1. They abuse your kindness
People that are toxic pick up on vulnerability and take advantage of it. If you’re the one who keeps the peace in the family, a toxic family member will use your goodness against you to force you to do whatever they want, no matter what. They will always take advantage of your generosity.
Therefore, that’s a toxic family member right there if you feel like they regularly take advantage of your generosity and your unwillingness to say no to them. Perhaps they continuously want you to give them money or neglect your obligations in order to please them.
They are innately harmful to you, therefore it’s not simply a coincidence.
2. They steal from you
You could be thinking—and we understand—that my family would never, ever take from me. They steal from you in the most subtle ways, though perhaps at first you weren’t aware of it. It can take the shape of bank or credit accounts, or it could just be knowing where you keep your cash.
The phrases “I assumed you’d be cool with it” and “There was an emergency” are two to watch out for. You must cut a member of your family out of your life if they steal from you. They can’t be trusted at all since they steal.
3. They talk badly about you
It’s time to end things if a family member speaks ill of you or distributes false information about you. A person who disparages you is not helpful to you and is not giving you any favors. Recall how we stated that your family will assist you?
Your family may be toxic if they constantly criticize you or point out your weaknesses, which makes you anxious. You don’t want to be around someone like this. If your family isn’t a safe haven for you, it’s preferable to break connections with them permanently.
4. They divide and conquer
Divide and conquer is a strategy used by toxic family members to take power. In the same way that a mother may contact one daughter to inform her about what the other one did. Someone who splits a family apart for their own benefit is extremely poisonous.
This shouldn’t even be questioned because it is quite evident that toxic family members are involved. If they use a member of your family against someone else, you already know something is wrong. Just cut them off and refuse to be a part in their game.
5. They have an addiction problem
When someone struggles with addiction, they lose their identity. Someone who is dependent on anything outside of oneself is poisonous not just to himself, but also to others who care about them.
This explains why offspring of alcoholics or of people in their family who use drugs are more likely to take care of them than the other way around. Because they project their brokenness onto you, their egotism and lack of self-control are now your problems and their harm affects you.
It’s a broken reality, yet it serves as a clear sign of a poisonous family member. Actually, this may apply to financial addictions as well as drug addictions. Even though it’s painful, sometimes people need to reach their lowest point in order to realize how far they’ve fallen and attempt to go back up.
Nobody can rescue oneself, thus your family is also affected by this.
