INTRO:
What is toxic behavior? What is the difference between challenging behaviours and toxic behaviours ? How do you identify toxic relationships? And How to deal with it for a sake of your wellbeing?
Welcome to minutes of facts podcast. Let’s talk about toxic relationships!
WHAT does Toxic Relationship mean ?
Toxic behaviours can be described as someone acting towards you in a harmful destructive, or even poisonous manner
They might try to drag you into unhealthy behaviours or situations, or they may treat you in a way that puts you down or negatively affects your self-confidence and self-esteem.
According to VeryWellMind: “A relationship is toxic when your well-being is threatened in some way — emotionally, psychologically, and even physically.”
WHY toxic relationships are harmful for our mental health ?
“Certain people and situations in life can trigger us to feel badly about ourselves or engage in destructive behaviors.
Identifying the toxic influences in our lives and taking steps to create boundaries or a new life without them can improve mental and physical health over time.”
According to the UK’s Mental Health Foundation:
“On the whole, relationships are good for us and, for most of us, are central to living a good life, but that’s not true of all relationships. Sometimes relationships in our lives can be harmful – for example, when they are characterized by bullying or abuse. It’s important to remember that harmful relationships are not just limited to our romantic partnerships; a person can have a damaging relationship with a friend, co-worker or even a family member.”
Toxic Relationship Signs:
There is some signs to look out for when assessing whether you are in a toxic or harmful relationship:
- You don’t feel good enough.
- You can’t be yourself.
- The other person puts you down.
- You feel like the problem.
- You start to withdraw from participating in activities or seeing people in your life.
Please consider very well these signs so you can point on toxic people in you life!
How to deal with toxic people for the sake of your wellbeing ?
- Confront: face your feelings and consider the fact that you are receiving bad vibes from certain people and that you are part of a toxic relationship.
- Set clear and healthy boundaries and maintain them: decide on what you are willing to accept and what you’re not, and set boundaries accordingly. Be clear on your boundaries with yourself and focusing on what you need to change in the situation.
- Address breaches: if someone repeatedly breaches your boundaries. Here’s how I like to handle this in a simple 1-2-3 approach:1 highlight the behavior. 2 address it and communicate about it. 3 take action about it accordingly.
- Spend less time with them: it’s all about putting your mental health and wellbeing first. If you’ve done all the other stuff and the person has no interest in adapting the way they behave towards you, all you can do is limit the amount of time you spend with them.
- Remove yourself from the situation/relationship entirely: Just remember each time your are hesitating, you don’t worth such relationships. You worth the best. Always put your mental health as priority number 1.
- Forgive (if you can) but don’t forget: forgiveness is 100% about you and letting go so you can move forward without feeling trapped;
- It does not mean the relationship has to continue, it does not mean you have to tell the other person you forgive them.’Don’t forget’ refers to the fact that forgiveness goes hand-in-hand with your boundaries, which are up to you to set and maintain.
- Keep in mind, You don’t have to go through this alone. Get support if you need to, especially if the relationship meant a lot to you. Letting go will be so hard for you I know. Please don’t feel that you’re stuck or that you have to fix everything on your own, because there are lots of different resources and services available to support you no matter what your situation is. All it requires from you is to take that first step and ask for help.
OUTRO:
Thank you so much for your time. Check out the previous episodes I’m sure you will like it, it all about growing our mental health and wellbeing.
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