Toxic People: 10 Things They Do That Suck The Life Out Of You 

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1. They don’t listen to you. They’re only interested in getting their point across and being heard so they never truly listen to what you have to say even if it’s urgent or important.

2. They think they’re better than you. Toxic people have a way of making you feel like you’ll never be as good as they are. They continue to say or do things that make you feel small or inadequate just so they can feel better about themselves.

3. They don’t respect you. They discount your opinion and your point of view. They don’t try to support your decisions or your dreams. They have double standards and they don’t let you get away with things they normally get away with because they feel entitled to do so. They often deem themselves more respectable than you.

4. They’re manipulative. Toxic people are really skilled when it comes to making you feel guilty for things you didn’t do or twisting your words and your actions to make you look like the bad guy or accuse you of something you didn’t do. They know how to make it sound like you’re the delusional one.

5. There’s no winning with them. Once they make up their mind about something, you can’t really convince them otherwise. They’ll never put themselves in your shoes or try to understand where you’re coming from because they lack empathy and they don’t care about what anyone thinks as long as they’re satisfied.

6. They’re very selfish and self-absorbed. Toxic people think the world revolves around them, so everything is either about them or it’s not important. Once they feel like someone else is getting more attention, they’ll make a scene or cause a commotion just to revert the attention back to them.

7. They don’t celebrate with you. They remember your failures and your losses very well but they never celebrate your accomplishments with you. They find more joy in your setbacks than your comebacks.

8. They play the victim. When toxic people are cornered, or proven wrong, they’ll often play the victim and start blaming others for their mistakes or their loss of temper because they’re never wrong. It’s always someone else’s fault.

9. They don’t bring out the best in you. When you’re around them, you’re different, you can’t be yourself because they will always provoke you or find ways to bring you down, so you either have to be very careful with what you say or stay quiet because they only hear themselves anyway.

10. You’re happier without them. Do they suck the energy out of you? Do they ruin your day? Do they make your life more difficult? These are all signs that these people are not a good fit for you or your life and they don’t contribute to your happiness or your growth. They only bring pain and drama.

Eliminating the toxic people in your life will not only make your life better, it will also make you discover more great things about yourself that you subconsciously buried to keep these toxic people happy.

It all starts with realizing who the toxic people in your life are and what kind of influence they have on you then you can start setting boundaries and protecting yourself from their poisonous energy that sucks the life out of you. Thought Catalog Logo Mark

Rania Naim is a poet and author of the new book All The Words I Should Have Said, available here.

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Writing makes me feel alive. Words heal me.

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