STAY AWAY FROM TOXIC PEOPLE

Some people are toxic. Very, very toxic. These people just naturally have a poor outlook on, well, just about everything. For whatever reason, they just can’t seem to find the good in people or situations. These people will manipulate you into believing that everything you do is wrong. They will purposely try to sabotage goals that you have set for yourself. They will threaten you. They will bully you. They will see how far they can push you until they break you mentally. They will lie to you and say they want the best for you. They will gain your trust, only to turn their back on you. They will make you look like scum to everyone. Because of them, you will lose friends (because people don’t know how to think for themselves). Wait a second. Everything that I just wrote sounds like the traits of a narcissist. Yes. Yes, those are all traits of a narcissist as well.

Narcissists are toxic people. Narcissists care only about themselves. They care about no one else. They want to make sure they look that they’re great and everyone else is sludge. Stay away from these people as much as you can. Try to cut them out of your life. I’ve cut a few narcissists out of my life. Unfortunately, I can’t cut them all out, but I’ve cut out who I can. The ones who I can’t? Well, I just keep conversation to a minimum. I don’t tell them things about me (that only gives them things to use against me when they continue to try to destroy me). I keep reminding myself that they are narcissists, and toxic, they don’t want me to succeed at anything, and they will go out of their way to try to ruin my mental (and in turn my physical) health. I tell myself to not allow that to happen.

I try my best to make sure I’m always in a good and upbeat mood when I see them. Narcissists are never happy unless they’re manipulating and ruining someone else’s day. So, if I’m always in a great mood, and I let them believe that they’re not affecting me, then maybe they will eventually stop. Well, they probably won’t. But if they see I’m happy, then they know they didn’t get to me. At least not for that day.

Maybe we should feel bad for the toxic, narcissist people. There is obviously something very, very wrong in their lives. Maybe they don’t have a lot of friends. Maybe they don’t like their job. Maybe they don’t like where they live. Maybe they were raised by narcissistic parents so that’s the only thing they know. But that’s not for us to judge. We are not them. We don’t know why they are the way they are. But we need to focus on ourselves. Well, at least I know I do. I refuse to allow myself to be controlled by toxic, or narcissistic people.

As 2021 was ending, I made a commitment to myself that I’m going to make 2022 all about me. January 2022 was good. I was in a good mood all the time; things were going smoothly. As soon as February 2022 rolled around - BAM!! I got hit hard. Really hard. By the toxicity of the narcissists. I almost started to lose my footing. It took me a few days to stay on that step and I kept reminding myself to not let them get to me. I kept telling myself that it’s not about me. It’s more about them not being happy about some aspect of their lives so they tried to bring me down with them. I regained my footing and told myself that I’m just going to continue to focus on me. I’m not going to allow them to ruin my mood. I can’t change the outcome of the level of deceitfulness that they presented to me. But I can just go on with things and not allow it to destroy me. Yes, it’s difficult because I have no choice but to constantly associate with these people. But I just try to focus on the positive things. I keep telling myself that I have so many other things that can go well for me. I keep reminding myself that sometimes the toxic people will cause setbacks in other’s lives, but that’s not a reflection of me. That’s a reflection of how miserable they are. They’re so miserable that they get joy out of trying to bring other people down. They make no effort to try to improve themselves or their lives.

I can’t feel sorry for people like that. I can do my best to keep a positive attitude when I’m around them and try to bring a positive vibe into the atmosphere. But if all they’re going to do is just focus on the negative all the time, well I can’t really worry about that. I can’t help people who don’t want help. And focusing on myself doesn’t make me selfish. We must put ourselves first in our life. Everything and everyone else can be second, third, fourth, fifth, and so on. If we’re not happy with ourselves, then we can’t be happy with anyone else.