The world is going through enough damage already. And we need to surround ourselves with kind and empathetic people. The year 2020 has got everyone talking about the importance of mental health and it was long over- due. People finally got talking about emotional and mental abuse and how detrimental it is to a person’s health. The below mentioned points will help you identify the toxic people around you and how they can affect your mental well being.
1. The Drama Magnets-
These are often people who seem to be surrounded by some or the other controversy or tiff. They will either fight or indulge in unnecessary gossip and confrontation. They can put others in highly uncomfortable situations and talk about everybody behind their backs. They need to know everything about everybody and they will have an opinion and rest assured that opinion will get around.
2. The controller-
These people need to micro manage everything. Whatever be the situation they need to be the one who controls others around them. They will make others feel like they do not matter and will try their best to mold things to the outcomes of their liking. They have to be in-charge of every decision and will often depict them to be in a superior position than everyone around them.
3. The Narcissist-
If you have to understand one thing about them it’s that they have an innate sense of superiority. They use people shamelessly for their benefit and can easily discard them when they are done. They lack the ability to introspect their behavior or actions. They are master manipulators and have the ability to emotionally manipulate those around them into forgiving their actions. All they care about is their image and how others perceive them, only those who live with them or are being targeted by them would actually know their real side.
4. The green eyed vampire-
These are people who lack the ability to be happy for others. If you’ve been a friend, family or an acquaintance of such an individual you will notice that they never celebrate your accomplishments. They will always try to overshadow your achievements with their own or worse try to underplay them. They are in a constant state of competition with everyone around them. These people are in the habit of blowing their own trumpets and will often go quite far to bring those they are jealous of, down by any means possible. They are good at playing victims and will often try to malign the image of those they are jealous of. Their happiness often depends not on the achievement of their own goals but on the failure of those around them.
5. The ostracism Enablers -
These are the people who take immense satisfaction from out- casting an individual or several individuals by not including them. Such toxic people are often found leading or part of a large group and often hurt their victims knowingly leaving them out in the hopes of rendering them alone. Humans by very nature are social beings and being left out or ignored is one of the things that affect us a lot negatively. They make sure their victim feels like an outsider and go to any length to make them feel left out. Dr. Kipling D William in his article “Current directions of Psychological Science” has talked about it and the toll it can take on an individual’s mental health.
Abuse isn’t necessarily always physical. Mental and emotional abuse is the most dangerous form as it is silent and the victims often have no way of showing the pain and trauma they go through. The first step of stopping such abuse is recognizing and identifying it, as the victims of such abuse are often gas lighted and made to believe that it’s just their imagination. The more we talk about it, the more awareness we can spread giving hope to the victims of different forms of mental and emotional trauma.
