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Cut Toxic People Loose

We all have dysfunctional friends and family. In some respects, they add color and fun to our lives. But sometimes you find yourself up against that special someone who constantly complains about others and puts you down. We want to accept the latter as much as we accept the former. But there’s a problem.

Mood music:

The latter group — we’ll call them the toxic people — rub off on you. Their toxic tirades seep into your pores until you either (a) get sick with worry because of all the rumors you’ve been fed or (b) end up as a toxic complainer yourself. When you get this way, you will surely bring other people down.

As a Catholic, I’ve been taught that we have to love and accept everyone, regardless of their flaws. Unless, of course, they are a pro-choice Democrat.

Political jokes aside, the line about acceptance makes perfect sense. Love is supposed to win out against hate. I badly want to believe it. But I’ve also learned from experience that it simply can’t always work that way. If someone insists on vomiting verbal toxins every time you have a chance to converse, you have to cut them lose before they poison your soul.

That’s the inconvenient truth about toxic people. You want to love them because you know that, deep down, there’s a good heart beating away. But if you stand too close, you’ll adopt the very qualities in them that you despise.

Don’t let it happen.

If you have a toxic person in your life, cut them lose. Not because you’re selfish and you can’t handle the pressure, but because you have to stay strong for yourself and many others.

Life is too hard and too short to be dealing with negative souls. Pray for them because you want them to be happy and more pleasant to be around. But do so from a distance.

lighting-a-row-matches-510

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You Call It Selfish, I Call It Survival

A friend once lamented that she tries to make everyone around her happy. She’s a self-described people pleaser, and it’s led to a world of hurt. She wanted to know how I got past it and was able to out myself. Here’s my attempt to answer the question.

Mood music:

I used to be a people pleaser. I probably still am to some extent. But nothing like how I used to be.

I wanted desperately to make every boss happy, and I did succeed for a while. But in doing so I damaged myself to the core and came within inches of an emotional breakdown.

It caused me to work 80 hours a week, waking up each morning scared to death that I would fall short or fail altogether.

No employee gets back 100 percent of what they put in to the corporate machine. Sure, you can make your direct bosses happy, but the folks many layers above them in the food chain still won’t know who you are or care that you work 80 hours a week.

I wanted to make every family member happy. It didn’t work, because you can never keep everyone happy when strong personalities clash. To this day, my relationship with some family members is on ice. Part of the problem is that I failed to keep them happy and take care of others I needed to be paying attention to. I reached a breaking point that has caused pain on all sides. I’m not happy about it, but it is what it is.

When did I reach the moment of truth? I don’t think there was one defining event. It was just a gradual realization that if I kept trying to please everyone, I wouldn’t be alive much longer. I would have had a complete breakdown and plunged into my addictions until they killed me with a heart attack or a blood clot to the brain.

It was a simple matter of survival.

If I’m trying to please every boss, friend or family member, I can’t be present for my wife and children. And I certainly can’t be present for God.

Of course, that realization doesn’t make it any easier to stop trying to please everyone. Even today, I’d much rather keep my bosses happy than piss them off. As for family, I’d still prefer we all get along.

Several things have made it easier not to try to please everyone:

  • Years of therapy have helped, because you’re forced to peel back every layer of every relationship by a trained professional who has no stake or relationship with the people in your life.
  • Prozac must have helped, because sometime in early 2007, when I first started taking the medicine, I stopped worrying about what my bosses would think of every move I made.
  • My former office mom, Anne Saita certainly taught me that it’s better to stand up to people then to live life on your knees.

I’ve found that the longer you go without being a people pleaser, the easier it gets. And then something else happens: Most of the people around you start liking you better when your nose isn’t cemented to their asses.

man's hands bound in chains

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People Who Talk About Themselves and Those They Torture

I admit I haven’t always been the best listener. God knows I try, but sometimes my dysfunctional brain shuts down after more than 15 minutes of someone telling me about everything happening in their lives.

I look like I’m listening, but I’m only quiet and staring at you because I’m numb.

Mood video:

I’ve invested a lot of time and energy into changing that. I took a class about ways to stay in the present moment. I’ve kept on top of my anti-depressant medication, getting adjustments as needed. That helps keep my OCD under control, which in turn makes me a better listener. Some days are better than others.

But there are still certain people out there that I’ll always have trouble listening to. That’s because they’ll talk about themselves for hours and show little interest in letting the other people around them talk. You know the type: a friend that bends your ear on the phone, going on about all their problems while you’re forced to sit there in silent torment. The person at a party who corners you and waxes poetic about all the important work they’re doing and how awesome they are. Or how awful everyone and everything is until you want to leave the party so badly that you’re willing to fake cardiac arrest.

Those people are so oblivious to the fact that they do this that they may read this post and not realize that it’s about them.

I admit straightaway that it’s hypocritical of me to point a finger, because I have a history of being a better talker than listener. I could tell you I’m not talking about myself and am instead gifting my victims with juicy historical facts and stories so funny they drop their glass from laughing so hard.

But that would be bullshit.

I’m like anyone else who talks more than he listens. I’ll tell you about what’s going on in my life and leave you little room to do the same.

Knowing that I can be that way has actually made me more tolerant of other over-talkers. I also try to remember what my therapist says every time this comes up: “There’s no greater gift you can give another person than your time and attention.”

I could end this by suggesting other over-talkers try doing the same. I could suggest they take a mindfulness class or go in a church and sit quietly for 30 minutes. But it’s not my place to do that.

All I can do is work on myself and be the better listener.

And if there are people that are too obnoxious to listen to, I can simply avoid them.

Yip Yip Martians