One of the most energy draining things in life is dealing with a toxic family member. A toxic person is someone whose sole purpose is to poison everyone they encounter.
They will poison you with lies, manipulation, gaslighting and any other weapon they can use in their twisted arsenal.
I believe the reason they do this is because they are very unhappy with their own life and want to make others just as miserable as they are.
It is a very tough thing to deal with, especially if you live in the same house. I’ve been living with my brother for years now and he is very toxic.
Anytime I have a conversation with him, I will leave feeling depleted and upset. He doesn’t want to take any advice I give him and if I call him out on anything he does wrong, he immediately deflects and puts it back on to me.
This is what toxic people do. They are not willing to listen or take advice from anyone because they believe they are always right. There is no winning with these type of people and you are only going to hurt yourself trying to help them.
We are brought up to believe that we should always be there for our family no matter what but I completely disagree. If anyone is making you feel down about yourself and causing you to think negatively, it’s time to cut them from your life.
It does not matter if they are supposed to be “family”. Unfortunately, I’m currently in a situation where I can’t move out and leave my brother, so I had to find ways to deal with it.
I took it upon myself to brainstorm some ways I could deal with him before I lost my mind. If you are are also in a similar situation, you can try these things out too and see if they work for you.
Limit Communication
I think the best thing to do to preserve your energy and mental health is to limit your communication with them. Don’t talk with them everyday and just keep to yourself. The less you talk with them, the better you will start to feel over time. If they can’t come talk to you with respect or be civil, they are not worth your time.
It doesn’t matter if they are your mother, father, brother or sister. No one has any authority to make you speak to them if they are being toxic. You have to due your best to avoid any interactions with them. I personally wake up a few hours earlier than my brother so I can make my breakfast in the kitchen without being disturbed.
If both of you are in the kitchen at the same time, you’re bound to have some sort of conversation in the morning that will lead to an argument. Especially if they woke up on the wrong side of the bed. This would happen to me so often and it would throw off my whole mood for most of the day.
Another thing you can do is go for walks and just get out of the house. You can use them as a driving force to get yourself out there more. You can go to the gym, go on walks, go to a café. Just go anywhere to cut down on the time you spend at home.
I know this might sound hard and you might feel guilty sometimes for distancing yourself from a family member. But sometimes there really is no other option.
Don’t React To Them
This is something I really struggled to do with my brother. He would always get me so riled up to the point where I would start shouting. Once that happened, he became successful in poisoning me.
Do you know how much energy I drained from myself doing that? A lot. I would still be affected by it days or weeks later and then I would have trouble focusing on my work.
The best thing you can do when a family member wants to argue with you or put you down, is not react. You won’t be seen as weak if you don’t react. In my opinion, the weakest person is the one who is shouting and putting others down. Toxic people are the weakest people of them all.
Don’t let them bring you down to their level by shouting and hurling insult back to them. It’s not worth it. You should just say “Okay” turn around and walk away. If they continue to bark at you then just continue to give them the silent treatment. If they honestly won’t stop attacking you even after going silent, then just leave the house.
You have to realize that they have no power to hurt your feelings. The only time you will get hurt is if you react to them. It’s up to you to be the bigger person in these situations. Let them poison themselves and not you. Just because their entire existence is miserable, doesn’t mean that yours has to be.
Talk To Your Friends
One thing that will really help you when it comes to dealing with toxic family is sharing your experience with your friends. Sometimes you need to talk out the situation with people who aren’t apart of your family to make sense of things. They also might be able to suggest some ways to deal with a toxic family member that you haven’t thought of yet.
I find that so many people act like everything is going fine at home when it’s really not. I used to do this all the time when I was younger. I would keep things bottled up and just ruminated in my own negative thoughts.
Doing that led to me manifesting more negative experiences which I talk about in my other post “Why You Should Watch What You Think About”. Your friends can be of major help to you in these situations because they can help you get out of your own head.
I remember at one point it got so bad with my brother that I wanted to cause physical harm to him. I was convinced that the only way to get him to shut up was by causing him pain.
I shared these thoughts with my friend and he told me to calm down and listed reasons why it wasn’t worth it. Had I just kept all that anger bottled up inside, who knows what I would of done.
That’s why you can’t be scared to share your personal life with people. Friends can help you see the light when you’re surrounded by darkness. Never be afraid to share to your thoughts and feelings with the people you are close with. If you are someone who has no friends at all, you can post about your issues online or go seek therapy. I personally like to use reddit quite a bit.
Dealing with a toxic family member can be very tough but don’t feel like it’s something that has to last forever. If you start to implement these three ways of combating the issue, there’s no way the situation won’t improve over time.
Best of luck to you all and please feel free to share any strategies you have implemented to deal with a toxic family member.
