This is a really broad topic ....
I call it toxic when you have an infant undergoing life-saving surgery, with two more infants in tow, and someone is “throwing marbles under your feet” .... trying to destroy your coping ability in order to compete with you for your husband’s attention ..... trying to make you fail as a parent in order to validate their own parenting style by taking over from you when you prove to be incompetent ..... undoing your house management systems for the same reason ..... and pretending all the while to be there offering any “assistance” they can ..... then acting the martyr when their “offers” (demands) are “rejected” (placed within boundaries in fact) ..... and they pull out of babysitting at the last minute because they have decided to go to the hairdresser instead, leaving you to, last minute, place for the three infants to spend five hour stints at the hospital with you .... to be changed, fed, slept, entertained in a stroller .....
Rant over. There are many of us managing very difficult people in our lives, and this is now a long time ago for me .....
Probably more to the point, is why these people are “toxic” ..... what need are they trying to meet for themselves, and you are either in their way, or perceived to be a threat, or just someone they can bully because it makes them feel better about themselves ?
For me, when someone is being awful and hurting others around them, it’s because they have been hurt themselves ..... they are motivated by pain or fear or low self-esteem .... and what they really need is help and understanding .... support.
This opens a whole other can of worms ..... are you the person to help them ? Can you co-exist with them, within boundaries ? Are the boundaries able to be implemnted and sustained ? Do you have the time, energy, personal investment, to be able to do this ? I chose to do this. I wasn’t the only person in a relationship with them, and weighing up the immediate, and potential future costs, I went that way. Has it been for the best ? I like to think so. I found ways to be able to give to that person because they needed care .... at arms length because they would still lash out despite themselves.
People are people at the end of the day, and sayings like, “Walk a mile in my shoes”, and “There but for the grace of God go I”, and many more, are there for a reason. Boundaries are a form of nurturing, in my opinion, but sometimes self-nurturing requires that you walk away ..... there are no easy answers, and we don’t have the right to judge other people’s masks, only our own. We can be wary of them however.
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