Toxic People In Your Life

November 18, 2010

Interview with Lillian Glass, author of the book Toxic Men: 10 Ways to Identify, Deal with, and Heal from the Men Who Make Your Life Miserable

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Mike Carruthers:
Are there toxic people in your life?

Lillian Glass:
A toxic person that’s somebody that doesn’t make you feel good about yourself. It’s somebody that doesn’t bring out the best in you and they’re various types of toxic people.
 

Lillian Glass, author of the book Toxic Men, says you can tell if someone in your life is toxic by asking yourself a few questions about them.

Do they put me down? Do they belittle me in front of other people? Do they use me as the brunt of their jokes? Are they always criticizing me? You know, these are things you really need to look at.

The difference between a toxic person and someone who just occasionally bugs you a little is all in how much they do it.

There’s a consistency factor, they’re always sarcastic, they’re always mean to you, you just don’t feel good around that person, just the thought of them makes your face cringe – you’re around a toxic person. And if somebody just annoys you, you communicate it with them – say, “Hey, you know I don’t like when you said that or when you did that or can we stop doing that or that didn’t make me feel good or use a humor technique or you just breath it out. Either way you don’t keep it into your system.

Once you’ve identified who in your life is toxic you have to decide what to do about them. But as a psychologist, Lillian says, one thing you will not be able to do is change or fix them.

And that’s such an important factor you cannot change anyone and they cannot change you because what you see if what you get.