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?

My mum was a narc (again only realised that since seeing threads on here, she died in 2005). She also was an alcoholic which turned every evening (and some mornings depending on hangovers) into a nightmare. It got to the point where I could only call her between 10-2pm every day as any earlier and she would be in a foul mood and any later I couldn't actually understand her slurring .
Needless to say she had no friends. The neighbours had the patience of saints and stuck by her despite many 2am rants and calling of the police to their house having 'heard a disagreement'... She called an ambulance to my house once after 'having a feeling I wasn't well' . I still feel funny reading threads like this as nearly every poster with a mum in the same position reminds me of different anecdotes - nearly every line from you guys suddenly makes me remember when she shouted at a checkout girl or rang up people up hurling abuse and slamming down the phone.
Interestingly she did confide in me one night "You know that people are all shits though, don't you. All of them. Deep down. No once is actually genuinely nice. Never forget that, and more fool you if you are [nice] yourself!"
She honestly didn't trust or like many people. People were on pedestals for a brief time and then thrown off and hounded. Sad really. I do worry I can repeat certain patterns, but I have a lot more patience than her. Actually different in many ways, thankfully, but I do feel I have to watch myself, in case. I stood up to her as well noddy which resulted in her not talking to me for 6 months and then suddenly the neighbours called me to tell me she had cancer and she died within 3 months. Dramatic to the end!

Does anybody know WHY these people are how they are?
Is it an illness, a reaction to childhood trauma, a behavioural blind spot? What would cause such abnormal behaviours?

Armadillo - that is so sad x

I don't know how to feel after reading this thread, i'm almost in tears.

I'm not sure whether to be sad that others are in the same boat or relieved that I recognise so much of what my mother is like from your descriptions.

Thank you.

My deepest fear is turning into my mother, does history repeat itself? Will I become the bitter and twisted toxic woman that she is? And will I end up treating my DCs the same way I am treated? How do I break the cycle?

Everythingisticketty - I'm sorry your mother allowed your DB to make such hurtful comments to you. I had a lot of personal comments aimed at me about my appearance from DF and SM. I have carried hang ups about my body into my adult life, based on those cutting words. It doesn't matter how much friends/DH try to persuade me that my body is fine, I just can't see it that way. I can only see the flaws that were pointed out to me when I was a teenager (surely the worst time to point out supposed physical failings?). I don't care so much now, but there are still clothes I won't wear because they would show off those 'ugly' bits of me.

Ginebra - the stuff about 'They're not hungry' doesn't sound petty at all. It's outrageous, actually. Why couldn't you decide for yourselves? It was very controlling of her.

Goodjam - your poor mum. But I hope she can break the pattern, not repeat it.

breaking the cycle is hard. I sometimes feel terrible, reading these threads because everybody else is managing to do that. I lose my temper when my kids won't listen. And I really have to dialogue with myself, hang on, what am I shouting at them about, am I trying to control them.. ON this occasion, no! they have to do their homework/brush their teeth goddammit! but on other occasions I realise I might be micro managing them, and I fear i'm controlling them. But I tell my dc they are lovely, and I tell them they are not only clever but can work hard, and already I'm trying to give them positive messages but sometimes I feel I ruin it by shouting at them when they are just so naughty!

ps, also, I have said SORRY to my kids. I know it doesn't mean that the loss of temper didn't happen. But unlike my mother I have said to the children 'i am SO sorry that I was as cross as I was. You shouldn't have made a blue cake (or whatever it was that made me crazy) but I am sorry that I was AS cross as I was.

Norks - I think I read somewhere on mn that this can be caused by trauma I think my narcs was probably caused by her mum walking out on the family. Her mum hardly ever had her to stay overnight. One night when dh and I had just started seeing each other he asked his xwife to have the dc one night so we could go out - she said I'm not your babysitter (grr - they were her children ffs).

YY Gin to the whole cake thing. When mum died an old friend she had ditched decades ago wrote to me saying I was the 'most polite and well turned out child she had ever met' and continued to hint that she was sorry she didn't have the chance to hang around to see me as an adult. (mum used to rant about her in v derogatory tones, so heaven knows what she was perceived to have done to her to have caused them to loose such an old friendship). Her and my mum had gone to school together. It was heartbreaking as she sent all of these pics of mum from childhood and me and mum when she still had custody of me. I remember reading it and thinking, if you only knew how scared of her I was, you would know why I was so 'well behaved'. I was told to look at my shoes, not an adult, unless I was spoken to - that kind of thing. The whole pretense of her meeting someone and being charming and funny and then as we walked home she would pick them to shreds; they looked like a tart in that skirt, spoke very poorly, terrible choice in scent, did you see their nails! etc etc. I think I get my anxiety from the fact she taught me that no matter how people seem to see you (i.e her being nice to their face) didn't mean they aren't slagging you off just behind your back. She was quite a snob, but strangely a stout defender of the 'salt of the earth' common man. I never knew where to look for a role model, as undoubtedly whoever I chose would be scorned.
Ah, i'm writing bloomin' essays! Sorry, Mothers Day triggers it for me - she died in March too. Sorry for banging on!

