The most important connection in your life is with your family, right? Blood is said to be thicker than water, but what happens when blood becomes toxic? It’s difficult to adore toxic family members because of this.
Even while it’s important to understand where they’re coming from, there are moments when enough is enough. It’s a challenging and sticky situation (both physically and metaphorically) when your family doesn’t support you and doesn’t love you unconditionally.
How do you define toxic family members?
Let’s first clarify what toxic family members are before you jump to conclusions and accuse everyone in your family of being toxic.
A person is toxic if they are harmful to you in any manner. Perhaps they dominate you, lie to you, steal from you, insult you, have an addiction issue, or do anything that slightly or significantly worsens your life.
While leaving a toxic friendship or relationship is challenging enough, confronting or separating from a toxic family member is considerably more challenging. Just picture the uncomfortable get-togethers and family meals!
But if you want to maintain your sanity and general welfare, it must occur at some time. Some of us are forced to put up with toxic family members since not everyone is handed the finest family cards.
15 signs and reasons to let go of toxic family members
While it’s normal to feel obligated to our family, there are occasions when having toxic family members can cause this feeling to spiral out of control. It can be challenging to strike a balance between acceptable and unacceptable behavior from your family. Even if they are your biological relatives, it is advisable to terminate relationships if they are poisonous for you in any manner.
Is it too harsh? Really? Not if it compromises your emotional and mental health. The longer you put up with your toxic relatives, the more likely it is that they will think their behavior is acceptable.
They leave you nowhere but shattered, broke, and feeling terrible because you are always trying to please them to the point of no return, bailing them out of jail, or protecting them from themselves. Here are the most obvious warning signals that a family member is poisonous.
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.
6. They gang up on you
You don’t want your family members around if they frequently collude against you or pick on you. Both within and outside of families, jealousy occurs. Family members should be nothing less than encouraging, so if they’re always attempting to make you feel inferior (particularly so they can feel superior to you), they’re not someone you should be around.
Both within and outside of families, jealousy occurs. After all, you may have far healthier relationships with your friends than you can with your dysfunctional family.
7. They use love as a control
Toxic family members are well aware that there is a fine line between affection and control. Either they are consciously aware of how they are misusing control as love, which is much more destructive, or they are not. It doesn’t assist you if they only show you love and support when you comply with their wishes.
You just get a distorted idea of what love is as a result. When no one else is available to love you unconditionally, family is meant to be there to do it for you. If they employ love as a tool, that causes far more harm than good.
8. They stir up trouble just to stir up trouble
People with toxic personalities dislike harmony. If a member of your family exists just to cause trouble, they are poisonous. They are not necessary in your life. A drama addict? Probably. A toxic family member is one who might cause difficulties in your life merely for the pleasure of causing trouble.
They could be bored or they might just wish to make your life miserable. The future? Family is about having a place to call home, therefore if a toxic family member is constantly robbing you of that comfort, it’s time to end the connection.
9. Nothing you ever do is good enough for them
Let the connection end if you have a toxic family member who constantly makes you feel unworthy despite your best efforts. Your connection with your mother, father, or even extended family should be based on acceptance and loving someone not despite but because of their flaws.
Even if they are relatives, you need to terminate relations if they consistently point out your flaws and weaknesses before your triumphs.
Despite your efforts to appear decent, these individuals will always point out your weaknesses, putting you down despite your efforts.
10. You experience mental, emotional, or physical abuse
Nothing is more evident than this. Don’t forget about emotional and mental abuse; it has just as big of an impact as physical violence. A toxic relationship is evident if the other person is continually attempting to control you, gaslight you, undermine your worth, completely silence you, ignore your feelings, or be possessive of you.
These are all indications of emotional abuse in that scenario. If you encounter any kind of abuse, you should never do so in front of your family since doing so might create a trauma that is hard to overcome.
11. They don’t respect you
Since love and respect are closely related, it follows that if they don’t treat you with respect, they don’t love you either. Do they still disregard your viewpoints, step outside of your boundaries, or refuse to respect your boundaries?
All these qualities are not typical in a healthy family, which may be difficult for someone to believe if they have a toxic family member.
They will undoubtedly be harmful to your mental health and general wellbeing if they don’t appreciate you. Your family may not share all of your beliefs or opinions, but they should at least respect your right to individualism. What would be the point?
12. They harshly criticized you as a child
Beware of critiques that they misrepresent as humor. They may have criticized your weight or intelligence, but when you seem hurt, they’ll respond, “It was only a joke, lighten up.” Don’t ever buy this; not even for a second. It’s a typical gaslighting tactic. Even while correcting a youngster, no family member should ever be harsh with them.
You can politely explain to them why what they did was wrong, but avoid picking on their fears and weaknesses. They’ll become used to it as they get older, which explains why toxic family members are so destructive and resentful of others.
13. You were expected to be nothing less than perfect
Giving a young child a set of unreasonable expectations is definitely not natural. Perhaps they expect you to perform all the duties around the house or that you won’t ever have any poor grades.
If a family member demands perfection from you, it’s better to cut connections with them than to attempt to destroy yourself trying to meet an unachievable ideal since children are not supposed to bear a parent’s burden.
They are aware that you are not flawless. Why then are they expecting something from themselves that they are unable to provide?
14. They’re always right, and you don’t get a say
Your family should support your own development; hence, they shouldn’t push their preferences on a young person. For instance, they insist that you pursue this degree even though you have made it obvious that it is not what you desire. This is because it is their ambition and it pays well.
Simply said, this is poisonous, which gives opportunity for plenty of bitterness and wrath. You have the right to lead an independent life free from their dictates. Therefore, it gets intolerable and downright toxic when they can’t let you make your own judgments and errors without their influence.
15. They don’t care about your beliefs
Children with toxic family members are people pleasers for a reason because they are compelled to have the same false beliefs as their family. A toxic family is one in which you are treated poorly because of your beliefs, values, or ideals, regardless of whether they differ from those of your family.
Your family shouldn’t use the fact that they raised you as a defense every time you act in a different way since they don’t own you. Unconditional love must exist for a cause, right?
How do you deal with toxic family members?
It’s a given that we should cherish our relationships with our relatives. However, there are times when our family is unchangeable and no longer healthy for us. The first reaction when dealing with a toxic family member is to try to mold them into a better person.
They could change if I face them. Perhaps if I assist them with their drug issues, they will become better parents.
These are the feelings of someone who has a toxic family member, which almost never goes as planned. It’s not meant to be your duty or job to alter them, even if there’s a chance.
Since they are the adults, they ought to behave better than trying to blame you for their mistakes. Therefore, how do you handle them? The best course of action is to terminate all relations with them, at least until they modify their behavior. Stop seeing their potential for them and simply draw the line.
Remove them permanently from your life. Although it will be challenging, doing it for your inner serenity and sanity should make it worthwhile.
So, what are toxic family members?
They are the family that is meant to love you no matter what, but instead, they treat you badly, which negatively impacts how you feel about yourself.
Having a toxic family leaves you with ingrained trauma that is difficult to overcome, whether it takes the form of manipulation, control, gaslighting, criticism, or unattainable expectations.
In addition to your family, there are other individuals in your life who may be just as helpful. Don’t put up with poisonous family members, then. Cut them off and replace them with a better picked family.