A toxic person can be defined as someone who abuses a person emotionally, physically or mentally. You know, that person that makes you feel like shit. A toxic person could be a friend, a romantic partner, an acquaintance or even family. A toxic person is known to oppress another individual and sometimes that individual may not even know they are being oppressed. A toxic person is great at lying, manipulating and great at pretending. They drag you down and you might not even know it.

Toxic people affect various areas of your life as you begin to see yourself making excuses for the person. Your self-esteem begins to drop. You begin to feel like no one can really see or hear you, like your own self-consciousness is choking or drowning away. You begin to settle for things you would otherwise never settle for. I need you to know that you deserve better.  Toxic people do not necessarily share the same traits. These are some of the traits of toxic people:

They’ll keep you guessing about which version of them you’re getting. They’re lovely today and cold tomorrow. You can’t tell which version you’re getting. You could assume you’re playing with them and all of a sudden, they become very hostile.

They are very manipulative. They are very good at manipulating you to do things you would not want to do. In some cases, you begin to think their thoughts are your own and you’re only doing what you think they will like. You most likely will not know you are being manipulated

They won’t own their feelings. They never own their feelings or emotions. They find a way to push blame to others for emotions that they single headedly brought on themselves. You see them blaming you for their anger or their sadness when you have nothing to do with it. They will project their problems on to you and most times even blame you for it.

They get angry and blame everyone but themselves. You don’t have to defend yourself to move forward. You don’t have to explain, defend or justify yourself with these kinds of people.

They’ll make you prove yourself to them. They’ll regularly put you in a position where you have to choose between them and something else. You find yourself trying to impress them at every single turn. You do not have to impress anybody. You do not have to prove yourself to anyone.

They’ll never apologize. They’d twist the story to declare them right and you wrong. They will always forget about the other persons feelings and if the other person can also be angered. They see themselves as being bigger than apologizing to you or righting their wrongs.

They’ll be there in a crisis but never in joy. They’ll find reasons to downplay your good news. You never find them when you are in trouble or dismay. They never try to help you but always want you to help them and suddenly show themselves when you are beginning to enjoy life.

They’ll leave a conversation offline and unfinished. They can also leave a conversation half way to keep you guessing and troubled.

They’ll use non-toxic words in a toxic tone. Things like “what did you do today?

So, I bet you did nothing as usual”. And then they’ll come back and say all I asked was “what you did today?” They know it hurts but they say it anyways. 

They are trying to belittle you at every turn they can.

They’ll bring irrelevant details into a conversation. You’re trying to resolve something and toxic people keep bringing details that are not important. It always seems to end with what you’ve done to them and not what they’ve done to you. They bring up the past as a way to make your points seem null.

They’ll make it about the way you’re talking and not what you’re talking about. You’ll find yourself defending your tone or speech pattern instead of fighting about what you were talking about.

They exaggerate. They increase the smallest mistakes you’ve done to such a big feat. Basically “making a mountain out of a molehill”. They over react to the slightest mistakes you have made.

They are judgmental. They are quick to scrutinize everything you do. It’s worse when they’re no better than you anyways. Like someone ridiculing you for something they equally do as well.

They are quick to bring you down in front of others. They want to remind you in front of others that you are under them. They are willing to shame you in front of others. They will bring you down at every opportunity they find. They may do it sometimes to stroke their ego. Making jokes at your expense. They are having fun while you are hurting. They don’t care about how you feel. They don’t care about how they emotionally wreck you. All they care about is that people laughed at you.

They try to gather more information about you than they give you about them. They try to have all the information They snoop through your phone. They ask people about you. They want to know everything about you possibly to know how to manipulate you some more.

They do things to you they would not take. They could snoop through your phone but throw a fit if you did the same. They insult you. They pick at your wounds.  They take slight jabs at you and call it comedy. The moment you try to do these things back to them. They lash out at you. 

It’s been said before but emphasis on they never apologize. Or make their apologies a joke. There is no sincerity in their apologies ever. They apologize by joking so as to never show weakness.  Instead of saying “I’m sorry”, they say “Why are you angry over a little thing?”

Toxic people constantly latch on to you and drain you of fulfilment. They can be said to be parasitic in nature. They claim to have done nothing wrong when they have done a significant amount of damage to you. Please learn to value yourself and stand up for yourself. Learn to seek help whenever you may need it. Friends, families and loved ones, please look out for others as they might not even know they live with a toxic person. They could act like they have been hypnotized or under a spell. Please try and help each other.