Oh and yes about the trauma thing for my mum - she was adopted and constantly telling me how lucky I was to 'know' who my parents were. Her parents had 'deserted her'.
Strangely I met up with her bio family and her sister always wanted to be adopted and never forgave their real mum for NOT putting her up for adoption. The grass is always greener.

ATouch - surely today is the perfect day to get it out

AtouchOfStuffing, my mum wouldn't trash her own friends but from when I was a young adult on, I knew how judgemental she was over exactly the same kind of thing, and it's left me with a huge fear of being judged. I am just waiting to be judged, and so I'm defensive (which attracts toxic people because they enjoy baiting people who defend defend defend).

Ginebra - please do not worry that if you shout at your kids that it means you are like your mum. You are not. You have empathy, you tell your kids they are loved, your kids know they are loved. We have not all found the solutions - I am still looking - that is why I find this thread so helpful.Normal good parents shout too

They are the Goblin Kings...

Our mantra from henceforth should be

You have no power over me

Thanks Doth, I know it is easier for me than those with narc mum's still about. Weird mixed emotions on MD that is for sure!
GinYes! I attract them too. I feel sorry for people with no friends (I think I sometimes worried because mum was alone and always saying how lonely she was, so replaced love I wanted to give her into these types of friends?!) and have spent the last 2 years digging myself out of holes with them. Grand total of 6 dumped in 2 years once I realised all of the patterns. Other friends hated them and never got on with them, they had no friends of their own, always had a bullied at school/other sob story and usually pretty controlling in who else I had as a friend and whether I saw them as much etc etc. It sounds terrible, especially after slating mum for ditching my friends, but actually being on here has shown me that I don't need to repeat the patterns my mum ingrained in me. I feel bad talking about her like this, but it has become easier over the years to distance myself and try to break free of her control from beyond the grave. Sadly the only advice I can give is to break free and try to figure out who you actually are in yourself, not who they wanted you/tried to make you into. It is VERY hard and I only make small in roads each year.

Thanks Nickname the odd thing is I don't hold it against him, he still occasionally does it but I tell him exactly my thoughts on it. The problem like you said is that it was done at a sensitive time for me. I have so many issues with my body now it is so sad. What is worse I think is when I look at pictures from my teen years, I was hot, not just a bit nice, a mean really really hot, I married the first person that told me I was beautiful because I had never been told it before and thought that was love (how very very wrong) I blame her for never giving me any confidence I'm myself, by allowing db to say what he did made me think he was right.

I try to tell my boys how proud of them I am, how lovely they are and that I love them as often as I can. I do not want to ever repeat the cycle.

I'm glad it is not just me suspicious of the MIL relationship and it was interesting to hear that you are also wary of mules friendships. I am sometimes concerned that I am somehow like mum, I am not lo contact with anyone from school (db has had the same friend since he was 4) and my oldest friend I have known for about 10 years, but I don't have what I would consider a circle of close friends. I seen to be able to make friends I think I pull away if I have any doubt or concerns about them.

I am at peace with myself now I always knew she was wrong but hoped for change but her treatment of us became extreme and I had to do something. Interestingly I didn't really stand up to her She had been staying for years that's he didn't enjoy family etc and having us in the house etc. said itwasn't her thing. Last summer my dps sister died and I just saw he light. She never contacted me fr months ad when she did I said I was glad she had changed her mind about not wanting us around and life is too short. Well all hell broke loose and she sent me a list of all my failings. She had already doe similar with my lovely sister so I decided to leave her to hervowndevices. That was nearly a year ago.

#other not mules, silly auto correct.

Nicknamechange - But I still feel immensely guilty for typing these words. As if I have let him down and he's going to be disappointed in me all over again.

My view is that these people were the ADULTS in the relationship, any feelings of responsibility lands squarely on their shoulders. It was their role to protect and love, if they were incapable of that I don't see that as being my failing...nor do I feel I was/am a disappointment by saying 'Dad, you were crap'! I am confident in my assertion that you can love someone and not like their behaviour - it doesn't have to be all or nothing.

