although my Dad did enable her at times, he was also a very supportive influence and so were his family.

Quilts you sound as though you have a tough time with so many toxics in your life. Lovely that your DS is well. IME It is a good idea to have counselling, because it is only when you start to unravel your experiences that you can get free of them. Your couch sounds great! And I like Lola's idea of the space in your head.

It has made me insecure. I look back and think i was very low in self confidence as a child. I do everything to make my kids feel the opposite. I find confrontation difficult and can fly off the handle. I aim to be laid back and easy going but it's an uphill struggle. My mum is insanely jealous if anyone is chatting and smiling at dad or showing him interest more than her, she sulks and says he's a dirty old man if the waitress talks to him, yet constantly tells us that she married 'the village idiot' and could have had her pick because she was so beautiful. I feel like Dad has sacrificed his life for her selfishness. He had lots of friends and was a jolly soul when they met. She slowly ostracised him from them all with her deep rooted insecurity and jealousy and did the same with his family. She always comes first. It makes me terribly sad but i have now realised things will never change and this is the life he chose. I do remember begging him to get divorced from her at 14 but all he ever says is "But i love her."
He cannot walk away from the abuse.

I don think that she has a deep rooted mental health problem, especially her conviction that she has Cancer but Hell would freeze over before she sought help.

I too have some good friends around me. I was chatting to a very old friend on Facebook from Schooldays. She went on a family holiday with us when we were teenagers and knew my mum and got on with her well. She said she noticed that she was very critical of me infront of her and compared me to my friends a lot and it made her feel uncomfortable. She also noticed my brother could do no wrong. I get on very well with my brother and feel no animosity towards him. He is a lot younger than me and very passive.

But it is a lightbulb moment of clarity when you get the opinion of an Outsider.

"how do you think your toxic person?s behaviour has affected you?"

My Mum never hugged or kissed me as a child as I'd pushed her away when I was about 12 months old. Hugs and kisses weren't a part of our childhood. Even now, I am very self-contained and only feel comfortable hugging and kissing my children when they're young. My son does hug me though. (He's a pain sometimes, but is lovely). I very rarely kiss my mum goodbye. I am self-contained, but then, I've had to be. I'm also quite insecure.

When I was very young, my Dad was the authoritarian and very distant, but after a near-death experience on the operating table, completely changed.

My sister, who was the golden child, has taken a lot longer to come to the conclusion about Mum as me. She denied it all until about 3 years ago and has slowly been working her way along to her conclusion. I was the scapegoat, so used to the crap that got dished out.

I feel very heavy hearted and teary typing this post, but hey, there you go, can't be helped.

Double that story is just dreadful

To everyone else on this thread - my thoughts are with you all. {HUGS}

Hugs back! lemon and fellow threaders.
I'm so glad I found this particular thread, its like reading about myself from different angles, or a parallel universe where life is even worse, its scary.

I'd like to share this link, just found it on an impulse and I'm laughing and crying about it, as the idea of being selfish is so absurd for anyone on this thread.
Www.coachville.com/basic/attraction/topten2.html
Let me know about your baby steps!