How do you deal with someone 'toxic' who is around you all the time?

Can we bring firearms?

Living and/or working with someone like this is two different things. If you work with them it is much harder to stay away from them. If it is someone you live with, move. No one needs to put up with that shit. Life is too short.

@chyna What if you have have have to live with them. For contract reasons, etc.

Boundaries.

Don’t respond, don’t accept her behavior, and don’t engage her.

If you work with her, you inform your supervisor that you can’t work with her distracting you. And you don’t engage.

If it is a living situation, you get yourself out of it as soon as you can, and you explain to her and anyone else involved that you can’t live in a toxic environment and will be leaving. Again, don’t engage her.

What I am saying is not easy, but it i sthe only way to end it. And the sooner you do it the btter you’ll feel.

And don’t accept her back in your life. She killed any connection, there is no need to resurrect it.

If the situation truly cannot change, meaning you cannot get away from the person, I would try to always be nice, let them be right as much as possible, and avoid arguments and disagreements. If that doesn’t help, then if it is someone I live with I might really nail them into a wall verbally one day if they are really out of line. Sometimes it does the trick. It’s impossible for us to know without more details about the particular situation.

If it is at work, it matters if it is your boss or a coworker. No matter what I couldn’t hack it for more than maybe 6 months. Things would have to get better or I would be leaving. Still, I would do my best to kill them with kindness and hope that turns things around. I would do that for a good few weeks or months. If it is not working I would be direct and tell the person to stop doing whatever they are doing that is annoying. If it didn’t I would go to my boss, or boss’s boss to lodge my complaint and see if something can be done.

Contract reasons as in rental agreement? Or a marriage contract? All contracts are able to be broken. I got out of a marriage. Rental agreement can’t be as hard. If living with this person is so bad, you have to get out before it changes you for the worse.

@illusionslies Welcome to fluther. Obviously I’m being sarcastic. The authorities frown on wounds. One thing I’ve learned. Someone else cannot make you angry. You let yourself be angry. You let them push your buttons. Keep calm and tranquil in their presence. It also drives them nuts when they can’t manipulate you.

Why would someone be this toxic to another? Childhood? This person I know hates her parents, wouldn’t even mind if her mother dies. Never had a loving relationship with either.

@illusionslies Bigger question: why would you let someone be this toxic to you?

@chyna Great question! You didn’t know it was going to be like this, you loved them, you oversaw their small flaws until you began to see how big they actually were. But it was too late.
How can you not let someone be toxic to you, if you absolutely HAVE to live or work with them?
Best is to get out of the situation: RUN! But what if you actually can’t. Is responding like @JLeslie said a good way to cope with the situation? It seems logical…

Life isn’t all roses and honey, sometimes it sucks. Some people decide to react positively, some react with negativism and toxicity. Who do you want to be around?

@Adirondackwannabe you!

Okay, keep that positive attitude.

I can tell you it’s possible to turn this sort of situation around, but it’s not guaranteed to work.

My hubby was like that for many years. Eventually I turned the focus off of him vs. me, and onto God. I spent so much time with God and meditated 24/7 about “Who I Am In Christ”, and praising God no matter what happened. Eventually Hubby’s actions and opinion of me simply ceased to matter and I was literally filled with JOY. The more I did it, the more free I got.

One morning Hubs tried to pick a fight with me before I even opened my eyes. Rather than be upset, I woke up excited and praising God, because I couldn’t wait to see what He was going to do about this! Hubs would have thought I was laughing at him if he saw me smiling, so I sneaked out of the room and fixed everyone breakfast. My day was awesome.

A few months later I told him that I loved him very much, but the abuse had to stop. It was divorce or counseling, but he had to choose fast, or he wouldn’t have a choice.

Not long after, Hubs came to me weeping, and said, “I’m so sorry, but I never realized what I’ve been doing to you all these years. Would you please forgive me?”

We recently celebrated our 36th wedding anniversary.

@snowberry That is beautiful. I’m so glad you worked it out.

@illusionslies You have to try to make a change yourself, and hope it snowballs into a change in the dynamic of the relationship you have with that person. Really look at your participation. I am not assuming or saying you are doing something wrong, I am only saying there is usually some sort of pattern that sometimes can be broken for the better. I hope that makes sense.

That’s what my roomate is like. Short of finding a solution, I just got used to it. I don’t care anymore and I just ignore her, defeats her pretty quick it seems, haha.