Ginebra 'Husband and Epiphanies' - There's the end of my marriage in a nutshell. He did have one when he caught witnessed MiL verbally emotionally damaging one of our DC, but eventually slid back into the family tram-lines of behaviour and began minimising it. I thought he would have one when I confronted a relative of his and he heard lie after lie after lie drip from their mouths (yes, he did know what they were saying was completely self-supporting lies!) but I knew my marriage was a goner when he sat there looking tearful, said nothing until he sympathised mid-conversation with the liar's upset at being asked to explain their frankly shocking and destructive behaviour (he actually apologised to them...!) He might have one in the future, but clearly cannot overcome his conditioning so they are not quite the wake-up calls the rest of us experience.

Reading back over thread I recognise some Toxic 'Axioms'.

Illness - yep tick, MIL and her barnstorming Migraines. Only cure is a lie-down in a darkened room.

Keeping up appearances - OH YES! But I was always aware of that one. Appearances are EVERYTHING in their family - the 'naice' family is not all that, some very dark stuff under that veneer of respectability.

AttilatheMeerkat 'Nacissists and gift buying' - Words cannot express how much that post hit home! In-Laws didn't even do Birthday cards before H and I got together, and any present ever given to Mil was met with a moue. Text from MiL to (my) Husband a few weeks ago mentions his Birthday present - it's still not appeared (and never will). Ditto Christmas present.

The only thing that doesn't resonate are the melt-downs and tantrums some described, it's all passive-aggressive here. All the better to play the victim, and all the harder impossible to counter.

To answer the original question "Why do people do it?" - I would suggest that, either they are mirroring aspects of their own upbringing (the vicious circle/their 'normality') or they had some specific incident/s in their childhood that damaged their emotional development. The end result is we suffer for their failings.

Brenda, we also didn't have tantrums. We had sulks, ignoring and strong radiating disapproval.
Reading this thread just reminds me of other stuff my nan said. I'm in my 30s and very happy with DP, so my mum had been waiting for 'ages' for a gc!
she was so excited to tell her mum I was pg, only to be disappointed by the response: "are they getting married then?" No congratulations, no happiness. Of course not, she's not centre of attention and won't ever come first again.
I wasn't at all surprised by it but it put a real downer on mums day.

Bolting - and how we suffer. Another tick for the migraines (no headaches like the rest of us) - and they simply must lie down . At the moment to keep up appearances they are lying about me on a regular basis, they seem quite intent on destroying dh's relationship with his son. I don't know why dh's son can't see through her - maybe its too scary for him to accept. We went away on her birthday dh picked the date, his son was insistant I had picked the date deliberately to hurt her - dh had already stopped all contact by then. Ironically his son and his dp came to stay that night with us - but didn't want her to know about it. I hope he is beginning to see how controlling she is. She told everyone that its my fault dh has nothing to do with his family - er no - he has regular contact with his son, and she is the one who made no effort with us. She didn't invite him to her dc's birthday party, them told everyone I was a bitch and I'd refused to let him go. RAAAAAAAAAAAA She only visited us once last year - on dh's birthday - of course there was no present, and she would not lower herself to speak to me or my dd. Now I cannot believe I used to think she was just shy and maybe a bit depressed - no she is an evil bitch and at this moment I am her #1 target.

We get tantrums from MIL, big screaming ones in the street so the neighbours can enjoy. She would never behave that way outside her own house, only her DCs.

MIL is just cold. She comes across as a lovely slightly fluffy kind of person but she's more than capable of leaving her own children in absolutely dire financial situations, if it would benefit herself. I'm not exaggerating. A while ago she tried to convince DH and myself to enter in to a financial agreement with her that would have let MIL completely off the hook for the bad financial decisions that she's made, and we would have been left footing the bill to the tune of nearly 100k. This woman has worked in the financial industry for most of her working life, I can't believe she wouldn't know exactly what she was doing.

I think sulking is a basically a passive-aggressive tantrum isn't it?

To me the worse thing about this kind of behaviour is how the dysfunction permeates entire families/friendship groups/offices.

I think toxic families are the worst because the others you can get away from..you can drop a friend or you can leave a job but your family is a lot harder to get away from.

I remember when we were all still at home my mother wouldn't talk to her dh my step dad for up to 3 weeks at a time. Neither my sister or I can recall why

The sheer amount of negative energy it takes to maintain that kind of behaviour...that's one of things that really baffles me. Aside from the behaviour aspect - it's just such hard work, so draining to keep it up.