The 8 Toxic Personalities That You Should Eliminate From Your Life
Toxic personalities absorb our time and energyand many individuals are not aware of the negative impact these people have on their lives. These types of people are a source of conflict, they create discomfort and stress, among many other problems.
A recent study from Friedrich Schiller University, which was carried out in Germany, shows how toxic people influence the well-being of the individuals around them.
In this research, it was found that exposure to stimuli that cause strong negative emotions (like these types of individuals) causes subjects to have a massive stress response, and this stress is harmful to our thinking organ.
Just a few days of exposure to a stressful stimulus compromises the effectiveness of neurons in the hippocampusan important area of the brain responsible for reasoning and memory. Weeks of exposure cause reversible damage to brain cells, and months of stress can permanently destroy them. As you see, toxic people not only make you feel sad or anxious, but they can leave negative long-term consequences.
Can people change?
Now, you have to be careful when labeling people. While it is true that there are individuals with a toxic personality, in many cases (not all), it is possible to talk and solve the problems. All people can change, but they also need to do their part.
However, toxic people exist and can cause relational problems that affect you in the long run. Whether in your circle of friends or at work, it is necessary to detect this source of stress because it can affect your well-being and quality of life.
Toxic personalities: how to detect them?
Have you ever had a coworker criticize you behind your back simply for being envious? Or has a so-called friend lied to you to benefit from a situation without caring about how it has affected you?
In everyday life situations we can encounter people who are going to hurt us, and no matter how much we do our part, they will only want to get their way no matter what. In these cases it is better to move away and surround yourself with people who give us something positive, who add and do not subtract..
There are different signs to detect a toxic personality. They are the following:
Types of toxic personalities
Of course, before blaming others, it is necessary to look at ourselves, because many times we can focus on others to excuse our own behavior. Sometimes it is the relationship itself (in which we both participate) that causes a person to behave negatively towards us.
Individuals with toxic personalities, however, tend to behave the same way with other people and in other situations. But… What types of toxic personality can we find? Below you can find a list of toxic personalities.
1. Selfish
A toxic personality trait is selfishness. Selfish people are those who do not want to share anything with us, but when something interests them they are pleasant.
They are manipulative and may pretend to be our friends, but their only goal is to get something in return. They are not a real friendship and we will not be able to deepen our feelings with them or give them our trust. Selfish people, sooner or later, will bring out their true personality.
On the other hand, those who stand out for their selfishness are also characterized by rejecting the idea of creating networks of collaboration and cooperation, since if this attitude begins to become popular, their ability to refuse to share can cause them to become isolated. The idea is, therefore, to make individualism prevail in almost all cases, except in those in which that person needs something from others.
2. Envious
Envious people always want what someone else has and they cannot have it.and therefore, they will never be happy when things are going well for others. This situation is not healthy either for the person who is the victim or for the envious person, and behind envy there is always low self-esteem, frustration and pain.
Envy occurs because these people do not focus their happiness inward. Spending too much time around envious people is dangerous because they will feel great resentment towards you and the people around them.
3. Manipulative
Manipulators steal people’s time and energy under the façade that “nothing bad is happening.”. They have the ability to convince you even on those issues that do not suit you and to take you along the path they want, without hesitation and without caring about the negative consequences that a situation may have for you.
Manipulators detect other people’s weaknesses, they don’t stop until they get what they want, they are insatiable and always want to be in control.
4. Abusive
Without a doubt, one of the worst personalities that we can encounter is that of the abuser, but, unfortunately, abuse is a phenomenon that can occur not only in relationships, but at school (what is known as bullying) or at work (what is known as mobbing). Better stay away from these people because they usually hide a lot of hatred inside..
5. Intolerant
Intolerant people are people who are full of prejudices and, therefore, they allow themselves to be influenced by stereotypes and ideas of something or someone accepted as a pattern of qualities or behaviors.
Instead of appreciating and learning from people who are different from them, people who judge others look down on other individuals. Since they are not objective people, it is better to stay away from them.
Related article: “Intolerant people share these 12 defects”
6. Authoritarian
The authoritarian personality is the one that prevails in dictatorsbut these traits can also be presented by people who are not in the government (even though they act as if they have a very high amount of power).
These types of individuals have undemocratic behaviors and try to exercise control over the people around them, based on the idea that they are the ones who can best decide what is good and what is bad. Consciously or unconsciously, they do not listen to others and those around them, because they think that the only valid criterion is their own and they want everyone to obey them.
Related article: “Authoritarian people share these 7 characteristics”
7. Sociopath
Sociopaths are those people who show no empathy for others or remorse for their actions.and although they have a normal temperament, they have not acquired a series of social skills due to negligent and incompetent upbringing by their family, which often involves situations of violence.
They may seem like charming people when you meet them, but in the long run they show negative behaviors that affect the people around them, among other things, because they do not see others as their equals and therefore do not empathize.
You can delve deeper into this type of personality in our article: “Differences between psychopathy and sociopathy”
8. Neurotic
Neuroticism is what is known as emotional instability. We can all have a certain degree of neuroticism, but those who have a high degree of it and do nothing to regulate it and try to make their interpersonal relationships work, usually pose a big problem for the members of their social circles. This is because they do not tolerate well the small frustrations and setbacks that interaction with others brings naturally and irremediably.
Emotional instability has its origin in low self-esteem and irrational beliefs that are part of the person’s mental schemas, which lead them to be perfectionists and focus their happiness on external factors. They are people who usually live on an emotional roller coaster and may have childish behaviors..
