Do you have people in your life that hurt you, physically or emotionally? People who use or take advantage of you? People who waste your time? Drain you of energy by talking to you about their problems? Drama queens? Complainers?

While most of us know at least one “toxic” person, we must ask ourselves why they are still in our lives. Sometimes encountering these people are unavoidable. Perhaps they are an in-law, boss, or even childhood friend. However, most of these individuals are in our lives by choice, and we must decide how to deal with them. Two options are to limit the time you spend with them or to cut them out of your life entirely. This may not be easy to do, emotionally speaking. We do not want to hurt their feelings or feel like a bad person. It may not be easy if you live geographically close to this person or have a common circle of friends. You may have known them for a decade and feel obligated to continue being their friend. Alternatively, it may be difficult because they serve a purpose for you. For example, they may make you laugh, compliment you, pay for coffee, help you accomplish a task, or keep you company. For these reasons, and likely many more, we tend to hang on to people, toxic or not.

If this is the case, reflecting on how we react to these individuals is important. Does interacting with them leave you feeling good, or does it leave you feeling guilty, stressed, exhausted, or guilty? Can you manage these negative emotions? Is your performance affected? In the long term, they can even have a more significant negative impact on different aspects of your life. For example, there is substantial research to support chronic stress damaging areas of the brain required for reasoning and memory. Remember that it is your choice how to respond to them. You are in control to a much greater extent than you may realize. And if you choose to remove a toxic person from your life, you will likely not regret that decision.

Here are several tips for identifying whether toxic people are dragging you down:

• You tend to blame them for things;
• You are emotionally affected by their drama;
• You emotionally “check out”;
• You feel bad or ashamed of your behaviour;
• You feel like you’re being controlled or that you’re overcontrolling;
• You’re stuck in a caretaker role or stuck in a cycle of trying to fix them;
• You dread spending time with them;
• You adopt some of their behaviours;
• You talk or complain about them all the time;
• Your self-esteem decreases;
• You have difficulty setting boundaries and may ignore your values as a result;
• You resort to unhealthy coping mechanisms;
• Your other relationships suffer.

If you want to read more about this topic, take a look at this article.