@JLeslie I want to master the game of defeating someone toxic by not letting them get to me. (Without running away) That would make life so much better!

I never lie to this person, she asks me about my opinions on her-related-stuff. I always do empathy. I really am a good friend. But we’ve known each other for 6 years, and the opposite side’s attitude never changed. It got worse actually, much much worse.

” Let’s say this toxic spirit is someone who has the very potential to make your mood drop to -100. ”

No one can make your mood drop, you control your mood.

Turn him/her into an unperson except for the barest functionality; keep things on a strict professional level.

@illusionslies I missed a detail. She is someone you live with? Just friends though? What opinion is she asking for exactly?

@Neodarwinian True, amen.

@JLeslie Yup. Do you like my blablablablabla usually.
Do you like this drawing, do you like what I did today, etc.
She also is never original. Always imitates, my work/ideas or/and others’. That is the worst of all for me. It kills me.

I don’t remember a thing she said nice to me about what I ask her she thinks. Not one. I can tell she is doing it on purpose. That’s not normal, since she imitates me!

@illusionslies Are you a man? Men tend to like very little conversation while women want to talk talk talk. Could that be part of it? Have you tried complimenting her or something she has done before she gets a chance to ask?

Another idea might be to spend a lot of time away from home for a few weeks and hope she develops a new pattern? If she is very needy she might switch to talking or texting with someone else.

You could show her fluther. She can talk talk talk to the rest of us here.

Oh man, I should and could offer sage advice, but the mood I am in right now just says, ignore her, take the high road, know it’s nothing “personal” and….go to the pet store and empty about 3 dozen Maggascar Hissing Cockroaches in her bed tonight. lol

Oh Lord. @Coloma you are in a mood. LOL.

To be honest, I find turning the other cheek and being nice and kind to someone who so clearly and vehemently dislikes me to be extremely difficult. I chose, instead, for the sake of my mental and emotional health, to sever my relationship with said people. My life is all the better for it.

As for the situations that I have less control over (such as in graduate classes when certain students would go on their irritating tangents), I just play bingo. Center square is someone acts like an asshole. Sometimes you just have to get used to things. If they did anything that crossed a line, then I would not hesitate to report them.

That said, I don’t really see imitation as a toxic encounter.. is there more to the story than you have mentioned so far?

I thought imitate was irritate. Haha. I guess I should have the font bigger. If she is imitating you and she puts you down and she needs positive reinforcement all the time…you do realize she is very insecure and probably unhappy.

permanently

Sing Britney Spears hits to them until they go away.
If they refuse, then I hit them one more time.

I work with someone like this and it is hard work. They bring me down, and make me dread the next working day. I try and ignore them but it’s no good, so I’m looking for another job.

If it can’t be fixed and you can’t get out of it, I’d completely pretend that person doesn’t exist unless absolutely necessary. It’s amazing how you can do that even in your own house but I had an intrusive roomate once and avoidance worked for me.

I end the relationship, I quit the job, or I move. Whatever it takes.

If the person’s a co-worker, think carefully about how much you want to stay at your job. Do you enjoy your work, have nice supervisors, and like your (other) colleagues? Is the pay good, and is the workplace a pleasant place to be? In other words, would this be a great job if not for the toxic co-worker?

If no, I’d find another job. While it’s true that the evil person would have “won” by getting rid of me, nobody really keeps score in such matters.

If yes, I’d fight to stay. Some techniques:

- Know that he/she is extremely threatened by you. Maybe you have more education and skills, or are physically attractive, or are preferred by the boss, or do your job so well that he/she’s intimidated, or are popular among colleagues, or… If you didn’t spark this person’s insecurities, he/she wouldn’t mistreat you.

- Remember that it probably isn’t personal. Anyone so vindictive and hateful will be the same way to other people. He/she might have a long history of driving co-workers out of the company.

- It seems likely that other colleagues despise this person just as much as you do. Ugliness doesn’t do a good job of containing itself, and poison spreads widely. Spend as much time as possible with the nice people and get to know them better; there’s strength in numbers.

- Don’t engage the person or stoop to those low tactics.

- In a mirror at home, practice three very useful facial expressions: (1) looking at someone as if he/she is completely insane and unfathomable, (2) acting as if you’re smelling something foul and revolting, and (3) regarding somebody with complete disdain and dismissiveness. When the person mocks or insults you, just use one of those expressions.

- Hope for some good luck and that fairness will prevail. Sometimes, the wheels of justice grind slowly, but they do grind away.