Have you come upon a video or a blog recently where the speaker or writer warns you about toxic friends and they tell you to remove them from your life? Did you take their advice and start applying it to your life? I’ve seen posts on social media where people write about how they’re doing some clean up and getting rid of toxic relationships. These include romantic relationships, marital relationships, sibling relationships, colleague relationships, friendships, business relationships, parental relationships and others. Maybe you are that person who made this life changing decision to remove yourself from relationships that do you no good! If that’s you, I applaud you for doing that! However, I would like to challenge you a bit further…
What if…you’re the toxic one? Ouch! You didn’t see that one coming!
It is very important to analyze the relationships we’re in and to see if there are any form of toxicity involved in those relationships. But, it is as important to check ourselves to see whether we are the problem in those relationships. We should ask ourselves “Am I the toxic one?” When you ask yourself this question it isn’t so you can condemn yourself and isolate yourself from people; It is simply so that you can bring to light your toxic behaviours that are causing harm in your relationships and then to receive the help you need so that you can have success in all your relationships! It’s supper easy to point our finger towards the other person; And it feels amazing to say ‘amen’ when the pastor says that you must remove your toxic friends and people who are no good for you from your life! I also know that it is extremely difficult to look within ourselves and to come face to face with our baggage and toxic ways. But we must all do it! I will be the first to say that I need to this!
So, with that being said, if you will allow me, I would love to share with you a few behaviours to look for when searching yourself to know if you are the toxic one:
1. You are unable to keep relationships for over a certain period of time.
There may be a few reasons why you might not be able to maintain healthy relationships, but I’ll share two of them with you.
a. Direct demonic attack on your relationships. (this isn’t what we are addressing in here, but It’s good that you are aware of it)
This means that no matter how much you try, you cannot keep relationships. You may be the nicest person on earth, but no one can remain close to you for a long time. People end up leaving you or rejecting you intentionally or unintentionally. This is often due to demonic forces that want to keep you feeling lonely and rejected for a lifetime. These demonic forces can become very possessive of you so, they want no one else to have a relationship with you. You often jump from one romantic relationship to another. You might even give your body and everything you have into these romantic relationships, yet none of them end in a long-lasting covenant (marriage).
b. Traumatic experiences from past relationships
If you were hurt by others in your previous relationships, it is very possible that you’ve developed certain defence mechanisms to keep yourself from getting hurt again. So, this means, by the first disagreement that you have with a person, you are ready to run from that relationship! Therefore, this keeps you from maintaining any form of healthy relationship.
2. You are controlling
If you tend to feel like you need complete control over people you are in relationships with to feel good about yourself, you are in a toxic zone. Controlling behaviours often include needing to know the person’s whereabouts; They must always give you an account of who they’re with and what they’re doing. It can even go as far as not allowing the person to have relationships other than a relationship with you! And sometimes it can even be as simple as telling them what they should wear or eat on a daily basis, but unless they’ve asked for your advice or hired you as their fashion artist or their dietitian, it is not your place.
You might desire such control because of low self esteem. Maybe you feel like if you don’t have control over them, they won’t want to stay in this relationship with you; that they will leave you the moment they get a chance. You feel this way only because of your own insecurities; you don’t believe that anyone would want to be in a relationship with you unless you tie them down to it.
3. You are manipulative
This almost goes hand in hand with being controlling because it is another form of control. When you manipulate someone,it is to get them to respond to your own needs and wants. Most often manipulation happens on an emotional level. You might emotionally manipulate someone you are in a relationship with by saying phrases like “If you truly loved me, you would do this or that” or “You know how much I love you, how come you wouldn’t do this for me?” or “I’ve done so much for you! Why couldn’t you return the favour?” or “what if I was dying, would you leave me to die?” These are just a few of them! Sometimes you might say these things and not even realize that you are being manipulative. To you, it doesn’t matter what you need to do or say, as long as those you are in relationships with end up doing what you want them to do or say what you want them to say.
4. You use blackmailing
Just as manipulation is a form of control, blackmailing is a form of manipulation. Why? Because once again, it’s all about you! It’s all about getting what you want! Therefore, you can go as far as blackmailing someone to get it! That is extremely toxic! Blackmailing is when you threaten to reveal something private about someone unless they do something for you or sometimes, give you a sum of money. One scenario can be if you threaten to reveal your friend’s secret to other people if they don’t help you with something. Blackmail can be as simple as threatening to tell your mom that your sibling didn’t pass their math test unless that sibling does something for you.
5. You are demanding
If anyone that you are in a relationship with must buy you whatever you want, call you five times a day and go with you everywhere that you want them to, you are manifesting a toxic behaviour; you have unrealistic demands. In the beginning, this relationship might work because the person might enjoy doing these things for you and with you, but after a while, when it becomes a demand or an expectation that you have of them, it won’t end up well!
6. You are Jealous and envious
If you find that you cannot be happy for the people you are in relationships with or if something good happens for them, you feel like it should’ve happen to you instead, then you might be the toxic one!
When you have jealousy in you, you are unable to celebrate with people when they have something that you also want.Sometimes, you might simply begin to discourage the person from enjoying what they have by saying all types of negative things about it. If they have the outfit you wanted, you might say things like “it doesn’t look that good on you” or “why did you waste your money on that.” You might try to make them feel guilty about what they have. Jealousy and envy, as the bible says, is a form of witchcraft.
Now if you’ve read thus far and you’ve been seeking your heart and pondering on how you behave in your relationships, It must be because you desire to be a better version of yourself; it must be because you understand that we always need to allow God to work on us all the days of our lives and that nobody is perfect! Maybe none of these apply to you, but whether they apply to you or not, I want you to know that you are strong to point the finger towards yourself and not on others. I know that this blog post is not for everyone; not everyone can handle plucking out the plank in their own eye. Therefore, I salute you!
If you see yourself in any of these behaviours, I want you to know that there is grace for you to change those behaviours and to start having healthy relationships with people around you. This post Is simply to shed light on some of these toxic behaviours, but the ball is now on your court; you must decide today that you want to change and renew your mind so that your relationships with people around you would flourish and last for a long-time!
My prayer for you is that you will begin to have healthy relationships all around you, and that you will be light to those around you! You are much loved!
love,
Shéshé
if you have questions you can email us at contact@sheshecreates.com.
there are also many resources available to you which will help you in becoming a better version of yourself. Check them out!
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